OP-ED: Peace for Sri Lanka?

I was just composing a small write up of my own thoughts on this issue. My comments fits well as a response to Mr Goonetlleke. His article shows that the Sinhala elite have not understood the Tamil issue yet. Will the Sinhalese ever have a pragmatic leader(s)? Sri Lanka gained independence in 1949 and if any one looks in to its history after independence objectively, all the indications are that there was not a pragmatic Sinhala leader(s) so far who understood the business of nation building and who can lead the country in to prosperity. Since independence the country had one main issue to address and that is the Sinhala-Tamil ethnic issue and the pragmatic approach would have been to acknowledge the make up of the country and come up with a political system that will garner the efforts and well being of both the society to build a better country. Instead the Sinhala leaders went rampage with petty and selfish politicking to render the country to the current condition. The current condition, needless to say, is that the country is in complete ruin, there is no democracy, no independent legal system, no press freedom, no human rights, and only in this country the government ministers can legally beat up journalists. Above all issues look at the missed opportunities for stronger economic development over the past 60 years that was mainly taken away from the Sinhala mass. So what is the issue with Sinhala politicians and their educated leadership? It appears they could not understand one fact that the Sri Lanka is made up of two main ethnic communities with demarcated land areas, language, and religion. On the part of the Tamils, after many let downs by the Sinhala politicians for developments in the north and east began political agitation by peaceful means like Satyagraga or Gandium. All were met by stern force and communal violence against Tamils. After peaceful struggles of about 30 years, only then the tamils took up armed struggle as the option for gaining their legitimate rights. Tamils being weak in number of combatants and money/resources, the only way they can fight for their rights is the way they have fought up to now. If the Sinhala leadership or even the outside world for that matter does not want to see the tamils method of fighting, tamils would call it self defence, then they should solve the root cause of the problem, that is addressing the legitimate rights of tamils within Sri Lanka. For example look at Canada and Quebec within Canada and the enactment of 50 plus 1 rule; also how the provinces work independantaly within Canada, this is what democracy is all about. It appears the Sinhala leaders have not understood this fundamental aspect yet. Even if they remove LTTE, the tamil struggle will go for ever and the Sinhalese are the ones who will be the losers for many years to come. Bala Tharmabala, Canada

Tamil, Sinhala rivalry dates back to the time the sinhala race was born. One well documented event is the battle that took place in 163 BC between the Tamil king Elara from the North-East and the Sinhala king Dutugemunu from the south. Therefore, For the Tamils and Sinhalese to live amicably it is necessary to have a confederal arrangement between Tamil North-East and the Sinhala south. I am a moderate Sinhalese and have always supported granting Tamils their legitimate rights. Sri Lanka has become a dangerous place for the Tamils to live. Daily aerial bombings, artillery shelling and the economic embargo imposed by the Sri Lanka armed forces on the Tamil North-East has taken a heavy toll on the population living there. Many have moved out of the area and living in difficult conditions in the south. Sri Lankan government has cleverly dubbed this forced displacement as Tamils' eagerness to live among Sinhalese. So it is time for President Rajapakse to come up with a credible devolution plan to the Tamil North-East, probably a confederal arrangement with the rest of the country that could solve the ethnic strife in Sri Lanka, rather than trying to hoodwink the international community.

Tamil Tigers are fighting for freedom and true democracy. Sri Lankan government is burring the democracy. I think the US Sri Lankan ambassador tried to mislead the readers without supporting any facts. Tamils democratically decided to free from Sri Lanka and form their own state in 1977. To suppress this democratic decision, Sri Lanka created several anti-democratic laws and wage a war against Tamils and terrorize Tamil using Sri Lankan state terror 99% Sinhala military. For people who talk about democracy should take a note of TNA many call it as pro-LTTE. All of them are elected by Tamils in a considerably fair election. But, more than 4 of the TNA parliamentarians were killed by the Sri Lankan government. In addition, Sri Lankan government killed several Tamil activists, NGO workers, and Journalists. In fact, LTTE submitted an interim solution in 2003 and P-TOM for Tsunami rehabilitation. All these agreements including Indo-Sri Lanka agreement that Sri Lankan ambassador praised are all unilaterally abandoned by the Sri Lankan government. This is why Tamil seek freedom and true democracy. Ruling people under draconian laws and terrorizing people using paramilitary and military intelligence is not democracy. Sri Lankan government is clearly practicing state terrorism. If ambassador is genuine on his claim, why don't his government allow the UN to investigate human right violations and allow the UN to conduct a referendum to allow the Tamils to democratically decide their future.

