Ilankai Tamil Sangam, USA, was officially represented at this event, where over 45 International Organisations participated. The assembly took place in front of the UN building in New York City.

The theme of the rally was to urge the UN to turn "Words into Deeds."

Special guest speakers from several Human Rights Organizations, including the well known Chinese human rights activist Harry Wu, graced the occasion.

Participating organizations included those from Tibet, East Timor, Zapatistas, Kurdistan, Mongolia, Tamil Eelam (Sri Lanka), and the War Resisters League, Jews Against Genocide, Peace Action, the Brehon Law Society and many more.

Two banners seen in the crowd, among those urging "Free Tibet" and "UN Speak Out", were those that said "Stop the Genocide of Tamils" and "Help the 500,000 Tamil refugees".

As an invited speaker, Mr. V. Rudrakumaran Esq., a human rights lawyer practicing in New York, reflected on the genocidal conditions prevalent in the Northeast provinces in the island of Sri Lanka.

He referred to the case of General Pinochet in the United Kingdom, and drew parallels between Pinochet’s actions during his authority in Chile and the of members of the Sri Lankan government and its military.

The Sri Lankan government and the state armed forces in that island have been responsible for the death of over 50,000 Tamil civilians, innumerable unaccounted disappearances, hundreds of rapes and the recently discovered mass graves in Chemmani in the Tamil homelands.