Tamils from across Australia rallied on July 21 in response to the United Nation High Commissioner Volker Türk’s June 25 visit to a recently-discovered mass grave site on the outskirts of Jaffna in Sri Lanka.
The mass grave site in Chemmani is the latest of dozens being unearthed in Sri Lanka. Tens of thousands of Eelam Tamils were abducted, tortured, executed and buried by the Sri Lankan state during the 26-year long civil war, and thousands more disappeared.
The march began at the Sri Lankan High Commission and continued to several embassies, the United Nations office and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Tamils delivered detailed briefings demanding international justice and concrete action.
“The Chemmani mass graves are not just evidence of genocide — they are a call to the world. Every unmarked grave is a question: will you stand for justice, or will you look away?,” asked Renuga Inpakumar, spokesperson for the Tamil Refugee Council.
The protesters called for a comprehensive international investigation into Chemmani and other mass grave sites in Sri Lanka; a strong resolution against Sri Lanka during the upcoming UN Human Rights Council session in September; travel bans on military officers implicated in genocide as the United States, Britain and Canada have already done; and ensuring genocide survivors and key witnesses are protected and given asylum here.
It also called on the Australian government to pressure Sri Lanka to force the military to end its occupation of Tamil lands, push for the immediate release of Tamil political prisoners and to repeal oppressive laws, and to push for international recognition of the Tamil genocide and a credible pathway for justice and accountability.
“This is not history — it is a living crime scene. And silence is complicity. Justice for Tamil genocide begins now,” Inpakumar concluded.
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