Rathika Sitsabaiesan, a former Canadian MP, advocates for Eelam Tamils in Canada, citing her own experiences of being su | dG1fTjBiVnpqRWhiSjg
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00:00Putti?
00:01Putti?
00:02You did?
00:03Putti.
00:04Putten.
00:05Putten.
00:06Mama, is Putti still alive?
00:07No, she's not actually.
00:08That's why you didn't get a chance to meet her.
00:09Did she die in the war?
00:10When I was in Sri Lanka, I don't remember my father being around.
00:29The 77 riots and the 83 pogroms was obviously the ground being pulled out from underneath
00:38everybody's lives.
00:41And so that's when my dad left to find us a better place to live, somewhere safe for
00:50us.
00:51When I graduated and started working, people asked me, where are you from?
00:57And I'm saying Sri Lankan Tamil.
00:59And then right away they go, are you a Sri Lankan tiger?
01:03But you guys are terrorists.
01:06My father was a police inspector.
01:10One of the most important events that he has written down was the night before the 1983
01:19riots.
01:23I was afraid to talk about it up until this morning.
01:40The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka denies the very basic freedom of
01:43expression of the Tamils to advocate for their self-determination.
01:48I want to go see the effects of the war with my own eyes.
01:54He just wanted to make sure that I had something with me when I traveled on this trip because
01:59everybody in my family is a little nervous, but including my nephew.
02:03So yeah, here goes.
02:07What's going on?
02:10The CIG is here.
02:13Yeah.
02:14Okay.
02:15Okay.
02:16Okay.
02:17Okay.
02:18And then of course I got on the phone with the Canadian embassy in Sri Lanka.
02:43I would say that I'm Tamil, and that's not anything else but what it is.