Dokument #1209090
IRB – Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (Autor)
The Gandhian movement, according to an
article in the Tamil Times, was a service club working in
the Tamil areas of Sri Lanka. It operated schools, farms, training
centres for young women, and mobile clinics, as well as a
resettlement program which enabled plantation Tamils from the tea
plantations of central and southern Sri Lanka to be integrated into
Sri Lankan Tamil villages in the northern part of the country.
[S.A. David. "Detention, Torture and Murder - Sri Lanka", Tamil
Times, November 1983, p. 8.] A letter from Amnesty
International's British Secretariat to Member of Parliament George
Park regarding a Tamil refugee claimant notes that the Gandhian
Movement was active in resettling Tamil refugees following the 1977
riots. [Letter to George Park, MP from Lindsay Stewart, Refugee
Coordinator, Amnesty International British Section regarding Mrs.
A.S. Anandram; 1 March 1984.]
This letter further notes that the Sri
Lankan government suspected the Movement of harbouring Tamil
militants and quotes the Sri Lanka researcher at AI's International
Secretariat as claiming that members of the Gandhian Movement had
been subject to continual harassment and ill treatment since three
years before the date of the letter (1984). In addition to these
reports, a Tamil association in Canada published a summary of Sri
Lankan news reports which mentioned that the Sri Lankan Army and
Police had "pounced" on the Gandhian movement under the Prevention
of Terrorism Act. ["Army & Police pounce on Gandhiyam under
Terrorism Law", Saturday Review, 9 April 1989.]
The leader of the Gandhian Movement, Dr.
Rajasunderam, was killed in the Wellikada Prison riot in 1983.
After this, the movement ceased to exist. A noted Canadian expert
on the situation in Sri Lanka adds that recently there have been
rumours among the expatriate Tamil community in London regarding a
possible revival of the Gandhian Movement. This person comments
that such a move would be viewed with suspicion by the Sri Lankan
government because the Gandhians were considered as a front for the
Tamil militant groups in the period before the movement's
destruction. The academic source further comments that indeed, the
Gandhians probably did work with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam, the largest Tamil militant group, but not willingly.