People in glass houses…
Repost This Article“Where you from” asked the precocious teenager from Jane, a World Bank official I was escorting to a remote hillside community in the middle of Sri Lanka to show a community based micro hydro system. She proudly said, “America”. She and I were both shocked at the response that followed; “Boo Bush Boo Bush!” accompanied by a thumbs down. Jane had just told me how embarrassed she was to call herself an American after Bush’s tragic unprovoked attack of Iraq soon after 9/11.
We were both amazed at this teenager’s knowledge in this remote corner, yet he knew and he had formed an opinion. Such is the result of a communications revolution that is making the world truly global village. No longer can the west have an advantage over others by hoarding information and knowledge. World is becoming level.
Yet, it amazed me when the likes of Milliband, Koucher and other western nations tried to force Sri Lanka to stop short of militarily destroying the LTTE, when the world knew of its reputation as the most ruthless terrorist organization. Many people in Sri Lanka figured out that, their local Tamil constituencies supporting the LTTE were behind these moves.
On the other hand, indeed many of us in Sri Lanka were concerned about the civilians innocently caught up in the war. Yet, we also know from history the amount of collateral damage any terrible war inflicts. The allied forces and Hitler’s Germany caused each other mayhem bombing cities like Dresden from one side and London on the other killing so many innocent people. Yes, the Nazi’s were brought to book, but were any of the allied forces indicted for killing all those German civilians by bombing so many cities ? Yet, we accept that as a cost of war to stop a criminal like Hitler.
Of course, there are international rules Sri Lanka should have adhered to in conducting the war. Many were flouted, from the stories we hear. The Sri Lankan government also took a hard line on any opposition or dissension on its focused war effort.  The government’s line “If you are not with us you are with them” was taken straight from Bush’s war on terrorism. There were many other tactics used with impunity to keep its war effort going. These were the very same the US used in its war on terror, including forced abductions and torture.
Now I draw the line when it comes to these kinds of extra judicial actions that violate our rights. Yet, we do not have an international benchmark anymore to measure against. The moral authority, which the USA and west seemed to have, at least to many of us who did not know any better, had diminished for sure with Bush openly squandering it with his swagger, rhetoric and action.
Sermons of the Cowards
Singaporean author Kishore Mahbubani in his recent article The Sermons of the Cowards highlights the double standards of the west when he states;
The first flaw of western discourse is its inability to practice what it preaches in this respect: to speak truth to power. This is revealed in the reluctance of western governments to discuss the most catastrophic reversal in the field of human rights: the decision by the US government to defend the use of torture.
No longer are we dealing with an ignorant and uneducated world. Not only are people in most countries in the loop through communications technologies and mobility, they are wiser now and make sound judgments of what is happening around them. As Mahbubani says, as the west conducts a self-congratulatory conversation on the subject, the rest of the world sees an emperor with no moral clothing.
Revelations from the likes of John Perkins in his brave book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, more of the emperor is being bared. Some day the USA will have to redeem itself to right the wrongs that were committed in the name of developing and sustaining the lifestyle of the Americans while fighting the communist threat. Who will answer to the deaths of enlightened leaders like Panama’s Omar Torrijos, Ecuador ’s Roldos, Chile’s Allende, and countless others just because they wanted to look after the interests of their own people and not the US government’s and its business interests.
Chevron Texaco ruined Ecuador’s Amazon region and its indigenous people with its oil explorations and extraction. In 1954, United Fruit with the CIA overthrew Guatemala’s democratically elected people’s President Arbenz who promised his people a fair government and land reform and installed the ruthless right wing dictator, Colonel Carlos Castillo who danced to their tune and hurt his own.
This pattern continues in other parts of the world too. Reading Martin Meredith’s, State of Africa describes appalling stories of western support to African scoundrels who bled their countries of people and money just because they looked after their interests.
France was notorious in its support of the likes of Central African Republic’s Bokkassa, the flamboyant Houphouet-Boigny of Cote d’Ivoire who ran their countries to the ground.
Meredith states;
Jean Bedel  Bokassa’s  career as a dictator combined not only extreme greed and personal violence but delusion of grandeur.
Bokassa looked upon President De Gaulle as his adoptive father and after him a close friendship with Valery Giscard d’Estang who used the republic as his hunting ground. D’Estang has the dubious honor of killing over 50 elephants and many other animals in the 1970s. No wonder they had the double standard – the blind spot – as long as their personal and national interests were looked after, while millions of people suffered.
Another African scoundrel, Mobutu of Zaire was deemed the great plunderer with good reason. He too amassed a huge fortune, while the country ran dry and people starved.  He was also a nasty man, vindictive and brutally silenced any critic.  Yet the US government provided more than $ 860 million of aid from 1965 to 1988. Not only that, Vice President George Bush senior heaped praise on him, just after he had imprisoned his opposition in 1982;
“I have come to appreciate the dynamism that is so characteristic of Zaire and Zairians and to respect your dedication to fairness and reason” said Bush senior and as if that was not enough went onto to say “I have come to admire, Mr. President, your personal courage and leadership in Africa”.
Incredible!
In the meantime, fifteen Zairian parliamentarians had published a 51 page indictment in 1980 against Mobutu summarized below;
After fifteen years of the power you have exercised alone, we find ourselves divided into two absolute distinct camps. On one side, a few scandalously rich persons. On the other, masses of people suffering the darkest misery.
The US government obviously did not have their eyes and ears open or just chose to ignore.
Nuclear Doublespeak
Then there are other glaring double standards every time the US and allies take on countries like Iran, Pakistan and India to task for their nuclear developments as they are not part of the old boys club. Anyway, the notion of possessing nuclear capabilities for security is an oxymoron. Using it even once will lead to the destruction of humanity. So, the US and others sitting on a high horse and pontificating to anyone they think should not have nuclear capability is comical. If at all Japan has the moral authority in today’s context to protest against any nuclear arms development anywhere including the west, as they possess none.
Having studied, Nuclear Energy in my tertiary education I am anti-nuke as I think, the power industry is inevitably linked to the arms industry in many of these countries as nuclear waste’s usefulness gets extended in weapons. A world with evolved human beings should not need nuclear weapons for security. What are we so afraid of ?
But then again, we maybe evolved in technology and other material domains, but not evolved in the mind.
Narcissus Lives
The Buddha saw us humans 2500 years ago as Narcissus, captivated by our own image and reflection, reveling in our own seeming self-sufficiency and ignoring all the reminders of our own precarious and impermanent being and natures. We live in illusion about our own flawed sense of egoistic self and not even conscious about it.
2500 years later, we still live in illusion and fear, hoarding material wealth, technology, wielding power over others, just the same way the west conquered the east with weapons of destruction, it’s just that the modern arms could wipe us all out in seconds.
Wake Up and Presence
So, when will the powerful west wake from this slumber to realize that the whole world, including that boy on the hill, is watching and wondering that there is a huge gap between what they pontificate, ‘espoused theories’ – as Agyris and Schon, the social scientists say – and what they do, their ‘theories in action’. The difference is they are getting angry enough to blow themselves up in frustration.
In our leadership interventions with organizations we play a game called the Winning Game to see how even good people, when they are wronged are willing to lose while taking revenge. Our complex humanity is hanging on a thread, so the west, with all its material wealth and power needs to build its credibility to be a shining example of graciousness to the rest so every human on this earth has a life of dignity. The only way to reach that is to evolve the individual mind through spiritual practices such as meditation, yoga and martial arts, so the collective will transform into a more humane world. In the meantime, people in glasshouses should not throw stones at the rest.
Amen, GroundViews. Sometimes you let real authors in!
Thank you Mr. Gunarathne, for the nice piece of work. As some us as we admire our reflections on the glass walls, tend to think, the glass that surrounds us, will also protect us. Sometimes it does. In a recent poll, Bush junior had closer to 40% approval, even after he left the white house. I love my America.
“On the other hand, indeed many of us in Sri Lanka were concerned about the civilians innocently caught up in the war. Yet, we also know from history the amount of collateral damage any terrible war inflicts. The allied forces and Hitler’s Germany caused each other mayhem bombing cities like Dresden from one side and London on the other killing so many innocent people. Yes, the Nazi’s were brought to book, but were any of the allied forces indicted for killing all those German civilians by bombing so many cities ?. Yet, we accept that as a cost of war to stop a criminal like Hitler.”
These are the golden words Mr.Lalith Gunawardena has penned down regarding the “forked tongued” Western powers,which should wake up anybody who doesn’t have a “colour blindness” of seeing only what they want to see or what their Masters want them to see or an IQ problem,and counter the vicious attack on Sri Lanka by these “white clad criminals” who carry doves in their hands,but mass murder in their hearts!
I would like to add the worst War Crime in the WWII to the list,the nuclear bomb attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki which killed more than 100,000 civilians in a blink of an eye,and I wonder why this despicable crime against humanity which was committed by the US in the “FINAL PHASE OF THE WAR” was never brought before the war crimes tribunal.Even now it is not too late as the UN has recently started a probe to invastigate the war crimes committed by the Serbian forces during World War I.
It is hilarious,to say the least how the “self righteous” White Sahib sees things in his “selective amnesia”,and it is more pathetic to see our “brown Sahibs” who have sold their brains to the West,repeat the same “Gospel”!
Keep writing the truth Lalith!
Yet another rational and impartial thinking from Lalith.
I like the bit when you say that Britain too is complicit in killing innocent Germans while waging war on Hitler.
US, the master bully and noveau superpower of the late 20th and 21st centuries, is the world’s largest manufacturer and exporter of arms including possessing deadly nuclear weapons. Yet, it berates North Korea and Iran for possessing nuclear missiles.
You do not deal with terrorism with terror on innocent civilians or barter IMF loans in exchange for sublimity to major powers by compelling poor countries ( I willl not call them developing countries; an euphemism coined by the West) to allow western economy to flourish through freed trade concessions like JR advocated in 1977.
The free trade zones ensured maximum profit to foreign conglomerates which use our cheap labour without profiting us in any way.
The 49 percent foreign stake needs to matched by 51 percent local investment. Very well in theory but who benefits?
Not the garment factory workers ( many of whom are lured into prostitution because their wages are not enough to provide their families with bare essentials) or those who manufacture computer parts but a few hand-picked govt. supporting business magnates and the foreign investor. All produce are taken back with the stringent rule that SL should not benefit.
The Exxon Valdez spill pales into insignificance when you compare BP’s oil spill recently.
Indigenous Americans and immigrants were given landfill sites and houses with lead pillars which caused irreparable brain damage to children through poisoning.
As long as the poor are silenced and intimidated the rich will continue to flourish. Democracy is only an euphemism for capitalism.
Let us now see the fight for Lithium in Afghanistan! Do you want a Chinese battery or a Korean one?
May be now India can grab the Union Carbide head!, when they come to put up processing plants now.
I love the way liberations happen around wealth, in this case amounting to nearly one trillion dollars.
Spirituality goes in hand with Communism i think. Its a soft article. Well Bush had high approvals in just two countries – India and Israel (the two I’s) during the last campaign. Well it surprised me as to why India had high ratings for Bush >> indians who prefer white skin before anything or that Indians from the land of Gandhi think the best way to prepare to peace is to prepare for war or they think Bush “war on terror” policy is the best for its security given the instability in the North, South and East of India or peaceful indians find “war and mighty military” a great fantasy and fascination that Bush is known for. In about 30 years India, the unquestionable leader today will be a super power of the world. Then Sri Lanka will even become a state locked within India’s economy and a 27th state if not a territory of India. Well Andaman and Nicobar islands are quite far away from India than Sri Lanka to India but yet form a territory but not a state of India. Time to time Sri Lanka regimes have failed and its people , so was a case in many Eastern nations and if one day if its going to irritate fast growing India only after China it wouldn’t want to deal the Gandhi way?
Today a lot of Indian expatriates are returning to their country to give it additional strength. Sri Lanka is propagating hate to its expatriates in the west a sizable chunk of them being pro-Sarath Fonseka. A larger being ex-Sri Lankan.
Koucher and Miliband came to stop the foreseen 40000 slaughtered. Where is spirituality in you for being a man/woman who was for war? As rulers of Ceylon, Britain had its responsibility even today when is had to hurriedly leave without implementing the recommended “rule of law” for Lanka’s different mix of ethnicities. She got her freely given Independence. They left Sri Lanka as pressure from India was huge as a result of Gandhi fella doing his peaceful Jay-z mobilizing stuff. They ruled Sri Lanka as a whole would make it easy to administer. Hence 6 decades of dissatisfaction. Jaffna lost being a Singapore and an Asian hub for almost everything. See Lee Kuan Yew the former prime minister of Singapore words throughout his life time on Sri Lankan Tamils. Tamils from Sri Lanka have immensely contributed to Singapore’s and Malaysia’s development and continue to do so. Check out in a recently in a series of a books titled “Giants of Asia”.
“The only way to reach that is to evolve the individual mind through spiritual practices such as meditation, yoga and martial arts, so the collective will transform into a more humane world. In the meantime, people in glasshouses should not throw stones at the rest.”
Im 20 and my parents trained me in all forms except Yoga. not an expert in that.
Its a waste of time writing here when the real problem is the government of SRI LANKA. itself.
This article is full of contradictions:
No longer can the west have an advantage over others by hoarding information and knowledge. World is becoming level.
Where exactly is there a press-censorship? The only first-world country where there is a press-censorship is Singapore. Speaking of “hoarding information and knowledge”, perhaps Gunaratne can explain the whereabouts of the many, many missing journalists in SL and perhaps he can prove that the Sri Lankan Government had no hand in the disappearances/abductions/murders of these journalists. He should also explain why tamilnet.com is banned in SL.
On the other hand, indeed many of us in Sri Lanka were concerned about the civilians innocently caught up in the war.
Sorry, but I don’t see a campaign in the South to push for any war crimes probe, to demilitarize the North, or to accelerate the process of resettlement. The fact of the matter is, Gunaratne and his friends in the South stood back and cheered while the LTTE was being militarily crushed (at the expense of tens of thousands of Tamils civilians). When the LTTE was no more, Mahinda locked up 300,000 Tamils in barbed wire camps, letting foreigners feed and shelter them with the barest of essentials, while Gunaratne and his friends in the South threw Lion flag parties.
Some day the USA will have to redeem itself to right the wrongs that were committed in the name of developing and sustaining the lifestyle of the Americans while fighting the communist threat.
This is sheer nonsense. Communism died with the Soviet Union. The few scraggling remnants of communism still on the planet- Cuba, North Korea – bear testament to the absolute failure of communism. Since Gunaratne is such a fan of war crimes/mass atrocities, he ought to know that more people died in Stalin’s gulags than were victims of the Holocaust. Ironically, you will not find any criticism of Russia in Gunaratne’s writing – like a sly fox, he mentions the bombing of Dresden and other German cities as evidence of Allied war crimes. In fact, after Germany and Japan, Russia was the greatest perpetrator of war crimes. Could it be that Gunaratne is sticking up for Russia since Russia is a supporter of SL and its genocide against the Tamils? Elsewhere, Gunaratne claims that Japan ought to have nuclear weapons. Japan does not even have an army – the reason being that the last time they had an army, the result was that 30 million non-Japanese civilians perished in the name of the Japanese Empire. Ironically, Gunaratne the great historian omits Japan from his list of WWII aggressors!
Sri Lankan HR investigation will and should end in 2048 – based on great and all mighty UK standard – so if we as a 3rd world country take a bit more time, its hsould be ok…
“Nearly 40 years after British troops opened fire on protestors in Northern Ireland — sparking decades of bitter sectarian violence — a British government inquiry has finally rendered a credible verdict worthy of a democracy. As Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain announced: “What happened on ‘Bloody Sunday’ was both unjustified and unjustifiable.”
This article is amazing in its logic. Why is American behaviour in international warfare being compared to Sri Lanka’s disgusting behaviour in a DOMESTIC WAR? We all expect countries to fight with each, and obviously they must adhere to international rules when doing so. But what are the rules with regard to how a state treats its own citizens? Poor Lalith Gunaratne is unable to find international benchmarks and unable to decide if Sri Lanka flouted international rules in the recent war. Here’s one benchmark: a state is not supposed to kill its OWN citizens. You can take out the terrorists but killing innocent citizens in the process of doing so is NOT ACCEPTABLE. Gunaratne does not seem to think that a baseline duty of governments is that they do not kill their own citizens. That is why Milliband and others wanted SL to hold back in the war: because hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians were caught in it, not because they were pandering to the LTTE. I guess Milliband was horrified by the idea of a state army gunning down its own people, just as any other civilized person would be. When was the last time the American military turned its guns on even a thousand of its own innocent citizens?
What a shaking off of responsibility. So, SL is not responsible for the dead civilians because the LTTE was the number 1 terrorist force in the world? How about all the many, many chances of resolving the ethnic issue and pre-empting violence and the emergence of militant groups? No responsibility for that?
I seriously doubt that Kishore Mahbubani would give SL a free pass just because of Western atrocities.
Just to add, there’s nothing precocious about this SL kid who seemed to know about Bush. No doubt every where he went in SL, the adults were busy deflecting blame from themselves by pointing fingers at the West. I doubt he had to read a single international news source to think in this manner.
Belle
“I guess Milliband was horrified by the idea of a state army gunning down its own people, just as any other civilized person would be..”
see my post above – well miliband country took 38 years to conclude it was wrong. – i bet we can have a tea and take some time also…
Has Belle not heard of civil wars where a section of people within a country goes to war against its own government? It has happened in the US and also in the UK and France. General Sherman burned every dwelling in Georgia to the ground as he marched through it and is reputed to have claimed that wars could only be won by using unmitigated force on ones enemies and their supporters. The British civil war was the colstiliest war in terms of the proportion of the population killed in British history. And this is a country that has been at war with almost every country in the world!
When Prabakaran and the JVP were massacrering people what was the Government supposed to do? Arrest them and try them in a court of law? Was that practical when people were terrified of testifying against them? When the LTTE crept into the NFZ that was meant for the civilians only and started bombarding the army from inside it what do you expect the soldiers to do? Curl up and die? Or pack up and go home leaving the LTTE to reform and start a new war? There were daily pleas by the government to the LTTE to let the civilians go. The LTTE cynically refused to do so saying “if you want to get us you will have to kill our women and children first”. A cowardly strategy by the LTTE top brass who expected their underage foot soldiers to blow themselves up if cornered in battle. The government held their nerve and were prepared to wait and starve them into surrendering (rather than kill them with artillery). Of course international pressure brought on by the demonstrators through their governments was mounting by the day so in the end they decided to blast their way in and finish it off. True, many civilians would have perished but they did so due to the LTTE’s cowardly strategy and the diaspora’s decision to put pressure on the government to call off the offensive rather than on the LTTE to release the hostages who were incidently their own mothers and sisters! Governments dont usually kill their own people but when a section of the population decide to take up arms and kill their fellow countrymen the state has a right to overcome them with force. In an ideal situation where the rebels/terrorists operate outside populated areas civilian casualties are low. But on this occasion they shielded their mortar and artillery pads with their mothers and sisters so what do you expect to happen?
Aminda,
The British army killed 13 people on Bloody Sunday. They held their first inquiry immediately in that year. Then they conducted another one, starting in 1998. 38 years later, they have come out with an unbiased report. Violent riots against Tamils in Sri Lanka happened through three decades, starting in 1956. That was more than 50 years ago. More than 150 people lost their lives in that first spate of violence alone. Where were your inquiries? How much more time do you need? The time has long passed for you to stop with the tea and get down to work.
Isn’t the difference in British and Sri Lankan attitudes towards civilians apparent here?
Dingiri,
I am talking about the 20th and 21st centuries, when the world evolved civilizationally. So please don’t drag the ghost of General Sherman and his ilk into this. Barbarism that was acceptable centuries ago is not supposed to be acceptable today.
As for all that malarkey about ‘Oh, what was the SL government to do–those Tigers had the civilians by the throat’, etc, any civilized country in those circumstances would have asked for international help to deal with the matter decently. The Tigers were cornered by that stage. The UN could have and would have managed to negotiate a surrender. Except that your blood-thirsty President and his army did not want a decent and peaceful end. You folks are wallowing so much in the mire that you can’t even recognise when a revolting deed has been done. A government DOES NOT KILL its own innocent civilians, no matter what the provocation, no matter how inconvenient.
Don’t you guys feel any guilt at all for having allowed matters to develop to such a stage that the LTTE and violence was the only option? You provoke people and then start pointing fingers at them when they react. When does it become your turn to take some responsibility?
aminda,you are correct,Sri Lanka can take 80 years to bring out the report of the commission! Belle is an apostle of the West.He knows all and he sees all.Only he reads the international press;and he knows that he is correct!
I meet people like him everyday in the streets of Western countries;myopic and one track;brainwashed to be a slave!
Belle,
Here’s where the hypocrisy lies.
The West is only too happy for the governments of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq to kill their own citizens. In fact, they are constantly pressuring them to do even more killing, in the belief that it will keep New York, London and Paris safer. If the Sri Lankan Army had Al-queda or the Taliban cornered on those beachers, do you honestly believe that Milliband et al would have flown down here to try and stop it?
There may indeed be self-righteous opprobrium in the West about governments killing their own citizens. But who among them has fought a civil war so nobly? England? France? The US? Spain? Pray tell. And it hasn’t certainly hasn’t stopped them from fomenting, funding and supporting ugly civil wars in other parts of the world – Vietnam, Nicaragua, Angola to name but a few. Oh, and have you heard what’s happening with the war on drugs?
