Ananthi blames war criminal Silva for blocking collective memorial at Mu'l'livaaykkaal
[TamilNet, Monday, 17 May 2021, 19:23 GMT]
SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Commander of the SL Army, General Shavendra Silva, have deployed the occupying military to suppress the 12th collective Mu'l'ivaaykkaal Remembrance of Tamil Genocide at the sacred memorial site, said former councillor Ms Ananthy Sasitharan on Monday. She was talking to TamilNet after the SL military blocked her from entering Mullaiththeevu. The SL military was using Covid-19 as an excuse to shut down two divisions surrounding the memorial place. War criminal Silva, who commanded the notorious 58th Division that waged the genocidal onslaught in Vanni in May 2009, is now leading Colombo's Operation Centre for Preventing COVID-19 Outbreak in addition to being the commander of the SL Army. His military men were also responsible for destroying, desecrating the memorial lamp and removing the enormous memorial stone brought to Vanni from Jaffna on 12 May.
Former NPC Councillors Ananthi Sasitharan and the late Antony Jeyananthan were direct witnesses to the genocidal onslaught at Mu'l'livaaykkaal until its final days in May 2009.
Ananthi, who witnessed the handover of her husband to the occupying SL Army on 18 May 2009, has been continuously fighting against the SL State to reveal the whereabouts of her husband, Elilan.
Mr Elilan was an LTTE Political Wing leader. He was one of many ex-LTTE members who accompanied Fr Francis in the process of an organised handover in the captivity of the SL Army. The SL military had announced on 18 May 2009 that the families should hand over the members who had served in the LTTE. A general amnesty was accorded to all, including those who had served the LTTE even for a single day. The families that failed to do so would not see such amnesty provided to their members, according to the loudspeaker announcements made by the soldiers under the command of Shavendra Silva.
Shavendra Silva was one of the respondents in a habeas corpus case filed by Ms Ananthi in 2016.
On Monday, the SL military and the SL Police were blocking her from reaching Mu'l'livaaykkaal. Another former councillor and a veteran political leader of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO) had managed to enter the desecrated Mu'l'livaaykkaal memorial site and lit a candle earlier in the day, Ananthi Sasitharan told TamilNet.
She accused the SL military of using the Covid-19 as an excuse to block the people from reaching the common memorial site on Tuesday. The SL Police was claiming that there was a pandemic outbreak at a garments facility. In the morning, the news was leaked claiming that there were around 20 people who got infected. Later, especially after the court ruled favouring the collective memorial event to proceed with covid measures, the SL military and the police raised the figures to around 200 infections in the area and started to isolate two divisions covering the monument site, Ananthi said.

Before desecration: Mu'l'livaaykkaal Common Memorial Square

After desecration, photographed on 13 May 2021
The intelligence wing, the SL military and the SL Police were allegedly sabotaging the collective memorial already on 12 May. In an audio-recorded interview with TamilNet on 13 May 2021, Fr Leo Armstrong blamed the SL military and the intelligence personnel. He was citing local news reports as the source.
They were behind the “shocking and inhuman” destruction and desecration of the memorial square and removing the heavy monument stone, which was being transported from Jaffna to Mu’l’livaaykkaal.
Ananthi was also pointing at the SL military as being the culprits behind the desecration. She said there were many heavy boot prints in the soil as witnessed in the photos.

Before desecration: Mu'l'livaaykkaal Common Memorial Square

After desecration, photographed on 13 May 2021

The missing memorial stone: A photograph of the memorial stone brought from Jaffna by a group of Catholic priests has been removed from reaching the remembrance square on 12 May 2021
The memorial stone, which was removed allegedly by the SL military, contains four point demands in Tamil, initially issued on the occasion of the 10th Remembrance Day declaration. The 2019 Declaration contains the following five demands in English. The Tamil version contains all of them in four demands:
- To strengthen the call to refer Sri Lanka to the International criminal court (ICC) for the crimes perpetrated by the Sri Lankan state, especially genocide;
- To demand for the Tamil people in Sri Lanka, the recognition of the Tamil nation and its inalienable right to political autonomy on the basis of our people’s distinct sovereignty and inalienable right to self-determination;
- To call for the North-East merger, the territorial habitation of the Tamils because it is this very existence that the Sri Lanka State wishes to destroy through the genocide and structural genocide of the Tamils;
- To prevent the structural genocide unleashed on the collective existence of Tamils;
- To strengthen social structures in the North-East in order to take the struggle for Tamil collective rights forward;
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