‘PRAMESH gets weaker every day but his spirits are high,’ 18-year-old student Janani Paramsothy, told News Line yesterday on the 24-hour picket on the edge of Westminster Green opposite the Houses of Parliament yesterday.
She was speaking about brave young Tamil Parameswaran Subramaniyan, who has been on hunger strike for 12 days, demanding an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Sri Lanka.
‘Foreign Secretary David Miliband, along with the French foreign secretary has said the Tamil Tigers are using civilians as human shields, but more than half the people in the Vanni region are refugees who have been displaced from their homes where the SLA (Sri Lankan Army) has been bombing them.
‘They’ve gone there to be protected under the LTTE and therefore the people’s wish is not to leave. I’ve no words to express the anger and outrage at what these politicians are saying. They are hypocrites.’
Shan Senthil, an engineer from Ilford, Essex, said: ‘The British saying the Tigers are using civilians as a human shield is completely untrue, all the foreign media is completely banned from the Vanni region while the SLA is bombing civilians. The Tamil people in Sri Lanka and all over the world support the Tamil Tigers.’
Rathivarman Soundararasha, a student at the University of East London, said: ‘The British trade unions have to stand up and fight for the Tamil people.’
Fellow UEL student, 21-year-old Gobynath Nithiyanatham, said: ‘I lived in Sri Lanka for 20 years. I came to Britain last year. When I lived in Sri Lanka I was displaced twice. Then I lived for seven years in areas ruled by the Tamil Tigers and I was very happy to live under their rule.
‘Today more than 300,000 people are confined in the so-called “safe zone” which the SLA is bombing with shells, chemical weapons, phosphorus shells and cluster bombs.’