Here’s a sad fact: you can’t expect protection from a state that you are doing your utmost to destroy, using the vilest means imaginabkle. That’s not how it works in the real world. The LTTE and its supporters did not even consider themselves citizens of Sri Lanka. In fact they declared themselves sworn enemies of those who did.
Yes, I hear you say, but it was the evil Sri Lankan state that gave rise to the LTTE. Well that being the case, surely it was also the responsilibility of the state to contain it. It was only after decades of mayhem – when it had become amply clear to any reasonable person that there was simply no taming that beast no matter what was offered – that the state moved in for the kill.
I know you have this pet theory that you trot out every now and then. That our Sri Lankan governments are elected by pandering to some innate Sinhalese proclivity for bashing Tamils. I must belatedly inform you that this is simply not true.
Since I attained voting age over twenty years ago, there have been three elected leaders of this country who came to power with explicit pledges to negotiate a peaceful settlement with the LTTE based on devolution – Premadasa, CBK, and Ranil. They murdered the first, maimed the second, and made an utter fool of the third.
Even Mahinda was not elected on a war platform. Anxiety over Ranil’s economic policies was arguably a bigger factor. To say nothing of the LTTE’s mass disenfranchisement. There were no promises made to destroy the LTTE in the 2005 campaign – back then hardly anyone would have thought it possible. In fact, when the country was sliding back to war, there were peace marches in Colombo attended by government ministers.
And even though the LTTE was almost entirely to blame for the renewal of hostilities, even though it was certain that the Tamils of the N&E would suffer the most as result, we didn’t hear a peep from those who would later make so much noise at Parliament Square and the highways of Toronto. And on these columns for that matter. They were too busy writing cheques for the ‘final push’ for Eelam.
I do wish we had been wise enough to avoid the whole miserable war in the first place. I also sincerely wish it hadn’t ended the way it did. But I am damn glad that it’s finally over. There is now at least the possibilitity of movement towards a just and liberal future.
I don’t accept that an immediate international investigation will facilitate this – it’ll just plunge us back into the abyss. I believe these ballooning casualty figures are an attempt by some to force the issue. But I don’t sense any great enthusiasm for it, even in the West, for all the harrumphing. Who knows, some may suspect that they too might need to pursue the ‘Sri Lanka option’ someday.
I truly hope not. And I do think there should be an investigation – but at a time when we can assess these awful events in a sober and rational manner, and are able to dispense justice and restitution in full measure. I’m sure it will happen. And unlike in Britain, it may not even take forty years.
rajivmw,
I don’t see any movement towards a “just and liberal future”. Do you? If there had been such moves made post-war, I wouldn’t have the opinions and perceptions I have now. I would have conceded that the Rajapakse government had some good intentions. If even now such moves are being made, I’d agree that the priority should be to see them through rather than to focus on an inquiry into war crimes.
However, post-war developments make me very certain that the future will NOT be any more just for Tamils. I foresee it getting worse. By the time Rajapakse is through, there won’t be any Jaffna, no Tamil areas in Sri Lanka. They will be totally and forcibly assimilated, and there will be no need either to keep Tamil as a co-national language of Sri Lanka, and Tamil culture will be destroyed.
“Yes, I hear you say, but it was the evil Sri Lankan state that gave rise to the LTTE. Well that being the case, surely it was also the responsilibility of the state to contain it.”
Of course, it was. But not by using strategies that endangered hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. There are a 1001 ways to skin a cat. Only someone who has no regard for Tamils whatsoever would think that it was right to endanger the lives of these civilians in order to take out the LTTE (so that Sinhalese can live in peace). Only a community that is racist and utterly immoral could have stood by and watched hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens being incarcerated behind barbed wire, and deemed it to be right (because the safety of the Sinhalese demanded that this be done).
Tell me why LTTE cadres were killed when they were holding up white flags? Does that suggest to you that your government had any kind of good intentions in the way it fought the war?
You say there isn’t any Sinhalese proclivity for bashing Tamils by citing post-LTTE election results. Why don’t you talk about the pre-LTTE election patterns, when there weren’t any Tamil militant forces present to scare the Sinhalese from bashing Tamils?
longus,
I see you could find no way to counter my arguments and so relied on personal attacks and stereotyping. Thanks for confirming the strength of my arguments.
The irony is that your ilk keeps citing Western standards as the norms by which you live by, but I am the one who is brainwashed by the West! So, since UK took so long to deliver a just and true report, Sri Lanka should too? When will you get rid of your colonial mindset?
And, I am not the only one who reads the international press–you do too? Then how come you don’t even know that “Belle” is a feminine term? All that supposed travel/living in the West, and you don’t know that? Do you ever look up from the ground or get out of your own provincial head when you are tramping all those “streets in Western countries”?
Belle,
You want examples of attrocities by the US and UK in the 20th century? Here is one from the 1960s.
Go to this link and read about how the Brits dealt with the Kikuyu in Kenya when they objected to their lands being confiscated and given to white settlers. You’ve got it all. IDP camps, baynotting of 12 year old kids, calls by white settlers to kill 50,000 Kikuyu just to make and example.. My point is that these things happen anywhere when any conflict whether internal or external spirals out of control. And dont tell me that the crimes were commited against those of another nation. It does not make a blind bit of difference. Human lives are human lives. However if you are saying it is OK to kill those of another nation, the Kikuyu were British subjects when these attrocities took place. Major Gerry Griffiths told told his men they could kill anybody as long as they were black! The perpetrators of these crimes are still alive in the UK but have not spent a day behind bars.
http://www.ogiek.org/indepth/special-report-2.htm
If you want an example from US history, check this entry in Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre
Here again, the Americans in South Vietnam were the dominant power and responsible for the welfare of the South Vietnamese. The case was intially covered up by non other than Colin Powell but eventually was brought to trial in the US. There were reams of evidence including photograps of soldiers butchering 8 year old boys. But of the platoon of 200 men many of whom freely admitted to killing in cold blood during the trial only one was convicted. He did not go to prison but was held under house arrest and freed after 2 years after the American People campaigned for his release calling him a war hero and not a war criminal.
I have no doubt that if there was a civil war in the US or UK today as intense as the war in Sri Lanka a Puthumatalan situation could quite easily arise. Bloody Sunday killed only 13 people. But they were all unarmed and taking part in a peaceful demonstration. Imagine if a few hundred IRA were within the demonstration shooting at the soldiers killing many of them? What might have been the response? The IRA campaign was a Sunday picnic compared to the LTTE campaign. Imagine what might have happened if the IRA would come in the middle of the night, surround a protestant town and hack every single of its inhabitants to death like what the LTTE did almost weekly in the early 90s? How might the British soldiers have reacted?
I am not trying to say those who died deserved it. But you need to understand that this was the culmination of a cycle of provocation and reaction between the two communities which was spiralling out of control, and the cowardly tactics of the LTTE at the end that resulted in the large number of civilian deaths. The LTTE never offered to surrender. They only offered to surrender to the UN or a third country who would take them away somewhere else where they could regroup and restart the fight. That would not have solved Sri Lanka’s problem. I myself was oposed to the return to hostilities despite all the LTTE provocations. I felt that the government should have first offered the Tamils separate states in Jaffna and Batticaloa for extents of land proportionate to their populations. You will see my posts elsewhere berating the government for not offering the Tamils a fair and equal division of the land before resuming the war. But we all know the LTTE was hell bent on gaining their super state -based on their Tamil supremacist idealogy- in all of the Northern and Eastern provinces plus Puttlam! It would have meant that the Tamils got 4 times as much land per capita as a Sinhalese! I believe the Sinhalese had every right to fight by whatever means or methods necessary to defeat such a grossly unfair demand.
Bell,
I have to agree with you on one of your previous comments though about there being no sign of a post war reconcilliation and also about the indifference of the government and some Sinhalese to the IDPs. Expecting the UN to use its money to feed and house them while we spent 800million of tax payer money on throwing a party for Bollywood movie stars. I remember an interview with a foreign jounalist where MR finds it hilarious that some IDPs who have been released are returning to the camps “because they have it good there”. Not realising that they are only returning because they have no homes to go to. The callous insensitivity of it all is truly unbelievable. If I was the president I would have moved my office to Vavuniya or Jaffna and put every thing on hold until the IDPs were rehoused. But MR did not even visit them. I saw a film clip of Basil Rajapakse addressing a group of IDPs who were about to be released telling them “You should be grateful to the President for rescuing you from the LTTE” !!
I however believe things will improve slowly once the current paranoia and patriotic bravado passes. There will still be a Jaffna. Probably even a more modern one with better roads and infrastructure. The militarisation of jaffna and the Vanni will also continue for as long the government believes there is a threat out there. After that it will wane as defence spending is gradually scaled down. I cant see how we can maintain it at the current level of 200Bn/yr. Hopefully the the Rajapakse regime/dynasty wont last more than another 6 years and will be replaced by something more enlightened and accountable to the people.
Belle,
“I don’t see any movement towards a “just and liberal future”. Do you?”
I see peace right now, and a little prosperity on the horizon. It’s a start. Rarely does a country become more just and liberal during a time of war and deprivation.
“By the time Rajapakse is through, there won’t be any Jaffna, no Tamil areas in Sri Lanka. They will be totally and forcibly assimilated, and there will be no need either to keep Tamil as a co-national language of Sri Lanka, and Tamil culture will be destroyed.”
I don’t see any signs of forcible assimilation. The LTTE and war were bigger threats to Tamil culture than the Rajapakses ever will be. Jaffna may become a little more cosmopolitan, but that will be to its benefit.
“There are a 1001 ways to skin a cat. Only someone who has no regard for Tamils whatsoever would think that it was right to endanger the lives of these civilians in order to take out the LTTE (so that Sinhalese can live in peace).”
We can debate the logic and calculation of any war forever, but it’s mostly a pointless exercise. You can always say there must have been another way. And you might be right. I question though if it all boils down to race as you believe. The Sri Lankan state killed tens of thousands of Sinhalese to take out the JVP.
“Only a community that is racist and utterly immoral could have stood by and watched hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens being incarcerated behind barbed wire, and deemed it to be right (because the safety of the Sinhalese demanded that this be done).”
Agreed. But no more racist and utterly immoral than a community that gloried in producing more suicide bombers than any other in the world.
“Tell me why LTTE cadres were killed when they were holding up white flags?”
I don’t know the details of what actually happened. Do you?
“Why don’t you talk about the pre-LTTE election patterns, when there weren’t any Tamil militant forces present to scare the Sinhalese from bashing Tamils?”
I’m certainly not going to defend the utterly shameful things that happened then. But in retrospect, do you think it was wise to spurn the opportunities offered by the moderate governments that the country (Sinhalese included) elected time and time again?
-”Belle”,
[Edited out]
Your lack of knowledge on the recent world events is apparent in your “profound” arguments!It is the “first world country” Israel in 2009(“21st century”)who used white phosphorus,and motor fire on its own civilians in the Gaza strip, killing 800 odd women and children.Not only that,they attacked the UN food convoys delebarately,which were taking food and medicine to the civilians!Take the recent act of attacking a flotilla which was carrying food supplies to the civilians,it’s the same story!
The israel government defended its action saying that Israel has a legitimate right to attack Hamas targets eventhough it could kill civilians because Hamas are holding civilians as a human shield!Didn’t the LTTE DO THAT?
When this issue was taken before the UN security council and some countries wanted a warcrimes probe to be innitiated against Isreal who opposed it? The so called guardians of human rights and angels of free expression.Namely Canada and the West!Who vetoed that motion?The United States of America!
_”Belle”,
Well,I didn’t have a clue as to your gender,as there are many trans-sexuals out there who call themselves “feminine” names.And also it could have been a shortened form for a man’s name like ‘Bellena”,or even a shellfish(Bella) or a bird(“kehibella-a bird in Sri Lanka who makes a “coughing” sound!)
Your total ignorance in recent world events is quite apparent in your profound arguments in your comments.It was Israel(“a first world country”) who attacked its own civilians in the Gaza Strip in 2009(in the “21st century”)-not to mention many such previous attacks on its own civilians-with white phosphorus,motars and bombs which led to the deaths of more than 3000 civilians.Not only that,they deliberately attacked the UN FOOD CONVOYS which were transporting food and medicine to the affected civilians.Israel government maintained that Hamas were a terrorist group and therefore a legitimate target,eventhough it means killing of civilians as the civilians were used by the Hamas as a “human shield”.Didn’t the LTTE DO THE SAME THING?
When this crime against humanity was brought before UNHRC and some countries wanted a war crimes probe to be initiated against Israel who voted against it?The so called guardians of human rights and the angels of free expression,Canada and the West. Who vetoed the resolution in the Security Council?The United States of America!The same Western powers voted against Sri Lanka in Geneva!
-and when they lost, kept persuing us like a pack of wolves!-
Even in the recent Israeli attack on a flotilla of ships which were carrying food and medicine to the civilians in Gaza-all routes of food supplies to them are blocked by the Israeli government-the Israeli government said that it was a legitimate target.
You can keep worshiping the “forked tongued White Man”as one Red Indian leader said several centuries ago!
“I don’t see any signs of forcible assimilation. The LTTE and war were bigger threats to Tamil culture than the Rajapakses ever will be. Jaffna may become a little more cosmopolitan, but that will be to its benefit.”
Terrorism and war rarely help to develop culture. But we are now in a post-war situation, right? As to signs of forcible assimilation, the government’s settling of Sinhalese in Tamil-occupied lands is one. Most IDPs from the Vanni area have been ‘resettled’ in relatives’ homes, while their lands have been ‘re-settled’ by Sinhalese. If you don’t think that is a sign of forcible assimilation, nay colonization, maybe you should start to look more objectively at the situation. Buddha statues and Buddhist temples coming up near churches in Jaffna is another–this was the government’s top priority act after the war when it ought to have been resettling IDPs and helping displaced Tamils. The symbolic value of getting the First Lady to take up a statue of the Buddha and placing it in a symbolically Tamil area days after the war ended must have escaped you.
An authentic cosmopolitanism is voluntarily attained by people, not forced on them by the State. It is not up to a majority-dominated government to decide what culture will benefit a minority community. That’s forcible assimilation and cultural domination, not cosmopolitanism. At any rate, the state of Buddhist culture as it has developed in Sri Lanka to date would be of doubtful benefit to anybody.
“Agreed. But no more racist and utterly immoral than a community that gloried in producing more suicide bombers than any other in the world.”
The SL Tamils did not take pride in producing suicide bombers. The LTTE did. Don’t confuse the two for your own rhetorical and political convenience. Why did the LTTE have to do forcible recruitment if the local Tamil community agreed with their violence?
You might also wish to morally differentiate between people supporting a government that incarcerates victims of a war who are their fellow citizens, and people who agree to take part in suicide bombing–the latter are fighting for independence (as they see it) and the ultimate in self-sacrifice is entailed. What self-sacrifice is entailed in supporting the incarceration of innocent fellow-citizens?
“I don’t know the details of what actually happened. Do you?”
This is an established fact. Even your government has admitted to it.
“We can debate the logic and calculation of any war forever, but it’s mostly a pointless exercise. You can always say there must have been another way.”
Yes, it is hard, given that the State keeps the info close to its chest. But where moral turpitude is suspected, it is the responsibility of a people to discuss what happened and demand to know the truth, rather than escape moral responsibility by saying it’s a “pointless exercise”.
“I question though if it all boils down to race as you believe. The Sri Lankan state killed tens of thousands of Sinhalese to take out the JVP.”
Saddam Hussein carried out chemical warfare against Kurds in Iraq. He also killed dissenters in his own community. Does that mean that his drive against Kurds was not based on race? The LTTE killed Tamils as well as Sinhalese–does that mean that their mission was not based on race?
“I’m certainly not going to defend the utterly shameful things that happened then. But in retrospect, do you think it was wise to spurn the opportunities offered by the moderate governments that the country (Sinhalese included) elected time and time again?”
Of course, the LTTE is utterly to be despised for having rejected options, time and again, that would have brought about a decent outcome for SL Tamils. But how much of a say did the Tamil people have in these decisions? I know that my own family members and others in Jaffna were pro-compromise. As for the “utterly shameful things” that happened pre-LTTE days, why did they occur if not out of racism and racial chauvinism?
longus,
I am no apologist for the West. Only those with their head in the sand would deny Western atrocities committed against other countries. My point is that we should be talking about the standards accepted today about a State’s behaviour and treatment of its own civilians. Unless of course you don’t expect a government that you elected to power to treat you better than the government of another country.
As for your example of Israel, I did not realize that Palestinians living in the Gaza strip were citizens of Israel! I’m sure even they would be surprised to know that. We must all bow down to your superior knowledge of Palestinian-Israeli politics.
But it’s good that you brought up Israel. Your government and Israel are good buddies, aren’t they? There’s not much to choose between them, actually. The settlement of Sinhalese in Tamil areas is probably very much inspired by the Aliyah Bet.
Dingiri,
“Imagine what might have happened if the IRA would come in the middle of the night, surround a protestant town and hack every single of its inhabitants to death like what the LTTE did almost weekly in the early 90s? How might the British soldiers have reacted?”
Could you please furnish info on this. I had no idea the LTTE did that. Which towns did they attack in this manner?
“And dont tell me that the crimes were commited against those of another nation. It does not make a blind bit of difference. Human lives are human lives.”
What you say makes a mockery of the rights of citizenship, of the State’s contract with the people. Countries don’t guarantee each other’s security. But the State does vouch for citizens’ security. Otherwise, there is no reason for its existence.
“However if you are saying it is OK to kill those of another nation, the Kikuyu were British subjects when these attrocities took place. Major Gerry Griffiths told told his men they could kill anybody as long as they were black! The perpetrators of these crimes are still alive in the UK but have not spent a day behind bars.”
Exactly. This is colonialism. Which is what has been happening to the Tamil people since Sri Lankan independence. There is no difference between British treatment of colonial subjects and Australian treatment of aboriginal people, and Sinhalese treatment of Tamils–it’s all colonialism. Are the Sinhalese perpetrators of violence against Tamils from the 1950s to the 1980s behind bars?
Dear Belle;
The settlement of Sinhalese in Tamil areas is probably very much inspired by the Aliyah Bet.
Tamil Areas? In Sri Lanka? Has anybody lawfully or officially or with some consensus demarcated them? When?
Are there Sinhala areas? Muslim Areas? Burger areas? Malay areas?
You must have seen them in a dream.
The law of the country is common for all and does not and should not promote divisions.
Thanks!
Belle,
I dont think there is any case of Sinhalese being settled in the former homes of Tamil IDPs. The reason some Tamil IDPs have gone to live with relatives is because their homes have been destroyed in the war and cannot be occupied until they are repaired. To suggest that they have been repaired and given to Sinhalese people is mischievous on your part.
I havent seen any pictures or reports of Sinhalese setllers being settled in these areas after the war was over. What seems to be happening is that the army is setting up cantonments throughout the Vanni and trying to persuade soldiers to settle there with their families. Its not an ideal situation but one cant deny that it makes some practical sense if we want to stop the war kicking off again. There are plenty of people who desire it and there is plenty of money left over in the LTTE coffers. Personally, I think the best way forward is to start recruiting Vanni Tamils into the rank and file of the army and making the army more mixed so the Tamils dont see it as a Sinhalese only army.
Most Sinhalese will reject your claim that the Vanni and the interior of the Eastern Province as Exclusive Tamil land. Even at the beginning of this century these lands were virtually devoid of people. Read James Emerson Tannant’s Ceylon, John Still’s Jungle Tide, Leonard Wolf’s Autobiography and you will see what I mean. Wolf describes his journey to Jaffna by bullock cart to take up his position as GA where he remarks that he didnt come across a single settlement between Anuradhapura and Paranthan. In Tennant’s description of the Vanni of the 1870s he recommends that the Sout Indian laborers who were being ferried across to Mannar and transported along the west coast and Colombo to the coffee plantations were taken through the Vanni instead in the hope that some would settle there. He describes the extensive paddy fields of Kantale which lay abandoned and wonders what happened to all the people who farmed those fields. If these are exclusive Tamil lands how do you explain the existance of the extensive buddhist archeological remains with brahmi/prakrit inscriptions in Thiriyaya, Thanthirimale, Welgamwehera, Somawathia, Seruwavila and many other places. Do you not agree that many of the Vanni inhabitants were brought there from Jaffna by the LTTE when they withdrew from Jaffna in the 90s? Large numbers of Tamils of Indian origin from the hill country were also settled there after 1977. Also, large extents of Vanni land were given to “Middleclass Jaffna Tamils” in the 50s and 60s to encourage commercial farming. In fact very few of the Vanni residents can trace their history in the vanni to the beginning of this century. Yet you only see the Sinhalese settlers as the illegal colonists of “Tamil land since time immemorial”. The Tamil claim that the lion share of Sri Lanka’s land should belong exclusively to Tamils and that any Sinhalese there is an illegal colonist really riles the Sinhalese because they know it is not true and is just a Tamil supremacist claim for a Nazi style lebensraum in Sri Lanka. You can attribute much of the violence we have experienced to this fact.
Belle,
“Most IDPs from the Vanni area have been ‘resettled’ in relatives’ homes, while their lands have been ‘re-settled’ by Sinhalese.”
Where is the evidence of this happening? I would honestly like to know.
“Buddha statues and Buddhist temples coming up near churches in Jaffna is another–this was the government’s top priority act after the war when it ought to have been resettling IDPs and helping displaced Tamils.”
