Margaret Trawick is an anthropologist specializing in Tamil culture. Her past publications have addressed issues concerning South Asian medical systems and systems of healing, Tamil family and kinship systems, medieval Tamil poetry and modern Tamil folklore. She recently completed eight months of fieldwork in Batticaloa District on the topic of children who grow up in the midst of warfare.

Avis Harrell SriJayantha received a B.A. from Swarthmore College in 1977 and an M.A. in Sociology from Princeton University in 1983. She worked in marketing for Chemtex Corp. of New York and for Chronar Corp. of New Jersey. She also worked as an archaeologist on excavations in Turkey, Syria and the US, and lived in the Middle East for 5 years. She is an active member of the Ilankai Tamil Sangam, USA.

Deirdre McConnell, Manchester UK. BA Hons; Dip. Art Therapy. Human rights activist and advocate.

Prof. A. J. V. Chandrakanthan teaches at the University of Toronto.

Joseph Pararajasingam is a Member of Parliament from Batticaloa and is the Leader of the TULF Parliamentary Group. He entered Parliament in 1990 and was re-elected in 1994 with the highest number of Preference Votes ever received by a Tamil candidate in the North and East. He is a member of the Parliamentary Select Committee, Committee on Public Enterprise, Parliamentary House Committee and Parliamentary Consultative Committee on Defense. His current focus is on receiving, following up and pressing for investigation of cases of detention, disappearances, torture, rape and killing of Tamil civilians in the Eastern and Northern provinces by the Sri Lankan armed forces and police, working towards the relief and rehabilitation of Tamil and Muslim refugees and the displaced, and working toward a political resolution of the violent conflict. He is an Executive Member of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the SAARC Parliamentary Association. He spends the majority of his time in his district dealing with the concerns of his constituents. He also frequently participates in conferences and seminars concerning the problems of the people in his district and those of Tamils in Sri Lanka generally, and concerning conflict resolution.

Dr. Jayalath Jayawardene was born in 1953 in Sri Lanka. He obtained his MBBS from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka and MD from the Russian State Medical University in Moscow. He has been a member of parliament in Sri Lanka since 1994. He is the secretary of National Integration and Human Rights of the United National Party and the founder chairperson of the Parliamentary Lobby for Child Right. He received numerous awards for his humanitarian work, including the Green Award for his commitment to Child Right in 1998 and the Most Outstanding Citizen Award for social services by the International Association of Lions Club in 1999.

Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam, Ph.D. (Cornell). He attended the University of California, Los Angeles, California State Polytechnic University, and earned the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Agricultural Education from Cornell University, New York. He 102 taught at the University of Sierra Leone, University of Papua New Guinea, State University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt, Nigeria for more than twenty years. He farmed in Mankulam in 1979/1980. UNESCO appointed him as specialist in agricultural education during 1980-1985 to advise and assist the Vice Chancellor and the Committee of Deans to establish and expand the University of Science and Technology, Nigeria. He taught in the Faculty of Agriculture campus (at Kilinochchi) of the University of Jaffna in 1994-1995 and worked in the Vanni area from October 1995 – January 1996 as a humanitarian volunteer in settling the Displacees who took refuge in the Vanni. He has visited the Vanni area in October – November 1996 and March/April 1997 on humanitarian missions. For a six-month period in 1998, he spent his time traveling in the North-East of Sri Lanka. Three month of that time was spent as Consultant in Education and Sports to the North-East Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports. He participated in the Olympic Games held in Helsinki, 1952, and Melbourne 1956, and three Asian Games – Manila 1954, Tokyo 1958 and Djakarta 1962. In Tokyo, he won the Gold Medal and raised the high jump record to 6 feet 8 inches, and at Djakarta, he won a Silver medal. He held the Ceylon/Sri Lanka record in the high jump from 1953 to 1988. He has written many conference papers, project reports, curricula, instructional materials in agriculture and a secondary school textbook, Agriculture for Melanesia, published by Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1993. He is co-author of the report, An Appraisal of the Education System in the Vanni Areas of Sri Lanka, May 1998. And author of the report, an appraisal of education and sports in the northeast province of Sri Lanka. April 1999.

Arjunan L. Ethirveerasingam has lived and traveled throughout the world. He has traveled to Sri Lanka numerous times the most recent being in 1995 and 1998. On these trips he visited the LTTE controlled areas as well as other parts of the country. He attended the University of California, Santa Barbara and received a bachelors degree in Political Science International Relations. He currently lives in California, USA.

