Colombo's desecration of Tamil Heroes Cemetery comes to light as SLA vacates Kanakapuram

The occupying SL military destroyed Tamil War Heroes Cemetery (Maaveerar Thuyilum Illam) at Kanakapuram in Ki’linochchi in January 2009, desecrating the buried bodies of Tamil fighters in an inhumane manner and bulldozing all the tombstones. Hundreds of destroyed tombstones were used as stones for SL military driveways in the occupied Ki’linochchi. In 2013, as the people started to resettle, the elected Divisional Council of Karaichchi division resolved to transform the destroyed Heroes Cemetery into a park as the 10-acres land was originally a property of the civic body. Within a few days of the declaration, the SL military fenced off the lands to block the move and deployed the area for military use. Last week, the SL military finally vacated from the grounds and reporters were able to witness the extent of desecration and destruction caused by the SL military.



“There will be no reconciliation with genocidal Sri Lanka before it issues a public apology and declares our Tamil fighters as freedom fighters,” said a mother of a war dead Tamil fighter, whose remains were buried at Kanakapuram during the times of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) .

All the Heroes Cemeteries maintained by the LTTE in the North and East had been completely razed to the ground by the Sinhala military and all the graves, memorial plaques and the dais where the Common Flame is lit on Heroes Day have been totally destroyed.

After 2009, the occupying Sinhala military created military bases at many of the Tamil Heroes cemeteries. Some of the lands belonging to Tamil Heroes Cemeteries have even been sold to corporate owners from South during the Rajapaksa regime.

Kanakapuram at Ki’linochci is one of the few to be retrieved by a civil authority elected by Tamils, at least in destroyed state.

In Vanni, there were at least ten Tamil War Heroes Cemeteries, known as Maaveerar Thuyilum Illamss.

These Heroes cemeteries were located in Aa'ndaangku’lam, Aadkaaddive'li and Pa’ndivirichchaan in Mannaar, Kanakapuram and Muzhangkaavil in Ki’linochchi district, Uduththu’rai in Vadamaraadchi East of Jaffna district, Eachchangku’lam in Vavuniyaa and four at Vanni-vizhaangku’lam, Visuvamadu, A’lampil, and Mu’l’liyava’lai of Mullaiththeevu district.

The ‘Sri Lanka’ Army bulldozed the Heroes Cemetery at Visuvamadu between March and April 2009.

The SLA captured Tamil civilians of Vanni, who were made to pass through Visuvamadu on 21st of April 2009, before reaching internment camps in Vavuniyaa, had witnessed the complete destruction of the largest Maaveerar Thuyilum illam in Visuvamadu, where more than 4,000 war dead Tamil fighters had been buried by the Tigers.

Tamil circles view the systematic destruction of Tamil war heroes' cemeteries and the symbols of the Tamil struggle in North and East as part of a large-scale genocide programme on Tamils by the Sri Lankan state.