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The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was a Tamil militant organization that was based in northeastern Sri Lanka. The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the north-east of the island, due to the continuous discrimination and violent persecution against Sri Lankan Tamils by the Sinhalese dominated Sri Lankan Government.
The Sri Lankan Civil War was a civil war fought in Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009. Beginning on 23 July 1983, there was an intermittent insurgency against the government by the Velupillai Prabhakaran-led Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the north-east of the island, due to the continuous discrimination and violent persecution against Sri Lankan Tamils by the Sinhalese dominated Sri Lankan Government.
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The Tamil National Alliance is a political alliance in Sri Lanka that represents the country's Sri Lankan Tamil minority. It was formed in October 2001 by a group of moderate Tamil nationalist parties and former militant groups. The alliance originally supported self-determination in an autonomous state for the island's Tamils. It supported negotiations with the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to resolve the civil war in Sri Lanka. The TNA was considered a political proxy of the LTTE which selected some of its candidates even though its leadership maintains it never supported the LTTE and merely negotiated with the LTTE just as the Government did.
Parliamentary elections were held in Ceylon in 1956. They were a watershed in the country's political history, and was the first elections fought to realistically challenge the ruling United National Party. The former Leader of the House, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike who was passed over after the death of the first Prime Minister D. S. Senanayake, crossed over to the opposition to form the Sri Lanka Freedom Party to launch his bid for Prime Minister.
Tamil Eelam is a proposed independent state that many Tamils in Sri Lanka and the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora aspire to create in the north and east of Sri Lanka. The name is derived from the ancient Tamil name for Sri Lanka, Eelam. Tamil Eelam, although encompassing the traditional homelands of Sri Lankan Tamils, does not have official status or recognition by world states. Large sections of the North-East were under de facto control of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for most of the 1990s–2000s during the Sri Lankan Civil War.
British Tamils Forum or BTF, is a largest organisation representing the Tamil Community in the United Kingdom. The BTF intends to be the voice of the Tamil Community in the UK by raising the issues on Tamils in UK and to bring awareness to the issues affecting Tamil people in the island of Sri Lanka and around the world. The BTF's work is focused on addressing the root cause to the conflict through an international justice mechanism to bring truth and justice to all victims of war and to bring end to the entrenched culture of impunity in Sri Lanka.
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Protests in Canada against the Sri Lankan Civil War, often referred to as the Tamil protests by the media, consisted of a series of demonstrations which took place in major Canadian cities with a significant Tamil diaspora population during the year 2009 protesting the alleged genocide of Sri Lankan Tamil people in the Northern Province and Eastern Province of the island nation Sri Lanka. It was part of a global outcry by the Tamil diaspora to end the Sri Lankan Civil War, investigate acts of war crimes by the Government of Sri Lanka, and restore civil rights for Tamils in Sri Lanka. The aim was also to create awareness and appeal to leaders, notably the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, the President of the United States, Barack Obama and the Consulate General of Sri Lanka in Canada, Bandula Jayasekara, to take action in ending the conflict. Several Tamil Canadian citizens and business-owners from different parts of Canada and the United States took part in major protests set up in Toronto and Ottawa, while smaller scale demonstrations took place in Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary.
Between 2008 and 2009, major protests against the Sri Lankan Civil War took place in several countries around the world, urging national and world leaders and organisations to take action on bringing a unanimous cease fire to the Sri Lankan Civil War, which had taken place for twenty-six years. Tamil diaspora populations around the world expressed concerns regarding the conduct of the civil war in the island nation of Sri Lanka. The civil war, which took place between the Sri Lankan Army and the separatist group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam is believed to have killed over 100,000 civilians. Protesters and critics of the Sri Lankan government that triggered a culturally based civil war to be a systematic genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Sri Lankan Tamil minority in Sri Lanka.
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The history of Sri Lanka from 1948 to the present is marked by the independence of the country through to Dominion and becoming a Republic. The main factor has been conflict and civil war regarding the status of minority Tamils.
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Sivagnanam Shritharan is a Sri Lankan Tamil teacher, politician and Member of Parliament.
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There were war crimes and crimes against humanity that were committed by the Sri Lankan military and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam during the Sri Lankan Civil War, particularly during the final months of the Eelam War IV phase in 2009. The war crimes include attacks on civilians and civilian buildings by both sides; executions of combatants and prisoners by both sides; enforced disappearances by the Sri Lankan military and paramilitary groups backed by them; sexual violence by the Sri Lankan military; the systematic denial of food, medicine, and clean water by the government to civilians trapped in the war zone; child recruitment, hostage taking, use of military equipment in the proximity of civilians and use of forced labor by the Tamil Tigers.
Visvanathan Dharmalingam was a Sri Lankan Tamil politician and Member of Parliament.
Rathika Sitsabaiesan is a Canadian politician and activist of Tamil Sri Lankan origin. She was formerly part of the New Democratic Party and represented Scarborough—Rouge River in the House of Commons of Canada as a Member of Parliament between 2011 and 2015. She was the first Tamil to be elected to the Canadian federal parliament as well the first woman and first visible minority to be elected as Member of Parliament for Scarborough—Rouge River. She was also the youngest Member of Parliament in the Greater Toronto Area.
Dharmalingam Siddarthan is a Sri Lankan Tamil militant turned politician, former provincial councillor and Member of Parliament. He is the leader of the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam, a member of the Tamil National Alliance.
Angajan Ramanathan is a Sri Lankan Tamil politician, former provincial councillor and Member of Parliament. He is the current Deputy chairman of committees of the Parliament of Sri Lanka.
References
- ↑ "Up to 40,000 civilians 'died in Sri Lanka offensive'" . independent.co.uk. 12 February 2010. Archived from the original on 2022-05-26. Retrieved 23 September 2016.
- ↑ singlahelgotoHel (17 January 2010). "Tamil Solidarity speech in European Parliament for srilanka's war crimes". Archived from the original on 2010-01-24. Retrieved 23 September 2016– via YouTube.