Removal of war victims’ memorial at Jaffna University sparks tension

A tense situation continued at the Jaffna University on Saturday, as dozens of locals, students, and politicians gathered overnight, protesting the removal of a war memorial on campus. According to students and eyewitnesses, on Friday night university authorities bulldozed a sculpture, of hands held out of water, erected in memory of several thousand civilians brutally killed in the final phase of the civil war in 2009, in Mullivaikkal in Sri Lanka’s northern Mullaitivu district. “We heard about this move to destroy the memorial and I rushed from my home in Vavuniya and got here at 2 a.m. Students and some local politicians had gathered here, and there was a heavy police presence,” said Pakianathan Ujanthan, President of the Jaffna Students’ Union. I received multiple instructions from higher authorities, and this was discussed at several meetings with the university’s capital works, engineering and maintenance departments,” said University Vice-Chancellor S. Srisatkunarajah, who assumed charge in August 2020. While defending affected families’ right to remember the dead, some within the Tamil community, including university academics, have in the past questioned the “politicisation” of memorial events, in Sri Lanka’s post-war context.