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As protesters rallied at Queen's Park, the Tamils' plight dominated the weekly Liberal caucus meeting, with MPPs urging Premier Dalton McGuinty to support a politically loyal community.

Behind closed doors Tuesday, MPP after MPP reminded the premier that the 200,000-strong Tamil community has long backed the Liberals, voting en masse and volunteering in campaigns.

"If we're not careful, there are at least five ridings we could lose if the Tamils go over to the NDP. ... They work very hard for us," warned one MPP.
 

Thousands of defiant Tamils and their supporters once again clogged downtown roads and brought traffic to a standstill as a daylong protest spilled into the streets from Queen's Park late yesterday.

And for the first time, signs of blatant anti-Tamil sentiments emerged in the form of an aircraft that circled the Legislature for 20 minutes dragging a sign that read: "Protect Canada Stop Tamil Tigers!"

The message incensed the large crowd and gave the police some tense minutes just before 4 p.m.

"It's not a smart thing to do," said Staff Insp. Don Campbell of the circling aircraft. "All it's doing is fuelling the crowd. It's inciting them."

About 60 anti-Tamil protesters on a footbridge spanning the Don Valley Parkway north of Gerrard St. held a similar banner in the evening. They said a wealthy local Sinhalese who wants to remain anonymous paid for the airplane and the two banners, but they denied links to the Sri Lankan government.

Members of Toronto's Sri Lankan community used a banner pulled behind a plane in the sky and a banner and placards over the Don Valley Parkway today to express their fear the Tamil community will bring Tamil Tiger violence to Canada.

"We want Toronto to be safe. The Tamil Tigers are controlling the Sri Lankan community in Canada and their agenda is the only one being heard. We feel we are being controlled," said Kumar Gunasekera, one of about 50 people who waved placards and hung a banner over the Don Valley footbridge to Riverdale during this evening's rush hour.

The airplane pulling another banner circled over the huge Queen's Park demonstration, enraging the protesters crowded there. The banners read: "Protect Canada - Stop the Tamil Tigers." The demonstrators at the Don Valley bridge said they represent more than 50,000, until now, silent Sinhalese Canadians. "What should be of real concern is the 1,000 cadres of Tamil Tigers in the GTA and the violence we have yet to see here," he added.

The bridge demonstrators were members of the Sri Lankan Youth of Canada and the Sir Lankan United National Association.They said today's airplane message was paid for by private citizens, and neither the Sri Lankan government nor consulate in Toronto. "We only hear one side of the story and it is the Tamil agenda," said Eranga De-Zoysa, a Ryerson architectural science student."They have ruined their motherland and now that Canada has offered them shelter they are ruining it here," added his mother Badra De-Zoysa.

The banners and placards urged Canadians to not accept the Tamil Tiger agenda and not cave into terrorism.

(New York) - New satellite imagery and eyewitness accounts contradict Sri Lankan government claims that its armed forces are no longer using heavy weapons in the densely populated conflict area in northern Sri Lanka, Human Rights Watch said today.

Local sources have reported that more than 400 civilians have been killed and more than 1,000 wounded since May 9, 2009, as a result of artillery attacks on the thin coastal strip where fighting continues between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

"Recent satellite photos and witness accounts show the brutal shelling of civilians in the conflict area goes on," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Neither the Sri Lankan army nor the Tamil Tigers appear to have any reluctance in using civilians as cannon fodder."

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) today issued a preliminary analysis of commercial high-resolution satellite imagery of the conflict zone that shows craters from the use of heavy weapons and the removal of thousands of likely structures used by internally displaced persons (IDPs) between May 6 and May 10. The AAAS found that it was "certainly unlikely that the IDPs would have moved en masse, and so completely without a compelling reason." Tens of thousands of civilians remain trapped in the conflict area.

The US and UK have urged Sri Lanka's government and Tamil Tiger rebels to stop fighting "immediately" and allow an evacuation of trapped civilians.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her UK counterpart David Miliband also expressed alarm at the large number of reported civilian casualties.
[...]
The US and UK have urged Sri Lanka's government and Tamil Tiger rebels to stop fighting "immediately" and allow an evacuation of trapped civilians.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her UK counterpart David Miliband also expressed alarm at the large number of reported civilian casualties.

Accusing Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa of abdicating his responsibility to save civilians in restive north, Tamil Americans
here have asked US President Barack Obama to send his forces to the strife-torn nation to save the lives of innocent people.

