Referendum calls for independent Tamil state in Sri Lanka

(Emily Mathieu Staff Reporter Published On Sun Dec 20 2009)

Many in Canada's Sri Lankan Tamil community took part in a referendum on Saturday, with a majority of those voting in the symbolic event expected to reaffirm support for the creation of an independent state for disenfranchised relatives back home.
"The basic freedoms and rights that we have here in Canada are not being upheld in Sri Lanka," said Darshika Selvasivam, a spokesperson for the Coalition for Tamil Elections Canada, which organized the vote.
The group also wants to draw continued attention to human rights violations by the Sri Lankan government against Tamils and the stifling of the media, said Selvasivam.
On Saturday, 31 polling stations across Canada accepted votes from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on whether Tamils in Sri Lanka should be granted sovereignty. By 3:30 p.m., more than 2,020 votes had been cast at Cedarwood Public School at 399 Elson St. in Markham.
Uma Anbalavanar arrived with his wife, mother, sister-in-law and eldest daughter. "It has been a long conflict, with no end," he said. "So many innocent people are dying."
Selvasivam said Saturday's referendum was intended to echo a 1976 resolution in Sri Lanka that called for the creation of Tamil Eelam. That resolution was endorsed by an overwhelming majority of Tamils in the 1977 election, the last election before civil war broke out in the early 1980s on the island country.
As that civil war came to a violent end last spring, thousands of Tamil civilians were hurt or killed and another 250,000 were displaced.
The referendum has generated some tension in the Toronto region.
Logan Logendralingam, editor and publisher of Uthayan, a Tamil weekly, said his newspaper was removed from three shops in the GTA and replaced with pamphlets about the referendum because he did not include heavy coverage of the event.
Logendralingam, who does favour Sri Lankan Tamils being granted an independent state, feels he was targeted because he also reports on news from the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan government. His paper is distributed in about 220 locations; he plans to contact police if more papers are taken.
"This type of activity is not going to help us. It will create more divisions in the community. Our community has to be united, because Tamils in Sri Lanka have been destroyed," he said.
The Coalition for Tamil Elections Canada has a website at www.tamilelections.ca.