Workers Revolutionary Party - 'BROWN MUST ACT TO END SLAUGHTER'

The News Line: News Tuesday, 21 April 2009 'BROWN MUST ACT TO END SLAUGHTER'

Tens of thousands joined a mass demonstration outside parliament yesterday demanding immediate action from the Brown government to stop the slaughter of Tamils by the Sri Lankan army

‘Stop killing Tamils! Brown wake up! Rajapakse – terrorist!’ shouted tens of thousands of Tamils holding a sit-down protest in the road opposite Parliament yesterday.

This was as student Parameswaran Subramaniyan continued his hunger strike against the genocide of Tamils.

At midday they held one minute’s silence.

Kumar Visvalingham of British Tamil Forum told News Line: ‘40,000 to 50,000 people are coming here today.

‘We are calling on the MPs and prime minister to do something as quickly as possible to stop the war in Sri Lanka.

‘We want to save the Tamils in Sri Lanka.

‘The British government should ask the UN to send their peacekeeping force into Sri Lanka.

‘We also want the British government to send food and medical aid urgently.

‘Tamils are starving and dying over lack of food and medicines.

‘We also want free access to the media.

‘We want India to put more pressure on Sri Lanka to stop the war.

‘India must pull out its troops.’

Petrol station worker Thaya Saba said angrily: ‘Today over 1,500 innocent Tamils were killed.
‘They are using chemical weapons.

‘Over 2,000 have been injured. They were in a small safe zone area where over 300,000 people are living.

‘The British government has to find a proper solution for us today.

‘We want a permanent ceasefire immediately to save our innocent people.’

He added: ‘We came to Britain because of this repression.

‘Today, school students and college students and office workers, shop workers, babies and elderly people – everybody is gathered here to request the British government puts pressure on the Sri Lanka government to make an immediate and permanent ceasefire.’

Premachandran Prabakaan, a petrol station manager, added: ‘Tamil people are being killed every day in Sri Lanka, a minimum is 200 every single day.

‘Today, they killed 2,000 and injured 3,000 people.

‘I want peace in my country.

‘We want the war to stop.

‘We are waiting for Gordon Brown to get Sri Lanka to make a ceasefire, very quickly.

‘We want Britain to stop donating weapons to Sri Lanka, to stop assisting the Rajapakse regime.’