{"id":109472,"date":"2020-12-07T17:27:43","date_gmt":"2020-12-08T00:27:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=109472"},"modified":"2020-12-08T17:36:16","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T00:36:16","slug":"erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-18a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/12\/07\/erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-18a\/","title":{"rendered":"ERASING THE EELAM VICTORY Part 18A"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Part\n18 of this series contains short updates on matters discussed earlier. This\nessay provides an update on   celebrations of the Eelam War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 In July 2020, a group of Jaffna undergraduates\ncelebrated Black Tiger Day on a Sunday night. Leading activists of several\nstudent bodies organized the event. Student participants were asked to offer\nflowers and light candles in front of pictures of the dead Black Tigers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nBlack Tigers are members of the LTTE Suicide Squad. They were inspired by the\nLebanese Hezbollah bombing of the US marine barracks and French paratrooper HQ\nbombings in Beirut in 1983. The first   Black Tiger, Vallipuram Vasanthan, drove a\ntruck laden with explosives into the Army camp at Nelliady, Jaffna on 5 July\n1987, killing and injuring 40 Sri Lankan soldiers.  But the soldiers fought back and LTTE was\nunable to take the camp. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In September\n2020, the north decided they wished to commemorate the death of Thileepan\u201d, Rasaiah Parthipan. Thileepan had held a\ndeath fast on 11 September, 1987, to secure a five-point charter of demands\nincluding the setting up of an LTTE-dominated Interim Administrative Council\nfor Northern-Eastern province, as part of the India-Sri Lanka Accord. The\nauthorities refused to accept this. Thileepan refused to give up his fast and\ndied after 11 days on 26 September, 1987. He\nwas a cancer patient and was not in a condition to undertake a fast. The fast took place in a specially built\ndais near the Nallur Kandaswamy Kovil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nNovember, 2020, the law courts banned an event to commemorate\nThileepan in Vavuniya .The organizers made a second request which was also\nrefused.   Northern parliamentarians wrote to the\ngovernment, asking to put up a statue to Thileepan. They said that that\ncommemorating the dead in the North is a human right and that they should be\ngranted permission to commemorate the war dead. If the government did not permit this then\nthere would be a hartal in the north. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This hartal\nwas held. TNA, Tamil People\u2019s National Alliance, All Ceylon Tamil Congress and\nthe Eelam People\u2019s Revolutionary Liberation Front participated.  The police said that despite the\nHartal, all government departments and establishments were open and\ndespite a reduction in the number of private busses, the SLTB buses had\noperated as usual.  Shops in the\nVavuniya, Ampara, and Trincomalee remained open. However, some of the schools\nhad closed early due to the absence of teachers and relatively fewer students\nattended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former Member\nof Parliament M.K.Shivajilingam was arrested by the police in Kopay for\norganizing an illegal celebration in memory Thileepan. Shivajilingam had sought permission to hold\nthe commemoration ceremony at the Thileepan memorial in Nallur, but the Jaffna\npolice got a court order banning it on the grounds that a leader of a banned\norganization like the LTTE could not be commemorated and glorified. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Jaffna magistrate dismissed the argument that\nYahapalana government had had allowed the commemoration and   banned the ceremony. However, Shivajilingam secretly changed the\nvenue of the commemoration to Kondavil and performed a ceremony there. He was\narrested and was subsequently released on bail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shivajilingam\nwas also arrested by the Valvettithurai police over celebrating the birthday of\nPrabhakaran.  Shivajilingam had been\ndetained almost every year for organizing \u2018Mahaviru Day\u2019 to glorify Velupillai\nPrabhakaran. Shivajilingam though leader of rival organization, TELO,  was related to Prabhakaran. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mahaveer day\nwas held on the 27th of November every year to commemorate the LTTE cadres\nwho had lost their lives in the conflict. Commemoration had been held\ncontinuously for period of over thirty years without interruption. Yahapalana\ngovernment had allowed it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were\nplans to hold Mahaviru ceremonies in the north, as usual, in November; 2020. Military\nand police intelligence services reported to Pohottu that plans were underway\nto hold public gatherings and commemorative meetings across the Northern\nProvince from November 21-27.They wanted court orders prohibiting this. The\nPohottu government opposed the celebration of Mahaveer.