[DEBATE] : (Fwd) Tamil leader begins hunger strike in Durban on Thurs

[Patrick Bond]

Press Statement

Tamil National Alliance member and former Sri Lankan MP Mr. M. K. 
Eelaventhan, is embarking on a hunger strike, demanding that the 
international community take immediate action to stop the war against 
Tamils in Sri Lanka. Mr Eelaventhan has been in politics for sixty 
years, fighting for recognition of the political aspirations of the 
Tamils in Sri Lanka.

In his own words, Mr. Eelaventhan says that the inaction of the 
international bodies and their failure to recognize the genocide 
committed against Tamils by the Sri Lankan Government, has led him to 
question the purpose of his life at the age of seventy six when toddlers 
and even unborn babies are being brutally murdered by heavy weaponry of 
the Sri Lankan Army even within demarcated safe zones. Therefore, he is 
acting on the sentiments of the Tamil nation in Sri Lanka and around the 
world by undertaking this sacrifice. By initiating this effort on the 
soil from which the freedom struggle of the South African people was 
won, he hopes to urge world leaders and freedom fighters like Nelson 
Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu to recognize the plight of Tamils 
and take an open stand against it. His demands of the international 
community are:

A permanent ceasefire be demanded from the Sri Lankan Government with 
immediate effect
Humanitarian aid must be able to reach the affected Tamil people under 
supervision of INGO’s
Unrestricted access to the detention camps be granted to independent 
local and international NGO’s and
Peace talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam must resume to 
resolve the political question of Tamils

Mr. Eelaventhan will be commencing his fast on Thursday, 9 April 2009 at 
8:30 am at the Mariamman Temple, Mount Edgecombe in Kwa-Zulu Natal, 
South Africa. Members of the Tamil community have volunteered to join 
him and he urges the likeminded Tamil Diaspora or concerned human rights 
activists to join him simultaneously in this effort.