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Thangam Jogiana, secretary of the Tamil Coordinating Committee of South Africa, and fellow Tamil leaders were reacting to the current Indian cricket team's tour to the island country. The Indian team played their first one-day match at Dambulla on Wednesday.
"Currently the International Red Cross Society and other humanitarian organisations report that hundreds of civilians have been killed and more than a million others have been displaced by the Sri Lankan army," said Jogiana.
"We are concerned that the Indian cricket team's tour will give the impression that India is not concerned about the plight of the Tamil civilians. The Indian cricket team should have delayed the tour until the Sri Lankan Government stops its genocide of the Tamil people," Jogiana said.
Another official of the Tamil Coordinating Committee, Richard Govender, said he was surprised that India could play in Sri Lanka ‘as if nothing was happening’.
Govender said the Tamil community in South Africa, which made up over 54 per cent of the country's 1.4-million people of Indian origin, would team up with organisations throughout the world to highlight the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka.
"The Sri Lankan Government says it's conducting a campaign against the Tamil Tigers but it's actually the civilians who are suffering," he said.
The chairman of the Tamil Committee in Johannesburg, Gops Veerabradan, said they would be making representations to new American President, Barack Obama, about the deteriorating situation in Sri Lanka.
"We are very happy that America has called on the Sri Lankans to take care that civilians are not targeted. But despite this hundreds of civilians have still been killed and tens of thousands of others have been displaced," he said.
He said they would be organising mass protests in Johannesburg when Sri Lanka observes its 61st independence day early next month.
"During the apartheid era in South Africa, the international community introduced all types of sanctions, including sports sanctions, to bring down the apartheid regime. But in the case of Sri Lanka, no one is concerned about the plight of the oppressed Tamils," said Veerabradan.
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