The Ambassador is absolutely right in that with the LTTE unwaveringly committed to its goal of a separate state, using suicide terror as its tactic, the Sri Lankan Govt. can do no less than protect the nation's security through military action. As occurred with the similar long drawn out conflict in Ireland, it is projected that the waning of support for the LTTE from the Tamil people and the recognition of the futility of its goal as well as its modus operandi will convince the terrorist group that it should lay down its arms. The ancient battle between Tamils invading from South India and the King of Lanka (misrepresented by Asanka as being indicative of a "rivalry" that dates back to BC) were followed by long periods in which Sinhalese and Tamils (as well as Muslims who were given protection and land to live in the East by the Sinhala King), lived together, alternating with periods in which there was hostility brought on by new invasions from South India. If indeed there has been such millenia long "rivalry" between resident populations as implied, there would be historical records, artifacts and proofs of the existence of an extensive Tamil civilization as well. Never has the island been separated into the Tamil region that is now claimed, and historical records show only a few shoreline fishing settlements until the mid-17th Century, which have been acknowledged as such even by Tamil historians (Prof. Indrapala, Univ. of London Ph.D Thesis submitted pre-conflict.) It is thus the unreasonable claim of 30% of the land for the Tamils, although <6% of the island's population currently live there, that has added to the complexity of finding a just and fair solution. Few who have migrated to the South and settled there with homes and lucrative jobs among the Sinhalese will want to return to the North or East. With an intricate mix of the majority of Sri Lanka's Tamils including the Up-Country Tamils now living in Central, Western, and Southern Sri Lanka, admixed with the dominant Sinhala population, a regional demarkation such as a confederal arrangment does not make any sense. Some other imaginative political solution within which the language and cultural distinctions could be accomodated must be sought. A system of Central Power Sharing with checks and balances may likely provide a feasible model.

Typical Sri Lankan government fashion in hiding the truth and painting a picture to the world that the Tamils (who are fighting for their lives) are terrorists. Note that the ambassador is an ethnic Sinhalese and there is not even 1 Tamil ambassador from Sri Lanka to the world. How can this government which massacres Tamil civilians, Sinhalese dissidents and even the media, speak for the Tamils? All abuses are documented by Amnesty International, HRW, and many NGOs. Just Google the atrocities committed by this government which imposes state terror on its civilians. This was even admitted by a former president of the country. Go to Youtube and enter Chandrika hard talk and view the interview. It is obvious anyone who just reads the article, would never dig deeper or not even follow current events (ex. countries of the Human Rights Council booting Sri Lanka out for it's severe abuse of Human Rights and refusing the UN to setup a monitoring administration). Instead, the Sri Lankan government which is run by mostly racist Sinhalese majority,have shouted terrorist at Norway, NGOs, even UN representatives including Louise Arbhour who was critical of the government and requested that Sri Lanka allow UN monitors, something which Sri Lanka vehemently denies in order to continue its ethnic genocide against Tamils. However, the LTTE fighting for the Tamil people has openly welcomed UN, NGOs and any international community to come to Sri Lanka to witness first hand the murders, rape, indiscriminate bombings carried out by the military (99% Sinhalese) with the governments consent. Howeverm, when the persons who commit the murders, rapes and killings are in power, the truth never comes out or the IC miserably fails to recognize it. How Pathetic. Sadly due to the Sri Lankan government false propaganda campaings as the article above, the LTTE freedom fighters have been labelled as terrorists with the blindness of the laws which were made in haste post 9/11. There are hundreds of thousands of Tamils who have escaped the onslought by the racists government, who whole-heartedly support the LTTE. Just like Nelson Mandela and his people became world recognized heroes, so will the Tamils and their rebellion and it's leaders. Justice will prevail.

