NEW YORK, USA, May 20, 2016 /EINPresswire.com/ --

A Sinhalese, who is the first cousin of former President Chandrika Kumaratunga and a nephew of two former Prime Ministers, was given a prestigious award by a main Tamil diaspora group to honor his lifelong commitment to fight injustice against Tamils.

Lifetime Commitment Award was presented to Prof. Dr. Brian Senewiratne by Mr. Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran, Prime Minister of the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) in New York on May 15th.

“We hail Dr. Senewiratne as the voice of reason of the Sinhalese” said Mr. Rudrakumaran.

Despite his privileged background he chose to wage a courageous and often lonely campaign against the atrocities committed against the Tamil community. Dr. Senewiratne cared for the welfare of the Tamils as much as he cared for the wellbeing of his own Sinhala brethren.

When Dr. Senewiratne saw the rights of Tamils were impinged upon by successive Sinhalese governments of Sri Lanka and peaceful democratic protests were put down by government-sponsored pogroms and by military force, he made it his mission to defend the rights of Tamils to live with equality, dignity and security and without discrimination in the country of their birth, enjoying the same rights and privileges accorded to the Sinhalese community.

In 1972, as Professor of Medicine at the University of Peredeniya he took up the cause of Tamils, when they were hounded out of their dwellings by Sinhalese goons during the term when his aunt Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike was Prime Minister. He did what he impishly referred to as, “my nocturnal ward-round” wherein he traversed the streets of Kandy picking up dying Tamils, so that they could be given immediate medical attention in hospital and if they could not be saved to die with dignity.

ABOUT TRANSNATIONAL GOVERNMENT OF TAMIL EELAM (TGTE):

Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) is a democratically elected Government of a million strong Tamils (from the island of Sri Lanka) living in several countries around the world.

TGTE was formed after the mass killing of Tamils by the Sri Lankan Government in 2009.

TGTE held two internationally supervised elections among Tamils around the world to elect 132 Members of Parliament. It has a bicameral legislature and a Cabinet. It held one of its Parliamentary sittings in the British Parliament.

TGTE is leading a campaign to realize Tamils’ political aspirations through peaceful, democratic and diplomatic means. The Constitution of the TGTE mandates that it should realize its political objective only through peaceful means.

The Prime Minister of TGTE is Mr. Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran, a New York based lawyer.

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