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Thousands Form Human Chain To Protest Sri Lankan Violence
A day after thousands of demonstrators descended on University Avenue to protest the growing humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka, thousands more formed a human chain to the same end, one that stretched through an astounding portion of the downtown core.
By noon Friday as many as 10,000 Sri Lankan-Canadians were linking arms from Yonge and Bloor to Union Station and back up University to St. George trying to bring attention to the escalating civil war and urge Ottawa to step in on behalf of an estimated 250,000 civilians trapped in the war-torn north.
"Today we are out here to tell the Canadian community that this kind of genocide is happening in Sri Lanka right now and we need to put an end to it," insisted organizer Shyanthy Thevarajah.
In recent months, the conflict between the Singhalese-dominated government and the rebels - who have been fighting for a separate homeland for ethnic Tamils in northern Sri Lanka since 1983 - has spiraled out of control.
Heavy battles between the two sides have driven the rebels out of major towns, and they are now cornered in a 300-square kilometre area of jungle and villages in the northeast.
Nearly all communication to the area has been cut off. And with the government preventing aid workers and international journalists from entering the zone, there's little knowledge of how dire the situation really is.
Sri Lanka's president has pledged safe passage for trapped residents and challenged the rebels to do the same. And although the UN is accusing both sides of committing grave violations, protestors in Toronto say they simply want the bloodshed to end.
"We just want people to recognize the humanitarian crisis that's going on in Sri Lanka. We want the international community to actually speak up. And we want the Sri Lankan government to immediately call a ceasefire to stop the war," stressed Aranee Muru of the Coalition To Stop The War.
Meanwhile, Ajanthan Kanpathipillai revealed how the conflict had affected him personally.
"My family's been affected. My aunt's there ... I've lived in the war area. And right now, it's getting very, very bad. There's a lack of media attention, and there's lack of knowledge in the international community."
The conflict has prompted Tamil leaders around the world to speak out in the hopes of a negotiated peace settlement.
More than 70,000 people have been killed during the 25-year civil war.
The intensity of Friday's demonstration was underscored by its length. After a full day out in the cold some 5,000 rally attendees still stood in the streets, snaking down to flood Union Station ahead of rush hour.
Police were forced to close down Front St. between York and Bay, as the peaceful crowd swelled.
Similar protests uptown also caused major overcrowding on subway stations from Bloor on down.
Things were so crowded at the busy Bloor hub that trains were forced to stop before entering the station to ensure safety.
Photos: Michael Talbot, CityNews.ca
As Many As 10,000 Protestors Create Commuter Chaos At Union Station During Afternoon Rush Hour
It has been an extraordinary day in the downtown core, a spectacle rarely if ever seen in this city. The cause: a day long downtown-wide massive protest by Canadian Sri Lankans, designed to attract attention to what they call acts of genocide in their homeland.
The human chain demonstration stretched from Bloor St. to University Ave. and Yonge St. and snaked all the way to Front.
But it was at that final destination that the crowds truly tried to make their point. As many 5-10,000 people wound up at Union Station, causing such an overwhelming sea of humanity that police were forced to close off the roadway for a time.
Mounted units, traffic cops and even the RIDE spotcheck command post were all called into action while chaos prevailed around the transit hub. The assembled multitude was peaceful, a remarkable achievement for such a large gathering, but it was inside the typical transit hubs where chaos reigned.
Police were able to finally open a small corridor to allow pedestrians and travellers to get through.
A man named George was one of those caught in the gridlock while attending a library convention downtown. He didn't seem to mind the inconvenience it caused. "I'll support the protesters, it's a good cause," he confirms. "But, you know what? There's thousands of people that have been affected."
But while police did their best to clear the way, when commuters finally did get down to Union Station it was hardly clear sailing. It was so crowded in the subway the line waiting to get in stretched all the way back to the area where passengers pay their fares.
And it was almost as bad uptown. Busy Bloor Station was so filled with passengers, the TTC was forced to stop all its trains before they entered the station to ensure safety.
It was a long day for authorities, who were hopping since the protest began earlier in the morning. Drivers were also affected, as the protestors kept to the sidewalk but provided an endless visual distraction for blocks.
It was an amazing sight, all the more so because it stayed so peaceful. "There are probably thousands, tens of thousands of Tamils here all trying to bring some attention to their cause," confirmed CityNews reporter Francis D'Souza at the height of the madness. "You can see them on the street corners here trying to hand out pamphlets just to let people know what they're actually talking about."
He believes they more than achieved their aims. "Their message is 'stop Tamil genocide in Sri Lanka.' If that's what they wanted, that's what they're getting right now. Because the hundreds of thousands of commuters who use Union Station every day are trying to get through and listening to their message."
How busy was it at the height of the protest? D'Souza reveals he was forced to get out of the CityNews vehicle and walk to the scene. His cameraman and all his equipment didn't get through the gridlock until 25 minutes later.
The protestors had promised their massive march would end at 6pm. True to their word, as the dinner hour struck, the crowds slowly began to disperse and left the area, creating yet more headaches for an already swollen public transit system.
