Commemoration of war dead must be a part of search for peace

A day before the government held National War Heroes Commemoration at the National War Heroes Commemoration cenotaph in Sri Jayewardenepura Kotte, Tamil leaders particularly in the north commemorated what they call the 'Mullivaikkal Day' to remember those Tamils killed in the three-decade long separatist war.

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When a group of people attempted to hold a Mullivaikal Day commemoration at the Wellawatte beach on Sunday, another group belonging to another ethnicity had barged into the area to disrupt the event, but the police intervention prevented any untoward incident.

In the past, especially during the governments under the Rajapaksa brothers, commemorations of those killed in the war by the Tamil people along with their political leaders in the north and the east were obstructed by the armed forces and police. However, this time, as happened during the Yahapalana government, there were no reports about armed forces or police preventing Tamils in a decisive way from commemorating their loved ones killed in the war or demolishing the tombs at the graveyards of cadres of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) which the Tamil leaders call “Maveerar thulium illams” or “Abodes where the Great Heroes slumber.”