"This is pure and simple genocide. We are asking Obama administration to intervene to save the Tamils of Sri Lanka
by sending its army there. The Rajapaksa government has abdicated its responsibility to protect its Tamil citizens," alleged Elias Jeyarajah, leader of the protesting Tamil Americans.
[...]
"We are asking unilateral action by the 'Coalition of the Willing' led by the US to intervene in Sri Lanka to stop the genocide that is going on right now," he said.

Stating that thousands of innocent Tamil civilians were being killed by the Sri Lankan government, Jeyarajah said that this is the time and place to enforce 'Responsibility to Protect' provision of the United Nations.

"We urge all other countries including Britain and France to join this Coalition of the Willing," he said, adding civilized nations have the responsibility to protect when genocide happens.

The protestors also alleged that India was not coming forward to protect the Sri Lankan Tamils.

"This is the reason why the Tamils world over are urging other major countries of the world to save and protect the innocent Tamils by sending their troops to Sri Lanka," Jeyarajah said.

(New York) - The Sri Lankan armed forces have repeatedly struck hospitals in the northern Vanni region in indiscriminate artillery and aerial attacks, Human Rights Watch said today. Commanders responsible for ordering or conducting such attacks may be prosecuted for war crimes.

Patients, medical staff, aid workers, and other witnesses have provided Human Rights Watch with information about at least 30 attacks on permanent and makeshift hospitals in the combat area since December 2008. One of the deadliest took place on May 2, when artillery shells struck Mullaivaikal hospital in the government-declared "no-fire zone," killing 68 persons and wounding 87.

One Tamil protester told The Canadian Press the government is trying to use the flag to distract the public from their inaction towards the crisis in Sri Lanka.

"We can see that they are using the flag kind of like a shield to kind of divert any bad situation," said Siva Vimal, 20.

The red flags in questions feature a tiger jumping through a ring of fire under two crossed rifles. Vimal said the flags are a symbol of the Tamil Eelam movement, not the Tamil Tigers.

He said the writing on the flag that linked the flag to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was removed in 1990 when it came to represent the Tamil Eelam.

Tamil supporters in Canada have told the media repeatedly that they will not stop their protests until the government speaks out against the civil war in Sri Lanka that has killed thousands of Tamil civilians.

Oda told Canada AM that the Conservatives have taken "significant steps" by calling for a ceasefire for months.

She said she is sympathetic to Tamil Canadians and their fears they have for their families and friends who live in the conflict zone back in their homeland.

"I think the international community all face the same frustrations," she said. "We don't have the ability to get accurate information or numbers. It's so frustrating because journalists and humanitarian workers are all being prevented from entering the conflict zone."

"We need unhindered access to provide humanitarian workers into those camps to help those victims," she said.

It has taken a while for non-Tamil support to build because of the confusion about the role of the Tamil Tigers.   The discourse on the war on terror has allowed goverments like ours to ignore massive slaughter of civilians by oppressive states in the name of fighting terrorism.  Moreover the Tamil Tigers have committed atrocities.  But whatever our concerns about the Tigers it is critical to separate the human rights issues from the political ones.
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We have a special responsibility to mobilize support for the Tamil community in Canada as they are the largest Tamil diaspora in the world.  So please take a moment to express your support by writing your MP, calling in to talk shows, writing letters to the editor , joining the demonstrations, whatever you can do.

Moreover, we can learn from the Tamil activists who have be organizing for months, escalating their tactics in face of silence from the government.  First they organized  protests on the sidewalk in Toronto, where most of them live, then they took their protest to Ottawa, where they had thousands of people on the Hill for days.  Finally when they agreed to take down their flags only Jack Layton spoke in support. When that didn't get more of an impact they sat down in front of the US Consulate for an entire week. That's when they started getting more attention from the media, from other community organizations and from some politicians.

Yesterday I was assisting at a Q and A for Velcrow Ripper's fantastic film about combining spirit and activism, Fierce Light, opening in theatres on May 15, and someone asked, "What can we do in Canada, where people are so complacent"  I pointed out that at that very moment there were people demonstrating at Queen's Park to stop a genocide in Sri Lanka and he could join them.  Over the last year,  we have seen massive protests by Tamils, Palestinians and Burmese. The 20th anniversary of the massacre at Tienamen Square is coming up on June 4.  Unlike when I was young and demonstrating against the war in Viet Nam, today the people from the conflict regions of the world are our neighbours.  Their struggle is our struggle.  Talking about the global village may be a cliche but the global city is a reality and Toronto is in the forefront.  We are all Tamils.