Chennai: MDMK leader Vaiko was on Thursday detained in New Delhi for staging a protest opposing the visit of newly elected Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Vaiko in a statement to the media later justified his agitation, accusing the visiting President of having committed genocidal crime against the ethnic Tamils in the Island Nation when he was Defence Minister during the end stage of the Eelam War IV in 2009.
“His brother Mahinda Rajapaksa, the then President ordered the massacre. When Mahinda Rajapaksa was invited by Modi for the swearing in ceremony [of Modi as Prime Minister] in 2014, we staged a demonstration in the same place - Jantar Mantar - and were arrested,” the MDMK leader, an avowed supporter of the LTTE said.
Vaiko said the visit of Indian External Affairs Minister Jaishankar to Sri Lanka to invite Gotabaya to New Delhi was akin to pouring petrol over the flames burning in the hearts of Tamils.
Citing a report of the United Nations, he said, 1.37 lakh Tamils were massacred in 2009. This time, the Tamils voted for Sajith Premadasa. “That is why, Gotabaya says that only the Sinhalese have voted for me.
He has passed a presidential order that the gun trotting soldiers should patrol in the streets of the Tamils day and night. Already Jaffna and other Tamil traditional areas have become the concentration camp of Sri Lankan Army,” he alleged.
Charging that the Sri Lankan Navy had killed over 580 fishermen from Tamil Nadu in the past 30 years, he said, oblivious to these sufferings, the Modi Government is hobnobbing with the Sri Lankan Government. “This is nothing but terrible betrayal of Tamils.
Tamils in Sri Lanka are afraid and are in serious panic. We have come here to show black flags and register our protest against the Government of India for inviting the killer, the butcher of Tamils, Gotabaya Rajapaksa,” Vaiko said.
The MDMK founder demanded that the Sri Lankan Government be tried for genocide of Tamils in the International Court of Criminal Justice. “We appeal to the United Nations and the Human Rights Council to adopt a resolution to conduct referendum among the Tamils for a sovereign Tamil Eelam, enabling Eelam Tamils living all over the world to take part,” he said.
