The National Council of Canadian Tamils (NCCT) strongly condemns the illegal installation of a Buddha statue at the Dutch Bay beachfront in Trincomalee. This act is yet another example of Sri Lanka's state-enabled encroachment and Buddhisisation within the traditional homeland of the Tamil people-an ongoing pattern of structural genocide.
Between November 15 and 17, Buddhist monks began constructing the statue without authorization from the Department of Coast Conservation and Coastal Resource Management, the Trincomalee Municipal Council, or the Urban Development Authority Coast Conservation officials who attempted to intervene were threatened and driven away. Police officers attempting to halt the illegal construction were physically assaulted. A court order prohibiting development at the site was completely ignored.
Despite these violations, the Sri Lankan state intervened-not to uphold the law, but to remove and immediately reinstate the illegal installation of the statue, even promising special police protection. This reversal, driven by Sinhala Buddhist nationalist pressure, underscores the persistent and institutionalized discrimination faced by Tamil people in the North-East of Sri Lanka
Statements by senior Sri Lankan political leaders defending the illegal activities-including claims that Buddhist Chief Prelates should arbitrate matters of coastal law-further expose the failure of Sri Lanka's institutions to function impartially. These actions reinforce what Tamil people have long endured: a state that operates with a discriminatory double standard.
This is not the first time Dutch Bay has been used as a tool of Sinhala Buddhist expansionism.In 2005, a Buddha statue was similarly installed with the support of the JVP, now part of the current government. That act sparked mass violence, resulting in over 20 Tamil people killed and more than 3,000 displaced. Since 1948, hundreds of Buddha statues and shrines have been constructed in Trincomalee as part of systematic demographic manipulation and structural genocide against the Tamil people.
These actions are part of a long-standing, state-sponsored strategy aimed at erasing the Tamil Nation. The ongoing genocide of the Tamil people is perpetuated through surveillance, intimidation, harassment, arbitrary arrests, torture, militarization, land grabs, colonization, Buddhisisation, and Sinhalisation.
From the misuse of the Archaeology and Forestry Departments to seize Tamil people's land for Buddhist shrines, to military-backed encroachment into Tamil people's areas, the latest events in Trincomalee are part of a deliberate, multi-generational project. Its goal is to forcibly alter the demographic and cultural landscape of the North-East-the ancestral, cultural, and traditional homeland of the Tamil people.
Trincomalee, regarded by Tamil people as the capital of Tamil Eelam, has historically been the first target during phases of state-sponsored genocide. It witnessed massacres leading up to the Black July pogrom in 1983 and also leading up to the height of the Tamil Genocide in 2009. Since independence, Trincomalee has endured relentless genocidal massacres, colonization, militarization, and Buddhisisation.
NCCT condemns this latest act of provocation and lawlessness in the strongest possible terms. We stand in unwavering solidarity with the Tamil people of Trincomalee and with the leaders, representatives, and civil society organizations who have courageously challenged this injustice.
The Tamil people's response has been lawful, disciplined, and grounded in the fundamental right to protect their traditional homeland, cultural heritage, democratic freedoms and inherent rights as Tamil Nation. Attempts by the Sri Lankan state and Sinhala nationalist groups to portray these concerns as "anti-religious" are irresponsible, inflammatory, and dangerous.
Successive Sri Lankan governments-and the state institutions they control-have continuously carried out acts of genocide against the Tamil people. Sri Lanka continues to operate as a failed state that continues to destabilize the Indo-Pacific region.
We call on the international community, including governments, human rights bodies, and global institutions, to take concrete action to protect the Tamil people, intervene to halt the ongoing Tamil Genocide, hold the Sri Lankan state accountable for its systematic violations of international law and ensure the preservation of the Tamil people's ancestral homeland, cultural identity, and rights of the Tamil Nation.
The world must not remain silent as Sri Lanka continues its ongoing genocide against the Tamil people.