In the past few weeks hundreds of thousands of ethnic Tamils have marched in London, Paris, Toronto, and New York calling for end to fighting in Sri Lanka that has, according to the UN, led to 6,500 civilian deaths and 14,000 wounded since January.

New York City (Photo: Maura O'Connor)

The world’s Tamil Diaspora is demanding a ceasefire in the north of their homeland, where 50,000 civilians remain trapped in the middle of heavy fighting between the Sri Lankan military and the Tamil Tiger rebels.

The images and slogans used by the protesters are stark. Posters featured gruesome photos of mutilated bodies, presumably of people in the North hit by mortar fire. Banners accused the international community of ignoring a “holocaust” of Tamil civilians. Pamphlets compared the current battle in Sri Lanka’s North to the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

In early April, 100,000 protesters marched through the center of London, shutting down traffic and clashing with police. Some estimates put the number of protesters who came out in Toronto in March at 200,000. In India, protests have included at least four cases of self-immolation.

But there is disagreement whether or not these protests are having the intended impact. Tamils in and outside of Sri Lanka are debating the effectiveness of demonstrations where men, women, and children don t-shirts and wave flags emblazoned with the symbol of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE).

New York City (Photo: Maura O'Connor)

“It’s like they are stuck in another decade and they can’t escape that mind set where Tamil equals LTTE,” said a Sri Lankan human rights activist based in Colombo. “The rest of the world has moved in another direction where the LTTE is seen as a significant problem, rather than part of the solution.”

For 25 years, the Tigers have fought for a separate homeland for Tamils within Sri Lanka. But foreign governments such as the US, Canada, and England have labeled the group a terrorist organization for its widespread use of child soldiers, political assassinations, and suicide bombers.

Today, Sri Lanka is in the midst of what many consider the last stages of the 30 year old civil war between Government forces and the LTTE, in which at least 70,000 Sri Lankans have died. Over the past two years the Tigers’ territory has been reduced from nearly a third of the country to a mere 17 square kilometers in the north. According to UN estimates there are currently tens of thousands trapped in that tiny piece of land, stuck between Government forces and what is left of the Tiger army.

The LTTE has been accused by both the Sri Lankan government and the international community of using the trapped civilians as as a human shield and forcibly preventing them from escaping to government controlled areas.

These accusations have raised grave doubts as to whether the group can seriously be considered to represent the best interests of Tamils in the North. And, they cast a shadow on the recent slew of protests by the Tamil Diaspora that are ostensibly aimed at saving the lives of those same war-afflicted civilians.

New York City (Photo: Maura O'Connor)

“The only leverage that exists on the LTTE is from the Diaspora and they need to send messages to the LTTE to let go of the civilians,” said Ahilan Kadirgamar, a New York based spokeperson for the Sri Lanka Democracy Forum. “The LTTE is going to be defeated, and there may be a huge amount of civilian casualties. But the pro-LTTE section of the Diaspora is not doing that. It is still trying to prop up the LTTE leadership. It’s almost doing the opposite, telling the LTTE not to give up.”

At the protest in New York last week, many said friends and relatives were among those trapped in Sri Lanka’s North. Over the loudspeaker, a protester screamed, “We are pleading the UN to bring immediate cease fire in Sri Lanka so we can save our people!”

But the event could easily have been a political rally. The thousands of Tamils were dressed in the signature red and yellow colors of the LTTE flag, and the chanting included impassioned support for the cherub-faced leader of the Tigers, V. Prabakharan.

“Our leader, Prabakharan!” they cried in unison.

In its press release, Tamils Against Genocide, one of the groups organizing the protest in New York, printed a headline, “UN Urged to Stop Impending Bloodbath in Sri Lanka.” Elias Jeyarajah, a Board Member for the group, says it wants to bring attention to the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka, while still maintaining freedom of expression, including support for the LTTE.

“Many feel that showing solidarity with the LTTE and asking the world governments to lift the ban on the LTTE can pave the way for the Tamils and the LTTE to carry out their struggle politically (non-violent methods) with the support and understanding of the international community,” said Jeyarajah.

Later in the day, the protest migrated en masse to Times Square where confused tourists, commuters, and shoppers were flooded by the sea of banners emblazoned with the image of a tiger surrounded by bullets and machine guns.

Meanwhile, two middle aged Tamil men took an opportunity to catch up with one another. They are friends from Canada and before that Jaffna, the Northern Sri Lanka peninsula where the country’s civil war has its origin.

New York City (Photo: Maura O'Connor)

One is an electrician who fled Sri Lanka with his family in 1988. The other said he had designs on being an engineer, but his body shook with anger when he recounted what he said were the ethnocentric government policies that prevented him from succeeding. He too fled in the late 1980s, moving to Canada and settling for the life of an accountant.

“We want a separate nation,” they both said, and cited Kosovo, East Timor and Singapore as examples of workable separations from larger nations.

The men spoke of their relatives stuck in the no-fire zone back home but neither mentioned the need for reconciliation or peace. Instead, they voiced their intent to carry on the fight the LTTE began 25 years ago. “They may kill everybody, but I’m here, he’s here, I’ll go back and fight for it,” said the accountant. “I’m 50 odd years, what’s the point of me living. I will die for my country.”

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Maura has been living and working in Sri Lanka for the past six months.

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