Colombo: Sri Lanka’s Tamil-dominated Northern province today commemorated the civilians who died during the civil war between the LTTE and the army on the 7th anniversary of the end of the three-decade long brutal conflict, with chief minister C V Wigneswaran asserting that “not everyone who died during the war was a terrorist.”
Addressing a ceremony held at Vellamullivaikkal in the northeastern Mullaithivu district to mark the seventh death anniversary of the civilians who died during the civil war, Wigneswaran said, “Not everyone who died during the war was a terrorist. We are here to commemorate the civilians. It is necessary to seek out what appened to these people since a lot of civilians lost their lives due to the war.”
Wigneswaran said those in the South of the country interpreted the commemoration ceremony as a “tribute to the terrorists” who were killed during the conflict. A five-minute silence was observed in memory of the victims as well as religious observances.
A similar commemoration was also held in the Jaffna University. The government has banned the commemoration of the fallen LTTE cadres in the conflict. The LTTE remains a banned terrorist organisation in Sri Lanka. Government forces killed the Tamil Tiger rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran on May 18, 2009 after a brutal military crackdown, and declared an end to the 37-year conflict which claimed at least 100,000 lives.
President Maithripala Sirisena took power in January 2015 promising reconciliation, to reduce the military’s involvement in public life and pledging that those guilty of war crimes would be held accountable. The new government has abandoned a controversial military “victory” parade for a more sombre remembrance ceremony to
mark the day. Earlier, parades celebrated the victory of the Sinhalese military over the minority Tamils, who were banned from remembering their dead as commemoration of fallen rebels was thought anti-state.
