Tamil community calls for Black Caps tour to be called-off

Justin Vaughan. Photo / Warren Buckland

Auckland's Tamil community says the humanitarian situation in Sri Lanka is deteriorating and the August-September Black Caps tour of the country should not go ahead.

Tamil Youth Organisation spokesperson Dhaya Haran said up to 300,000 Tamil civilians are being held in detention camps run by the Sri Lankan military.

The 26 year civil war between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan military officially ended last month, although the Tamil community says the war will not truly be over until their people receive equal treatment by the Government in their homeland.

Mr Haran said the situation for Tamil civilians had worsened since the war's end, and the New Zealand Government needed to take a strong stance against Black Caps tour.

"If they can take a moral stance against Zimbabwe, I don't see why Sri Lanka is different," he said.

The Black Caps had planned to tour Zimbabwe in July, but in February the tour was postponed until 2010 because of the New Zealand Government's concern about the ongoing political and social strife in the African nation.

Mr Haran said the Tamil community sent a letter to Foreign Minister Murray McCully last week, requesting that the Sri Lanka tour be cancelled. They have yet to receive a reply.

Signatures would be collected for petitions to be sent to both the Prime Minister and New Zealand Cricket requesting the tour be canned.

Mr McCully was not willing to comment to the Herald.

New Zealand Cricket CEO Justin Vaughan said his organisation's position on Sri Lanka was clear.

"We leave political decisions up to the politicians," he said. "Sri Lanka is a full member of the ICC and we are obliged to tour there unless there are significant safety and security issues, or unless politicians intervene."

Around a hundred members of the Tamil community gathered in Aotea Square on Saturday afternoon to raise awareness about the plight of the civilians being held in the camps.

At the protest Mr Haran said the media and Non-Governmental Organisations had no access to the camps where rapes, killings and other atrocities have been reported.

One member of Auckland's Tamil community who attended Saturday's protest - who would prefer not to be named for fear of retribution against family members in Sri Lanka - said his mother, along with two brothers and two sisters, were currently interned in one of the camps.

He said he last heard from his family two months ago, when he was informed that a younger brother had been killed by a bomb blast.

The man said going to Sri Lanka to help his family members was simply not an option.

"It's hard to do something for my family members," he said. "I have no house there anymore - they are all flat now - all the houses are gone."

Secretary for the predominantly Sinhalese United Sri Lanka Association, Wajira Dassanayake, said the Tamil community's demand for the tour to be cancelled was "a short-sighted objective".

"I whole-heartedly think the tour should go ahead," he said.

Mr Dassanayake said the security situation in Sri Lanka had improved markedly since the end of the hostilities between the Tamil Tigers and Government forces.

"The cricket team should be travelling to Sri Lanka more frequently now," he said.