British Tamil Forum (BTF) organised the commemoration event on 1983 black July in London on 23rd of July 2015.
Thousands of people gathered in London on 23rd July 2015 to commemorate this event in London, opposite to the British Prime Minister’s official residence at 10 Downing Street. Youth members of BTF who organised this event expressed their deep disappointment that the justice is delayed. Many of them are victims of the on going Genocide in Sri Lanka who shared their own experience of torture and took a vow to seek justice.
“32 years passed, since the heinous ethnic riots unleashed against the Tamils in Sri Lanka by the Sri Lankan Government in 1983. Nearly two thousand people were slaughtered in the cruellest manner by Sinhala state-sponsored hooligans, which include the 58 Tamil prisoners, men, women and children. Tamil men were burned alive by putting burning tires around their necks. Many Tamil women were gang raped and grenades were exploded in their genitals. Babies were thrown against the wall until their brains come out. Children were drowned alive in boiling tar. Our house was looted and set on fire. My parents narrowly escaped and fled to India as refugees. The 1983 riots were part of the systematic Genocide being carried out by the Singhalese Government against the Tamils and this still continues” says Mr Nithiyanathan Antony Anton, a member of the International Centre for Prevention and Prosecution of Genocide (ICPPG).
One of the organisers, Mr Navaneepan Nagavelrasa, who is a BTF activist and a young journalist from Sri Lanka, told the media that “The Sinhala Government lead by J.R.Jeyawardane brought laws to marginalise the Tamils and made them as second citizens of Sri Lanka. The successive Governments took various steps to eliminate the Tamils from the island. The LTTE who took arms to defend the Tamils were defeated in 2009, however the Genocide continues. I was also abducted and tortured by Sri Lankan forces and paramilitary troops in December 2011 in suspicion of being involved with the LTTE who fought for the rights of the Tamils. My own experience is a good example of the on going human rights violations despite the end of the war and the regime change
. We need an international investigations into the war crimes and a separate Tamil Eelam is the only solution for Tamils”.
One of the organisers, Mr Kirojan Thuraiyappah, a leading BTF activist and a direct victim of the ethnic riots, delivered a passionate speech. He stated, “Since 1956 to 2002, 115 incidents of mass killings of Tamil civilians have taken place. Many Tamil women were raped and murdered. Thousands of Tamil houses and businesses were burnt, looted and vandalised with over 2,00,000 Tamils left homeless and forced to flee to our homeland in North & East or abroad. It has been 32 years since this genocide act against Tamils and no one has been brought to justice and the impunity continues to this day. The current Prime Minister Mr. Ranil Wickramasigha was the architect of this Genocidal act and the Sri Lankan state has no genuine political will to deliver justice the victims. It is absurd if the international community expects the perpetrators to investigating their own crimes. This is why the Tamil people around the world do not believe the internal investigation in Sri Lanka”.
Mr Ravichchandran Ratnasingam, Mr Kumanan Sivalingam and Mr Kapilan Rasamani also shared their own experience of torture in the hands of the Sri Lankan forces and made an open plea to the international community and the British Prime Minister, Rt. Hon. David Cameron to insist on independent international investigation if they genuinely want to deliver justice to Tamils.