I agree entirely that state resources should not be used to erect temples and statues. I don’t mean to trivialize this at all, but will it ‘destroy’ Tamil culture? I doubt it. The colonials planted huge churches all over the country, including on the sacred grounds of the Dalada Maligawa. The Sinhala-Buddhists survived, as did the Tamil-Hindus.
“An authentic cosmopolitanism is voluntarily attained by people, not forced on them by the State. It is not up to a majority-dominated government to decide what culture will benefit a minority community.”
Certainly. But some diversity is surely a pre-condition for cosmopolitanism. Jaffna lost whatever diversity it had when the LTTE chased away the Muslims and Sinhalese. Would you at least be open to these people coming back? You may think Sinhala-Buddhist culture is worthless, but I hear their bread was quite popular.
“The SL Tamils did not take pride in producing suicide bombers. The LTTE did. Don’t confuse the two for your own rhetorical and political convenience.”
And yet here you are lumping the Sinhalese with a government that millions of them voted against.
“You might also wish to morally differentiate between people supporting a government that incarcerates victims of a war who are their fellow citizens, and people who agree to take part in suicide bombing–the latter are fighting for independence (as they see it) and the ultimate in self-sacrifice is entailed.”
It is you who needs to do the differentiating. Are we talking about the actual combatants here, or their communities of support? I’m saying that those who supported suicide bombing are at least as racist and immoral as those who supported the incarceration.
“This is an established fact. Even your government has admitted to it.”
Who has admitted to this?
“…it is the responsibility of a people to discuss what happened and demand to know the truth, rather than escape moral responsibility by saying it’s a “pointless exercise”.
We must definitely get to the truth of what happened. What is pointless right now is to discuss the 1001other ways the war could have been ended.
“The LTTE killed Tamils as well as Sinhalese–does that mean that their mission was not based on race?”
The LTTE’s mission was certainly race-based. The mission of the SL armed forces was not. It was to put down a challenge to the state. Just as it was with the JVP. If the police in some American city are tasked with apprehending a drug ring in a Hispanic ghetto, does that mean their mission is anti-Hispanic?
“As for the “utterly shameful things” that happened pre-LTTE days, why did they occur if not out of racism and racial chauvinism?”
I have never ever denied that there was racism and racial chauvinism in this country.
Dear belle
you have qutoed above”The British army killed 13 people on Bloody Sunday. They held their first inquiry immediately in that year. Then they conducted another one, starting in 1998.”
let me give you the link to the great “BBC’ during the time extracted as in 1972 -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/19/newsid_2491000/2491125.stm
it states (your quoted first inquiry – and 1998 to 1972 is 26 years i believe if you can count
-
1. The British army has been largely exonerated of blame for Bloody Sunday which ended in the deaths of 14 civilians in Northern Ireland
2.A report into the events which followed a civil rights march in Londonderry in January said the Army’s operation was justified
3.The report by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Widgery, stated that if the illegal march – protesting against internment without trial – had not taken place there would not have been any deaths
4.Lord Widgery accepted the Army’s claims that the 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment came under fire before soldiers retaliated and that some of their victims had been armed.
5.The report has been welcomed by the British Government.
6.The Defence Secretary, Lord Carrington, said in the light of the report’s findings no disciplinary action would be taken against any individual.
so you see- its almost the same in SL, but atleast we dont kill un-armed protestors, )notice the similarity is words and GOSL UK Gove reactions to the situ?)
now go munch your word in a corner like good girl !!!!!!!!
Most of the Tamils were settled down in North and East with the patronage of colonial rulers (dutch and British). What is the rationale behind the argument that Sri Lankan rulers cannot settle down Sinhalese in these areas? I don’t know whether somebody in the view that Sri Lankan rulers have less rights than colonials?
Further, the lands that not owned by individuals are state property in any part of the country. Such land and forests in any area do not belong to Tamil individuals. Why anybody say that only Tamils should be settled in those state property? How one can eliminate the right of the Sinhala or Muslim people for such property?
Isn’t this racist viewpoint?
Thanks!
Belle,
The tragic is that although you eqate Sri Lanka’s policy with that of Isreal you fail to acknowledge the fact that the Western Holy Crusaders have acted differently in that case as I have pointed earlier!
I sympathize with you in thinking that there is a separate country called “Gaza Strip”!
http://kofiannanfoundation.org/newsroom/news/2010/06/myth-never-again
rajivmw,
“Where is the evidence of this happening? I would honestly like to know.”
I’ve been hearing this for some months now, but currently I have a visitor from Jaffna who has confirmed this. His work gives him access to such info. But if you want evidence, you should just travel up there and find out. Nothing like seeing it for yourself.
There is an interesting report on ethnicisation of land in Eastern Province done by CPA:
http://www2.reliefweb.int/rw/RWFiles2010.nsf/FilesByRWDocUnidFilename/VDUX-85ES46-full_report.pdf/$File/full_report.pdf
“I agree entirely that state resources should not be used to erect temples and statues. I don’t mean to trivialize this at all, but will it ‘destroy’ Tamil culture? I doubt it. The colonials planted huge churches all over the country, including on the sacred grounds of the Dalada Maligawa. The Sinhala-Buddhists survived, as did the Tamil-Hindus.”
The erecting of the temples and statues may not destroy Tamil culture, but the intentions behind such moves certainly will. What is it that motivates a President to send his wife to install a Buddha statue in a Tamil area soon after their defeat in a war? It’s interesting that you bring in an example from colonialism.
“Who has admitted to this?”
Sorry, my mistake. I thought Rajapaksa had admitted this, but I see that no one has from government. Nevertheless, the fact that Pulidevan’s and Nadesan’s bodies were cremated immediately should give you an idea of what happened. Kind of hard to make the story stick that they were shot at from behind by their own Tiger mates if there are bodies with bullet wound entries in the front. DBS Jeyaraj seems to have gotten hold of a lot of detail on what happened:
http://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/1267
As for the need to know the truth, here’s what the Foreign Secretary said about the incident at that time (excerpt from Telegraph report):
“Dr Kohona said he had not asked officers on the front line if they had shot the men as they surrendered:”You don’t ask questions like that. If you’re an investigator, yes, but you don’t ask questions like that unless you already know the answer.”
Nifty, eh? He’s no fan of the truth. Guess that’s why he’s in a Rajapakse government.
“Jaffna lost whatever diversity it had when the LTTE chased away the Muslims and Sinhalese. Would you at least be open to these people coming back?”
Yes, of course. If they consider it to be their home and they were settled there, that’s where they should be. My problem is with the State settling people there who have no connections in these areas so as to change the demographics for political reasons. As I pointed out elsewhere, this actually goes against your Constitution.
“The mission of the SL armed forces was not. It was to put down a challenge to the state. Just as it was with the JVP. If the police in some American city are tasked with apprehending a drug ring in a Hispanic ghetto, does that mean their mission is anti-Hispanic?”
If the police, in your example, carried out their task without any consideration for innocent Hispanic bystanders caught in the gunfire, then yes, I would say that their mission was anti-Hispanic.
Aminda,
“it states (your quoted first inquiry – and 1998 to 1972 is 26 years i believe if you can count”
You think you’re really clever, don’t you? Bloody Sunday occurred in 1972. They completed their second report just recently. Isn’t it 38 years between 1972 and 2010?
“so you see- its almost the same in SL, but atleast we dont kill un-armed protestors”
Lasantha Wickramatunga was an unarmed protestor, was he not? Others like him were also taken out. Would you even know if your government killed un-armed protestors? They don’t do it out in the open–at least the British did it out in the open, with lots of witnesses to their crime.
belle –
1. first inquiry held one year after 1972 -
2. second inquiry start is 1998 – 26 years after the event
3. end of second inquiry – 2010 – 38 years after event
i can’t count any clearer than that – and looking at your counting, i got to admit its looking bad for you
what do you think about the findings of the first inquiry (which i have stated above) and what do you think a suitable time frame for SL investigations are if resourceful UK took 38 years to finish the second inquiry?
Yapa,
Cultures and civilizations develop when a community is clustered together in a single geographical space. If you separate Sinhalese and send them to live in various parts of the region, for eg, to parts of India, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, do you think Sri Lankan Sinhalese Buddhist culture and the arts will develop to a higher level in these parts without interruption for say a century (as it would have if all had stayed in Sri Lanka)? Chances are the Sinhalese culture will erode and hybridize beyond recognition. It may lend itself to the development of new cultures abroad, but it will inevitably lose the trajectory of its own growth.
Sinhalese are able to be located in one geographical area in Sri Lanka. Wherever they go, they will remain together as a community and be able to maintain and develop their own culture because they are a majority community. But if Tamils are dispersed, or enough Sinhalese are settled among them as to make the latter a majority, SL Tamil culture (or indeed any SL minority culture) will inevitably go down the tube. They will not be able to make decisions to preserve/develop their arts because they are too small in numbers anywhere to have such a say. They cannot make a living selling their Tamil cultural products such as food, clothes. (I understand that in the North, local Tamil food businesses are suffering because of competition from Sinhalese army-run restaurants which are able to enjoy the economies of large-scale production.) They will be too numerically small too to demand adequate facilities to develop their religion. Their knowledge creation, for eg in engineering, medicine, agriculture, philosophy, will be swallowed up by the Sinhalese and passed off as their own–not as Sri Lankan but as part of Sinhalese achievement. (I am sure that a lot of this has already happened in past centuries, and that many of your ‘Sinhalese’ architectural and engineering marvels have Tamil input.) There are also security considerations–it will be easier to massacre Tamils and other minorities if they are spread out all over the country in small pockets than if they are clustered together in specific areas with a sufficient critical mass. And your people do have a propensity for massacres, don’t they?
But I am sure all of this is well-understood by those who argue for settling Sinhalese in what are currently Tamil-dominated areas. Tamil cultural destruction and total political disempowerment is obviously part of the game plan. And meanwhile, you all sing like stupid parrots about why it is racism to allow Tamils to dominate certain areas of Sri Lanka. For you guys, anyone wanting to preserve their own culture is racist so long as that culture is not Sinhalese. It is apparently NOT racist to forbid any minority community to have any real say in your country.
Your notions of what is racist and what is not is a travesty of all existing scholarship on racism. To actually think that it is not racist to spread a majority around an entire country when it already has (and has forcibly taken) 100% decision-making power in the country–that simply amazes me.
You know what image comes to my mind when I see posts by the likes of you–a rich man hanging around in his Mercedes and Armani suit to steal money from a street beggar’s cup, and whining that the poor guy is so selfish because he won’t share his day’s takings with him.
dingiri,
“I havent seen any pictures or reports of Sinhalese setllers being settled in these areas after the war was over. What seems to be happening is that the army is setting up cantonments throughout the Vanni and trying to persuade soldiers to settle there with their families.”
I see. And these soldiers are not Sinhalese that are being settled there? Did they come from Mars? What exactly are these soldiers doing there? I hear that there is a lot of violence taking place between various Tamil gangs and bodies have been found in wells up in the north. So why exactly are these soldiers there for if they are not there to help the community?
“Its not an ideal situation but one cant deny that it makes some practical sense if we want to stop the war kicking off again.”
The practical way to stop the war from starting again is to deal with Tamil issues. The dominating presence of the military is already angering Tamils. Seems LTTE sympathisers may be involved in an attempt to derail a train in Tamil Nadu.
“Personally, I think the best way forward is to start recruiting Vanni Tamils into the rank and file of the army and making the army more mixed so the Tamils dont see it as a Sinhalese only army.”
Good idea! They will certainly help with the country’s security, as much as Indira Gandhi’s Sikh guards helped keep her safe.
As for citing British colonial sources about Tamil presence in Sri Lanka, you do know, don’t you, that the colonialists were famous for not ‘seeing’ people right in front of their noses? Seems the claim of “empty lands” was their alibi for colonization. Australia too was ‘empty’ of people when the first Brit convicts arrived there. But sometimes they couldn’t decide–sometimes, it was full of cannibals, and sometimes just nobody was around!
Imagine if someone with absolutely no contextual knowledge of recent Sri Lankan history traipsed around the Vanni are today. Given the Sinhalese place names, and Sinhalese soldiers everywhere, would he not say the Vanni was occupied predominantly by Sinhalese?
“In fact very few of the Vanni residents can trace their history in the vanni to the beginning of this century. Yet you only see the Sinhalese settlers as the illegal colonists of “Tamil land since time immemorial”.’
I don’t claim the Tamils stayed there since time immemorial–don’t know enough history to do that. But all you history experts out there–why don’t you put out a book by an international publisher on SL history so the rest of us can give it some credibility? Otherwise, don’t bother to go around making grand historical claims if you don’t know even the basics of how to authenticate information. Just because someone wrote something in a journal doesn’t make it true.
I see the Sinhalese settlers as illegal colonists because they have no connections to these areas but want to settle there in order to break the current demographics. I have no problems with the return of Sinhalese who have lived there.
But since you all are obsessed about periods of settlement, can you explain to me why it is that Sri Lankan Tamil language is full of archaisms not found in Tamil spoken in India? How do you explain the poetry of Eelattu Poothanthevanar from the current Mannar district being included in Sangam poetry anthologies produced before 250 AD? How do you explain the existence of medieval SL Tamil literature? I could go on but I won’t.
“The Tamil claim that the lion share of Sri Lanka’s land should belong exclusively to Tamils and that any Sinhalese there is an illegal colonist really riles the Sinhalese because they know it is not true and is just a Tamil supremacist claim for a Nazi style lebensraum in Sri Lanka. You can attribute much of the violence we have experienced to this fact.”
The claim for a lion’s share of SL was made by the LTTE. They are dead and SL Tamils have no power whatsoever. If Sinhalese continue to be riled by these claims, then I would say they have a BIG chip on their shoulder or that they lack common sense. Certainly you do in thinking a minority community could be ‘Nazi’. Why don’t you look a little closer to home for your Nazis? At least you qualify in being a majority community, if not by your total disenfranchisement of Tamils. And like Hitler, you’re all busy re-writing history with a vengeance!
Aminda,
That is what I meant, that they came out with the truth 38 years after the event. What is your problem with that? Seeing as you can’t write proper sentences, you might be better off first tackling your expression problems before trying to catch others in mathematical miscalculations that aren’t miscalculations.
As for your second question, I have already answered that. I asked why it is that even half a century after the event, there has been no inquiry into the 1950s massacres. On what basis are you even attempting to compare Sri Lanka with UK? At least UK felt ethically compelled to conduct an inquiry immediately.
Hi Belle,
I didn’t see you answer rajivmw’s question why you blame all Sinhalese for 1983 but then turn around and say that all Tamils cannot be blamed for LTTE suicide bombing.
Regarding the deaths of Tamils in the final months of the war, perhaps you can describe to us how you feel about those other particular Tamils chanting Iruthi Por slogans in 2005-6, or about the LTTE boycott in Jaffna that led to Mahinda’s electoral victory.
“Tell me why LTTE cadres were killed when they were holding up white flags?”
Jan Jananayagam recently claimed that there were no surrenders.
“But if Tamils are dispersed, or enough Sinhalese are settled among them as to make the latter a majority, SL Tamil culture (or indeed any SL minority culture) will inevitably go down the tube.”
How were the Upcountry Tamils able to preserve their identity having virtually no resources of their own, being surrounded by Sinhalese, and getting little if any support from the N-E?
Wijayapala,
“I didn’t see you answer rajivmw’s question why you blame all Sinhalese for 1983 but then turn around and say that all Tamils cannot be blamed for LTTE suicide bombing.”
I never referred specifically to the 1983 violence or said that I blamed all Sinhalese for that. I’m talking here about collective responsibility. State-sponsored pogroms against SL Tamils had been going on for a while. Why did the majority community not address that? How do governments play so successfully to the nationalistic sentiments of a community if the community itself, that votes for them, is not chauvinistic? The LTTE was never voted into power–they grabbed power by force. The Tamils had no say, no influence over LTTE behaviour.
“Regarding the deaths of Tamils in the final months of the war, perhaps you can describe to us how you feel about those other particular Tamils chanting Iruthi Por slogans in 2005-6, or about the LTTE boycott in Jaffna that led to Mahinda’s electoral victory.”
Are you asking me to explain LTTE behaviour? I think the emergence of the LTTE was a natural and inevitable occurrence, given the treatment of Tamils in Sri Lanka. Violence begets even stronger violence. If Prabhakaran had kept his head, he might have been able to do good for the Tamil people. But he was too drunk on power and missed every opportunity to resolve the Tamil issue. And now poor Tamil people are suffering, the wealthier ones having had the opportunities to leave the country and save their own lives. It was the poor who were caught in the war, in the IDP camps, trapped between two murderous monsters.
“How were the Upcountry Tamils able to preserve their identity having virtually no resources of their own, being surrounded by Sinhalese, and getting little if any support from the N-E?”
Have they managed to preserve their identity and develop their culture? I never see anything about them or their culture in the media. The only references made to them is of them being poor and oppressed. What are you suggesting with your question? That all minorities should be treated that way, that even without resources, they will preserve their identity?
Can’t help noticing that you implicitly criticise the N-E for not having supported them but say nothing about the lack of Sinhalese support of them. Do you think SL Tamils (rather than the Sinhalese) should take responsibility for the Up-country Tamils? Why? Because they are of the same race? Shouldn’t the ruling community attend to their needs because the power to do so is in their hands?
Seriously belle
“At least UK felt ethically compelled to conduct an inquiry immediately.”
we wont need a year to come up with that kind of results -it will take only a press conference for us to say our troops werent at fualt,
” two lessons from Saville: that long delays (38 years!) in pursuing the truth about such terrible and sensitive matters are entirely understandable; second, that the delay, and the report’s conclusion that British paratroopers had no justification for killing any of the 13 men, render British calls for an inquiry in Sri Lanka hypocritical and invalid.”
It’s interesting that the nationalists compare the behavior of Western nations 60 or 70 years ago to the behavior of SL circa 2000. Sixty or seventy yrs ago, the rules of engagement were different. Few nations anywhere would have pressed SL for a war crimes probe. On the other hand, the *civilized world* has moved on since then. Now there is something called *political correctness* that keeps racist sentiments under wraps within Western political circles. In fact, any influential institution and/or VIP subscribes to political correctness, if only unofficially. Behavior that would go against PC is also looked down upon. That’s why when the scandal over Abu Grahib broke out, the Defense Secretary Rumsfeld personally apologized to Iraqis. It’s also why Guantanamo Bay was built in Cuba, not on the mainland United States. To hold several hundred foreign combatants in detention for years, without a trial, on the mainland United States, would have resulted in major political damage to the Republican Party.
The “PC culture” – or anything close to it – seems to be missing altogether from the SL political scene. Racists and non-racists freely mix. When people like Sarath Fonseka say that the country belongs to Sinhalese first, he doesn’t get fired. When 30,000 Tamils are killed in a few months, and the villager from Hambantota says that not a single civilian was intentionally targeted in the “humanitarian operation”, political circles don’t blink an eye.
Perhaps it was different a long time ago; people like JR actually had some class. The JVP and all such “urumayas” were outcasts. After JR the country went into what seems to be a permanent state of paralysis.
Belle,
You wanted examples of villages being surrounded and inhabitants hacked to death. Guess you dont remember Palliyagodella. There were many other villages too Maha Oya, Kallarawa, Karapola, Muthugala, Alinchipothana you can find a full listing here together with some photographs. check out the period between 1990 and 1995.
http://www.spur.asn.au/ltteatrp.htm.
Please dont wait for me to write a book on history. I am no historian. But I have read a few books that others have written. If you dont want to read the ones that I mentioned because they were written by “blind Englishmen” try some by distinguished indegenous historians like Indrapala (A Tamil) or K. M. Desilva.
For your information you will find that the pre-colonial Jaffna kingdom did not extend beyond the peninsula and a narrow stretch of coastal land upto Mannar. No Sinhalese have settled there. The rest of the country including the Vanni and Trincomalee belonged to the Sinhalese kingdom in the south. If Tamils could move into the Vanni and Trincomalee areas from Jaffna then so can the Sinhalese from the south whether they be army or peasant cultivator.
Belle,
“So why exactly are these soldiers there for if they are not there to help the community?”
They are there to prevent the LTTE or simmilar militant group from reforming. There is a lot of jungle there and there is also a lot of vulnerable coastline which needs to be secured against arms smuggling. You say the LTTE is dead but are you also saying that their supporters have totally given up on the idea?
Are you saying that Tennant’s and Wolf’s descriptions of the Vanni was motivated by a desire to colonise it with Englishmen as in Australia and America? Good one LOL! Tennant was actually contemplating bringing Tamils from South India to settle in the Vanni.
Dear Belle,
“I’m talking here about collective responsibility. State-sponsored pogroms against SL Tamils had been going on for a while.”
A) There were four anti-Tamil riots between 1956 and 1983. 83-56 = 27 years.
B) The LTTE existed from 1976 to 2009, although I will take 1983 as its real starting point. 2009-1983 = 26 years.
Could you answer whether more Tamils were killed in A) or B)?
“The LTTE was never voted into power–they grabbed power by force. The Tamils had no say, no influence over LTTE behaviour.”
Where did the LTTE get its massive funds from?
“Have they managed to preserve their identity and develop their culture? I never see anything about them or their culture in the media.”
They speak Tamil. They are not Buddhist. They identify themselves as Tamil. Is there anything I’m missing??
