The rice battle to commemorate Tamils

Police and Sinhala nationalist groups have again attacked the distribution of porridge with which the Hindu minority remembers being starved in the final siege of the war that ended 15 years ago. Outrage from activists of all religions to AsiaNews: without memory there can be no reconciliation

Kandy (AsiaNews) - Once again this year in Sri Lanka, 18th May - the day on which Tamils remember the victims of the long civil war that ended 15 years ago - was heavily marked by acts of repression against this memory. This has raised protests from many members of civil society, who see the remembrance of so many innocent dead as an indispensable step towards true reconciliation.

To commemorate their relatives who died in the war, the Tamil population on 18 May prepares and distributes kanji, a rice porridge in memory of the victims. The gesture recalls the fact that in the final stages of the 30-year war that ended in 2009, thousands of innocent Tamil citizens faced severe food shortages.

All relief services, including the Red Cross, were prevented from entering the war zones and only the limited amount of rice provided by the government helped to stave off hunger. All the rice was harvested and with the water from the sea this porridge was prepared without even salt. In this way, thousands of people survived starvation.

However, this kind of remembrance was again suppressed by the Sri Lankan police in many cases. Three women who were organising this initiative at a Hindu Sampur temple in Trincomalee were brutally tortured and arrested by the police, who entered their homes during the night. In Colombo, too, these commemorations were threatened by racist Sinhala-Buddhist groups and the police.

Several personalities of all denominations have expressed their outrage at these incidents to AsiaNews. Buddhist Ven. Yatawatte Dhammananda Thero, Deputy Secretary of the Kandy District of Sri Lanka Amarapura Maha Sngha Sabha, said: ‘In the war people have lost their lives on both sides. We are saddened that a large number of Tamils have died because of this conflict.

The commemorations are not for those who joined the Tamil militias, but for the innocent people who died. Remembering them is not an act of terrorism: I see nothing wrong with it, to prevent it is a great injustice’.

‘I still remember the 1983 riots well,’ adds Siddique Hajjiar, president of the Federation of Muslim Mosques in the Kandy District. ‘How many people were burnt on the road? For thirty years, lives and property have been destroyed in our country. What have we achieved? The current crisis is the result of that war. And there is nothing wrong in commemorating the Tamils who died in this way.’

‘Let us take an example from other places where genocides have taken place and memory is being reckoned with,’ Sr Deepa Fernando, social justice activist and educator, tells AsiaNews. ‘In Rwanda, many Catholic churches have been named places of remembrance for those who were killed.

In Norway, the island called Utoya, the scene of a heinous terrorist attack where 77 young people lost their lives, has become a place where people who are facing various mental suffering, confusion and illnesses can express their grief and achieve mental healing’.

‘Remembrance is a long-term healing process,’ concludes Kumara Illangasinghe, Anglican Bishop Emeritus and human rights activist, ‘to ease the burden, pain and suffering of those affected. If we do not allow this, we do them a great injustice. Our country is blessed with four major religions. None of these religions teach to oppress people, to harm them, to destroy lives. To harass them. Therefore, these people should have the right to remember their dead relatives’.