Tamils forms human chain in downtown T.O.
Updated: Fri Jan. 30 2009 6:28:21 PM
ctvtoronto.ca
Heavy crowds protesting the situation in Sri Lanka gathered outside Union Station on Front Street on Friday, Jan. 29, 2009.
The protesters attempt to construct a roughly 5-kilometre human chain in Toronto on Friday, Jan. 30, 2009.
By 6:30 p.m., Front Street had cleared, allowing traffic to flow again.
Friday's event was the second major protest on Toronto's streets in the last 24 hours, with a large protest held downtown on Thursday night.
The protesters were attempting to construct a human chain from Yonge and Bloor Streets to Union station on Front Street before travelling back up University Avenue to Bloor Street. That distance is about five kilometres.
They held up signs with messages such as "Stop the Tamil genocide in Sri Lanka." They could be heard chanting "We want justice!" as media vehicles drove by.
Const. Wendy Drummond of the Toronto Police told ctvtoronto.ca that the demonstrators had been very peaceful and orderly, although they worried about the prospect of congestion when the demonstration breaks up. She said police don't provide crowd estimates.
A civil war has ebbed and flowed in Sri Lanka since 1983. The rebels, formally known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, are fighting for a separate Tamil homeland in the country's north.
Tamils are a minority in Sri Lanka, which sits just over 30 kilometres offshore from the south tip of India. The Sinhalese form the majority. They are Buddhists. Tamils tend to be either Hindu or Roman Catholic. Tamils speak Tamil while the Sinhalese speak Sinhala.
According to Statistics Canada's 2006 census, just under 94,000 people in the GTA claim Tamil as their mother tongue. About 5,800 claim Sinhala.
In 2002, the combatants signed a ceasefire agreement brokered by Norway, with peace talks failing in 2006 -- the same year the Canadian government declared the Tamil Tigers to be a terrorist organization (the U.S. made the declaration in 1997).
In January 2008, the Sri Lankan government withdrew from the ceasefire agreement, with fighting subsequently escalating in the last 12 months. In September, it ordered the withdrawal of UN and most humanitarian organizations from the conflict zone in the country's northeast.
Earlier this month, government forces captured Kilinochchi, long a Tamil Tigers stronghold. Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse called on the rebels to surrender.
But the battling is taking a toll on non-combatants.
On Wednesday, Human Rights Watch called on both sides to allow an estimated 250,000 civilians trapped in the conflict zone safe passage out and to allow them to obtain desperately needed humanitarian aid.
HRW, one of the world's major human rights watchdogs, has accused the Tigers of not allowing civilians to flee. When they do flee, the Sri Lankan military has arrested those civilians and slapped them in militarized detention camps.
"Civilians are scrambling for shelter in an area that is under heavy artillery fire, including many children, wounded, and elderly who need urgent assistance," said Brad Adams, HRW's Asia director. "The UN and concerned governments should press Sri Lanka to take all necessary steps to spare civilians from harm."
The full picture isn't emerging because the Sri Lankan government has slapped restrictions on the movement of journalists and human rights monitors.
The Sri Lankan military has claimed it has killed no civilians and is only targeting rebel forces.
Immigration Reporter
Thousands of Tamils from across Greater Toronto formed a human chain stretching along Front Street and up University Avenue this afternoon to protest against what they call the genocide of the Tamil people in their homeland, Sri Lanka.
Many held up copies of photographs of children maimed and killed in the violence. Others wore armbands or carried banners denouncing the deaths of civilians in this latest bloody phase of a civil war that has gone on for a generation.
The Red Cross in Sri Lanka said today there are 250,000 civilians trapped in an area of jungle and villages in the north, which is dominated by the Tamils, who are a minority in the rest of the country.
The government insists there are fewer than 120,000 civilians in the war zone and has denied reports of 300 civilians killed in fighting.
University of Toronto graduate student Supanki Kalanadan, who helped organize the massive rally, said the only hope now is for a ceasefire.
"People have no access to food or shelter," she said. "Everyone here has someone back there who is affected."
Similar demonstrations were planned for Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary.
In Toronto, Tamil Catholics planned a 12-hour night vigil starting tonight at 8 at the Church of St. Joseph and Our Lady of Health, 172 Leslie St.
Toronto is home to the largest concentration of Tamils outside of Sri Lanka.
Tamil student associations from universities and high schools in Greater Toronto helped mobilize people because, said Kalanadan, "we were lucky to have been educated here and to grow up with Canadian freedoms. We respect the Charter of Rights and we want the rights of Tamil people respected, too."
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said top U.N. officials were "seriously alarmed" about the fate of civilians in the north.
More than 70,000 people have been killed in the civil war, which grew out of complaints by Tamils who have suffered decades of marginalization at the heads of successive governments controlled by the Sinhalese majority.
Sri Lankan protesters take over downtown Toronto
Many carried photographs of children killed in the fighting. Others, held banners denouncing what they call the genocide of the Tamil people in their homeland. Demonstrators say the international community has ignored the violence for far too long.
Listen to CFRB's Katie Franzios' report.
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