Dr. Tharman Saverimuttu is a biological sciences graduate of the University of Jaffna and he has a PhD in Plant Ecology from the University of Cambridge. He was a Lecturer in Botany at the University of Jaffna until 1990.

Dr. Nadarajah Sriskandarajah is a graduate of the Universities of Ceylon and Sydney in the animal sciences. He is currently with the University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury. He was a Visiting Lecturer at the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Jaffna, Kilinochchi in 1994.

V. I. S. Jayapalan is a social sciences graduate of the University of Jaffna. In 1991 he carried out a study of the environmental consequences of the conflicts in Sri Lanka.

Vasantharaja’s father is a Tamil (a doctor by profession) and his mother is a Sinhalese. He was brought up as a Sinhala Buddhist. He obtained his first degree (BA Hons.) at Peradeniya University in Philosophy. He started his professional career as an assistant lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Colombo and did his post-graduate studies at the London University (Kings College). He also did his MA in Philosophy there. He joined the BBC World Service as a producer and was in charge of the Sinhala service there for about ten years. He resigned from the BBC in 1994 in response to an invitation by the MediaMinistry of the PA government to return to Sri Lanka as a media consultant to help introduce media reforms. Within a month after returning to Colombo, he was appointed as the Chairman of Sri Lanka’s national state TV, during which time he introduced many reforms to the TV network. However, after the collapse of the peace talks in April 1995 the government said it was going to re-launch war and that the state media heads should back the government’s war effort. He was personally asked to dismantle some of the reforms he had introduced. At this point he openly refused to do so and resigned in protest. Mr. Vasantharaja returned to London and started working as a freelance journalist and a writer. He was the editor of Tamil Guardian for a while. Based on his journalistic experiences in Jaffna during the LTTE administration, when he visited the war zone to produce programmes for the BBC in 1994, he wrote a book titled Tamil Exodus and Beyond in 1995. He was part of the Sri Lankan delegation which was sponsored by the London-based International Alert (a conflict resolution NGO) to visit South Africa and Northern Ireland to learn from the peace processes there. He has participated in, and contributed to, several international conferences on Sri Lanka’s conflict, held in the UK, Australia, USA, Canada, Norway, etc.

Dharmaretnam Sivaram is a columnist of the Sri lankan newspapers, Sunday Times and Midweek Mirror. He has been writing extensively on the political and military situation in Sri lanka. His reporting of the war situation has won the admiration of readers both within and outside Sri lanka.

Pon Kulendiren is a graduate in Physics from the University of Ceylon and subsequently he qualified as an Engineer from the Institute of Electrical Engineers in UK. He joined the Post and Telecommunication department of Sri Lanka. Under the Colombo Plan scholarship he was trained at the British Telecom London, UK. In the 1970s, he contributed several short stories and science articles to the Tamil dailies Thinkaran and Veerakesari. His short story titled “Beauty” was selected for broadcast in Tamil section of Sri Lanka Radio. Kulendiren was also frequent contributor of children’s dramas and features to the Tamil Children’s Program.

Chelvadurai Manogaran is a professor of Geography and International Studies at University of Wisconsin-Parkside, Kenosha, Wisconsin. He was born in Malaysia and lived in Sri Lanka from 1949-1966 before  migrating to the United States in 1966. H received his BA degree from the University of Ceylon in 1960, his MA degree in Geography from Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts in 1968, and his Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois in 1972, specializing in climatology and water resources. His first book, Ethnic Conflict and Reconciliation in Sri Lanka, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1978 was selected as a Choice 1988-8 Outstanding Academic Book. His other publications include, “A Tamil Linguistic Province and Lasting Peace in Sri Lanka,” The Round Table, London: Buttersworth Publishers, No. 306, 1988, pp. 195-200; “A Political Solution to the Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka,” Refuge, Center for Refugee Studies, York University, Canada, June 1993, pp. 23-26; and The Sri Lankan Tamils: Ethnicity and Identity, (edited with Bryan Pfaffenberger), Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1994 and “Ethnonationalism and Problems of Space-Related Identity in Sri Lanka,” in David Kaplan and Guntram H. Herb (eds.) National Identity and Geographical Scale, Boulder, Colorado: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999. He has presented several papers on the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka at national and international conferences, including “Sri Lankan Dilemma: Negotiating Settlement or Continuing War,” which was published in Kumar Rupesinghe (ed.) Negotiating Peace in Sri Lanka: Efforts, Failures and Lessons, UK: International Alert, February 1998, pp. 253-270. He has served as an External Reviewer/Examiner for the Department of Geography, Jaffna University, Sri Lankan since 1992. He has been a Consultant to the United States Department of State on the ethnic problem in Sri Lanka, since 1989.

