Let me say this to Raja and all others who back the argument for two nations in Sri Lanka. There are more tamils living outside than inside of the areas that you define as tamil homelands. None of these folks, including myself and my family, wish to relocate to a newly created ethnic tamil ghetto in Jaffna or Batticaloa. YOU TELL ME what we are supposed to do, if your goals is ever achieved? Of course, this is a moot point now that the crazy Sun God is dead. Was it your idea that we should all give up everything and move in an exodus to the promised land?? How do we establish our right to live in such a ghetto? I am a mixed Tamil-Sinhala person who speaks only sinhala and english, where do I belong? Can sinhala people live in your homeland too? Can they do business too like it used to be in Jaffna pre1970s?

I challenge any PRO-TIGER members of the Tamil diapora living in Canada, UK, Sweden, Australia etc to provide me an answer to this question. By the way, please add to your answer what you intend to do too (i.e. your intent to move your entire clan back to this ghetto).

The position of the tamil people around the world regardless of their allegiance with the LTTE is clear: Let’s have a referendum. Let the people decide. It’s interesting that the GOSLs response to this argument is to completely deny the existence of the historic tamil nation. Just like the Iranians, who start out with a policy of not recognizing Israel deny the holoaust , the GOSL starts with the racist premise that Sri Lanka belongs to the Sinhalese, and therefore have no choice, but to deny the existence of the historic tamil homeland. Curiously, it’s the same extreme “nationalists” who are quick to annoint President Rajapakse as the modern day Dutugemunu. Dutugemunu is of course, was according to Sinhalese history, the last Sri Lankan king to take his army to the north and defeat the great tamil king Elara to unite the island. By doing so aren’t these so called “nationalists” admitting that even a thousang years ago there was a tamil kingdom with a king named Elara?

Some of the people caught in the wanny jungle at the moment are from the villages near Trincomalee district boarder, Madawachi district boarder, Mannar, and Jaffna boarders of wanny. These peolple have been displaced and became refugees many times. The people in the kokilai, and wali oya region has been made refugees for more than 20 years.

This will give some idea about the state of these people.

It is not correct to perceive the LTTE as an entity or a group. It can't stand alone and it is an illusive force. We may not see the LTTE today as it is in 25 years time. Because the world is evolving and changing, therefore, the nature of the conflict will also change with it. The only way to get rid of the LTTE is to get rid of the reason for the existence of LTTE.

Forgive me if I can't see the distinction between the "enemy" and the "enemy side". Given the context, there isn't a distinction in the author's mind.

The German population was regarded as the enemy and treated as such. The French population in Vichy-governed France was treated the same, while those in German-occupied France were treated as Allied civilians. In fact there were TWO French governments at the time — the Vichy government allied to the Axis powers, and De Gaulle's Free French government in exile.

Whether the Vietnam war was a proxy war between the US and China or one between North and South Vietnam is irrelevant (in fact it was both), as civilians of both varieties existed no matter how you looked at the war. The North Vietnamese population was treated as the enemy by the South and its western allies. The South Vietnamese population was considered to be variously friendly and hostile by all parties, according to region and affiliation. For example, the Montagnard tribes fought for the US, Vietcong, and NVA.

In SL, the Tamil population IS broadly considered to be "occupied". For this reason, the GoSL has continued to feed and pay the NE.

Contrary to what Vasantha imagines, the LTTE will not bounce back as a guerrilla force because its strongest supporters are in Toronto and London, not Sri Lanka. The LTTE ultimately gave nothing to the Tamils after 25 years of war and destruction, and the Tamils will not support another fruitless 25-year war.

Had he got the priorities right, things would have gone in a totally different way. For instance, if the hard-headed separatists tried to sabotage an unequivocally anti-supremacist solution, the Tamil people – within and outside "Tigerland", including the powerful Tamil Diaspora – would have parted company with ideological separatism. The civilians within "Tigerland" – who now provide the logistical support for the Tigers – would have sabotaged Tigers from within as the partisan movements did during the Second World War. The international community, including the Tamil Nadu establishment would have openly backed the government against the LTTE.
Now that the Rajapaksa regime has done everything in the wrong order the repercussions would be disastrous: Tigers – with or without Prabhakaran – will bounce back as a guerrilla force much faster than the way the JVP did it. Almost the entirety of the SL army would be bogged down in the north and the east for the foreseeable future, posing a logistical and economic nightmare for the government. The military euphoria will elevate Sinhala supremacy to new heights and an equity-based solution would become a virtual impossibility. Civilian atrocities will reach genocidal proportions with the full approval from the likes of Roberts. Rising dissent and probable economic catastrophes in the south could push the Rajapaksa-regime towards a naked dictatorship, and the fate of Sri Lanka would be doomed for years to come.

It is this aspect of the hard realities that is missing from Roberts' appraisal.

Academics are taught to be ever conscious of the possibility that what they say may be wrong. That awareness is what usually keeps them from jumping into current hotspots where possibly wrong pronouncements may lead to consequences that cannot be taken back – such as for example the undeserved killing of even a single person. Unless of course the academic decides to sign up, as all too commonly they do.

Many believe it a great advance for humanity to have arrived at a judicial system that goes to great lengths to ensure that the innocent are not punished even at the risk of letting some guilty ones escape. Apart from pointing out that those who win wars do not have such scruples, Michel seems to want us to believe that they need not in this particular case.

But what is more disturbing is that he seems to question the morality of the request for a cease fire and humanitarian intervention on other grounds also. For, even if he does not intend it, in suggesting that people in the Vanni are not quite civilians and deciding to refer to them as civilians in inverted commas; in arguing that they have somehow had it good though they are people on the enemy side; in calling them Tamils in Tigerland; that there are probably not that many of them; and also in speculating that they may be mixed up with getting more rations and pensions than their due by neglecting to register their numerous dead and departed, Michel seems to imply that they are really not worth sparing or merit the attention of the “do-gooders”, not to mention his curious idea that perhaps that they, and probably everyone else, will benefit if finished off now rather than later.

Do you not recall how the "neutral" Scandinavian monitoring team was culled by the LTTE when all monitors from EU countries were asked to leave and only Norwegians were left? This was after the EU banned the LTTE.

Then do you recall that the monitoring team in the time in Lanka recorded 3000+ violations of the ceasefire by the LTTE compared to the 173 by the SLA?

Nothing is more satisfying than selective amnesia!

Seeing what India is doing now and what it did to Tamils during 1987, do you really believe that India came to liberate the people of NE into an indpendent Tamil Eelam ? The answer is an unequivocal No.

So, India was a scapegoat used by Sri Lankan state to oppress a liberation struggle. Therefore, LTTE had to fight IPKF. And India waged war instead of bringing peace. They did not have mandate to do that but the UN could not help Tamils from the Indian war. IPKF killed more than 3000 innocent civilian Tamils and not a single Sinhalese. So, India was not a genuine peacekeeping force. Rajiv was the commander in Chief of that ruthless IPKF.

The scandanavian monitors were present. Were any of them killed by the LTTE? No. It was the GOSL who chased them away because they were neutral unlike India. That neutrality did not satisfy the GOSL.

What is needed is a genuine, neutral and imparital peace keeping force.
Those who do not seek a peace keeping force under some excuse or the other are directly or indirectly for Tamil genocide in SL.