Students’ Struggle Committee for Tamil Eelam, the collective of college students from across the State, has announced that it would organise a State-level conference to pressure the Centre into boycotting the Commonwealth meet scheduled to be held in Colombo and also get the meet moved to another location.
Representatives of the students’ collective said the conference would be held in Chennai in August, and that the date would be announced after consultations. They also said student representatives from Germany, Australia, Canada, UK and other countries would be invited to participate in the conference.
“India must follow the lead of Australia and Canada, which have objected to the Commonwealth meet being held in Sri Lanka in the light of human rights abuses. India must also take steps to ensure the meet is moved to another country,” said a representative of SSTCE, at ddressing a press conference in Chennai on Wednesday.
The representative also announced that SSTCE would organise symposia, rallies and demonstrate in each district of the State on July 23, to mark the Black July anti-Tamil pogrom of 1983 in Sri Lanka, which had broken out in response to a strike by the LTTE against the Sri Lankan army.
The students hedged against questions relating to the perceived slowdown of the force of their movement, saying such a slowdown had happened explicably, because of examinations.
However, their activities had picked up once the holidays had begun. They also said further activities were being planned keeping in view that academics should not be affected.