Some 500 people gathered at the United Nation (UN) headquarters in Kuala Lumpur yesterday to protest against the bloodshed of the Tamil diaspora in Sri Lanka.

The protesters demanded UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon to convene the security council and act urgently to stop the war that has claimed the lives of over 100,000 civilians since crossfire erupted in 1983.

The protest which lasted for about two hours was lead by the Global Peace Initiative (GPI) and 20 other non-governmental groups as well as several members of Parliament.

protest against sri lanka genocide 270209 08 GPI coordinator S Pasupathi told reporters that UN's indifference on the civil war had a devastating effect on the Tamils of Sri Lanka.

“We note with utter disgust that the UN, founded on the noble objective of preventing the 'scourge of war' ever from visiting humanity again, sits by and watches the destruction of the lives and properties of the Tamils in Sri Lanka,” said Pasupathi.

“The NGOs from Malaysia are concerned with the situation in Sri Lanka where about 250,000 to 300,000 people are trapped. The Tamils are caught in a war zone and they have no food, drinking water and essential amenities,” he said.

protest against sri lanka genocide 270209 04 Pasupathi added that it was crucial for Malaysians Indians and humanity at large to question and raise the gravity of the situation in Sri Lanka as they were part of the Indian diaspora and the war was a violation of their right to life.

Asked if the Sri Lankan government was committing atrocities against its own people, Pasupathi said: “How can you bomb an area which the government claims has only about 700 terrorist? If there are only 700 terrorists, with all the weaponries, all the GPS systems and everything, you should be able to track down the 700”.

War has claimed over 2,000 lives

After series of failed negotiations and ceasefires, the war erupted again early last year and resulted in the fall of Kilinochchi, the administrative capital of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

According to Pasupathi, the current war has claimed the lives of over 2,000 people with 5,000 severely injured.

protest against sri lanka genocide 270209 02 At yesterday’s protest, placards with slogans such as 'stop the genocide of Tamils', 'are we terrorists... we are being terrorised' and 'Tamil genocide: Indian and Sri Lankan conspiracy' were paraded by protesters who were simultaneously shouting for the downfall of key Indian and Sri Lankan political heads.

It is widely believed that India had dropped its support for the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka, after the 1991 assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by an LTTE suicide bomber Thenmuli Rajaratnam.

In 1998, the Indian court held separatist movement leader Velupillai Prabhakaran responsible for the assassination.

The atmosphere of the gathering became more infuriated when several demonstrators began tearing banners with images of Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Indian National Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu M Karunanidhi and former chief minister of Tamil Nadu J Jayalalitha.

protest against sri lanka genocide 270209 from left charles santiago s manikavasagambharat manocha k arumugam and m manogaran At this juncture, Brickfields OCPD Wan Abdul Bari Wan Abdul Khalid, warned the crowd to settle down and keep calm, failing which arrests would be made. The protesters also threw shoes at an effigy of Rajapaksa and shouted demands that the UN takes immediate action to stop the massacre.

At 2.30pm, the organisers were called in to the UN office to submit their memorandum. It was received by UN regional audit centre for Asia and the Pacific officer Bharat B Manocha