The fact that they’re able to preserve their culture without media support should give you a message as well.
“Do you think SL Tamils (rather than the Sinhalese) should take responsibility for the Up-country Tamils? Why? Because they are of the same race?”
You are the one sitting here lecturing us on “collective responsibility.” The Sinhalese are not well-placed to preserve Tamil culture because they are utterly ignorant of it. Hence the task should fall upon Tamils. Are you saying that N-E Tamils have nothing in common with the Upcountry variety that the Sinhalese would be better placed to preserve their culture???
“Are you asking me to explain LTTE behaviour? I think the emergence of the LTTE was a natural and inevitable occurrence, given the treatment of Tamils in Sri Lanka.”
No, I’m asking you to explain the behavior of those who funded the LTTE and who are today still alive and well.
Sorry one more question Belle:
“Violence begets even stronger violence.”
Do you agree that the emergence of the Rajapakse regime was a “natural and inevitable occurrence,” given the nature of LTTE terrorism?
Aminda,
“we wont need a year to come up with that kind of results -it will take only a press conference for us to say our troops werent at fualt,”
Proud of that, are you? Your country’s coat of arms lacks a motto. Maybe you could use this.
Anyway, why do you use the future tense (“won’t need”, “will take”) when that is exactly how your government dealt with end of war queries? Instead say “We don’t need a year to come up with that kind of results–we just call press conferences to say our troops aren’t at fault!” (I put an exclamation mark at the end to signify your sense of achievement with regard to your country’s ways of dealing with state-executed or state-sponsored massacres.)
You still haven’t answered my question of why there has been no inquiries into riots that happened in SL in the 1950s. It’s been half a century since the events and there doesn’t seem to have been even any initial inquiries, let alone more serious follow-up inquiries, especially of the state’s role in them. On what basis do you feel that you can compare UK’s ways of handling these events with SL’s ways?
Here’s a list of suspected SL police/army massacres of Tamil civilians that need to be investigated. Add to that the massacres and disappearances of Sinhalese by the government that are not included here but which also need to be accounted for.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attacks_attributed_to_the_Sri_Lankan_military
So, please–what’s your basis in comparing UK with Sri Lanka?
Heshan,
Where is the accountability,resposibility,political correctness-and what not?-of the “civilized world” when the US troops bombed the Iraqi cities a few years ago? Where is the War Crimes probe for that?
bell -my point in comapring UK to SL is -
IF UK WITH ALL ITS HUMAN RIGHTS LAWS AND TRANSPERENCY TOOK 38 YEARS A BACKWARD 3RD WORL COUNTRY SUCH AS SL CAN TAKE 100 YEARS TO LOOK AT ITS RECORDS. – SO PLEASE HOLD YOUR BREATH AND WAIT. !!!!!!!! LOL
Belle,
“Break down,break down…break down and cry…”-Ozzy Osbourne
longus,
Lots of war crimes probes have occurred in Iraq – probes undertaken by the US Government/military. As far as transparency is concerned, anyone – journalist for example – is able to travel to any part of Iraq and speak freely with any civilian. So if war crimes are occurring in Iraq, either (1) the USA is doing a rather poor job of covering it up, or (2) war crimes are not occurring. Given the pace of electronic communication these days, and the lack of censorship on news reporting, I would have to say it’s a case of (2).
*lack of censorship on news reporting pertaining to events in Iraq
Wijayapala,
“Could you answer whether more Tamils were killed in A) or B)?”
No. I don’t appreciate playing the disciple to Socrates, asking questions to which he/she knows the answer. If you have a point to make, just make it.
“Where did the LTTE get its massive funds from?”
Yet another Socratic question. Make your point.
“They speak Tamil. They are not Buddhist. They identify themselves as Tamil. Is there anything I’m missing??The fact that they’re able to preserve their culture without media support should give you a message as well.”
Is that what you understand by culture–just the religion, and language they speak? It’s not just about preserving their culture, but developing it further, growing it. How does a community develop culturally if the bulk of them are earning pittance for wages?
“The Sinhalese are not well-placed to preserve Tamil culture because they are utterly ignorant of it. Hence the task should fall upon Tamils. Are you saying that N-E Tamils have nothing in common with the Upcountry variety that the Sinhalese would be better placed to preserve their culture???”
I don’t recall saying that the Sinhalese should preserve Tamil culture. The Sinhalese as the only community with effective political power has a responsibility to ensure that these people have equal economic opportunities and the space to develop their own culture. From there, I am sure the Upcountry Tamils will know what to do to develop their own culture. Given their history in the plantation industry, I wonder how many opportunities they are given to rise to management levels, to have more of a stake in the thriving sector they work in.
We should really be talking about Tamil “cultures” rather than one Tamil culture. Just as there is more than one Sinhalese culture, for eg rural vs urban, Christian vs Buddhist, regional Sinhalese cultures, etc. One Tamil community can’t develop the culture of another Tamil community. Though they could form alliances to deal with common interests and problems.
It’s sad that the Sinhalese are “utterly ignorant of Tamil culture”. The SL Tamils I meet don’t seem to be ignorant of Sinhalese culture—they can speak the language at some basic level, cook their foods in their own homes, and seem to know something about their customs.
“Do you agree that the emergence of the Rajapakse regime was a “natural and inevitable occurrence,” given the nature of LTTE terrorism?”
I think it arose partly as a response to LTTE but it was also shaped by a prior and continuing history of Sinhalese nationalism and a tradition of State terrorism.
Aminda,
Why is it a backward third world country, given that it has everything going for it in terms of natural resources and strategic location?
Belle,
You tie yourself in knots trying to excuse away western attrocities with, “not their own countrymen”, “in the 19th century and not the 20th”, “no contract to protect their lives” etc. etc. but what is obvious for all to see is these things are inevitable when in conflicts the world over. Just look at Kyrghiztan. Does it not remind you of July 83? The anti moslem riots and anti Sikh riots in India. I am certain we will begin to see these race riots in the west too as their economies flounder and unemployment and poverty rises.
The only way of preventing such things from happening is by not getting into potentially destructive conflicts in the first place. And we need both parties to act rationally and justly for that. Not just the state. The Tamils were not doing too badly in Sri Lanka when Prabakaran started his campaign. They were everywhere in government and business and held considerable influence and power. However Tamil supremacism got the better of them and they all fell behind the Vadukoddai resolution demanding superior rather than equal land rights. The state tried talking to the LTTE even trying to accomodate some of their demands. I felt they should have gone even further and offered more self rule but for a more proportionate piece of the country. but I never saw this compromise comming from even the LTTE as they began their irreversible retreat.
belle
we waiting for the Secessionists to leave (are u already out of SL or in SL?
) and then we will take care of all people who consider SL as their homeland, one flag one country, right to live and purchase land anywhere, one vote initary government. things should improve if we dont let our guard down and root out each and every terrorist – who dont want to live here. then SL will start to reap the beenfit of the strategic location, and natural resources.
belle – in case you are also active ina afgahn HR web site too…
Afghan refugees: ‘Who is responsible for our deaths?’ -http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/21/afghan-refugees-who-responsible-deaths
1.Among refugees from Helmand, living in a squalid camp on the outskirts of Kabul where whole extended families squeeze into inadequate shelters, there is outright hostility.
2.
“The British may have lost hundreds of men, but who is responsible for the hundreds of people who were killed by the fighting and aerial bombardments?” said Sardar Mohammad, a farmer who quit Sangin a year ago because of fighting that killed five family members and injured another five.
3. He is part of a community of more than 700 families who live in the camp and scrape together a living doing manual labour and waiting for handouts from aid agencies.
Dingiri,
Thanks for the info on the LTTE massacres of villages. The pictures were gory–reminded me of photos I’ve seen of Sinhalese pogroms against Tamils.
I note how meticulously the information has been documented of LTTE attacks on civilians. Strangely, SL army and police attacks on Tamils is not so carefully documented. Do you think that everytime the LTTE carried out these attacks, your police and army hung around and sucked their thumbs?
“Tennant was actually contemplating bringing Tamils from South India to settle in the Vanni.”
And that’s not colonialism? The Brits bringing Indian and Chinese indentured workers to the Caribbean to work the sugar cane plantations after slavery was abolished was not colonialism either? Of course, the colonial secretary of Sri Lanka would not have any colonial motivations.
Did you know that Leonard Woolf had mental problems? It wasn’t just his wife, Virginia Woolf, who had this.
“For your information you will find that the pre-colonial Jaffna kingdom did not extend beyond the peninsula and a narrow stretch of coastal land upto Mannar. No Sinhalese have settled there. The rest of the country including the Vanni and Trincomalee belonged to the Sinhalese kingdom in the south. If Tamils could move into the Vanni and Trincomalee areas from Jaffna then so can the Sinhalese from the south whether they be army or peasant cultivator.”
That’s strange. Even your own medieval text, Nampota, says the Tamil area included the present-day Trincomalee.
“If Tamils could move into the Vanni and Trincomalee areas from Jaffna then so can the Sinhalese from the south whether they be army or peasant cultivator.”
Of course, the Sinhalese can live anywhere they want to in Sri Lanka–not because the Tamils moved into the Vanni or Trincomalee, but because you are a community of thugs and bandits, people with no regard for anyone, no regard for fair play, no sense of honour at all. You would take land from people displaced by war. That’s who you are–so please dispense with the fake arguments.
Dingiri,
“They were everywhere in government and business and held considerable influence and power.”
Really? Then can you explain why Singapore and Malaysia are full of SL Tamil judges, doctors, lawyers, teachers who left your fine Sinhalese kingdom in the 1950s and 1960s to work elsewhere. Why did they leave a country where apparently they had a lot of influence and power to go to other countries that were, at that time, very iffy propositions in terms of development?
“Just look at Kyrghiztan. Does it not remind you of July 83?”
Oh, claps all round!!!!There’s actually a country that’s even more backward than you, even more primitive!
“However Tamil supremacism got the better of them and they all fell behind the Vadukoddai resolution demanding superior rather than equal land rights.”
Have you even read the resolution? You can’t seem to tell the difference between supremacism and a bid for freedom. Supremacism is about trying to dominate another group (which better describes your community); it is not about trying to break away from an unsatisfactory situation.
Aminda,
“then SL will start to reap the beenfit of the strategic location, and natural resources.”
This will never happen. If you had the wherewithal to do this, it would have happened decades ago. A country needs to hang together to do this, and your country never could. I’m not talking about Sinhalese-Tamil conflict but intra-Sinhalese conflict. It’s China that will reap the benefit of your strategic location and natural resources.
Longus,
Break down and cry? There was a reason Lee Kuan Yew said recently, “I don’t think they [Tamils] are going to be submissive or go away.”
[cit]Of course, the Sinhalese can live anywhere they want to in Sri Lanka–not because the Tamils moved into the Vanni or Trincomalee, but because you are a community of thugs and bandits, people with no regard for anyone, no regard for fair play, no sense of honour at all. You would take land from people displaced by war. That’s who you are–so please dispense with the fake arguments.[/cit]
I see your racism finally comes out. Nice way to stereotype a whole community.
[CIT]Lots of war crimes probes have occurred in Iraq – probes undertaken by the US Government/military. As far as transparency is concerned, anyone – journalist for example – is able to travel to any part of Iraq and speak freely with any civilian. So if war crimes are occurring in Iraq, either (1) the USA is doing a rather poor job of covering it up, or (2) war crimes are not occurring. Given the pace of electronic communication these days, and the lack of censorship on news reporting, I would have to say it’s a case of (2).[/CIT]
Yes, when the U. S. bombs civilians (this has been occuring and is documented) it’s not a war crime but when Sri Lanka does it while pursuing the LTTE — then it’s genocide!!!
Beele,
By reading your later comments,(after being stretched to the max,perhaps…)as Janaki points out, anybody can see what kind of an ugly monster lies within,that seemingly refined,cultured facade! Finally it validated all the steriotyping of Tamils(because of people like you!)Congratulations!
I don’t see this kind of arrogance in all the other people who responded to you
You don’t seem to know what a war crime is. When a bomb is dropped from a plane and the intention of the pilot is to hit an enemy target, but instead the bomb hits some civilians, that is not a war crime.
A war crime is when the Sri Lankan Government agrees to a no-fire zone and then intentionally shells/bombs the NFZ.
A war crime is when Gothabaya Rajapaksa says its okay to bomb hospitals.
A war crime is when Gothabaya Rajapaksa says to take no prisoners, e.g. execute anyone who surrenders.
As I said, a big clue to whether or not its a war crime is access to the scene of said incident. Anyone can go anywhere in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we all know this is not the case in SL.
And what about Sarath Fonseka? Why is he locked up? What is the Sri Lankan Government afraid of? Since when is it a crime to speak? Only in Sorry Lanka!
Afghan refugees: ‘Who is responsible for our deaths?’ -http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/21/afghan-refugees-who-responsible-deaths
That’s funny, now isn’t it… newspapers in the UK interview Afghan refugees. What about newspapers in SL? Did anyone bother to interview those people in IDP camps? I’m sure they have quite a bit to say! Or is it the case that the villager from Hambantota and his brother are afraid of the truth coming out?
I still find it funny that while you condemn the military of one country (UK) for going to war, you have great faith in their journalists.
Heshan,
I would rather think it is A. Not that US didn’t try to cover up its atrocities in Iraq and Afganistan,but things leaked out at times.Apart from what dingiri mentions in his comment on Afganistan,how many times did UStroops bombed civilian targets,and lied about the casualty figures,or the nature of the target?
“We regret the civilian casualties caused in the attack”says the Secretary of State.
How many times have we heard this being told?
On the day Obama received the Nobel “Peace” Prize, 90 civilians were killed in Afganistan!That’s the reward for the US President for kiling civilians!
Have you watched the video “colateral murder” which was released by the US defence archives on a court order after a civilian rights group pressurized for its release. There you can see how the US AirForce bombed a group of journalists accompanied by children in Iraq,and passed insulting remarks on the dead bodies.
What was the verdict of the US;”justified military action”
Don’t you know Gen. McChrystal of Afganistan has banned all journalists fron the conflict zone in Afganistan!(according to their own “Time” magazine)
Are you trying to be ‘HOLIER THAN GOD” to defend the Western criminals?
Anyway it’s yor right.It’s called “tunnel vision”!
longus,
Actually, the fact of the matter is that journalists from various news outlets often rode around with troops during patrols and what-not, so-called “embedded journalists”, which you may research for yourself. If the USA was trying to cover-up war crimes, why would they allow journalists to go everywhere?
Don’t you know Gen. McChrystal of Afganistan has banned all journalists fron the conflict zone in Afganistan
This is a lie.
In fact, this is the truth:
BAGRAM, AFGHANISTAN (October 14, 2009) – After several days of confusion over whether the military’s embed rules about photographing troops killed in action in Afghanistan have changed or not, the U.S. military command in Bagram on Wednesday confirmed that is has banned journalists who are embedded with their forces in eastern Afghanistan from videotaping or photographing soldiers who are killed in action.
http://nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2009/10/embed.html
Instead of making bogus allegations and twisting words, I challenge you to back up your claims with html web links, such as I always do in this forum.
By the way, you did not answer my question… why are journalists allowed to go anywhere in Afghanistan/Iraq, but denied access in SL? Why is tamilnet.com banned in SL? Why is Sarath Fonseka locked up?
Now, who is hiding what?
Janaki,
“I see your racism finally comes out. Nice way to stereotype a whole community.”
Yes, it is a community I am attacking, not individuals. When a regime is elected by a majority to carry out certain policies and actions, when people voted for a regime knowing full well its criminal nature, then I am perfectly justified in viewing government behaviour as a reflection of the community’s wishes and attitudes.
You aren’t in a position to accuse anyone of racism. You folks will sacrifice everything, peace, security, stability, even the lives of your own people in order to stop a minority community from getting anything even close to decent rights. That is racism–of the most vile sort.
I bet you are enjoying this Lalith. The serves and backhands are even more tantalising than those of Roger Federer, Andy Murray and Williams’ sisters at Wimbledon.
Nevertheless it would be interesting at this point if Lalith could provide an overview of these comments in relation to the article he has written and bring this discussion to a peaceful end.
Let’s see who wins the trophy; Belle, Dingiri, Heshan or Longus.
It seems like the Sinhalese nationalists and the Taliban have quite a few things in common. In fact, it seems as if our Sinhalese nationalist friends, as of late, have even come up with their very own “vice-squad” to prevent kissing in public, suggestive advertisements, and the like. Of course their Talibani counterparts took an even more aggressive approach, but I have no doubt that our nationalist friends will catch up eventually.
(Taliban) Gender policies
From the age of eight, women were not allowed to be in direct contact with men, other than a close blood relative, husband, or in-law (see mahram).[9] Other restrictions were:
* Women should not appear in the streets without a blood relative and without wearing a Burqa (also Burkha, Burka or Burqua).
* Women should not wear high-heeled shoes as no man should hear a woman’s footsteps lest it excite him.
* Women must not speak loudly in public as no stranger should hear a woman’s voice.[10]
* All ground and first floor residential windows should be painted over or screened to prevent women being visible from the street.
* The photographing or filming of women was banned as was displaying pictures of females in newspapers, books, shops or the home.
* The modification of any place names that included the word “women.” For example, “women’s garden” was renamed “spring garden”.
* Women were forbidden to appear on the balconies of their apartments or houses.
* Ban on women’s presence on radio, television or at public gatherings of any kind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban_treatment_of_women
Longus,
“I don’t see this kind of arrogance in all the other people who responded to you”
Hmmm. Let’s see. How about your own post? This is what you said to me:’“Break down,break down…break down and cry…”-Ozzy Osbourne’”. Now, arrogance, as I understand it, is having a misplaced sense of your own power and strength.
“By reading your later comments,(after being stretched to the max,perhaps…)as Janaki points out, anybody can see what kind of an ugly monster lies within,that seemingly refined,cultured facade!”
Why, what ugly things did I do? Did I go out and try to steal people’s homes when they are displaced by war? Am I trying to deny people their basic rights—for eg, by surrounding their homes with military personnel and refusing them free movement (and pretending that I’ve released them from IDP camps when actually I’ve just shifted them)? Did I pocket aid money given by other countries to people dispossessed by war? Did I steal doors and other neccessities from people’s homes during war time, and then try to sell these things back to the same war displaced people when they returned? Am I promoting the view that minorities should be happy with whatever they have—and lying that their nothing is something?
Oh, I know, what awful, ugly thing I did—I inferred a community’s character and value system from their actions and bahaviour.
“Finally it validated all the steriotyping of Tamils(because of people like you!)Congratulations!”
So, you’re saying that you spread around stereotypes about Tamils even before you knew whether it was true? And that you’ve been doing this for a very long time?
Belle should have been formally introduced to Susantha. I’m not usually in the match-making business but might I be so bold as to say that sparks would fly?
Belle
The part of the song that I quoted tries only to poke fun at your plight(ideological) It’s humourous only,doesn’t come under arrogance as you say.
I was merely quoting the prevalant beliefs of the society as I percieve them,and it doesn’t mean that I was part of the stereotyping process-it might has its roots in certain events in the history- It doesn’t mean that stereotyping of the Sinhalese does not occur,and may be valid to certain people as they perceive it.
But what I pointed out was your direct “name calling” of the Sinhalese.(it doesn’t hurt me!But may hurt some!!)
Heshan,
I’m sorry that I can’t wast my time giving in to your requests for evidence!
If yor follow news regularly you would have come across these events.(unless you have “selective amnesia,which looks like a possibility in your case!)
[cit]Yes, it is a community I am attacking, not individuals. When a regime is elected by a majority to carry out certain policies and actions, when people voted for a regime knowing full well its criminal nature, then I am perfectly justified in viewing government behaviour as a reflection of the community’s wishes and attitudes.[/cit]
[Edited out]
What do you know about what the Sinhala community knows about the Rajapaska government? The crap about stealing homes, military bases, etc. is not something known in the South. People voted for Rajapaksa because he won the war and eliminated the threat of the LTTE. Even then — there was a significant percent at least 40% who didn’t vote for him.
I should then judge the Tamil community for its support of the LTTE as well huh? You guys seem just as thuggish as the Sinhalese. You guys threw out the Muslims from the North because you didn’t trust them even though they spoke the same language. You guys have no qualms about forcing children to fight your wars. You guys have no objection to pregnant women blowing themselves up. Your community thrives on fear psychosis.. screaming murder, rape, etc.. this seems to be part of your culture. These obsessions about rape it’s unhealthy. I’m glad I’m not part of your community. We prefer have a positive outlook on the world.
[cit]Why, what ugly things did I do? Did I go out and try to steal people’s homes when they are displaced by war? Am I trying to deny people their basic rights—for eg, by surrounding their homes with military personnel and refusing them free movement (and pretending that I’ve released them from IDP camps when actually I’ve just shifted them)? Did I pocket aid money given by other countries to people dispossessed by war? Did I steal doors and other neccessities from people’s homes during war time, and then try to sell these things back to the same war displaced people when they returned? Am I promoting the view that minorities should be happy with whatever they have—and lying that their nothing is something?[/cit]
And I’ve done this as well as the whole Sinhala civilian population? Yes, my family thrives on stealing stuff from Tamils in the North. That’s all we do really.
[cit]Why, what ugly things did I do? Did I go out and try to steal people’s homes when they are displaced by war?[/cit]
Yes, you did. The Tamil Tigers stole the homes of the Muslims and most of their possessions save for a little money when they were forcibly displaced (by the Tamil Tigers).
