‘Even in remembrance of dead there is discrimination against Tamils’

COLOMBO: “Even in the remembrance of the dead there is discrimination against the Tamils in Sri Lanka,” Tamil National Alliance MP Abraham Sumanthiran said on Twitter.

He said the governments had not barred the leftist JVP, or People’s Liberation Front, from commemorating their comrades killed in two failed insurrections in 1971 and in the late 1980s.

The MP’s comments came as commemorations for Tamil Tiger rebels killed in Sri Lanka’s decades-long civil war were banned after court petitions by the government of strongman President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Police said they had already arrested four people “for posting Heroes’ Day-related messages on social media.”

Sri Lanka’s 37-year conflict began in 1972 when the LTTE waged a bloody war against government troops in a campaign for a separate homeland for their ethnic minority group.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was defense chief when the Tigers were finally defeated in 2009 while his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa was president, winning them the adoration of many in the country.

For years, Tamils were not allowed to commemorate their war dead, but a ban on “Heroes’ Day” ceremonies at cemeteries was lifted after Mahinda was voted out of office in 2015.

The Rajapaksa brothers returned to power last year however when Gotabaya was elected president.

His government petitioned courts in the Tamil-majority north of Sri Lanka this week and obtained prohibition orders against the commemorations, the attorney general’s office said.

The main Tamil political party, the Tamil National Alliance, protested against the ban.