tamil

The War in Sri Lanka and the Left

Noaman Ali and Fathima Cader

This is quite a good article on the issues of Sri Lanka that you can read in full on the Socialist Project web site.  Within the article, they have criticized my writing here.  With the exception of their critique about me using "Tamil Community" to refer to the people who occupied the Gardiner Expressway, which I agree was an sloppy formulation (a problem with blogs) that I later corrected, I think they have a fundamentally different approach to solidarity.  I will leave it up to you to read the two points of view and comment.  Below is their critique.

The following is a statement issued by Canadian Academics for Tamil Rights and contains a set of demands on the Canadian Government in face of the current crisis.   Please circulate 

The last few weeks in Toronto have shown us that living in a global city means that a conflict half way around the world in a place like Sri Lanka can appear in our streets in technicolour, forcing us to face issues that seemed remote only days before.  The global city will make another appearance on Monday at 1:30 pm in Queen's Park with a march to free recentyly arrested Aung San Suu Kyi.  Yet another sign of the global city was the extraordinary stewards' meeting held at the Metro Convention Centre on May 7 where more than 1,000 shop stewards and union officials discussed a common response to the economic crisis.  The diversity you can see in the photo is a sign of how our movements are changing with the participation of people from all around the world.

I just got a call from Queen's Park where Tamil protesters and allies are receiving cell phone calls from friends and relatives trapped in a tiny plot of land where they are being assaulted by land, sea and air by the Sri Lankan government. According to Kumuthan, they are firing, bombing and shooting from all sides. "Thousands are being killed and wounded. The wounded are being left on the ground to diie. Six hundred people have been shot to death trying to escape."

Take a minute right now and email your MP to ask him or her to support the demand that Canada use its influence to pressure the Sri Lankan government to call an immediate ceasefire and stop the slaughter of Tamil civilians. 

Yesterday I visited the Tamil sit-in in front of the US embassy.  After a couple of months of protesting in Ottawa and Toronto in the largest demonstrations in memory with little response from the government,  the Tamil community has decided to block University Avenue demanding that the Canadian and US government pressure Sri Lanka to stop killing civilians and allow humanitarian aid into to assist Tamils trapped in the war zone.  More than 6,500 ethnic Tamils are already dead according to the UN.