Peter Schalk is a Swedish citizen. He studied philosophy, history of ideas, theology and indology at the University of Lund and Göteborg, Sweden, and got his PhD in the History of Religions at the Faculty of Arts in 1972. His first fieldwork in Lamkã was done in 1970. In 1972, he was appointed associate professor (docent) in the history of religions at the Faculty of Theology, University of Lund. In 1975, he was visiting professor at Abo Akademi, Finland. He did research in Munich and Gottingen as Humboldt Fellow in 1980-81. From 1973-83, he was Director and Lecturer of Religious studies at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. From 1983/84, he is full professor in the history of religions at Uppsala University, Sweden. The definition of his chair is “History of Religions, in Particular Indian and East Asian Religions.” It is placed in the Faculty of Theology at Uppsala University. Today he is President of the Swedish Society of Humboldt Fellows (SSHF).

V. Rudrakumaran, LLM, is a lawyer with his own immigration practice in New York City, USA. He received his Master of Laws with a specialization in International and Comparative Law in 1984 from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. In 1981 he received degrees in Journalism, Bachelor of Laws and Attorney-At-Law from 3 different insitutions of higher learning in Colombo, Sri Lanka. In 1989/90 he was a Special Student in International Law at the Harvard Law School. In 1984 he was a Scholar/Intern at The Martin Luther King Center for Non-Violent Social Change. He writes and lectures widely on issues of international law and nationalism and is an active member of numerous legal societies. He is cocounsel in a case currently before the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and also in a case before the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, both seeking to clarify recent US legislation which affects First Amendment rights and the separation of powers.

Karen Parker is an attorney specializing in international law, humanitarian (armed conflict) and human rights law. She is Chief Delegate at the United Nations for the Humanitarian Law Project/International Education Development. Her work involves  consultations with governments, international bodies, opposition groups, non-governmental organizations and attorneys; fact-finding missions; and representations before national, foreign and international courts and tribunals. She has testified at the United Nations on the situation in Sri Lanka since 1983. Her written statems on Sri Lanka are published by the United Nations as part of the official records. She has also presented papers and made numerous speeches at universities, community forums and international events on the crisis in Sri Lanka. Because of her special emphasis on humanitarian (armed conflicts) law, she works with victims and for compliance with the Geneva Conventions and other humanitarian norms in the Sri Lanka. She also presents legal arguments defending the Tamil right to self-determination. Ms. Parker has been invited to US Congress many times to give special briefings on international law and US policy and has presented testimony on Sri Lanka at hearings.

Dr. Sachithanandam Sathananthan read for the Ph.D degree at Wolfson College, Cambridge. He was Assistant Director at the Marga Institute, Colombo where he was a coordinator of research on South Asian regional cooperation conducted by the Committee for Studies on Cooperation in Development (CSCD) in South Asia. He is the Chairman of Mandru (Institute for Alternative Development and Regional Cooperation) which he co-founded in 1989. He is the principal author of The Elusive Dove: An Assessment of Conflict Resolution Initiatives in Sri Lanka, 1957 to 1996, (1996). Dr. Sathananthan has produced two films on nationalism in South Asia: Where Peacocks Dance, (1992), delves into the cultural roots of Sindhi nationalism in Pakistan; and Suicide Warriors (1996) explores the Tamil national liberation movement in Sri Lanka with focus on the role of women in the LTTE. Both films were broadcast by Channel Four Television, London. Of Mothers, Mice and Saints (1994), which he produced for Zweiten Deutschen Fernsehen (ZDF), German Television, is a social anthropological journey into the lives of childless women who seek divine intervention at the shrine of the 16th century Sufi Saint, Shah Dauley Shah, in the Pakistan Punjab. He is the Founder-Secretary of The Action Group Of Tamils (TAGOT) in Sri Lanka. Dr. Sathananthan is a Visiting Scholar at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Dr. Vickramabahu Bandara Karunarathne was born in Sri Lanka. He studied at the University of Ceylon in Peradeniya and was awarded the Commonwealth Scholarship to do doctorate work at the University of Cambridge in Electro-Magnetic theory. Currently, he is a senior lecturer at the faculty of engineering at Peradeniya and is the General Secretary and leader of the NSSP. Dr. Karunarathne joined the LSSP as a student and opposed the coalition of LSSP with the SUP. He founded the NSSP in 1977. He was taken into custody several times during the coalition government 1970-1977. Since 1977, he has been imprisoned several times for leading struggles against the government. He was the seventh accused in the case against the leaders of the 1980 general strike satyagraha. He was in hiding during 1983-1984 when NSSP was proscribed. He was fatally wounded in 1988 when attacked by the DJV murder squad. Currently, he is a member of the Western Provincial Council.

