”India – shame, shame, shame!”, ”India – out, out out!”. Around 60 people, most of them Tamils living in Sweden, gathered outside the Indian embassy in Stockholm 8 April.
”Between 50 and 100 Tamils die every day in the racist war conducted by Rajapakse’s government in Sri Lanka. We are part of an international campaign to give maximum attention and resistance against this war”, said Mattias Bernhardsson, councillor for Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna (CWI Sweden).
The embassy is placed in Stockholm city and a lot of people passed by. We also sold a supplement of the socialist newspaper, Offensiv, on Sri Lanka. The demo also went into the embassy building, crowding the stairs to the embassy and shouting slogans. The staff quickly locked the door, but one of them later took our protest letter.
There is desperation among Tamils in Scandinavia over the lack of support and attention. Swedish government civil servants only the day before had said that Sri Lanka would receive aid from Sweden – ”aid for war” as one of them said.
India’s economic and military links with the war-mongering government of Mahinda Rajapakse was highlighted in many speeches.
The campaign in Scandinavia will continue. On Friday 17 April, there is a demo in Oslo, Norway at which the international campaign will have a speaker.
Kaan Özsan