Sri Lanka Tamils barred from commemorating their dead ‎

May 19, 2014 - ‎While Sri Lanka held a victory parade on Sunday to mark the fifth anniversary of the ‎end of its civil war, it stopped Tamils from commemorating their war dead. Security forces in the north ‎surrounded party offices and religious sites, blocking memorial ceremonies for Tamils killed in the ‎nearly 26-year separatist war. Tens of thousands were killed in the conflict between government troops ‎and Tamil Tiger (LTTE) rebels. The UN has backed an inquiry into rights abuses from both sides in a ‎war in which the Tamil Tiger separatists were crushed by the army on May 18, 2009.
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Troops, military planes and paragliders featured in the victory parade in Matara, in Sri Lanka's south, on ‎Sunday. Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa said the army had brought stability and freedom to ‎Sri Lankans. "We are not celebrating victory in a war, we are celebrating peace," he said. The ceremony ‎was avoided by some Western diplomats, including the Canadian high commissioner who said Sri ‎Lanka should focus on reconciliation. The security forces, already all-pervasive in northern Sri Lanka, ‎stepped up their presence still further on Sunday, the BBC's Sri Lanka correspondent Charles Haviland ‎reported.

The National Peace Council, an activist group, said in a statement: "No wise country ‎celebrates war victory after a civil war." "Unfortunately in Sri Lanka, the political leadership... ‎continues to indulge in triumphalism celebrating the victory over the LTTE." The UN estimates that ‎between 80,000 and 100,000 people were killed in the civil war. It says it believes tens of thousands of ‎civilians were killed in the final months of the war, and that most of the deaths were caused by ‎government shelling. The government has strenuously denied such allegations and insists they are on ‎the path of reconciliation and rebuilding Sri Lanka's north.‎ (Source: BBC)