Prof. John P. Neelsen was born in 1943 in Berlin. He is a professor of sociology at the Tuebingen University in Germany. He had been a guest professor and lectured at the universities of Berlin, Bochum, Bremen (Germany), Zurich (Switzerland), Benares (India) and Nancy (France). He is a member of the World Centre for Peace, Liberty and Human Rights, Verdun/France. His specialization includes sociology of development (He spent 5 years in South Asia doing research work in India and Sri Lanka, North-South relations, social inequality and sociological theory. He has extensive publications on India, human rights, social structural change, and the Third world in the world system.

G. G. Ponnambalam is an Attorney-at-Law who has practiced criminal law in Colombo for 28 years and is General Secretary of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress, the oldest Tamil party in Sri Lanka. He is also an Advocate, High Court in Tamil Nadu, India. He received his LL.B. Degree from the University of London and an M.A. degree from the University of Cambridge. He has addressed the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva in 1997 and 1998 and the European Parliament in Brussels in 1998. He has represented the Tamil Diaspora in a number of international conferences and read papers on the Tamil national problem in Australia, Canada, Belgium, England, Netherlands and Switzerland. He takes a significant number of pro bono cases to do with Sri Lankas Prevention of Terrorism Act and Emergency Regulations.

Rev. Dr. S. J. Emmanuel (B.Sc., D.D.) is currently a scholar in Germany. Until 1996 he was Vicar General of the Catholic Church of Jaffna and Rector of the major Seminary in Jaffna. With the invasion of Jaffna, he moved with the people to Kilinochchi and later to other parts of the Vanni, coining the phrase, the exodus from Jaffna, in his witness to those events. He is the Founder-Director of the Center for Better Society in Jaffna and is a member of the Theological Advisory Committee of the Federation of the Asian Bishops Conference (FABC). He has written on various theological issues, including one booklet entitled Church, Politics and War in Sri Lanka. After securing a B.Sc. degree in 1958, he proceeded to Rome and graduated in Philosophy (1963) and in Theology (1967). He was ordained as a priest in 1966 and, on his return to Sri Lanka functioned as a pastor and Diocesan Director of Lay Apostolate and Lay Catechists for five years. He obtained his doctorate in Theology at the Pontifical Urban University of Rome in 1976, after which he served as professor of Ecclesiology and was Dean of the Faculty of Theology at National Seminary of Sri Lanka in Ampitiya.

DOWNLOAD ACADEMIC PAPERS

PART 1 (HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS)

Lesson from Kokkaddichcholai  
“My aim for this paper is not just to provide another recitation of the horrors of the war in Sri Lanka. While you should certainly know what has happened and continues to happen there, it is more important for you to know what you can do about it, and for you to be motivated to do it. My advice is simple. Go there.”
By Prof. Margaret Trawick 

Mass Graves in the Tamil Homeland 
“The systematic and planned killing of Tamil civilians, destruction of their property and disruption of their civilization by the security forces of the Sri Lankan state are at genocidal levels.”
By Avis Harrell Sri-Jayantha 

Presentation on Women and Children; Human Rights Situation in the Tamil Homeland
“One of my most vivid memories is of visiting the survivors of a massacre by the Sri Lankan army in the East of the island.”
By Deirdre McConnell 

Remembering for the Future: The Historic Exodus and its aftermath  
“Tamils were killed but it was human-kind that was assassinated. But these deaths created no echo.”
By Prof. Fr. A. J. V. Chandrakanthan 

