Our World Realities Differ : Remembering May 2009

Written By: Mathusan Mahalingam

Do a simple Google image search for ‘May’. What comes up? Beautiful flowers and symbols that all point to a month of happiness. Now search ‘May Massacre Tamils.’ See what comes up. This is why the reality of the month of May differs for Tamils. May no longer is a happy month, a month of happiness and flowers, but rather it a month of mourning, loss and sadness.

What is May Massacre?

Today marks the 5th year remembrance of May Massacre. 5 years ago during this time, the Sri-Lankan government engaged in a heightened program of genocide marked by murder, abductions, rape and denial of food and medicine to Tamils in Mullivaykal. This was a systematic program aimed at the physical destabilization and elimination of Tamils through murder and rape. Murdering able bodied men and boys is a way to prevent a community from fighting against genocide – it destabilizes the physical threat of a community to protect its rights, and that is why during May 2009, men were the primary targets when it came to killing. If you followed closely, men were targeted and ‘shipped’ off to different camps than women during May 2009, and this was a way of easily separating them and eliminating them.

Women have been targeted in genocide in another way; the destruction and degradation of their bodies have been used as an instrument of genocide. Sri-Lanka used the rape of Tamil women as a tool of genocide. In many cultures, like the Tamil culture, women are the ones who bear the honor of their societies. Targeting their honor, and defiling a women’s body is a way in which perpetrators of genocide can terrorize a community. Raping women produces three outcomes perpetrators hope will happen. Firstly, it undermines the ability for the biological reproduction of a targeted group. If the perpetrators are of a different ethnicity, race, or tribe, then by raping the women of the targeted community, the biological reproduction of the targeted population is stilled.

READ MORE INSIDE