The Long Road from Grief to Justice
by GEO LENS Substack, July 20, 2025
This July, the world marked the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, where over 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were massacred in July 1995. It remains Europe’s most horrifying atrocity since the Holocaust, recognised by international tribunals as genocide.
But for the Tamil people of Sri Lanka, whose loved ones were decimated in Mullivaikkal during the final months of the island’s civil war in 2009, there has been no such global recognition, let alone justice. Their wound is not just recent—it is unhealed.
Two Tragedies, Two Outcomes
Both Srebrenica and Mullivaikkal represent genocidal violence—deliberate acts against unarmed civilians. But only one has received the moral and legal acknowledgement it deserves.
In Srebrenica, years of survivor testimony, forensic evidence, and political advocacy led to the conviction of war criminals, global memorials, and the UN’s adoption of July 11 as the International Day of Reflection on the Srebrenica Genocide.
In May 2009, the final months of Sri Lanka’s decades-long civil war culminated in the deaths of tens of thousands of Tamil civilians in the northeastern town of Mullivaikkal. According to a 2011 UN Panel of Experts report, at least 40,000 civilians were killed. Other estimates go even higher. The survivors have testimonies. The mass graves are known. The trauma is alive. But the world, by and large, has yet to acknowledge the scale of what happened.
The stories of Srebrenica and Mullivaikkal are not identical, but they echo one another in profound ways: targeted ethnic violence, denial by perpetrators, and a community left to shoulder the burden of truth alone. What makes the difference is not just the scale of violence but the persistence of remembrance and legal clarity.
So, what can Tamil survivors and their allies learn from Srebrenica?
The Power of Recognition
Srebrenica became a symbol of genocide not because the world knew it instantly, but because survivors, human rights defenders, journalists, and international courts pushed relentlessly for the truth. The mothers of Srebrenica campaigned for decades. Their grief turned into organized advocacy. Their testimonies were turned into evidence.
In contrast, Tamil survivors have faced not only neglect but active suppression. In Sri Lanka, memorials are demolished, journalists harassed, and the narrative tightly controlled. It was only in the diaspora, especially in Canada, that remembrance found space to breathe.
A Step Forward in Brampton, Canada
Yet amidst this silence, rays of justice are emerging, led by the Tamil diaspora.
In May 2025, after years of advocacy and delay, the Tamil Genocide Memorial was unveiled in Brampton, Ontario, a city home to more than 12,000 Tamil Canadians.
The unveiling at Chinguacousy Park was met with tears, applause, and cannons of confetti. The 4.8-metre stainless steel monument—depicting the historical Tamil homeland—now stands as a powerful symbol of remembrance, healing, and dignity.
Mayor Patrick Brown, who pledged to build the memorial after the destruction of one in Sri Lanka in 2021, spoke to the crowd:
“Many of the civilians that escaped came to Canada as part of our national story. We remember the atrocities that the community went through.”
The National Council of Canadian Tamils, which helped fund and now maintains the memorial, described it as a place to gather, mourn, and affirm that Tamil lives matter.
But even this act of public remembrance was not without resistance.
The Sri Lankan High Commission and affiliated groups attempted to block the memorial, objecting to its explicit reference to genocide. They insisted it should instead honour “all lives lost,” a tactic aimed at erasing culpability and creating moral equivalence between genocidal state violence and insurgent resistance. But survivors, human rights scholars, and Canadian legislators refused to be silenced.
Tamil Genocide Education Week: An Institutional Response
Canada is also leading on institutional memory and education.
Each year, the province of Ontario observes Tamil Genocide Education Week from May 11 to 18, culminating on May 18, now federally recognised as Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day.
This legislation acknowledges the systemic campaign of violence, marginalisation, and extermination Tamil people have endured since Sri Lanka’s independence, from the Sinhala Only Act of 1956 to repeated pogroms and ultimately the brutal climax at Mullivaikkal in 2009.
“The Tamil genocide didn’t start in 2009, and it didn’t end there either,” reads the Ontario proclamation. “It is a decades-long assault on Tamil identity, land, language, and life itself.”
Such recognition offers not just validation, but a path forward: it invites public education, institutional accountability, and a firm rebuttal to denial.
Why Recognition Still Matters
In the case of Srebrenica, it took a decade of legal and political pressure before the international community accepted the truth. Today, the world learns about Srebrenica in schools, visits memorials, and names perpetrators.
This is not revenge—it is recognition. It is justice.
But for Tamils, the path is steeper:
- Mass graves like Chemmani remain uninvestigated.
- UN evidence sits idle, with no international tribunal for Sri Lanka.
- Sri Lanka continues to deny genocide, falsely portraying Tamil commemorations as glorification of terrorism.
- Survivors in the north and east of Sri Lanka are still under surveillance, still fighting to memorialise their dead.
As recently as 2025, the Sri Lankan state and its diaspora allies attempted to suppress even diaspora remembrance, trying to delegitimise the Brampton memorial as “pro-LTTE.” This is a dangerous conflation. The Tamil people are not synonymous with the LTTE, and honouring the civilian dead is not an endorsement of militancy.
What Tamils Can Learn From Srebrenica
Srebrenica offers a model not only for justice, but for how truth triumphs over denial:
- Build Legal Cases: Survivors must continue collecting affidavits, satellite imagery, and forensic data. Groups like PEARL and the International Truth and Justice Project are doing vital groundwork.
- Demand Political Will: Diaspora advocacy must target international bodies, seeking UN-mandated investigations, referrals to the ICC, or a special tribunal.
- Invest in Memory Infrastructure: Museums, oral history archives, digital timelines, and academic partnerships can ensure Tamils tell their own story.
- Challenge Genocide Denial: Whether it comes from governments or online trolls, denial must be met with facts, compassion, and resilience. Brampton’s memorial is one such rebuttal.
- Forge Global Solidarity: Tamil survivors must connect with Bosniaks, Yazidis, Rwandans, and Uyghurs. Justice moves faster when victims stand together.
The Moral Mandate
It is not “anti-Sri Lanka” to seek justice. It is pro-humanity.
If the world could recognise Srebrenica as genocide, it can—and must—do the same for Mullivaikkal. The scale of killing, the intent, and the aftermath all meet the legal and moral thresholds.
By denying this truth, Sri Lanka isn’t protecting its people—it is dishonouring its dead and dehumanising survivors.
As Brampton’s memorial reminds us, memory is not terrorism. Mourning is not sedition. And the truth is not negotiable.
It is time to listen.
It is time to act.
History is watching. Memory is political. Justice is possible—but only if we keep telling the truth.
This article is written by Arun Arokianathan, an Asia Journalism Fellow and Chevening SAJP Fellow. As a non-native English writer, I openly acknowledge using AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity to help refine my ideas, conduct research, organize my thoughts, generate images, and polish the final piece, so that my perspective could speak clearly to fellow right-thinking people around the world.