Life of Tamil People under Civil Administration and Army Occupation
“My focus in the discussion this afternoon will be primarily on the life of the Tamils who live in areas under civil administration and arm occupation. Some Muslims, too, share the fate of the neglected Tamils as they do live in the eastern part of the island, which is in a large way subject to military administration and curiously enough also subject to civil administration of a dubious and ambivalent nature in some parts definitely in the east.”
By Joseph Pararajasingham 

PART 2 (SITUATION IN WANNI)

Eye Witness Account of the Medical Needs of the Displaced Tamils in Wanni  
“According to the MSF report approximately 20% of the patient in Wanni are treated for respiratory problem, while malaria also accounts for large percentage of children being seen. Only 20-25% of the anti-malaria drugs due in the first quarter of the year had been received by mid-may.”
By Dr. Jayalath Jayawardene 

The Effects of War on the Education of Tamil Children in the War and Conflict Zones in Sri Lanka 
“The basis of this paper are from my observations in the North during the period April 1994 to July 1998 first as a resident in Kilinochchi and later on several visits to observe and study the life of students and displacees.”
By Dr. Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam and Mr. Arjunan 

Through the Eyes of an American Student: An Impression of the Life of Young People in the North-East Province 
“When I close my eyes I can still feel the cold concrete floor beneath me, still hear the sickening thump of the artillery shells as they rain down a few miles away.”
By Arjunan L. Ethirveerasingam 

Ecological Consequences of the War in the Tamil Homeland in Sri Lanka 
“The environmental crisis that we see in the Tamil homeland today mainly stems from the increased military activities and the war that has been ongoing for the last decade and a half.”
By Dr. T. Saverimuttu 

PART 3 (ON MEDIA & CENSORSHIP)

The World Media and Ethnic Conflicts
“It is clear to me that, somehow, the world’s media giants have failed to adequately appreciate an extremely significant phenomenon taking place in the world today – namely, stepped-up moves by the international community to act decisively on humanitarian issues.”
By Vasantha Raja  

Media Bias and Censorship in Conflict Reporting in Sri Lanka
“The bases for repressing the media and restricting the freedom of expression in Sri Lankan are ensconced in the country’s constitution itself.”
By Dharrnaretnam Sivaram 

The Reporting Culture and the Media Dynasties in Sri Lanka
“This paper reviews the growth of the media dynasties, the changes this growth has caused to the reporting system and the influence it has held on the people and the future of the country.”
By Ponnambalam Kulendiren 

PART 4 (HISTORY OF THE CONFLICT)

Sinhalese Settlements and Forced Evictions of Tamils in then Northern and Eastern Provinces
“The purpose of this paper is to validate Tamil claims that the government’s colonization policies are politically motivated.”
By Prof. Chelvadurai Manogaran 

Origin of the National Conflict in Sri Lanka and Sinhalese Ethnic Nationalism
“The purpose of this study is to identify the origin of the national conflict in Sri Lanka. The origin of the national conflict cannot be understood unless the concept of Tamil nation is examined.”
By Prof. Chelvadurai Manogaran 

Inventing History. The Interpretation of the Concept of dhammadipa
“Simhala-Bauddha ethnonationalists expand the communalist ideology of one ethnie, of the Simhalas, to become the ideology of the Lankan state. This ideology leaves no space for an ilavar identity’ to unfold on territory and in the consciousness of the people.”
By Prof. Peter Schalk 

PART 5 (MEDIATION & INTERNATIONAL LAW)

The Need for Third Party Conflict Resolution in the Island of Sri Lanka
“On the island of Sri Lanka, in particular, the betrayals and deception perpetrated by the Sinhala political establishment have created a psychological distance between the parties which inordinately exacerbates the suspicion and mistrust between the two parties to the conflict.”
By Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran 

Human Rights, Humanitarian Law and the Tamil National Struggle: Evolving the Law of Self-Determination
“This paper will examine the principle of self-determination and its relation to human rights and humanitarian law. It will show that, in certain circumstances, exercise of the right to self-determination and its support by the international community may be the only way to ensure those basic rights granted to all people in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
By Karen Parker 

