| An Appeal to Secretary General of UN, Bring Relief and Solace to Our Children - Rev. Fr.G.A.Francis |
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 Educational officials, students and staff of schools staged a protest against the deteriorating conditions in educational establishments in the Northeast of Sri Lanka. Vilaththikulam School Principal was killed in Mannar on 27th February. A teacher and her two children injured in the attack of Deep Penetration Unit operated by Sri Lankan Army in Mannar on 28 th February. Norwegian ambassador Hans Brattskar met with the Officials of the Zonal Education Department in Kilinochchi around 5.00pm on 5th February. At the end of the meeting a memorandum was handed over to the Secretary General of UN through the Norwegian Ambassador, by President, CAET, Rev. Fr. G. A. Francis Joseph.
The full text of the memorandum is as follows: His Excellency, the Secretary General of UN, 05th March, 2007 United Nations Organization, New York, USA . Your Excellency, An Appeal to Bring Relief and Solace to Our Children Shocked and distressed at the instantaneous death of the Principal of Mannar/ Vilaathikkulam School, Mr. Siluvairasa Arulnesan, 33 years old, and of the death, two days later, of the Divisional Director of Education of Madhu Region, Mr. Christian Rajakone, 47 years old, and saddened and perturbed by the serious injury caused to the teacher of Parappukkadanthan G.T.M. school, Mrs. Eucharista Henry Jeyam, 42 years old, and her husband and her 4 year-old daughter and 15 year-old son, by claymore ambush on successive days, 27th and 28 th of February, 2007, while they were traveling on motor cycles, we, the community of students and parents, teachers and principals, officials in the educational field and the Council for the Advancement of the Tamils of North-East, having demonstrated our protest in a peaceful mass rally, unequivocally and vehemently condemn these cowardly and dastardly inhuman acts of terrorism of the Sri Lanka Army's Deep Penetration Unit. The first claymore attack took place on Madhu–Aandankulam Road while the Divisional Director of Education was taking the victim, the newly appointed principal on a motor cycle to be installed as the Principal of Mannar/Vilaathikkulam School. The second claymore attack took place while the injured teacher was on her way with her family from Aandankulam to take refuge at Madhu Church, thus trying to escape from the barrage of artillery shelling of the Sri Lankan Forces. While expressing with gravest concern our abhorrence and disgust at the spate of killings of innocent civilians, especially children and women, in the North-East, by the Sri Lanka Armed Forces and by its partners the paramilitary groups and the Deep Penetration Units, we feel grieved and dismayed that this course of violence has now been let loose on the school community. The blatant cold-blooded killings, the mysterious disappearances and abductions and arrests of innocent civilians, including school children, the indiscriminate artillery shelling and bombing of civilian settlements, even schools, the frequent cordon and search operations in and around schools, which all tantamount to gross violation of human rights and a prelude to genocide, are an affront to all decent members of our society, and go to show that the Sri Lanka Government is hell-bent on destroying the cultural values most treasured by the Tamil nation, particularly education. Step-motherly arms of the Sri Lanka Government that doled out some crumbs to the children in the schools of the Tamil homeland in the form of deprivation of facilities, shortages of teachers and furniture, falsification of facts and figures in school text books, and a host of other maltreatments, during the past two decades, has now taken a new turn in the form of a dragoon-foot that is aimed at crushing the very foundation of the educational structure of the Tamils. We, therefore, earnestly appeal to you, the highly esteemed Secretary General of the UN, and to all UN branch organizations caring for children's rights, to take meaningful and effective steps to ensure that lives of innocent civilians, especially of children and those labouring for children's welfare and development, are respected and protected, and to stop this carnage and bring relief and solace to our children. Yours sincerely, President, CAET, Rev. Fr. G. A. Francis Joseph |
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