November 28 Jaffna: Appalling Attack And Unjustifiable Reactions

By Nirmanusan Balasundaram -November 30, 2012

Nirmanusan Balasundaram

On the evening of the November 27 at 06:07 PM (local time), flames were lit in commemoration of Maaveerar Naal 2012 (Martyrs’ Day 2012). It was initiated by the Tamil students from the Jaffna University.

Pre-deployed Sri Lankan troops forcibly entered into the Ladies’ Hostel and attacked the students and damaged properties, soon after they realized that the flames were lit inside the Ladies’ Hostel of the Jaffna University. The victims called the University administration to escape from the attack and seek safety. However, following the attack tensions prevailed.

More troops and policemen were deployed to the university vicinity by the Sri Lankan Defense establishment in Jaffna. The next day (November 28), the students called for a nonviolent protest in opposition to the military attack against the students. The sit-in protest which took place within the university premises revisited memories of the Satyagraha campaign led by the late S.J.V.Chelvanayagam.

Vicious Cycle

Just as successive Sri Lankan governments and their hooligan mobs attacked the Gandhian way of the Satyagraha campaigns of 1956 and 1961, on the 28^th the Sri Lankan army and policemen unleashed their terror campaign against the university students, who were marching peacefully within university surroundings holding placards, with a considerable number of students symbolically covering their mouths with black cloths.

The attackers injured about 20 students, damaged the vehicle of a TNA parliamentarian, and harassed and threatened a Tamil journalist trying to cover the incident.

The history of the island indicates that it was the oppression of Tamils’ democratic struggle that led the Tamil youth to take up arms to safeguard their nation’s rights, especially that of freedom. The outcome of which was known not just to the people of the island, but also the world. Despite this, the Sri Lankan Armed Forces’ atrocities against the Tamil people continues today, mirroring past acts of violence.

This act of abuse and oppression reveals the importance of demilitarization, as situation of an open prison is prolonged in the NorthEast, particularly in the North.

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