Why the LTTE is not a Terrorist Organization
“Canadians have asked me to set out my views on whether the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is a “terrorist” organization. I state categorically that the LTTE is not a “terrorist” organization, but rather an armed force in a war against the government of Sri Lanka.”
By Karen Parker 

Fundamental Rights of Tamils
“The situation for the Tamils of Sri Lanka is a case in point: matching international human rights norms against the practices in Sri Lanka, can lead only to the conclusion that human rights are routinely breached by the Sri Lankan state.”
By Barbara Jackman  

PART 6 (RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION)

‘Peace’ Process in Sri Lanka: The Hidden Agenda
“It will be obvious from the foregoing that Tamil politicians, with the important exception of the members of ACTC, have neither the will nor the capacity to secure new, or defend existing, rights of Tamils.”
By Dr. S. Sathananthan 

Reflections on the Lessons of Kosovo
“In short the international community seeks blindly to arrest internal de-colonisation and entrench the post-colonial status quo. Perhaps influential sections within it believe that State borders are God-given and permanent.”
By Dr. S. Sathananthan 

Right of Self Determination of Ilankai Tamils
“In spite of many difficulties, we have managed to take this message among the Sinhala people. We have influenced the thinking of almost all political parties of Lanka.”
By Dr. Vickramabahu Karunarathne 

Observations on Human Rights Violations in Sri Lanka: Ethnonationalism, Collective Rights and the International Community
“The political science literature is fairly unanimous in stating that the respect for human rights, parliamentary democracy coupled with regularly held elections and the free market, are interdependent, reaffirm each other and provide the institutional framework for peace, security and economic development.”
By Prof. John P.Neelsen 

The Current Political Dynamics of the Tamil National Conflict in Sri Lanka
“Sri Lanka is in the throes of a crisis into which she descended, with her eyes wide open, almost two decades ago. It is a political crisis, concerning the Tamil national question – a conflict between the Sinhala nation, on the one hand, and the Tamil nation, on the other, both living together, at the moment, within the shores of an island.”
By G. G. Ponnambalam 

PART 7 (KEYNOTE ADDRESS)

Ethical Responsibility of the International Community to help resolve the Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka
“The involvement of the international community, in relation to the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, has varied from country to country, depending on the interest they have in common with Sri Lanka, as well as on their degree of understanding of the conflict.”
By Prof. Fr. S J. Emmanuel 

CHAIR
Mr. Derick Thurairajah
President, Academic Society of Tamil Students (ACTS)
Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

CO – CHAIRS
Ms. Jeevachelvi Selvaratnam,
University of Ottawa, Canada
Mr. Sathi Nannithamby,
Carleton University, Canada
Mr. Ravinthar Thomas,
Carleton University, Canada

PROGRAM ADVISORY PANEL
Prof. Chelvadurai Manogaran, M.A., Ph.D.,
Wisconsin, USA
Prof. Elagu V. Elagupillai, M.Sc., Ph.D.,
Ottawa, Canada
Prof. Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam, M.Sc., Ph.D.,
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Prof. Jeyaratnam Wilson, M.A., Ph.D., D.Sc.,
Fredericton, NB, Canada
Prof. Joseph Chandrakanthan, M.A., Ph.D.,
Toronto, ON, Canada,
Prof. Selvanayagam Kanaganayagam, M.A., Ph.D.,
Toronto, ON, Canada
Prof. Nagalingam Sriskandarajah, M.Sc., Ph.D.,
Sydney, Australia
Dr. Sinnathurai Vijaykumar, M.Eng., Ph.D.,
Toronto, ON, Canada
Ms. Avis Harrell Sri-Jayantha, M.A.,
New York, N.Y., USA
Dr. Meenan Vishnu, Ph.D.,
Pittsburgh, PA, USA

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Ms. Arularasi Singham,
University of Ottawa
Mr. Indrajit Kunaratnam,
Carleton University
Mr. Luxmihasan Rasappah,
Carleton University
Mr. Palani Praba,
Carleton University
Ms Vanitha Paramanathan,
University of Ottawa
Mr. Parthiban Candrabose,
Carleton University
Mr. Ravikumar Balasubramaniam,
Carleton University

Carleton University Students Association Inc. (CUSA)
The Students Federation of the University of Ottawa (SFUO)
Carleton University Tamil Student Association (CUTSA)
Amnesty International, Carleton University Chapter
Tamil Students Union, University of Ottawa
Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG), University of Ottawa