South Africa & the Tamil Eelam Struggle

Kwazulu-natal based Tamil Eelam Support Movement
Demonstration - 9 March 1998

Johannesburg, March 10, 1998: Tamils in South Africa have decided to hold peaceful placard demonstrations against the visiting Sri Lankan cricketers. Leaders of several Tamil organizations made the announcement on Monday following disclosures that a group of 200 South African volunteers are ready to travel to Sri Lanka to fight on the side of the Tamil Tigers.

Vic Pillay, chairman of the Pieternartizburg branch of the Kwazulu-natal based Tamil Eelam Support Movement said, "TESM wants to take advantage of the visit of the Sri Lankan cricketers to highlight the Sri Lankan problem."

"We want to hold peaceful demonstrations at the grounds where the Sri Lankans will play and at their hotels in order to highlight the plight of our brethren in Sri Lanka," he said.

"We have already told the United Cricket Board that Sri Lankans must be reminded they cannot come to South Africa and participate in normal international sport when their government is carrying out the most gross human rights violations," Pillay added.

"We hope our protests will prompt the South African government to make representations to the Colombo government for a peaceful settlement between the Tamils and the Sinhalese majority, " he said.

"We only want to provide humanitarian assistance for the hundreds of thousands of refugees displaced by the current civil war," Dr. Panji Lingham, chairman of the peace for Sri Lankan and the Dravidians for peace and justice, said.

"We want to hand over a memorandum to the Sri Lankan and South African captains and managers that we are concerned about the genocide that is taking place against the Tamils in Sri Lanka," he said.

Dr. Lingham, who is based in Johannesburg, said they had over the past three years made strong representations to the South African government to impose sanctions against Sri Lanka because of its "gross human rights violations" against the Tamil people.

We now hope our peaceful placard demonstrations will place the spotlight on the situation in Sri Lanka," he said.(The Asian Age, 18 March 1998)