2N LEAD (Adds voice)

SL military photographs students, teachers at schools in Madu, Mannaar

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 April 2014, 05:33 GMT]
The occupying SL military in Madu division of Mannaar district entered the schools at Valaiyan-kaddu and Kaakkaiyan-ku’lam and took photographs of the students, teachers and the principals interrupting the studies. Schoolteachers in Madu division told TamilNet that the SL military was behaving as if the Tamil students and teachers were in a prison the genocidal Sri Lankan State. The latest conduct of the SL military shows how the situation of threat on Tamil students and teachers has worsened from the earlier situation, said Mr Joseph Stalin, the general secretary of Ilangkai Thamizh Teachers Union. The entire education system in the Northern province is being militarised by the Sri Lankan government, he said.

The independent functioning of schools have been already compromised as the schools had to inform all their activities to the SL military in advance. The military interference has now manifested into a persistent threat, Mr Stalin told TamilNet.

The SL soldiers were also collecting the personal details of the students and teachers.



It is only the zonal directors or the secretary of education in the province who are entitled to collect the details of the students. The Teachers Union strongly condemns the act by the SL military entering the schools collecting details and photographing the students and teachers, Joesph Stalin told TamilNet.

In the meantime, the zonal directors of education have been receiving complaints of the SL military interference, but they have been unable to voice against the conduct of the SL military as they are unable to confront the SL military establishment that views all the ‘government employees’ as subjects of the SL State, a zonal director who didn’t wish to be named, told TamilNet.

“The machinery of the genocidal State, from the Education ministry of the so-called central government in Colombo to the Sinhala soldier watching us at the entrance of our school, is particular in suppressing the education of Tamils,” the zonal director said pointing at how the SL State scuttled a recent initiative by the Northern Provincial Council to design an independent approach for improving the condition of education in the province.

The general secretary of the ITTU also pointed out that such military interference is not allowed to take place in the districts outside Northern and Eastern Province.

The occupying SL military has been photographing and collecting details also at the households of Tamils after it fully occupied the Tamil homeland.

As the Tamil activists pointed out at Geneva, the colonial conduct of the SL State has only been further emboldened by the human rights discourse at Geneva, which has been subjected to political manipulation by geopolitical powers.

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