[cit]Am I trying to deny people their basic rights—for eg, by surrounding their homes with military personnel and refusing them free movement[/cit]
Yes, you did this — the LTTE didn’t allow freedom for the people who lived within its control to leave the area; in the last months of the war you guys surrounded these people with your cadres and refused to let them leave to incur massive casualties.
[cit]Did I pocket aid money given by other countries to people dispossessed by war?[/cit]
Yes, the LTTE used aid money to buy weapons.
[cit]Did I steal doors and other neccessities from people’s homes during war time, and then try to sell these things back to the same war displaced people when they returned?[/cit]
You sure did steal them when you kicked the Muslims out but I don’t know what you did after that.
[cit]Am I promoting the view that minorities should be happy with whatever they have—and lying that their nothing is something?[/cit]
No, you promote the view that there shouldn’t be any minorities. Only Tamils should live in the North and the East — pure homeland of the racially superior Tamil race.
[cit]Yes, it is a community I am attacking, not individuals.[/cit]
That’s the definition of racism. If you were attacking individuals it wouldn’t be as offensive.
longus,
I’m sorry that I can’t wast my time giving in to your requests for evidence!
Last time I checked this was a forum where ideas are meant to be “debated.” Without the necessary supporting evidence debate becomes rather spurious, wouldn’t you agree? Unless of course, you envision something along the lines of a Gotabayha Rajapakse style debate, in which case the so-called opponent goes on a permanent white van ride…
If yor follow news regularly you would have come across these events.
Perhaps you are referring to the news that begins with, “having defeated terrorism”, mentions “Western conspiracy” midway through, and ends with “having defeated terrorism.” Yes, I am familiar with that “news”… luckily I have the internet, or else there would be very little to read, period!
Janaki,
“The crap about stealing homes, military bases, etc. is not something known in the South.”
Really? I live in another country and I know of it. But then I do have the advantage of not having to drink deep of the lies told in the SL propaganda press.
And now that someone has said it is happening, will you investigate it? No, it seems you prefer to deny it offhand and dismiss it as “crap.” It’s not very convenient to find out some things, I guess.
“Even then — there was a significant percent at least 40% who didn’t vote for him.”
Yeah, they voted for the other Sinhala chauvinist, the one who said that minorities just have to accept what they are given.
“I should then judge the Tamil community for its support of the LTTE as well huh?”
How many percent of Tamils voted for the LTTE that you should equate Tamils with the LTTE? Why did the LTTE have to resort to forced conscription of recruits? Were the Tamils in a position to disagree with the LTTE, considering that even those in the South dared not disagree with him? But, hey, I understand–if you don’t equate the Tamils with the LTTE, then how can you justify your continuing hatred of a dispossessed minority. How can you continue and even step up with the oppression except by pretending that the Tamils and the LTTE are one and the same. Yes, indeed, a good trick.
“We prefer have a positive outlook on the world.”
The whole world knows about your positive outlook on the world. No, you can’t investigate us for war crimes. No, you can’t help the displaced. No, you can’t go up to the camps and speak to the war victims. No, you can’t go here. No, you can’t go there. Oh, yes, and ‘Please, please, give us aid even though we refuse to play by your rules.’ There’s your positive attitude.
“And I’ve done this as well as the whole Sinhala civilian population? Yes, my family thrives on stealing stuff from Tamils in the North. That’s all we do really.”
Enough people have been doing it from independence till now so that Tamils in the North have had to live intimately with nothing but violence, and rape and massacres for decades, or be forced to pack their bags and leave their homeland, and settle in countries where they didn’t even know the language. So please, spare me the indignation of pronouncing your family’s innocence. They aren’t homeless, are they? They’re still in their motherland, aren’t they?
Lots of Sinhalese soldiers up in the North and East now, keeping Tamils incarcerated in their own homes. There’s an army economy up there–soldiers paid by the army, businesses run by the army. Where does the money generated go? To the South, that’s where. It enters your family’s home; it doesn’t go to feed the hungry war victims. So, again, spare me the protestation.
Belle,
“Then can you explain why Singapore and Malaysia are full of SL Tamil judges, doctors, lawyers, teachers who left your fine Sinhalese kingdom in the 1950s and 1960s to work elsewhere. ”
The same reason why the British and French settled in the USA and Canada. The pioneer spirit I guess. The lure of more land and greener pastures… They saw
You cite some unheard of Sinhala text, the “Nampota” but let me point you to the Kokil Sandesha, Queyroz’s Temporal and spiritual conquest of Ceylon. which describes the portugese capture of Trincolamee from the Sinhalese and how it was lost when Rajasinha II recaptured it from the portugese in 1638. Also, when Robert Knox landed there he was brought to the king of kandy who reigned over Trincomalee. It was also Parakramabahu’s main port. The wikipedia gives an account of its history.. I wish you would read it rather than the Tamilnet version.
Woolf may have had his mental problems but he certainly wasnt halucinating when he travelled to Jaffna. I doubt if the efficient colonial administration would have appointed a total nutter as Government Agents of Kandy and Jaffna.
Belle,
When you scream “racist thugs, racist thugs…..” you remind me of Gotabaya screaming “liar.. liar.. liar..” Maybe you two have something in common afterall.
Tim,
“That’s the definition of racism. If you were attacking individuals it wouldn’t be as offensive.”
I mean to be offensive, most offensive. Because killing innocent civilians and robbing war victims is not exactly courteous behaviour.
Ain’t it funny? The vitriol that’s spewed here about the West is apparently not racism. The things that are said about Tamils, the generalizing about Tamils from the behaviour of the LTTE, is also not racism. Telling Tamils to go home to Tamil Nadu is not racist. But what I said is racism. May I conclude then that the true definition of racism is when negative comments are made about the Sinhalese?
In cultural theory, racism necessarily entails domination and the exercise of power. Everyone is so concerned about my alleged racist comments but structural racism, the deliberate disempowering of minorities by a majority or powerful community, violence against the powerless of another race and the getting away with it, settling the majority community in minority areas so as to further disientegrate the latter’s political power–that doesn’t seem to concern anybody. Like I said, the Sinhalese have no right to call anybody a racist.
What I said about the Sinhalese community as a community, as an entity that is able to take certain actions and make certain decisions, and inferring their character and values from their actions/decisions is fair comment. Something is not racist just because people don’t like what is said. That’s just a cop out. If you don’t like it, change your behaviour. Or prove that what I said is untrue.
Dingiri,
It seems your knowledge of SL history is not sound enough to explain the questions I had put to you earlier. Instead of going around in circles with the few pieces of information that you have, could you explain to me why it is that Sri Lankan Tamil language is full of archaisms not found in Tamil spoken in India? How do you explain the poetry of Eelattu Poothanthevanar from the current Mannar district being included in Sangam poetry anthologies produced before 250 AD? How do you explain the existence of medieval SL Tamil literature? Why is there written evidence of people claiming to be “damelas” in Anuradhapura? Why is it that coins produced between the 2nd century BCE and the 2nd century CE and found in excavations in Tissamaharama in southern Sri Lanka carry local Tamil personal names written in early Tamil characters? How come Parakramabahu had a Tamil chief minister, and how was it that a descendant of this same man later ruled over the Sinhalese–if there were no Tamils south of Jaffna peninsula? Also, it seems that Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan scholar visiting SL said in his travel writing that the Aryacharkavarti in 1344 lived in the Western coastal area of Puttalam. Was he surrounded then by Sinhalese and not by Tamils? How is it that the statue of the Buddha in an ancient temple in Gampola, situated so far away from Jaffna, was found to have a South Indian style of carving? Why is Trincomalee an anglicized version of a Tamil word “Tirukonamalai, which means “lord of the sacred hill”, rather than of a Sinhalese word if it was Sinhalese who were the dominant settlers there? Why do ancient texts mention a Hindu temple “Siva” existing there from the 3rd century AD to the late medieval era? Why does Trincomalee have many ancient Hindu historical sites, including that of the famous Konesvaram temple?
So many questions, and I have only started looking!
“You cite some unheard of Sinhala text, the “Nampota””
If you want to do history, you have to make sense of information given by all texts, not just the ones that confirm what you want to believe. That’s what a REAL historian does. That’s why I’ve given you all this info I gathered, so you can get a more complex picture of SL history than the chauvinistic fantasy that you offer as history.
“I doubt if the efficient colonial administration would have appointed a total nutter as Government Agents of Kandy and Jaffna.”
So you consider colonialism to be a sane enterprise?
Dingiri,
“When you scream “racist thugs, racist thugs…..” you remind me of Gotabaya screaming “liar.. liar.. liar..” Maybe you two have something in common afterall.”
I am sure you have noticed that my vocabulary is a lot more extensive than that of your illustrious Defence Secretary. I thus don’t need to repeat words and phrases. Those words “racist thugs, racist thugs” are a very poor summary of what I said. Perhaps like Gotabhaya, you too have run out of words.
Heshan,
Sorry I was just lazy to dig into the past news.You can go to the website: wikileak.com to find the shootins on Iraqi journalists by the US air force.It’s called “collateral murder”.
The rest of the events that I mentioned are well known.Its well known the Isreal’s atrocities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,as well as the civilian bombings in Afganistan and Iraq.Bloody Sunday report is well published-where there is no sign of an apology or regret on the part of the British Troops-
[cit]Really? I live in another country and I know of it. But then I do have the advantage of not having to drink deep of the lies told in the SL propaganda press.[/cit]
You know of it from reading pro-Eelam sources like Tamilnet. The Sinhala people do not read such crap.
[cit]And now that someone has said it is happening, will you investigate it? No, it seems you prefer to deny it offhand and dismiss it as “crap.” It’s not very convenient to find out some things, I guess.[/cit]
There’s nothing to investigate. The U. N. and other NGOs agree that there’s been resettlement and not relocation. I realize that the Vanni has been militarized but this will be obviously phased out as the situation there gets more stable. It’s still filled with weapons and bombs — so there’s a valid reason for the army to be there.
You claim that the army is stealing doors and other parts of homes while also claiming that they are settling Sinhala people in these homes. Which is it? Are they settling Sinhala people in the homes without doors and windows or is there selective process of not stealing doors and windows for this colonization to happen? The article that made the assertion that these goods had been taken made no mention of Sinhala people being settled there. Though there may be some truth to the taking of doors and whatever I would need a more thorough examination of this issue before I jump to conclusions.
[cit]Yeah, they voted for the other Sinhala chauvinist, the one who said that minorities just have to accept what they are given. [/cit]
He was the common opposition candidate and stood for Ranil and the others. People weren’t voting for him perse but the party he represented and against Mahinda.
[cit]Sri Lankan Tamil language is full of archaisms not found in Tamil spoken in India?[/cit]
A dialect would have slight differences. I’m sure there are dialects in the Tamil Nadu as well. The fact is Jaffna Tamil culture IS Tamil Nadu culture save for a few idiosyncrasies.
Sinhalese has no equal in India.
[cit] How do you explain the poetry of Eelattu Poothanthevanar from the current Mannar district being included in Sangam poetry anthologies produced before 250 AD? [/cit]
There’s no proof that Sangam poetry was written before 250 AD.
[cit]Early literature from the pre-Pallava dynasty period does not contain any mention of the Sangam academies, although some early poems imply a connection between the city of Madurai, which later legends associate with the third Sangam, and Tamil literature and the cultivation of the language.[6] The earliest express references to the academies are found in the songs of Appar and Sampandar, Shaivite poets who lived in the 7th century.[7[/cit]
And how do you conclude he was from Mannar?
[cit]How do you explain the existence of medieval SL Tamil literature? [/cit]
Like what? According to the source that identifies Eelattu “A distinctly Sri Lankan Tamil literary tradition first developed in the 1940s with the works of the ‘marumalarchi’ or renaissance writers Mahakavi, A. Kandasamy, and Varadar. ”
[cit]Why is there written evidence of people claiming to be “damelas” in Anuradhapura?[/cit]
Tamils wouldn’t call themselves damelas would they? This shows that the Sinhala were dominant in Anuradhapura with a small minority of damelas.
[cit]Why is it that coins produced between the 2nd century BCE and the 2nd century CE and found in excavations in Tissamaharama in southern Sri Lanka carry local Tamil personal names written in early Tamil characters?[/cit]
[cit]How come Parakramabahu had a Tamil chief minister, and how was it that a descendant of this same man later ruled over the Sinhalese–if there were no Tamils south of Jaffna peninsula? [/cit]
The Sinhalese frequently hired Tamil soldiers to fill out their ranks.
[cit]Also, it seems that Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan scholar visiting SL said in his travel writing that the Aryacharkavarti in 1344 lived in the Western coastal area of Puttalam. Was he surrounded then by Sinhalese and not by Tamils? [/cit]
This was just after Aryacharkavarti invades and established the Jaffna kingdom. The Sinhalese would retake their areas soon after.
[cit]How is it that the statue of the Buddha in an ancient temple in Gampola, situated so far away from Jaffna, was found to have a South Indian style of carving?[/cit]
What’s this South Indian style of carving? Shame there are no Buddhist statues in the Tamil Nadu that we can compare it to.
[cit]Why is Trincomalee an anglicized version of a Tamil word “Tirukonamalai, which means “lord of the sacred hill”, rather than of a Sinhalese word if it was Sinhalese who were the dominant settlers there?[/cit]
The ancient texts, as well as an inscription unearthed by archeologists, call it Gokarna in Sanskrit.[2]
This inscription is from the remains of a Hindu temple no less.
Also: An English sea captain and historical chronicle writer named Robert Knox came ashore by chance near Trincomalee and surrendered to the Dissawa (official) of the King of Kandy in 1659.
[cit]Why do ancient texts mention a Hindu temple “Siva” existing there from the 3rd century AD to the late medieval era? Why does Trincomalee have many ancient Hindu historical sites, including that of the famous Konesvaram temple?[/cit]
If Tamils in Jaffna were Buddhist it’s not a stretch to say that there were Hindu Sinhalese.
Many ancient Hindu historical sites? It’s only the Koneswaram temple and even this was destroyed by the Portuguese to the extent there was no historical site left. What was left was a few statues and pillars that fell in to the sea. Why do these remans refer to the area with the Sanskrit term Gokarna?
[cit]Ain’t it funny? The vitriol that’s spewed here about the West is apparently not racism. The things that are said about Tamils, the generalizing about Tamils from the behaviour of the LTTE, is also not racism. Telling Tamils to go home to Tamil Nadu is not racist. But what I said is racism. May I conclude then that the true definition of racism is when negative comments are made about the Sinhalese?[/cit]
Fear of western dominance is racism ?
Things are not said about Tamils in the South nor are there any generalizations about Tamils from the behaviour of the LTTE among the majority of the Sinhalese. You living in Singapore seem to know more about us than us though. When I was in Colombo there was no hard feelings against Tamils and they weren’t thrown in with the LTTE. I went to school with Tamils and got along cordially. Most of my friends were Muslims.
[cit]In cultural theory, racism necessarily entails domination and the exercise of power. Everyone is so concerned about my alleged racist comments but structural racism, the deliberate disempowering of minorities by a majority or powerful community, violence against the powerless of another race and the getting away with it, settling the majority community in minority areas so as to further disientegrate the latter’s political power–that doesn’t seem to concern anybody. Like I said, the Sinhalese have no right to call anybody a racist.[/cit]
Your paranoid delusions doesn’t justify your racism. There is no dis-empowering of minorities in Sri Lanka.. Muslims, Tamils, Burghers etc.. can do anything they want in the South. Chandran Rutnam, Muttiah Muralitharan, M. V. Balan, Dilshan, Mano Ganeshan, etc. today and M. K. Rocksamy, J. Rasaratnam, J. Selvaratnam, M. S. Anandan, Shyama Anandan, A. E. Manoharan, Shashi Wijendra, Mohideen Beg, Haroon Lantra, G. S. B. Rani, K. Gunaratnam, etc. in the past should speak to that. There’s only a military presence in the North due to the rebellion that festered for the last 30 years.
[cit]What I said about the Sinhalese community as a community, as an entity that is able to take certain actions and make certain decisions, and inferring their character and values from their actions/decisions is fair comment. Something is not racist just because people don’t like what is said. That’s just a cop out. If you don’t like it, change your behaviour. Or prove that what I said is untrue.[/cit]
The majority of Sinhalese don’t take any decisions seeking to hurt Tamils in the North nor take away their land. The majority of Sinhalese have never been to the North because of the War. Racist mindsets like you are the reason that this war went on for so long and the Tamils in the North suffered so.
Change my behavior? Listening to Sri Lankan music, watching Sri Lankan music, going to school, talking to friends of all races, eating food and shopping at stores run by all ethnicities — what of this should I change?
Heshan
Sorry,correction;it’s http://www.wikileaks.com It was created by a citizens’ rights group to expose of “classified” files of the US government.According to the “Epoch Times” newspaper in Canada the soldier who leaked the video on the shooting shown in the “collateral murder” is now under arrest by the US Army!
I wasnt saying there were no Tamils south of Jaffna. I was only saying that the territory south of Jaffna was part of the Sinhala state when the colonialists arrived and also much of the at least 1500 years prior to that. Hence it cannot be claimed as exclusively Tamil land, your diproporttionately large Eelamist state where every Sinhalese an illegal encroacher.
Of course there were many Tamils who come from South India and lived among the Sinhalese. But over they years they mereged with the Sinhalese and are now indistinguishable from the larger body of Sinhalese. There is a great deal that is Tamil in the Sinhalese language and culture today.
The sangam poetry as far as I know was composed in Tamil Nadu in the Tamil heartland that developed along the Karvery how would one know that some of the poems came specifically from Mannar?!!
“So you consider colonialism to be a sane enterprise?”
I thought this whole debate began with your assertion that there was no hypocrisy in our colonial masters’ wish to investigate Sri Lanka’s crimes when they themselves have commited the same crimes in all their conflicts.
All I said was that the British ran a prettey efficient shop in Sri Lanka with a handful of capable British bureaucrats like woolf. When they were not killing us they did a prettey good job of running the affairs of the state and we are yet to match the standards set by them.
Dear Belle,
Also, don’t forget that even in the 17th century, according to robert knox and K. Indrapala’s ” Evolution of an Ethnic identity”, Anuradhapurra was a Tamil speaking area.
True, the word Trincomalee is derived from the Tamil Thirikonamalai which is also incidently the Sinhala word for it today. Previously it was called Gokanna in Sinhalese. The temple that was destroyed was called “the pagoda of a thousand columns” by the Portugese which implies a buddhist identity. Unfortunately only a few columns remain from the original shrine which are at the bottom of the sea and we are unable to say exactly what it was. It is referred to as the Gokanna Chaitya in the Sihalese chronicles and it is now considered to have been a composite religious site with both Hindu and Buddhist shrines.There is also another Hindu temple Natanar Kovil, but it is built on the foundations of an earlier buddhist site called Velgam Vehera according to the inscription found there, there is also the Girihadu Seya in Thiriyaya, Seruwavila and Somawathia in the viscinity of Trincomalee that are ancient buddhist sites and these far outnumber any Tamil sites in the district. So again, you need to recognise that this is not the EXCLUSIVE traditional homeland of the Tamils only. It is the traditional homeland of the Sinhalese as well. Its a pity we had to fight over it. I accept that conditions for Tamils are far from desirable after the war and also that they are likely to remain so while this regime lasts. My wish is that foreign pressure especially from India will finally persuade the regime to bring in some reforms that will lead to a fair and equitable settlement.
Maybe you’re right Belle.. The Sinhala thuggish behavior is shameful the way it manifests in violent gangs in Toronto and London.. Wait the gangs in Toronto and London are Sinhalese right? I couldn’t imagine the angelic Tamils being behind any of this.
http://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/2008/6/29545_space.html
Seven Tamil gang members convicted in London`s sword crime
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAEJwbEvyaM
London 23 February, (Asiantribune. Com): A Sky One TV’s award winning TV documentary video grab posted on YouTube reveals that there are no less than 40 Tamil gangs in London. They mostly assault or even torture their victims, who are other Tamils living in London. They use swords, axes and even fishtails on their victims.
And you claimed that there was no support for LTTE among the Tamil diaspora..
Who’s flags were they waving at the rallies last year?
I’d like to see Belle, Janaki, Heshan, Wijayapala, Longus et al in parliament It would surely make a delightful change from the morons we have there now.
Dear Belle,
“If you have a point to make, just make it.”
I ask questions because I am more interested in learning than making a point.
As you were unable to answer my questions, it seems that I already made my point to anyone else reading them.
“Is that what you understand by culture–just the religion, and language they speak? It’s not just about preserving their culture, but developing it further, growing it. How does a community develop culturally if the bulk of them are earning pittance for wages?”
Perhaps you can help me understand by explaining how N-E Tamil culture “developed” after independence. I am not sure what you mean by “develop.”
“We should really be talking about Tamil “cultures” rather than one Tamil culture. Just as there is more than one Sinhalese culture, for eg rural vs urban, Christian vs Buddhist, regional Sinhalese cultures, etc.”
Agreed, but in your earlier outburst against Sinhalese you didn’t appear to make any distinctions!
“It’s sad that the Sinhalese are “utterly ignorant of Tamil culture”. The SL Tamils I meet don’t seem to be ignorant of Sinhalese culture—they can speak the language at some basic level, cook their foods in their own homes, and seem to know something about their customs.”
