POINT PEDRO, Sri Lanka — M.A. Sumanthiran, acting general secretary of the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi, used a Mullivaikkal remembrance ceremony to renew calls for accountability over the final stages of Sri Lanka’s civil war, telling mourners that the mass killing of Tamil civilians must remain at the center of Tamil political consciousness.
“We will never forget, and we will never forgive,” Mr. Sumanthiran said at the gathering in Munai, Point Pedro, the fifth event of ITAK’s annual Mullivaikkal Remembrance Week.
Mr. Sumanthiran, a former parliamentarian, said the Sri Lankan state had falsely reported only 70,000 civilians trapped in Mullivaikkal during the war’s final offensive in 2009, when the actual number exceeded 400,000. He described the blocking of food supplies and the shelling of civilians as constituting a war crime.
“Amid shelling and siege, our people suffered from hunger and starvation,” he said. “That itself was a grave war crime.”
The event included the symbolic distribution of Mullivaikkal Kanji — a plain rice porridge associated with the extreme deprivation civilians endured during the army’s final push against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Mr. Sumanthiran said the ritual was meant to sustain historical memory across generations.
The ceremony drew former Northern Provincial Council member S. Sugirthan, local council chairpersons, representatives from Vadamarachchi South-West and Point Pedro, party activists, and members of the public.
Across Sri Lanka’s Tamil-majority Northern and Eastern provinces, Mullivaikkal Remembrance Week is observed through memorials, public gatherings, and acts of mourning. For many Tamils, the events of May 2009 remain a symbol of wartime loss and unresolved demands for justice.
A Shift in Tone
Mr. Sumanthiran’s rhetoric drew scrutiny from political observers, who said his posture has hardened noticeably in recent years — a shift they attributed in part to his significant electoral losses in the last parliamentary election and to an intensifying leadership contest within ITAK against rival parliamentarian S. Sritharan.
He had been widely recognized for publicly addressing contentious aspects of the LTTE’s wartime conduct — including the use of Tamil civilians as human shields, the killing of Tamils who attempted to flee the conflict zone, and the forced conscription of children.
Observers say he now appears less willing to revisit those positions publicly.
“He is becoming just another Tamil nationalist leader — but we already have many,” one political observer told Jaffna Monitor. “He did not need to become one.”
