As with the 12th year remembrance Mullivaikkal Genocide on 18 May 2021 followed by the 40th year of Burning of Jaffna Public Library on 01 June 2021, the British Tamils Forum (BTF) in collaboration with its worldwide sister organisations:
Australian Tamil Congress (ATC),
Maison du Tamil Eelam (France),
Irish Tamils Forum (ITF),
National Council of Canadian Tamils (NCCT),
Norwegian Council of Eelam Tamils (NCET),
Solidarity Group for Peace and Justice (SGPJ – South Africa) and
United States Tamil Action Group (USTAG)
will be marking the 38th year remembrance of Black July 1983 on 27 July 2021.
Although the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Tamils in Sri Lanka have been going on ever since independence, it was the Sri Lankan government’s premeditated pogrom of July 1983 that came to light of the world. The contributory factors were that the Colombo city was full of tourists as eyewitnesses and also the massacres were beamed across the world. The international community has started realising that the genocide as well as the ethnic cleansing against Tamils were actually something that was going on. This was later reconfirmed by the Mullivaikkal massacres in May 2009.
Despite the outcry of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and its resolution at its 46th Session in March 2021, the attitude of the Sri Lankan government only continued with persistent tenacity. Pursuing a policy of converting the island into a mono-ethnic, mono-religious and mono-lingual state, the successive Sri Lankan governments with a chauvinistic mindset have looked down on other ethnic communities. It is an authoritarian government with a militaristic approach holding on to power disguised as democracy. Unless the perpetrators, such as Sharvendra Silva, Jagath Jayasuria and Kamal Gunaratne, who have been identified in UNHRC OISL September 2015 Report and assigned senior positions by the President who was the then Defence Secretary of Sri Lanka as well as Gotabaya Rajapaksa himself are sanctioned by the International Community, their genocidal agenda will continuously prevail.
Based on the despotic principles of the current Sri Lankan government, the economy of Sri Lanka is really in doldrums. It will continue its tyranny by assuming that it is its duty to only satisfy the wish of the majority Sinhala Buddhists. Unless the International community takes proactive measures of imposing economic sanctions, and stopping unethical trades, the Sri Lankan government will never change course, but will continue undermining compliance to the international norms, as it does now. It is about time the International Community considered economic sanctions including revocation of GSP+ and other concessions.
Please find attached flyer with details to join the event.
38TH YEAR OF REMEMBRANCE OF BLACK JULY 1983
Black July 2021 flyer _ Global event
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