It’s not very unusual when you consider that there isn’t any country out there where the majority is more aware of the minority than the minority is of the majority. Speaking strictly as a Sinhala though, I am not proud of this ignorance at all and argued earlier that it was a major reason why the LTTE was able to last so long.
All the same, those particular souls who were shrieking “Iruthi Por” in 2005-6 clearly surpassed any Sinhalese I’m familiar with in ignorance.
“Do you agree that the emergence of the Rajapakse regime was a “natural and inevitable occurrence,” given the nature of LTTE terrorism?”
I think it arose partly as a response to LTTE but it was also shaped by a prior and continuing history of Sinhalese nationalism and a tradition of State terrorism.
Ok.. would you then also believe that the LTTE arose partly as a response of anti-Tamil violence but was also shaped by a prior history of authoritarianism and intolerance of dissent in Tamil politics? (I am thinking primarily of TULF in the 1970s, although the roots can arguably trace further back to ITAK)
Tim,
“London 23 February, (Asiantribune. Com): A Sky One TV’s award winning TV documentary video grab posted on YouTube reveals that there are no less than 40 Tamil gangs in London. They mostly assault or even torture their victims, who are other Tamils living in London. They use swords, axes and even fishtails on their victims.”
And do they drive around in white vans?
Apparently, the SL government killed 60,000 Sinhalese in the late 1980s. I wonder how many Sinhalese soldiers/police/paramilitary or just plain thugs did this merciless killing of their own people.
[cit]And do they drive around in white vans?[/cit]
Yes.
[cit]Two pro-LTTE activists were arrested in Paris on Friday following the death of Ramesh Sivarupan who is believed to be a member of the Ruthrakumar faction of the LTTE, according to informed sources.
The sources said that Ramesh Sivarupan was kidnapped and taken in a van from his residence in Paris[/cit]
http://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/2010/6/57219_space.html
[cit]Apparently, the SL government killed 60,000 Sinhalese in the late 1980s. I wonder how many Sinhalese soldiers/police/paramilitary or just plain thugs did this merciless killing of their own people.[/cit]
Perhaps all the thugs of the 1983 riots (who probably later joined the JVP) were killed in the late 1980s?
And who knows how many Tamils the LTTE killed?
[cit]Apparently, the SL government killed 60,000 Sinhalese in the late 1980s. I wonder how many Sinhalese soldiers/police/paramilitary or just plain thugs did this merciless killing of their own people.[/cit]
Just a small percent of the population formed into paramilitaries did the killing. You can look at almost any society and find a time period of immense violence — America — lynchings, Native American murders, etc.. India — violence against Sheiks, Maoists, etc. Spain — colonial invasions into America, the revolts of the 1900s, etc.
If the Sinhalese are thugs they should have killed out all the Veddahs. This is not the case. And we still haven’t stooped to a dictatorship despite all the corruption and violence showing some control.
longus,
Sorry I was just lazy to dig into the past news.You can go to the website: wikileak.com to find the shootins on Iraqi journalists by the US air force.It’s called “collateral murder”.
So now the airforce is shooting journalists? That’s interesting. First you were making some claim about journalists being banned in the Afghan war zone, now you are spouting something Iraqi journalists. What’s also interesting is that you’re still unable to give a direct html link to back up any of your claims. .
The rest of the events that I mentioned are well known.Its well known the Isreal’s atrocities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,as well as the civilian bombings in Afganistan and Iraq.Bloody Sunday report is well published-where there is no sign of an apology or regret on the part of the British Troops-
China’s atrocities and Russia’s atrocities are also well known. I guess since they contributed to Mahinda’s “humanitarian” war, we can conveniently neglect any mention.
*something about
Pearl
Yeah,hundred comments up,and the parliament is still in scession!
“Sri Lanka bans Ban’s men from entering…..”
Well done Sri Lanka, for banishing the compradors of the Hegamony who try to force things on our face!
Go and preach your “clean war” to your protagonists!
Tim,
“Just a small percent of the population formed into paramilitaries did the killing.”
Ditto for Tamil gangs in London and Toronto. I go to these two cities periodically, and I’ve never come across them so presumably they haven’t taken over these cities either.
“You can look at almost any society and find a time period of immense violence — America — lynchings, Native American murders, etc.. India — violence against Sheiks, Maoists, etc. Spain — colonial invasions into America, the revolts of the 1900s, etc.”
No kidding. But there is something unique then about Tamil violence and gangsterism? Even though these people were raised with nothing but violence in their homeland, and, uneducated and poor, had to leave for countries with alien languages and cultures?
“Two pro-LTTE activists were arrested in Paris on Friday following the death of Ramesh Sivarupan who is believed to be a member of the Ruthrakumar faction of the LTTE….kidnapped and taken in a van from his residence in Paris[/cit]
http://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/2010/6/57219_space.html”
Your government press seem very interested in Tamil activities abroad. If only they would report on white van abductions and killings at home with as much interest.
“If the Sinhalese are thugs they should have killed out all the Veddahs. This is not the case. ”
How do you know? Australia still has its aborigines, but everyone knows there was massive genocide committed against these people when the white settlers landed there. They can determine that by projecting the size of the aboriginal population if they had not been exterminated and comparing it to the actual current numbers. If the Veddahs had not been killed, they would be a much bigger proportion of the SL population then they are today.
“And we still haven’t stooped to a dictatorship despite all the corruption and violence showing some control.”
You’re very funny. Democracy under threat of the white van is not democracy.
Ditto for Tamil gangs in London and Toronto.
I fail to see how Tamil gangs – regardless of any LTTE affiliation they may have had – reflect the wishes or aspirations of the Tamil diaspora. On the other hand, the same cannot be said about the Sri Lankan military, which just happens to be 99.9% Sinhala-Buddhist. As soon as they *won* the war, M. Rajapakse was elected President by the majority community, in a landslide victory. Clearly, the Sri Lankan military reflects the wishes of the vast majority of members of Sinhalese in S. Lanka. Also, it seems that the majority community is just fine with militarization – which is basically a thumbs-up to GOSL to do whatever it wants, in the name of “national security” even if it comes at the expense of Tamil rights being sacrificed. How did I reach such a conclusion? Simple – the majority elected M. Rajapakse whose singular object seems to be “national security”, even a full 1 year after the war is over. Granted, emotions run high immediately after a war is over, but 1 year is enough time to calm down. By now, the majority community should be up in arms, not defending M. Rajapakse as he and his clan continue plundering the country, in the name of “national security.”
*vast majority of Sinhalese
*singular objective
Well done Sri Lanka, for banishing the compradors of the Hegamony who try to force things on our face!
The real question is why the UN funded the barbed-wire detention camps. Apparently, the cost of running and maintaining these camps was more than $1 million USD per week – an expense which GOSL with its bloated defense budget could never afford. So, whats interesting is that the UN will sit by passively while tens of thousands of people are getting annihilated by a government/military that openly flouts any rules of engagement, whereas, it (UN) is willing to feed and provide shelter – lasting several months – for the survivors of the massacre. Wouldn’t it have been cheaper – and in general, easier – to condemn GOSL during the war itself? By condemn, I don’t mean vague admonishments, but impose tough, crippling sanctions. It’s too bad China and Russia are on the Security Council – in a more utopian setting, China and Russia should be forced to dole out S. Lanka, e.g. pay for the barbed-wire camps, the reconstruction projects, the demining, etc.
Wijayapala,
” I ask questions because I am more interested in learning than making a point.
As you were unable to answer my questions, it seems that I already made my point to anyone else reading them.”
No, Wijayapala, much as I respect your level of knowledge and your usual ability to see issues from both sides, you asked those Socratic-type questions instead of making your argument clearly because you knew that those ideas you wanted to disseminate would not stand up to reason. Hence the questioning method so that you could still make your points in a back-handed, covert way while escaping challenges to your logic.
Let’s re-visit your questions. Since I said that the Sinhalese had to take collective responsibility for state-sponsored pogroms against Tamils, you asked the question whether more Tamils had been killed in those pogroms or whether the LTTE had killed more Tamils. Your motive in asking that question was so that I would have to admit that more Tamils had been killed by the LTTE–and therefore also have to concur that the Tamils too had to bear collective responsibility for internal killings.
Except, unlike the State, the LTTE had never been elected by the Tamil people. It was a terrorist force, and those who were responsible are dead. And those who weren’t responsible are also dead. That Tamils suffered themselves under the hands of the LTTE itself rubbishes your suggestion that the Tamil people are responsible because obviously they would have stopped it if they could. On the other hand, Sinhalese massacres of Tamils were wilfully done, and the community at large wasn’t politically committed to giving Tamils their rights–which was why the LTTE emerged in the first place.
Look at what has been happening post-war. Are there plans now to help the Tamils, to rectify the situation? Obviously not. Maybe post-war developments haven’t yet proven this to you, but it has shown SL Tamils what they have always known–that the only way they were going to get any rights was at the point of a gun. They are not responsible for that undeniable fact. Yes, some political leaders in the past were making overtures, but that was only because of LTTE presence. Unfortunately, Prabhakaran was too drunk on power to make rational decisions–and he certainly never consulted Tamils on what they wanted.
The absolute only way there will be anything close to a decent outcome for SL Tamils now that the LTTE is gone is from international pressure. The UN too never intervenes unless people die first, and sometimes not even then.
The other Socratic-type question you asked was where the LTTE got their massive funding from. The stock answer to that among forummers here is that they got it from the SL diaspora, and therefore, again, we were to hold Tamils responsible. That is a myth, and one day when a complete study is done about the creativity and crookedness of LTTE finances, people will know that diaspora funds were often gained through force, largely from extortion of businesses abroad and by kidnappings of wealthy people, and that diaspora funds were an insignificant part of LTTE fundraising. Even before the LTTE begun collecting funds from the diaspora, they were making tons of money through drug-trafficking in the mid-1980s. Jane’s Defence Intelligence Review has reported on their reliance on illegal businesses, including arms smuggling, even human smuggling, as well as narcotics and hijacking of vessels carrying arms belonging to other countries. In a 2007 report, it was said that LTTE earned US$200-300 million a year. That was profit, not from donations. With post-9/11 cracking down of terror groups fund raising, they also ran charitable organizations and used their tax-free status and legitimacy. According to this 2004 report, the LTTE raised about 24 million a year from diaspora contributions. How much of that was from extortions, I don’t know.
http://www.ipcs.org/article/terrorism-in-sri-lanka/financial-fodder-external-sources-of-ltte-funds-1530.html
But can the diaspora be blamed for supporting the LTTE? These people had to run for their lives, were forced to leave their homeland and live in countries for which they had litle cultural resources to do so. I’ve seen cousins upon cousins making their stealthy way through Malaysia to UK, US, Canada, and entering there as refugees. You don’t think they would be filled with hate at what they had to undergo? You think enforced displacement from home is fun?
All of this can be stopped. Sri Lanka just has to make a commitment to be fair. But it won’t. And this will go on. But of course, everyone has to be blamed except the Sinhalese. They’re too busy debating history and wondering who came first to Sri Lanka.
[cit]No kidding. But there is something unique then about Tamil violence and gangsterism?[/cit]
No, I was just pointing out thuggish behavior occurs among Tamils too. Most Tamils are not like this though.
You were using actions of a small percentage of Sinhalese in power and the uneducated who support these people as a sign that the Sinhalese as a community are thuggish.
I’m sure the Sinhala soldier has a heart too as does the LTTE cadre. Reading the account of a traveller through the Vanni you see the common soldier doesn’t agree with what the person in power is telling him to do (i.e. require passes to travel to certain areas and what not but is powerless to do otherwise).
[cit]Even though these people were raised with nothing but violence in their homeland, and, uneducated and poor,[/cit]
That could apply to a lot of Sinhalese too especially those who grew up in the 1970s and the late 1980s. I think you should take back the comment about the Sinhalese as a community being thuggish.
I think if the Tamils in the 1970s got together with the impoverished Sinhala they could have together achieved significant success instead of the last 30 years of stagnation and alienation.
[cit]I fail to see how Tamil gangs – regardless of any LTTE affiliation they may have had – reflect the wishes or aspirations of the Tamil diaspora.[/cit]
They intimidate Tamils who wish to work with the Sri Lankan government and carry out attacks against Sinhala institutions in London and Toronto. This is the will of the Tamil diaspora which is baying for blood and refuse to see any other view as valid or even holdable.
[citOn the other hand, the same cannot be said about the Sri Lankan military, which just happens to be 99.9% Sinhala-Buddhist.[/ccit]
And the LTTE was 100% Tamil. What’s your point?
citAs soon as they *won* the war, M. Rajapakse was elected President by the majority community, in a landslide victory. Clearly, the Sri Lankan military reflects the wishes of the vast majority of members of Sinhalese in S. Lanka.[/cit]
Why do you continue to ignore the fact that the Sinhala population was terrorized by the LTTE and voted in support of the leader who got rid of them? Are you claiming they actually voted based on some racist mindset of subjugating Tamils?
[citAlso, it seems that the majority community is just fine with militarization – which is basically a thumbs-up to GOSL to do whatever it wants, in the name of “national security” even if it comes at the expense of Tamil rights being sacrificed.[/cit]
The Sinhala population is not aware of Tamil rights being sacrificed. Even though as a Tamil you feel this is an obvious conclusion to the Sinhala population the LTTE was the problem and the military is only there to prevent the resurgence of the LTTE.
[cit]How did I reach such a conclusion? Simple – the majority elected M. Rajapakse whose singular object seems to be “national security”, even a full 1 year after the war is over. Granted, emotions run high immediately after a war is over, but 1 year is enough time to calm down. By now, the majority community should be up in arms, not defending M. Rajapakse as he and his clan continue plundering the country, in the name of “national security.”[/cit]
You reach this conclusion thinking the Sinhalese must see the world just like the Tamil diaspora i.e. the LTTE wasn’t all bad, The Sri Lankan government is terrorist, etc. Well, this is not the reality.
And as you should know the media is mostly pro-state. Why would the Sinhala people be up in arms when there are no bombs going off?
[cit]Tamil people are responsible because obviously they would have stopped it if they could.[/cit]
No, they wouldn’t have. Even now every diaspora organization fantasizes about the LTTE freedom fighters and wave the LTTE flag around each and every one of your gathering.
I could see why they supported the LTTE when it was still around but its dumbfounding why they continue to do so even when they’re gone.
[cit]On the other hand, Sinhalese massacres of Tamils were wilfully done,[/cit]
Tamil massacres of Sinhalese and Muslims was willfully done as well.
Are you claiming that the society at large willed Tamils be killed in 1983? No, they didn’t. Tamils were friends and family of the Sinhalese. The criminals who led the riots in no way reflect the majority.
[citand the community at large wasn't politically committed to giving Tamils their rights–which was why the LTTE emerged in the first place. [/cit]
How do you know? In 1976 Tamil was made a national language and Standardization was removed (it had been put in place in 1971). In 1976 also the Sinhalese voted against the govenment of Sirimavo that had put in place Standardization overwhelmingly. After J. R. and Premadasa screwed up the Sinhalese voted in a different party. There seems to be no winning whatever we do.
And you refer to discrimination as if it justifies the formation of a murderous rebel group. Two wrongs don’t make a right and it certainly didn’t in this case.
[cit]But of course, everyone has to be blamed except the Sinhalese.[/cit]
The Sinhalese have been blamed constantly since the 1980s. You think blaming the race of Sinhalese as whole is what is imperative to achieving justice? Why not focus on the individual leaders like Mahinda and work on building a relation with the Sinhalese instead of alienating them like during the LTTE era.
Heshan,
I wonder whether you have a vision problem as well!I have already given you the web site.It’s posted on24/06 2010 at 12.50am.
The journalists who were shot were attached to Reuters and they were in a cleared area in Bagdad.
They intimidate Tamils who wish to work with the Sri Lankan government and carry out attacks against Sinhala institutions in London and Toronto. This is the will of the Tamil diaspora which is baying for blood and refuse to see any other view as valid or even holdable.
Who are these Tamils that wish to work with the Sri Lankan Government? Do you mean the ones that sit in AC offices in Colombo, of the likes of Douglas Devananda, while their supporters – e.g. EDPD – go around terrorizing ordinary Tamils in the North and East? Do you mean Tamils of the likes of Lakshman Kadirgamar who happened to be assassinated in his private olympic size luxury swimming pool while an economic embargo on essential items was in place against the Wanni Tamils?
And the LTTE was 100% Tamil. What’s your point?
Actually the LTTE had quite a few Sinhalese supporters, so-called kotiyas and the like who could easily be bought off for money.
Why do you continue to ignore the fact that the Sinhala population was terrorized by the LTTE and voted in support of the leader who got rid of them? Are you claiming they actually voted based on some racist mindset of subjugating Tamils?
What positive attributes does Rajapakse possess? The war was not really his victory – it was the victory of Sarath F, who increased the troop size by a massive amount. The only thing Rajapakse did differently from his predecessors is make friends with China, Russia, Iran, Libya etc. while keeping the West at bay. Even after the war, Rajapakse has maintained these alliances, which is why I say he is incapable and incompetent. South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, etc. are all modeled after the West. The only successful Asian nation not modeled after the West is Singapore. If Rajapakse thinks his “homegrown” solutions are going to move SL forward, he is dead wrong. But I don’t think even he believes that. He is just a thoroughly corrupt rogue who will rob the country blind… he is the first of a long dynasty, and his only goal is to lay the foundations. If the Bandaranaike dynasty was a plague to the island, the Rajapakse one will be X100 worse. I say that because the Rajapakses are largely uneducated and have no idea about how the real world works. The only reason M. Rajapakse was elected is because he is a villager from Hambantota and that silly costume and fake smile and cheap appeal to nationalism has some magnetic effect over the rural masses, who don’t really know any better. Reminds me of Hitler – anything is possible when the masses are desperate. If they are uneducated, even better.
The Sinhala population is not aware of Tamil rights being sacrificed. Even though as a Tamil you feel this is an obvious conclusion to the Sinhala population the LTTE was the problem and the military is only there to prevent the resurgence of the LTTE.
I am not a Tamil. However, since I live in a Western society where, on a regular basis, I encounter 4 or 5 different races and 10 or 12 different nationalities just by stepping out the door, I can easily sympathize with Tamils and their simple desire to be left alone. Multiculturalism means different groups coexist peacefully, but one group does not exert undue force or pressure on another group. Trying to force your beliefs on others, like Sinhala-only and teaching Tamil-invasion theories in schools, and putting up Lion flags on every street corner, and building giant Buddha statues wherever and whenever you feel like it – this kind of behavior does not belong to the 21st century. It is behavior that is characteristic of the Mahavamsa mindset , which, unfortunately, too many Sinhalese in the South of Sri Lanka suffer from, due to a combination of economic factors, media censorship, and a sterile educational system.
You reach this conclusion thinking the Sinhalese must see the world just like the Tamil diaspora i.e. the LTTE wasn’t all bad, The Sri Lankan government is terrorist, etc. Well, this is not the reality.
Having talked to numerous Tamils, it is my understanding that they wished to build up their so-called Eelam homeland or whatever, by working in conjunction with the LTTE. I see nothing wrong with this. The best way to do something is on your own, with a minimum of reliance on outside help. Look at what M. Rajapakse is doing now – letting China build every port, habor, road, bridge, etc. Why is he doing that – so that his family can reap the commissions, of course – just like they did with Lanka Logistics, Mihin Airlines (which went bankrupt twice, btw), etc. In the long-run, it is much better to let local people handle their own affairs, with a minimum of government interference. Regardless of its character, the LTTE had the necessary capital and expertise – via the Tamil diaspora – to rebuild the North. Of course, this is the perennial Sinhala-Buddhist nightmare – self-reliant Tamil people living in peace in their own tiny pocket of land! According to Mahavamsa, Sinhalese must have lived there 3000 years ago, so lets take it back and colonize it! Build giant military bases so the Tamils can’t revolt! Is this not what is happening now?
And as you should know the media is mostly pro-state. Why would the Sinhala people be up in arms when there are no bombs going off?
Exactly the media is pro-state. A subservient media, an indoctrinated populace – the perfect ingredients for stupidity. I can’t wait to see Mahinda change the Constitution and not a single whimper of protest emerge from the masses.
Belle,
“much as I respect your level of knowledge and your usual ability to see issues from both sides, you asked those Socratic-type questions instead of making your argument clearly because you knew that those ideas you wanted to disseminate would not stand up to reason.”
I tend to ask questions unless somebody really botches the history. Therefore you’re saying that most of what I have communicated here “would not stand up to reason.”
“Except, unlike the State, the LTTE had never been elected by the Tamil people. It was a terrorist force, and those who were responsible are dead. And those who weren’t responsible are also dead. That Tamils suffered themselves under the hands of the LTTE itself rubbishes your suggestion that the Tamil people are responsible because obviously they would have stopped it if they could.”
The fact that 40-60,000 Sinhalese perished under an elected government in 1987-89 (and 10,000 in 1971) rubbishes your suggestion that they could have stopped the violence- whether anti-Sinhala or Tamil- simply because there was an elected govt.
Going back to the 1977 and 83 riots, they took place under a regime that was elected on the platform of reaching a negotiated settlement to the “ethnic conflict” (and fixing the economy that Mrs B busted).
“Look at what has been happening post-war. Are there plans now to help the Tamils, to rectify the situation? Obviously not.”
What can we do to help?
“Maybe post-war developments haven’t yet proven this to you, but it has shown SL Tamils what they have always known–that the only way they were going to get any rights was at the point of a gun.”
But hasn’t the gun led to the Tamils losing far more than when there was no gun?