This comment is in response to PeterMck's statement (para 1) that: "...the ambassador is an ethnic Sinhalese and there is not even 1 Tamil ambassador from Sri Lanka to the world. " PeterMck seems unaware of the fact that up until 1984 and the LTTE's declaration of war against the Govt., MOST (and I reinterate "MOST") of the ambassadors to the Western countries were indeed TAMILS. Sadly, they used their positions to denigrate Sri Lanka and to put forward LTTE propaganda right inside the Sri Lankan embassies (a well acknowledged case being the Ambassador to Bonn, Germany, Ms. Naganathan, whose father Dr. Naganathan was one of the leading lights of the Federal Party. She has admitted that her appointment to the Foriegn Ministry was because of her parents' influence with the then Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake, and that she was appointed over 17 others who had performed better at the exam for selection to the Ministry! That was how things were... In those circumstances, could the Sri Lankan Govt. be honestly expected to keep appointing Tamils to these positions, when already false messages based on propaganda disseminated by the LTTE-supporting diaspora and LTTE-linked NGOs are being given a preferential ear by the Western countries? Yes, local adversarial politics has further complicated things, and the Opposition members like Ranil Wickramasinghe of the UNP and ex-President Chandrika who has been upset at her family's dwindling influence in the SLFP, have joined hands to put out a lot of dirt on U-Tube. It's the new propaganda tool, after all! One hopes that those who wish to acquaint themselves about Sri Lanka would look to more reliable sources of information.

The iconic Ambassador Goonetileka is at it again parleying further untruths after successfully pulling off in Buddhist/Sinhala style an outrageous hoax pitifully on Washington Post in May 2007 of the LTTE stealing and selling to Al Qaeda 130000 Norwegian passports netting millions. Not a word here about the 5 + decades war to ethnic cleanse the Tamils, the armed resistance to this, a much later development authored by the then Indian PM Indra who 'mothered and nurtured' it to save the Tamils from genocide. SL transforms it into a phantom ‘terrorism’ a perfect alibi for the genocide. The post 9/11 euphoria was a windfall; SL had a brief joy ride on the anti-terrorism bandwagon. For the genocide SL repeatedly used a most savage form of scotched earth war using awesome aerial fire power; the first victims of which were the Jaffna Tamils in 1980-1995. B M Reddy of the Hindu news group sums up the savagery of the scotched earth war in one sparkling sentence 'it is rare to come across a structure that is intact' in Frontline 26/04/2008. Once ethnic cleansed and the Vanni Tamils moved joining the pitiful half a million Tamils already in the South the ethnic cleansing begun in the 50’s is almost complete. The genocide assumed massive proportions with the en masse displacement of Tamils in 1980/95; over a million displaced as refugees overseas creating a diaspora; half a million each in the South and the Vanni safe havens; the balance half a million in Jaffna under a military occupation encircled by bases for which they lost the fertile farm belt and sea fronts and with this losing their livelihood, impoverished and all links to the outside world cut live in a virtual siege, Darfur style. These SL crimes put to shame the Milosevic of Yugoslavia. Despite the New York Times’ (8/3/2008) ‘There are no (prying) eyes on this war’ the verdict of the international community on the atrocities cost SL its seat in UNHRC. The much touted SL democracy is queer; it produced an unforgivable savage genocide that displaced almost the entire Tamils. The Tamils in the South are touted as a vibrant model of Sinhala/Tamil communal harmony. On the contrary a candid report in the New York Times of 8/3/2008 ‘Ethnic Divide Worsens ...’ narrates the terrifying and gruesome conditions of these Tamils. Much have been spoken and written on these by independent observers (accredited human rights groups, the NGOs, country reports of overseas missions in SL) that no amount of ‘Buddhist untruth’ can erase the cruelty of SL’s ethnic cleansing/genocide. The world once gullible to SL propaganda is wiser now on SL’s reasons for opting for a ‘military solution’; to wipe clean all traces of Tamils (not LTTE alone) in SL. Tamils for generations to come are unlikely to forgive and trust the Buddhist/Sinhalas’ given their oppressive record in the Tamil pogrom that the rosy conditions the Ambassador holds out for the Tamils amounts to another massive hoax. V S Subramaniam