The warm up match between Sri Lanka and South Africa for the ICC World Twenty20 in England saw protests from Tamil section of people.
The Sri Lankan team has arrived with a new captain in tow. Kumar Sangakkara takes over from Mahela Jayawardene and he will certainly attempt to shake off Sri Lanka’s indifferent stance in the first edition of the ICC Twenty20 World Cup held in South Africa. However, there are more battles and not all of them are happening on the field.
A group of Tamil protestors voiced their indignation at the apparent human rights violation being perpetrated in Sri Lanka in their end of battle with the LTTE and with the death of the LTTE leader Prabhakaran. They even carried banners to the effect, “Sri Lanka’s latest score: 20,000 dead, 300,000 displaced.”
Of the perspective that the Sri Lankan team should not be playing under the country’s banner when there was a large scale violation of human rights, they have stated the case of England refusing to draw Zimbabwe in a bilateral tie over similar reasons. Not everyone is feeling like the World Cup euphoria.