“But can the diaspora be blamed for supporting the LTTE?”
You gave a fairly convincing argument in your previous paragraph that the Tamil diaspora probably did not voluntarily contribute very much to the LTTE as many people believe. If you had left it at that, I would have conceded that I had no counterargument with sufficient evidence to prove you wrong. Hence I was surprised to see you demolish your entire preceding argument with this line.
The minute you say that anyone supported the LTTE, you are negating the LTTE’s identity as “terrorist” or “illegitimate.”
Personally I have no problems at all with Tamils supporting separatism and the LTTE from 1983 until around 1987 period when it became clear that Prabakaran had no qualms about destroying the entire Tamil race to achieve Eelam.
“These people had to run for their lives, were forced to leave their homeland and live in countries for which they had litle cultural resources to do so. I’ve seen cousins upon cousins making their stealthy way through Malaysia to UK, US, Canada, and entering there as refugees. You don’t think they would be filled with hate at what they had to undergo? You think enforced displacement from home is fun?”
No, but the irony is that many of them fled to escape being conscripted by the LTTE. At least that is what I gathered from Oivind Fuglerud’s book on the Tamil diaspora. I can understand hatred towards the various SL govts, but I have a harder time understanding the pro-LTTE sentiments.
Dear Tim,
“Even now every diaspora organization fantasizes about the LTTE freedom fighters and wave the LTTE flag around each and every one of your gathering.”
Are you including Lenin Benedict’s Canadian Democratic Tamil Cultural Association?
“In 1976 Tamil was made a national language”
Not true. Tamil was made a national language in 1987 as part of the Indian intervention.
Dear Prof. Heshan,
“the majority elected M. Rajapakse whose singular object seems to be “national security”, even a full 1 year after the war is over.”
Would you have been happier if everyone voted for Fonseka, who stated that Sri Lanka is a Sinhala country?
Meanwhile, in the country of freedom and freedom of expression, why did Mr. Obama had to rattle Gen Mchrystal after criticising the administrations incompetence with the war decisions? I thought in a country like USA criticism is welcome and dealt with cool. Just little things in the news daily that gives me subtle chuckles for their denial and hypocrisy they live in.
Wonderful discussion although the polarization is a bit worrying to me frankly in this forum. Tim, Dingri and as always, Wijayapala make a lot of good points. Not that I disagree with Heshan or Belle entirely but I tend to differ here and there with their views.
In any case, here are my observations:
1) For Tim: This is regarding Buddhists statues in Tamilnadu that you want to compare with. In the last several years, some Buddha statues have been found, most of them likely belonging to Chola era. Here are some links if you are interested.
http://www.hindu.com/2005/01/09/stories/2005010907110300.htm
http://www.newkerala.com/news/fullnews-94833.html
http://palmleaf.wordpress.com/2006/02/12/10th-century-buddhist-statues-in-chennai/
Like the third link says, the novel “Ponniyin Selvan” talks a bit about Buddhism in Srilanka as it was 1000 years ago. Regarding Buddhism in TamilNadu itself, ancient Tamil literature (particularly the great 5 epics (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Great_Epics_of_Tamil_Literature)) hav several references to Buddhism. Manimegalai has some references to Buddhism (Wikipedia doesn’t mention that) and so does Kundalakesi. You may also know that Chudamani Vihara was constructed by RajaRaja chola himself in TamilNadu. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chudamani_Vihara for information. This has been destroyed by Jesuits as claimed by Wikipedia.
As you very rightly mentioned, it is a shame that nothing exists today in TamilNadu to make any architectural comparison. And even if something is found archeologically, the challenge to find out whether it is a Jain or Buddhist one because Tamil Nadu was Jain majority (with other religions in minority including Buddhism) until about 1200 years ago.
BTW, Hindu Sinhalist? Are they any? Or is it a counter argument to Belle’s 3rd century Siva temple reference? Let me know.
2) Belle: “Trikonamalai” may sound Tamil, but not purely Tamil. “Tri” is three in Sanskrit and most Indian languages (and also in Latin). Yes, “Malai” is tamil word. But it should read “Mukkonamalai” if you are looking at it as a Tamil word.
Can you explain the “archaisms” found in SL Tamil that are not found in Indian Tamil for instance? I am curious.
3) Dingiri: Your views on fair and equitable settlement is appreciated. But why India I fail to understand. India hasn’t fixed any of its problems in so many years. Wondering what it’s pressure would do in SL.
Wijayapala,
I think you are incorrect about the national language thing. Tamil was made a national language in the late 1970′s but it was made into an OFFICIAL language in 1987.
Observer:
Let S. Lanka elect a Tamil President, then we can talk. What would all the JHU monks and JVP geniuses do if that ever came to pass…
wijayapala:
Would you have been happier if everyone voted for Fonseka, who stated that Sri Lanka is a Sinhala country?
I am not a Fonseka supporter or Fonseka fan.
Observer,
If Obama had a Rajapaksha mentality, he would have locked up Mchrystal for treason instead of just firing him.
Heshan
There has never been such thing as a “clean war” in the human history,be it 20th or 21st century.Show me one if you can,where civilians were not caught up in firing!
I fail to understand how people who live in the West can sell their brains to the West as well and repeat what they say,and try to deny the obvious. This must be another peculiarity in the Sri Lankan mind-set! When the Western academics say the US is wrong these people bend over backwards defending them.!
Mao and Stalin too committed crimes against humanity as you correctly say. So was Pinochet,Sukarno and Pol-Pot;there is no question about it. But they were not punished for their crimes-Polpot died a natural death and Pinochet’s extradition was delayed by Britain on “old age”!-So were the Isreali war criminals and the victors if WWII Eisonhover,Churchill and of course Stalin.
wijayapala said,
June 26, 2010 @ 3:49 pm
Observer,
If Obama had a Rajapaksha mentality, he would have locked up Mchrystal for treason instead of just firing him.
Really wijayapala? What happened to US Army intelligence analyst SPC Bradley Manning? Obama (well FBI under his command) locked him up for exposing killing innocent civilians in Iraq.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/leak/
This guy is going to be court marshalled and locked up as a traitor. While absolutely nothing is being done to investigate the wiki leaks video. So much for freedom of expression and accountability. Yeah in military there is NO SUCH THING! Not even in the most “advanced” democracy in the world. Wake up people!
Gen MacChrystal didn’t get locked up because he only made veil comments really mocking the administration. Imagine had he agreed to testify against his own troops, which is exactly what Gen Fonseka did. My god! He would surely be court marshalled.
Obama only won because people were absolutely sick of Bush and he played the race card very well. Closet PC racists voted for him out of guilt. Otherwise he really is no different to Bush. He still hasn’t closed Gitmo, stopped extraordinary rendition and US is no closer to pulling out troops from Iraq. I bet all of you who were drunk with “change” mantra and wrote all the articles here around the time of his inauguration feel a bit cheated now.. haha
This frustration is really showing when people like Jon Stewart who put him on a pedestal during the campaign start to rip on him… You really need to watch this hard hitting clip “Respect My Authoritah”
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-june-15-2010/respect-my-authoritah
So wijayapala, you tell me Obama & Rajapaksa along with Bush didn’t go to the same school of how to defeat terrorism. hahahahaha
I love the above clip for many reasons and it swill surely become a cult classic in history at a defining moment for Obama. here are few more clips if you have the time…
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-june-15-2010/ore-on-terror
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-june-16-2010/an-energy-independent-future
ohh you obama lovers, you guys are funny! sorry wijayapala, you need to get over your little crush!
i just quickly went through some of the other comments here and i couldn’t believe what was said.. tamil areas & sinhala areas? what the hell? who defined this. there is no tamil area nor sinhala area. there is sri lanka! who ever thinks either is our common enemy!
any sinhala has the right to live in jaffna much as any tamil has the right to live in matara. segregation makes my blood boil so get over this assimilation myth! culture is in a persons heart! we will fight an infinity of wars to stop racial segregation!
Heshan said,
June 26, 2010 @ 10:16 am
Observer:
Let S. Lanka elect a Tamil President, then we can talk. What would all the JHU monks and JVP geniuses do if that ever came to pass…
Heshan, it could have been a reality if the Tamil moderates were allowed to participate in politics! No instead the extreme fringe picked up arms and murdered the moderates. So the lack of Tamil participation so far in mainstream politics is purely the fault of LTTE bullying. Kadiragarmer was a good example of what Tamils could achieve in the Sri Lankan democratic system, but alas even he too was wrongly labelled as a traitor/Sinhala boot licker and not only that eventually LTTE assassinated him. So unnecessary and it only strengthened the domestic & international resolve to exterminate the LTTE.
Would you get over JHU? JHU/TNA/JVP are all insecure, irrational groups and they only appeal to a small percentage. That is not an excuse for not trying. If any Tamil politician steer clear of segregation and appeal to the core underlying issues of poverty, social injustices, for the entire country they have a good chance of becoming the president.
Even in america you have the far right conservatives who has called Obama everything under the sun including a commie, muslim, and even Hitler – during the health care debate. Do you ever listen to Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn beck, etc? You just have to learn to ignore the extremes, because they are the tail ends of the bell curve. You tell me how many seats the JHU members have in the parliament?
Also it is grossly irresponsible when you use phrases such as “all the monks”. It only shows you as a propagandist. I read sentences careful and pick on these subtle incorrect assumptions that mislead people. Again only a very small number of Buddhist monks participate in politics and it does not represent all the monks view point. Most of them couldn’t care less about politics. Same way evangelists of the far right in USA does not classify all Christians as crazy nutters! Or Jihadists make all Muslims aggressive people. Thank you.
Wijayapala,
“The fact that 40-60,000 Sinhalese perished under an elected government in 1987-89 (and 10,000 in 1971) rubbishes your suggestion that they could have stopped the violence- whether anti-Sinhala or Tamil- simply because there was an elected govt.”
There was a presidential election in 1988, and a parliamentary election in 1989. UNP won both even though its regime was the one carrying out the violence. Why? Could it be that the people did not care too much about stopping the violence? Perhaps there was no sympathy for the JVP. On the other hand, by 1994, they were tired of the violence and abruptly ended 17 years of UNP rule with their vote.
“Going back to the 1977 and 83 riots, they took place under a regime that was elected on the platform of reaching a negotiated settlement to the “ethnic conflict” (and fixing the economy that Mrs B busted).”
Was it the promise to settle the ethnic conflict or the plan to open up the economy or the promise of larger free rations that won the day? As you note, Mrs B had busted the economy. The regime didn’t settle the ethnic conflict, but it got voted in again in the late 1980s.
“But hasn’t the gun led to the Tamils losing far more than when there was no gun?”
Yes, but the outcome could have been different if Prabhakaran hadn’t been a megalomaniac and had known when to strike a deal. I’m not trying to justify violence as a solution—I’m saying it should not have been allowed to come to that.
“Hence I was surprised to see you demolish your entire preceding argument with this line.The minute you say that anyone supported the LTTE, you are negating the LTTE’s identity as “terrorist” or “illegitimate.”
The article I read said that about 24 million a year was raised from donations from the SL Tamil diaspora all over the world. Even though it was a peripheral part of LTTE fundraising, and much of it could have come from extortion, I was trying to explain why there would be some in the diaspora who did donate to the LTTE. However, to be legitimate, to claim to represent the SL Tamils, LTTE needed substantial support of the people. I reckon whatever little support it had came from the diaspora, not from the local Tamils.
I agree that many of those who left SL in the 1990s and after were running away from the LTTE. Perhaps it was the earlier lot, who hadn’t seen LTTE at its full development, who made donations. There could possibly have been guilt too about having abandoned their community as well as a desire to return, and they thought LTTE was the only way for that to happen. For the Jan Jananayagam types, I suspect the Eelam activism gives them an identity out in the West. I don’t know why they can’t see that fighting for rights and devolution would be more productive.
“What can we do to help?”
Don’t scoff at Tamils when they try to tell you what is happening. Don’t accuse them of reading too much TamilNet. Rather find out for yourselves what is true. Go to the North and East, the camps. And when you do find out what is happening and what had been happening, disseminate that information to your community. Tell the stories of the ordinary Tamils in the North and East, what kind of life they’ve been leading since the 1980s. I ask this because I don’t think the Sri Lankan majority community thinks of Tamils as real people. They are simply ‘things’–which is why the incarceration of hundreds of thousands of innocent Tamils can be accepted by them as being necessary for their security.
Research the regime. Everyone talks about misuse of public monies, but it’s all vague. Find out the details. Put out the info.
Reflect on your own beliefs (I don’t mean specifically you, Wijeyapala). What agenda informs your beliefs? What are the ethics of that agenda? Objectivity is a lie–it is only possible with 100% information, which we don’t have most of the time, and certainly not in the SL context. So our beliefs are informed by an agenda. What will be the consequences of your beliefs for society if your beliefs are acted upon? (Yes, I too have an agenda. It is to help SL Tamils attain their rights as citizens, but in a way that will also benefit the Sinhalese and other national communities. I am totally at peace with the ethics of that. If I come across as quarrelsome or polarizing, it is because I am responding to beliefs that stand in the way of my own agenda, such as ethnic chauvinism.)
I would like the majority community to reflect on their responsibilities–to their own community and to others. Do they not have an inherent responsibility as a majority community with more substantial political and cultural power to assure that equal rights are given to the minorities? If yes, why is the behaviour and beliefs of the LTTE or even of the Tamil diaspora relevant to that? Is it an excuse for not carrying out their responsibilities? Do they not also have a responsibility to protect their own community against state terror–against the killings of just about anyone who dares to have a different opinion?
I would like them to reflect on what is the price to THEMSELVES of denying rights to Tamils. If the government manages to deprive Tamils of rights, what makes them think those same strategies won’t be used against them too? Are they willing to live with the curtailment of their own freedom, and state authoritarianism and corruption just so that Tamils can be disenfranchised? What will be their future if they continue to be apologists for this regime? What can they gain from a regime that allows Chinese labour (I hear rumours they are convict labour) to benefit from building projects when its own people are desperately looking for work? Do they think they can withstand international trade sanctions? (After all, these don’t involve any infringement of SL sovereignty, so the regime will be powerless to stop it.) Remember South Africa.
I would like them to the streets and demonstrate against the regime’s abuse of power. To send a message to the regime that you do have a tolerance limit.
Tim,
“You think blaming the race of Sinhalese as whole is what is imperative to achieving justice? Why not focus on the individual leaders like Mahinda and work on building a relation with the Sinhalese instead of alienating them like during the LTTE era.”
Nobody should have to beg for their rights, firstly. I focus on racism because it is at the core of the Tamil plight.
“They intimidate Tamils who wish to work with the Sri Lankan government and carry out attacks against Sinhala institutions in London and Toronto. This is the will of the Tamil diaspora which is baying for blood and refuse to see any other view as valid or even holdable.”
This is merely your hysteria–your attempt to stir things up. Who elected these trouble-making Tamils that you conclude that this is the will of the Tamil people? Even now, two diaspora Tamils are arguing with the EU against conditions placed on Sri Lanka. But they don’t represent the will of the Tamil diaspora, right?
I reckon you will say this is similar to my stereotyping the whole Sinhalese community for the actions of a few. It isn’t similar at all. Six million people out of ten million voted for a man they knew would screw the Tamils. They voted for a man who rushed up his wife first thing after the war to place a Buddhist statue in an area inhabited by Tamils, when a quarter of a million Tamils were languishing behind barbed wire, displaced from the war. Why do I not think they voted just in gratitude to him for having freed them from the LTTE? Because enough had happened pre-election to show that he was a tyrant. They followed this up by voting for his regime again in the parliamentary elections. Why did the UNP decide to back Fonseka, a known Sinhalese chauvinist, for the presidential run instead of one of their own? Wasn’t it because they knew he would appeal more to the electorate? What else did Fonseka, an army man, have to recommend him as President except that he had just succeeded in killing the LTTE and thousands of Tamils too? (I presume guilt with regard to war crimes because of GOSL resistance to investigation.)
I disagree with you that the Sinhalese chauvinists are only among the uneducated. It isn’t the uneducated who will benefit the most from disenfranchisement of Tamils–it’s the educated, the businessmen, the civil servants, the professionals. Who’s running the businesses up there in the North and the East that have sprung up in the aftermath of the war? Not Tamils. Read the posts here in groundviews–you get educated people expressing the most repulsive chauvinistic sentiments and ideas, cheering every time the SL government refuses to investigate possible war crimes committed in the last phase of the conflict. Who makes up the pro-government media that you refer to? Uneducated Sinhalese?
Observer:
Heshan, it could have been a reality if the Tamil moderates were allowed to participate in politics!
The Tamil moderates were in power before the LTTE, and failed to achieve nothing. What 65 odd years of history shows is that the Sinhala-Buddhists in high positions of power will not accept either Tamil moderates or Tamil extremists – they will accept only Tamil puppets.
No instead the extreme fringe picked up arms and murdered the moderates. So the lack of Tamil participation so far in mainstream politics is purely the fault of LTTE bullying. Kadiragarmer was a good example of what Tamils could achieve in the Sri Lankan democratic system, but alas even he too was wrongly labelled as a traitor/Sinhala boot licker and not only that eventually LTTE assassinated him. So unnecessary and it only strengthened the domestic & international resolve to exterminate the LTTE.
You have not explained why Kadiragarmer owned a luxury swimming pool? Could he really afford such a luxury perk with his meager ministers salary? International resolve, indeed – yes, traveling around the world, dining and wining at five-star hotels and condemning the LTTE. You could find a few Tamils willing to do that – Karuna and Douglas Devananda for example. The latest addition to the list is Selvarajah Pathmanathan, e.g. KP. It’s too bad that politicians in SL are not forced to reveal their assets – the total value of the assets that KP “gave” to the Rajapakse brothers probably exceeds the entire SL annual budget for a few years combined. You see what I mean, GOSL loves Tamil puppets.
Would you get over JHU? JHU/TNA/JVP are all insecure, irrational groups and they only appeal to a small percentage. That is not an excuse for not trying. If any Tamil politician steer clear of segregation and appeal to the core underlying issues of poverty, social injustices, for the entire country they have a good chance of becoming the president.
Have you forgotten that it was these very same monks that staged a protest in 1956 to block political legislation for Tamils? The same monks that ran through the streets in 1983… the same monks that opposed Norway?
Even in america you have the far right conservatives who has called Obama everything under the sun including a commie, muslim, and even Hitler – during the health care debate. Do you ever listen to Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn beck, etc? You just have to learn to ignore the extremes, because they are the tail ends of the bell curve. You tell me how many seats the JHU members have in the parliament?
The difference is that in the USA, the far right conservatives are elected out of office after 8 years. They don’t change the Constitution and become lifetime incarnations of some mythological guy.
Belle
Your ex-leader Lee-Kwan has told in his latest book that Tamils wouldn’t give in to submission,be it that way.True you can’t say anything bad about the Singaporean govt,can you? Somebody will find your (THE)body in the sea!
You think this dementic ex-dictator who clamped down any opposition with brute force,banned oppsition parties and imprisoned the opponents a political visionary?
This political scoundrel was running a facistregime in Singapore without much opposition fron from the Western guardians of democracy,for obvious reasons of course!Finally there was only one opposition membein the parliament thanks to Lee Quan’s farical “elections”-a Sri Lankan born Tamil MP!
wHY DON’T YOU FIGHT FOR DEMOCRACY IN sINGAPORE?
Heshan,
Brilliant responses!
Belle,
“I disagree with you that the Sinhalese chauvinists are only among the uneducated. It isn’t the uneducated who will benefit the most from disenfranchisement of Tamils–it’s the educated, the businessmen, the civil servants, the professionals. Who’s running the businesses up there in the North and the East that have sprung up in the aftermath of the war? Not Tamils. Read the posts here in groundviews–you get educated people expressing the most repulsive chauvinistic sentiments and ideas, cheering every time the SL government refuses to investigate possible war crimes committed in the last phase of the conflict. Who makes up the pro-government media that you refer to? Uneducated Sinhalese?”
Quite. JR was one of those from the educated cosmopolitan background but we all know his response to the riots. Although the uneducated, or rather the poor engaged in anti-Tamil riots, it was essentially the decision making elite that had much more influence over the matters. Same goes for the past Tamil politicians, enjoying luxury in Colombo, that they were over an illusion that everything will be alright in a united Sri Lanka. Had they agreed to federalism or some political solution when the British left, Tamil people wouldn’t have suffered as much today. I don’t think things have changed as much today looking at the number of Tamil factions.
“Six million people out of ten million voted for a man they knew would screw the Tamils. They voted for a man who rushed up his wife first thing after the war to place a Buddhist statue in an area inhabited by Tamils, when a quarter of a million Tamils were languishing behind barbed wire, displaced from the war. Why do I not think they voted just in gratitude to him for having freed them from the LTTE? Because enough had happened pre-election to show that he was a tyrant. They followed this up by voting for his regime again in the parliamentary elections. Why did the UNP decide to back Fonseka, a known Sinhalese chauvinist, for the presidential run instead of one of their own?”
Precisely. If there is one thing the re-election of Rajapakse confirms is the fact that Sinhalese nationalism essentially wins. That is what the UNP had tried to do by bringing in Fonseka, who was also a Sinhalese nationalist. At the end of the day, he lost teaming up with TNA and for his apparent tendency toward West.