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attorney\nGeneral\u2019s Department sent officers to make submissions at Mullaitivu,\nKilinochchi and Jaffna Magistrates\u2019 Courts to prevent of Mahaviru Day. Courts upheld their submissions and ordered\nthe prohibition    of any form of commemorative events to mark\nthe \u2018Maveerar Naal\u2019 or Great Heroes\u2019 Day, on the grounds that they would pose a\nhealth risk in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Police had\nobtained a Court order for 14-days banning all protests and hartals in the North\nand East in commemoration of any LTTE member. Kopay and Jaffna Police moved\nmotions separately seeking to stop preparations by Tamil political parties and\ncivil society groups in cemeteries where LTTE cadres had been buried. Jaffna\nMagistrate issued the order.In Mallakam, Chavakachcheri,\nTrincomalee, Mannar, Vavuniya, Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu and Batticaloa, courts\nissued similar orders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Restraining\norders have been obtained from the respective Magistrate\u2019s Courts against LTTE\ncommemoration day to prevent celebrating and people who are living in Northern\nProvince had been informed regarding this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were\npetitions against this order. The Jaffna High Court dismissed four petitions\nfiled in the court seeking a writ order to prevent Police and the health\nauthorities stop Mahaviru commemoration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attorney\nGeneral\u2019s Department and Mullaitivu police then filed a motion to get the ban\nextended. Mullaitivu Magistrate\u2019s Court extended its ban on 46 persons\npreventing them from holding LTTE commemoration events in Mullaitivu district\ntill 30th of November. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nprohibition was not completely successful, Mahaviru was celebrated.Police\narrested   51 persons. Four people were\narrested by the Eravur Police for promoting LTTE Mahaviru commemorations\nthrough the social media. The respondents\u2019 lawyers said that remembering loved\nones who were killed in the separatist war was the basic right of the Tamil\npeople. Some of their own relatives were among those who fought for the Tamil\ncause. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senior lawyer\nN. Srikantha told Court that he had the right to remember one of his close\nrelatives who died in the war and added that dead people could not be\nconsidered as members of an organization which was defeated militarily a decade\nago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nobody\nraises questions when the JVP remembers its fallen comrades and displays\npictures of Rohana Wijeweera in berets. But when the Tamils remember their\ndead, the issue of terrorism is brought up, complained the Tamils.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former\nNorthern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran, MP, said that although the\nMahaviru Day\u201d had been banned on a court order. Lamps would be lit in every\nhousehold in the Jaffna District in their memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MP Sarath Weerasekera\ncomplained in Parliament that MP Sumanthiran had attended a remembrance service\nof Pandithar, an LTTE leader. He had gone to the home of Pandithar\u2019s mother, in\nValvettithurai, where he lit a lamp to commemorate the fallen LTTE leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MP\nSumanthiran explained. Sammanthurai Maheswari was one of my clients. I appeared\nfor her in a case at the Jaffna High Court where the learned judge told me that\nshe could  not conduct remembrance in\npublic places but was allowed to remember her son who was killed in 1985\nprivately at home. I went there on that day and explained to my client the\ninstructions given by the judge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dead\nperson was a LTTE leader. He was a killer, said Weerasekera. Yes, he was a\nmember of the LTTE. Nevertheless, he was her son. Every mother has a right\nto remember her children replied Sumanthiran. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mother\ncan remember her son there is no problem, but an MP cannot go to such a place,\nsaid Weerasekera. Sumanthiran pointed out that JVP was allowed to remember\nRohana Wijeweera in the streets of Colombo. LTTE tried to divide the country,\nJVP did not, replied Weerasekera. The discussion ended with both persons\ncalling each other \u2018racists\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pro-LTTE\nactivists in the United Kingdom are planning to commemorate \u2018Heroes Day\u2019 in\nhonor of their dead cadres on a grand scale announced critics in November 2020.  They have put up posters, flags, banners and\ncutouts of the slain LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran mostly near Tamil-owned\nshops in preparation for the annual event. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite a\nstrong protest by Sri Lanka\u2019s High Commissioner in London, to the British\nauthorities, pro-LTTE groups in London went ahead with the planned \u2018Great\nHeroes Day\u2019 commemoration on a grand scale. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the night\nof November 26, LTTE activists used high-powered laser beams to project on the\nBritish Parliament building an image of a flower considered by the terrorist\ngroup as their \u2018national symbol of Tamil Eelam\u2019 with the words \u2018We remember\u2019\nunderneath it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On November\n29, they hired a hall in East London for the celebrations. The venue was\ndecorated with LTTE flags and garlanded photographs of LTTE fighters killed in\nthe war were placed at the entrance to the hall. Makeshift tombstones draped in LTTE flags\nand garlands scattered the floor of the hall. However,\ndue to Covid-19 restrictions in the country, only 15 people participated in the\ncommemoration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

LTTE activities\nhave been stepped up in the UK following the open judgment by the Proscribed\nOrganizations Appeals Commission to allow the appeal made by the Transnational\nGovernment of Tamil Eelam challenging the decision of the UK Secretary of State\nfor Home Affairs to proscribe LTTE. (continued) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS Part 18 of this series contains short updates on matters discussed earlier. This essay provides an update on   celebrations of the Eelam War.  In July 2020, a group of Jaffna undergraduates celebrated Black Tiger Day on a Sunday night. Leading activists of several student bodies organized the event. Student participants were asked to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109472\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}