US institute honours genocide-accused SLA’s Demining Unit

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 October 2012, 17:11 GMT]
The Marshall Legacy Institute (MLI), an American non-profit organization based in Virginia, has honoured a ‘Humanitarian Demining Unit’ team of the genocide-accused SLA as the best Mine Detection Dog team for the year 2012 at its annual “Clearing the Path” event, at Washington on October 10. Eezham Tamil activists, however, criticized the move as a legitimization of the structural genocide occurring in the occupied Tamil homeland in which SLA’s demining unit also plays a part.

SLA’s demining unit has played an important role in systematically erasing all traces of war crimes in the Tamil homeland like cluster bombs and chemical weapons, which bear witness to the genocidal offensives carried out by the Sri Lankan military on the Eezham Tamil people.

Eezham Tamil activists also allege that this unit has worked in collaboration with the SLA in facilitating the smooth functioning of the High Security Zones, and also in the process of identifying zones where the uprooted Tamils can be resettled and where they can be monitored.

The MLI honoured SLA sapper DKN Rohan and Mine Detection Dog Spartacus as the “Mine Detection Dog team of the year”.