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Tamil people mourn 30th anniversary of the genocide on 10 January1974

“Tsunami tragedy, Yes; But we cannot help remembering the genocide orchestrated by the Sri Lankan government and its police, killing 10 Tamil youths in the International Tamil Research Conference held in Jaffna 30 years ago today, 10 January 1974”.

Thirty years ago, Tamil academics and researchers all over the world, on the initiative taken by the Tamil scholar and Linguistic Professor Rev. S.Thaninayagam, decided to hold the Fourth International Tamil Research Conference in Jaffna, the citadel of Tamil civilization.

This was not to the liking of the government of Mrs.Srimavo Bandaranaike in Colombo, for the repressive regime feared exposure of its anti-Tamil mode of governance that has already invited the wrath and frustration of the Tamil people. Following the foot-steps of her late husband who introduced the ‘Sinhala Only’ legislation that made Sinhala as the only official language of the state, marginalizing and alienating the Tamils from the body politic, Mrs.Srimavo Bandaranaike too was modelling her governance in the same manner.

The organisers of the conference were prevailed upon to shift the location to Colombo with the subtle intention of ‘containing’ the Tamil sentiments. The government went the extra mile by inducing the organisers that all the expenses would be borne by them, if they agree to hold the conference in Colombo. No, said the researchers and bang came the police, trying to threaten the hundreds of thousands of Tamil people, researchers, academics and guest speakers who had come from many parts of the world.

Selecting a suitable location to the likes of an unwilling government and in the midst of the treacherous fifth columnists and quislings like Alfrred Thuraiappah, Arulampalam and Thiagrajah who were all pickers of ‘bread-crumbs’ from the incumbent regime, the organizers were frustrated and at last accepted Veerasingham Hall, a community hall that could barely accommodate such an unprecedented crowd in Jaffna.

The police harassment reached a crescendo when Professor Naina Mohammed, a renowned scholar from Tamil Nadu, was on the floor with a spellbound audience within and outside the hall, filling the entirety of the adjacent esplanade. Realising that mere threats would not work with this Tamil audience and bent on somehow or other disrupting the event, the police opened fire targeting the electric wires.

Hell was let loose on an innocent gathering of Tamil language lovers, and ten youths died due to electrocution, gun fire and stampede. The Tamil youth of the day, who were already frustrated with Srimavo Bandaranaike’s ‘innovative’ standardisation of entry into university for the Tamil students, differentiating them disadvantageously, started moving into the militancy equation. Tamil academics and scholars from other countries were passive spectators to a heinous crime perpetrated by a government on its own people.

Exposures of this nature are aplenty in the Sinhala governance when it comes to matters Tamil. Lessons learnt? Abysmal.

11 January 2005

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