Sivaram memorial held at Colombo Tamil Sangam

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 April 2006, 15:05 GMT]
Speaking at the one year memorial event held at the Colombo Tamil Sangam by the Sri Lanka Tamil Media Alliance Friday evening, C.A. Jothilingam, a popular political analyst, called for making Sivram's death anniversary, a Day for remembering all journalists slain for their writings in Sri Lanka.

Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians, Suresh Premachandran and Eelaventhan, Leader of Upcountry Peoples Front (UPF), Periyasamy Chandrasekaran, United National Party 's (UNP's) Colombo district parliamentarian, P Radhakrishnan, All Ceylon Teachers Union President Joseph Stalin, President of Railway Workers Union, Kumara Perera Fernando, several journalists and friends of Sivaram participated in the event.

Rohitha Bhashana, Independent journalist and former Editor of Sinhala daily, Hiru, speaking at the event said, "Articles and stories related to the ethnic conflict carried by Sinhala dailies in Colombo do not tell the truth. Papers blindly carry the false information and propaganda of the Sri Lanka Government and the Security Forces. The day when the Sinhala media transform themselves to carry the truth, we will be able to resolve the festering ethnic conflict."

Independent journalist K Rushankan also spoke. "Sivaram was an authority on the history of Tamil struggle, and with his wider knowledge of world politics, he was able to present the Tamil case in a framework and form familiar to international audience. His analysis influenced key decision makers in several countries. Besides he was a gifted writer in both English and Tamil. His loss was a great tragedy for Tamils worldwide," said Mr Rushankan.

Journalists accused the Sri Lanka Government, judiciary and the law enforcement authorities for delaying investigations in bringing the culprits to justice and called for expediting the judicial proceedings.

Sivaram's Family told TamilNet they had a first year anniversary event in their Mahindarama Road residence Saturday noon where more than one hundred of Sivaram's friends including TNA Parliamentarians Sampanthan, Eelaventhan and others attended.

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