Monday March 16, 2009

CityNews.ca Staff

The huge crowds that created a visual distraction along some of the city's busiest routes Monday forced police to close several streets at the height of the afternoon rush hour.

A protest by Tamil Canadians against the ongoing unrest in Sri Lanka that's left countless people dead led to swelled crowds in front of Union Station and the closure of Front St. to all vehicular traffic in both directions from York to Bay.

The hub is one of the busiest areas in the city during the rush home, but it was paralyzed by the peaceful protest for several hours before the crowds started dissipating shortly before 7pm.

York Street was also closed both ways from Front to Wellington St W.

They have all since been re-opened to traffic.

It's the latest in a series of demonstrations by the GTA's 250,000-strong Tamil population, the largest outside of Sri Lanka.

They started arriving around the noon hour, some carrying bright red flags, others sporting large signs. Many simply brought themselves or their family members. Slowly but surely, they assembled along a huge area of the downtown core, taking up residence on some of the city's biggest downtown streets.

"I don't know what happened to humanity. What's going on? Don't people care?" one frustrated protestor asked. "They let this happen in Rwanda, they let this happen in Serbia, now they are going to let this happen in Sri Lanka."

"These people are sick and tired of sitting at home and crying."

By the time the rush hour was underway in earnest, there were so many Tamil protestors on the major streets of the city that it was a visual distraction for drivers, even though the demonstrators weren't on the roads.

"It's incredibly frustrating," said driver Sylivia Bereskin, who says her car was hit due to all the distractions. "I've got three grandchildren crying. If anything it's annoying me."

Protestors were unapologetic.

"My question is what else are we supposed to do?" questioned Samuel Nithiananthan. "We have tried petitions and we have tried contacting our MPs and our MPPs, we've went outside Parliament. This is all that's left. There's forced abortions, rape, there's bombings, they're bringing people into safe zones and shooting at them and people are agitated by traffic disturbances?"

Police were out in full force to assure things went smoothly.

"We have several officers and emergency services at scene along the route to encounter any problem that may occur," said P.C. Wendy Drummond.

-- image courtesy dsuydam - TwitPic

Cries of 'genocide' and accusations of human rights abuses abound, as the well mobilized force held a giant hand-in-hand human chain rally that stretched along Bloor, Yonge, Front and across to University Ave.

A similar protest in January was peaceful, but resulted in similar chaos at Union Station, when more than 5,000 demonstrators pressed their point at the height of rush hour in that spot alone.

-- image courtesy dsuydam - TwitPic

"We have had peaceful protests in the past, and we maintained great communication with the organizers, and we have not any problems," adds Drummond.

The demonstration was indeed peaceful, but emotions were still riding high.

"My daughter-in-law, she was in the conflict zone and died," said Nehru Guna.

"There's been a lot of kidnappings and people in my family who have gone missing. We don't know what that means...If they have been kidnapped or if they are actually dead," adds protestor Narmatha Benedict.

-- image courtesy dsuydam - TwitPic