The weakness of the Sinhalese people is that they have a fear of Tamil Nadu take over (which is unfounded of course, or is based on some ancient outdated events) at the mere mention of power sharing. I would doubt the full implementation of 13 A (even with Indian pressure), let alone maximum devolution given the mindset of the majority.The Tamil people in Sri Lanka have no negotiation power but they could still elect a leadership with clear goals, one that does not depend on wasting ink writing letters to Rajapakse or one that does not hang onto the tails of India. They need to work with much more moderate Sinhalese (although this is far and few between) and have to think strategically. I doubt the diaspora has much power to influence Sri Lanka, given that foreign policies of the West, despite their calls of concern, remain rather soft toward Sri Lanka. However, the least they should do at this point is expose their weakness through disunity, and lose the little they could bargain.
Belle,
” I agree that many of those who left SL in the 1990s and after were running away from the LTTE. ”
Jaffna fell to the army in 1995, how could the people running away in the 90s be those seeking protection from LTTE? Afterall, the footage showing point blank execution of LTTE suspects and the well documented disappearances aren’t from some fiction. Besides, how would you explain the boat loads of people post-LTTE?
Longus,
There was never any killing of dissenters in Singapore. Some of them have been jailed, yes. But they are let go soon after. Only one dissenter was in jail for a long time (23 years) but that was his choice–he refused to admit to having supported violent means of opposition and to reject violence. He could have signed a confession and then come out and denied the confession–just like all the others did, and nothing happened to them after. But this man, Chia Thye Poh, refused to confess to something he didn’t do.
J B Jeyaretnam, the opposition leader of SL Tamil origins was sued and rendered bankrupt but he was not killed though he had been a thorn in LKY’s side for four decades. He discharged his bankruptcy through support from local businessmen. They weren’t killed either nor jailed. Jeyaretnam died last year, and now his son has entered opposition politics. He won’t be killed either. In fact, he is thriving as an opposition leader.
Yes, Lee Kuan Yew was authoritarian. But he wasn’t a Fascist. Fascists use violence. Lee Kuan Yew always used the law. He never promoted ideas of the supremacy of any race—in fact, it was his belief in multiculturalism that got Singapore thrown out of Malaysia. The Singapore government is the best employer of minorities. People may find his methods disagreeable but he did have his own rationale in supporting the nation. He said that political unity was required for a developing country, and that when Singapore became developed, then liberalization could take place. His party has kept to that promise and there is a lot of liberalization taking place now. His party knows too that you can’t globalize the economy while rejecting international norms of governance. Unlike Sri Lanka, we don’t put out our hand for aid and then refuse to play by the rules of the donor. It’s the people who rule now, not the party. Many projects and issues are opened up to public discussion and feedback. Dissent and any adverse information about government leaders appear on the Internet, and the government acts on feedback attained.
Of course, there are flaws—no country is perfect. But yes, he is most certainly a political visionary. If he had led Sri Lanka, he would have probably imprisoned all the dissenting Tamil leaders, but he would also have dealt with the issue of minority rights so as to preclude a civil war and to allow all communities to have a stake in the nation. His moving addresses to the nation would have persuaded people to jettison racism and ethnic chauvinism. Buddhism would not receive special protection, but then again people would get an opportunity to practise real Buddhism and monks would be dabbling in spiritual development, not politics. No doubt you wouldn’t have a genuine labour movement, but your people would have jobs and you would have a tripartite council of government, workers’ reps and business leaders determining wages.
“Even now, two diaspora Tamils are arguing with the EU against conditions placed on Sri Lanka.”
These two must have never heard of bargaining. How are these two Tamils ever going to release those rotting in detention centres in unknown locations?
Modvoice,
You think Heshan’s response is brilliant? I think it’s completely and utterly disgraceful. So any Tamil who attempts to work with the government is a ‘puppet’? This revolting line of thinking hasn’t advanced the Tamil cause one iota. It has only led to murder.
Just so that you and Heshan know, Lakshman Kadirgamar was a widely respected lawyer who had a long and distinguished career as an international civil servant. He had more than enough means to build himself a swimming pool without having to dip into government coffers. What a feeble and shameful attempt to sully his name.
Whatever one may have thought of Kadirgamar’s politics, I think reasonable people can agree that he was a gentleman of far greater courage and intellect than Heshan and his ilk will ever be. And I’m convinced the path he pursued offers much more hope for the Tamil community in Sri Lanka than following in the footsteps of Prabhakaran.
rajivmv,
Let me quote ad verbatim what G.G. Ponnabalam Jr. had to say to Lakshman Kadirgimir:
————————————
Not with a ban but a whimper
by G.G.Ponnambalam Jr.
[courtesy: Sunday Leader, Colombo, Oct.26, 1997]
“Minister Sir,
I will not say ‘Vanakkam’ because it is more than likely you do not know the meaning of that word. So greetings to the darling of the Sinhala chauvinists. Before anything else, hearty congratulations in getting the LTTE recognised as a terrorist organisation by the USA. This must surely gladden the hearts of most Sinhalese. Congratulations also, for having been voted ‘The Sri Lankan of the Year’ by the Lanka Monthly Digest!
At the risk of you and your ilk gloating over the fact that this letter is an indication some Tamils are reeling under this move by the USA, I write this letter as a Tamil, since you expect the Tamils to rethink their position vis-Ã -vis the LTTE in the light of this ban.
But first, can you recall the day I invited you to attend a meeting of Tamils at the BMICH on March 26, 1994 before the general elections? Your immediate reaction, which still rings in my ears, was ‘What politics for me, Kumar?’ Before I could bat an eyelid, you had allowed yourself to be catapulted into the Cabinet by two Tamils: one, a well known professional ‘fixer’, and the other, your cousin, who is today a very disillusioned man about the government you serve.
Do you remember the day you were taken for an audience with Chandrika Kumaratunga when she said she was looking for a ‘respectable Tamil’ for the Cabinet and you offered yourself but said you would not put a pottu on your forehead and seek the votes of any Tamil? When the slot was eventually offered to you, do you remember running for a joint meeting to an erstwhile television baron, partner of a legal firm and an editor well known for his conviction for fearless and independent journalism – all very good Sinhalese – for their advice as to whether you fitted the bill because you did not want to rely on the judgement of any Tamil, not even those two who ferreted you out?
Tell me, minister Sir, did you go into the Cabinet because, within four months you understood what politics was all about, or was it that this government sought to make use of your name, which happens to be a Tamil name, only to show the world that they also have a Tamil in the Cabinet? Having only lent your Tamil name to the machinations of this government, you described yourself as a representative of the Tamil at the General Assembly of the United Nations in September 1994. Were you being honest in so describing yourself, having gone into parliament through the back door?
Do you remember, minister Sir, your momentous words in that self-same speech that the Sinhalese are never racists? Of course they are not, because Gamani Jayasuriya has siad the other day that the Sinhalese are a generous people who treat minorities not condescendingly as second class citizens, but with sympathy and consideration. But your matriarch has said (in your absence perhaps, at Anuradhapura) that this island is a Sinhala Buddhist land. How would you describe this outburst? Anglo Saxon courtesy?
As if this was not bad enough, you have repeatedly asserted, publicly and dishonestly, that the LTTE regused to look at some political proposals that your government had ready by April 19, 1995 on which date you allege the LTTE broke with talks. Is it not the fact that even in June 1995, your government did nothave a word on paper on the subject of the political resolution of the Tamil problem? This was disclosed to me by one who is still a colleague of yours in the Cabinet.
Do you remember July 1995, minister Sir, when your dishonesty was shown when you took the ICRC to task for having made public, the bombing of the Navaly church which killed so many innocent Tamil civilians after your government asked the Tamils to go there for refuge? Do you also remember the September of that year when you tried dishonestly to hide the cruel bombing of a school in Nagar Kovil, when so many children were killed during the lunch break? Have you heard, minister Sir, about intellectual dishonesty?
On the basis of such dishonest misrepresenting, you were directed by your government to use your Tamil name and to do the rounds of countries to blacken the name of the LTTE as an intransigent and terrorist organisation. India obliged first by banning the LTTE over a year ago. But since then, the Tamils of South India have repeatedly rallied round the LTTE and the Tamil cause with massive public support, as was evidenced through the Indian newspapers. Your government or India could not drive a wedge between the Tamils of India and the LTTE. In fact, the support for the LTTE was more vociferous in India after the ban than it was before the ban. I have still to come across one incident after the ban that has impinged on the LTTE to detriment. Have you come across any incident, minister Sir?
Thereafter, a Canadian court held the LTTE as a terrorist organisation in August 1997, but there does not seem to be any lessening of the ardour the Tamils in Canada have for the LTTE. Have you been able to see any qualitative change in the situation in Canada, minister Sir? Never has the LTTE said or done anything on American soil which has been against any American law. Therefore, one is at pains to understand America’s move and on what evidence she has sought to act. Erudite American and Canadian legal scholars have given evidence in courts of law and written articles to learned journals, not only to the effect that the LTTE is a national liberation organisation, but also that it has legal justification to take to arms when there is oppression of its people. Furthermore, the USA, in its latest report onSri Lanka that was published in April 1997, not only desisted from referring to the LTTE as a terrorist organisation, but also sought to castigate the Sri Lankan government for its wanton human rights violations.
In the face of all this, if this supreme step has been taken to curb LTTE raising funds, I do not know whether America seriously thinks it can achieve this objective. For, the giving of money is very much a matter of the heart. LTTE has always been very close to the hearts of all the Tamils of this world, wherever they may be living. The giving of money and the buying of arms and ammunition is never done with fanfare at a market place. Therefore, one is at a loss to understand what America proposes to achieve in banning the LTTE. This act has only helped to bring America down in the eyes of the world. America could have well used its good offices in a constructive way by bringing about a resolution of the Tamil problem instead of bending backwards only to placate a dishonest and dubious Sri Lankan government.
You have shed crocodile tears at the United Nations this year that the LTTE is conscripting children into their ranks quite ‘forgetting’ to tell the world forum that your army thinks it fit to snatch Tamil kids from the cradles to rape and kill them! Would you say it was honesty that made you ‘forget’ to tell this aspect of the story? If it is your position, minister Sir, that some kidnapped children are brainwashed and sent by the LTTE to the battle field, is a conventional army then, numbering so many thousands, being given the run for their lives by a few misguided 10 year old boys and girls?
It is one of the greater tragedies that the countries that have branded the LTTE as terrorists have done so knowing full well that the free media of the world have been prevented by your government from going to the war zone to see for itself and assess the type of dastardly things your Pan Sinhala Army is capable of. There are a few questions that have to be answered dispassionately. What is terrorism? Can only organisations that have freedom fighters be terrorists? Cannot political parties and, indeed, governments be terrorists? Is it not the fact that it is common knowledge in Sri Lanka that various Sri Lankan governments have been guilty of terrorism? Is it not a fact that political parties in Sri Lanka are and have been guilty of terrorism?
The world was quick to damn the LTTE for the deaths of Athulathmudali and Kobbekaduwa. But the findings of a commission set up by your government are otherwise. Perhaps, it is your turn now, minister Sir, to suggest a repository for the report of this commission, so that your hobbyhorse of describing the LTTE as terrorists can be maintained.
At a time when the Sri Lankan opposition and all Tamil political parties together with non governmental organisations and many foreign countries are one in desperately clamouring for the LTTE to be brought immediately into any serious discussion of the Tamil problem, we receive this news about the banning of the LTTE and your ‘vision and courage’ in getting it done at this time even though USA’s banning of the LTTE had been on the cards for, at least one year….
You have said that America’s decision will compel the LTTE to talk to your government. This shows how very remote you are from Tamil sentiments….
Why is there this jubilation and triumph about the ban anyway, minister Sir? Is it not the position of your colleagues in the Cabinet that the war would be over before the year is out? If this is the position of your government, how does America’s ban coming so very late in the day help your government? There is also the report in the newspapers that America’s Green Berets are here for the third time to help the Sri Lankan government to flush out the LTTE. When the Green Berets came first to Wirawila, your government dishonestly denied their presence. Your government also dishonestly denied their presence in Tangalle when they came a second time. Have you forgotten what you told the BBC in their interview of you on October 12 that Sri Lanka can win this war on its own? What is your government’s position today? Anyway, what does India say to all this?
Why should the American Green Berets be here, minister Sir, when you have already said that the Sinhala people are ready to fight for 50 years to preserve the unity and territorial integrity of the Sinhala Budhist land? You talk about a fight in the same breath that you say that the path of war is the path of doom. Then, what do you say about the ‘war for peace’? It seems to me that only you would understand what you are talking about.
Please be informed minister Sir, that the Tamils of the north-east of Sri Lanka and the Tamil diaspora, like the LTTE, are not the type of Tamils that you are used to dealing within the ballrooms of Colombo. Theire ball game is something quite different. They will never tolerate arm twisting and for this reason, they will only consider and allow a solution that is consistent with honour, dignity, self respect and justice – a solution that must necessarily reflect the aspirations of the Tamil nation. Minister Sir, yo have to be a Tamil to understand the Tamil psyche.
In the meantime, if at the end of the day and at the end of the road, you could tell yourself that you have, even in the remotest way, the love of your own people, which is the greatest thing in life, you would have achieved something much greater than the useless banning of the LTTE by America and you could die a happy man. But in your case, who, indeed, are your own people? An answer to this will show you to be a very sad man! I remain, A Tamil.
– G.G.Ponnambalam
http://sangam.org/taraki/articles/2006/08-22_On_Kadirgamar.php?uid=1899
*what G.G. Ponnambalam Jr. had to say to Lakshman Kadirgamar
Heshan doesn’t question Prabhakaran’s swimming pool built on poor people’s blood! Shows your stripes!
Belle
I think your explanation on Singapore is reasonable and I too agree with your point of view except on a couple of points. Anyway I don’t expect you to write anything against the Singaporean government!
In his previous book in fact Lee-Quan was regretting about the fact that his efforts to make Singapore a carbon-copy state of the West has made the Singaporeans lose their cultural idetity and roots and become mere imitators of the Western culture.I think this is true.
And also you must be knowing that Malay is a must,if you want to enter a state-university in Singapore.And how he clamped down on dissent in ’50s when he introduced English as the medium of instruction in schools-yet I believe Malay is the medium of instruction in State-run schools,even now.
In this light Lee Quan has done a lot of good to Singapore with his despotic regime,Don’t you think that type of governance will do the same thing to Sri Lanka as well?
Longus,
I’m not quite sure what point you were trying to make in your last post. If you mean that Lee Kuan Yew would have pushed for Sinhalese-medium instruction in SL because he made Malay the medium of instruction in Singapore, you cannot be more wrong. English is the medium of instruction in Singapore, in the schools and in the universities, and has been so since the 1970s, the nation-building years. Before that, English was the dominant medium of instruction, but people could choose vernacular-stream schools. LKY’s emphasis on English led to most of these vernacular schools changing over to English in the late 1960s to 1970s. You can’t get a good job in Singapore without being English-educated. LKY saw English as the bridge language that would unify the nation. Later in the 1980s, he started emphasising knowledge of one’s mother tongue, and English-mother tongue bilingualism. But as the government said a few days ago, the mother tongue would never be allowed to take over the dominant place of English in Singapore. The 1980s’ attention given to mother tongue was a response to geopolitics and economic forces of the time, including the rising of China.
I don’t think Singapore is culturally a copy of Western society. It is LKY and Singapore which invented the notion of ‘Asian Values’. Any foreigner who comes to Singapore to work finds out in a hurry that Singapore is not the West.
rajivmw,
I was inspired by your moving defence of Lakshman Kadirgamar and tried to find out what I could about this man. Ok, it seems he was successful academically and later as a lawyer. They say he was a great international civil servant, but there are no references to anything he specifically managed to accomplish (except perhaps to make witty remarks). Nothing came up about how he pursued a path that promised hope for SL Tamils. Other than his role in getting the LTTE banned, he never put anything in its place to help the Tamil people. How can anyone say he helped Tamils when all he did was to try to create a political vacuum for a disenfranchised people?
When asked about his commitment to Tamils, he replied that he was Sri Lankan. That would have been an admirable thing to say in a united country where the minorities have rights. But in a country effectively at war with a section of the population, where power was extremely unbalanced in ethnic terms, what does it mean to say one is “Sri Lankan” but that one is with the ruling community? It’s like Rajapakse saying post-war, that there are no ethnic minorities. People thought he was talking about equality but in retrospect, we know that he meant that he would not recognize minority claims for rights.
When I look at Kadirgamar’s CV, all I see is a brilliant but self-interested person. When his country was in trouble, he left it. When his own community was under threat of extinction, he joined international organizations to work for projects that had nothing to do with the ethnic conflict in his home country. Instead, he worked to resolve Buddhist-Catholic tensions in Vietnam! A person should be allowed to live life any way he chooses, but to hail him as a hero of the SL Tamil community is a gross misrepresentation of his life and his life’s work.
Among all the bouquets thrown at him, one friend, Tony Anghie, remembered him as a man of principle who “fell among political thieves”. He said: “He was ambitious and Kadirgamar was for Kadirgamar and anyone’s gain was a by-product.” Maybe that was sour grapes, or maybe it was the truth. I think the truth is in what he actually achieved for Tamils, which was nothing.
Belle,
I did not set out to write a ‘moving defence’ of Kadirgamar, nor to hail him as a ‘hero of the Tamil community’. I said he was brave and intelligent, and I stand by that. I said that the Tamils could achieve more by participating in the government, and I stand by that also.
What I take issue with is this mentality that characterises any Tamil who chooses to work with the SL government as some kind of corrupt traitor. A great many people of genuine honour and goodwill were killed because of it. Leave aside Kadirgamar, how about Tiruchelvam, Loganathan, and perhaps most shamefully, Sarojini Yogeswaran?
But let’s get back to Kadirgamar. Yes, he believed in forging a common Sri Lankan identity. So did the incumbent President at the time, for all her flaws. He believed in keeping Sri Lanka united, not least because he felt that the Eelam struggle (whatever the merits) would only lead to endless conflict. He always argued for devolution, but saw Prabhakaran’s intransigence and bloodlust as a much graver threat to the Tamil community than the Sri Lankan State.
This is why he worked so hard to get the LTTE banned. And his greatest ally in this endeavour was the LTTE itself, with its increasingly grotesque violence, not least against moderates in its own community. They were the ones creating the political vacuum, not Kadirgamar.
And let’s add some historical perspective. He signed up with the SLFP at a time when it was still languishing in opposition and its rise to power was far from assured. Its leader was unquestionably the ‘peace’ candidate, calling for equal rights, liberal reforms, and unconditional talks with the LTTE. Kadirgamar was no saint, but a person guided purely by ambition and self-interest could have done better.
In the end, did he achieve much for the Tamils? No. Sadly, it all ended in tragedy for reasons largely beyond his control. But then what did Prabhakaran and his band of non-puppets ever achieve?
heshan, if anything you proved g.g. ponnambalam was a very lowly man. thanks for that. i’m sure g.g, ponnamblama ran around his house with his lungi over his head when he was assassinated.
because kadiragarmer didn’t subscribe to the idea of eelam he was labelled and murdered in cold blood. this is why LTTE got the freaking EEELAM right?!! i’m sure they’re reaping the fruits of the blood spilt! i’m sure you can feel proud because you were a part of it with your donations for funding such heroic activity. brilliant!
i have lost any appetite to comment any further in this thread….
Heshan,
I greatly admire GG Ponnambalam because he too was a fearless gentleman. Ponnambalam believed that the LTTE were saviours of the Tamil people, while Kadirgamar believed the LTTE would doom them. It seems to me that Kadirgamar was right in the end, but each is an entirely legitimate point of view. It does not make one more or less Tamil than the other. It does not make either a puppet. And neither one should have been killed for it.
Heshan
G G Ponnambalam was correct in saying that most of the Tamil diaspora was supportive of the LTTE! Whereas according to you they are merely fighting for the justice for Tamil people
So it’s crystal clear to me as to why they make all this furore after the LTTE were decimated.
It is clearer now as to why you are worried as well!
You are simply a confused,heart-broken LTTE supporter!
Too bad you used this forum to distort facts and condemn Sri Lanka.
Dear longus,
Although most tamils in the diaspora may have supported the LTTE(or not), it is important to make a distinction between the hardcore supporters and the ” others”. The people who are not hardcore supporters of the LTTE support them in the same way the Sinhalese people support the various governments of sri lanka. Although they know very well that the LTTE has done horrible things, they overlook those things and say ” Oh well…the GOSL does far worse things” so they silently support the LTTE, because to them the GOSL has always been the greater evil. I’m just trying to explain there mentality, sorry if it does not make sense.
rajivmw:
It seems to me that Kadirgamar was right in the end
Perhaps the fall of the LTTE will not only spell doom for the Tamils, but for the Sinhalese as well. By doom, I don’t mean to imply that 300,000 Sinhalese will be locked up in IDP camps, or 10,000 Sinhalese youth will be held indefinitely in prison. What I mean is that S. Lanka as a whole will not prosper. The prosperity of a nation is invariably a relative comparison between the said nation and all other nations. How does S. Lanka compare to India? Singapore? Japan? Clearly, it does not compare very well…. unfortunately, the means by which the LTTE was suppressed are now being used to suppress any flowering of democracy on the island… given the connection between democracy and prosperity – they only move together in the same direction (e.g. one goes up, so does the other)- we can conclude that S. Lanka is slowly digging its own grave.
longus,
I don’t support the LTTE. What I support is the right of people to live with dignity and freedom. I also believe people do best when they themselves take charge of their own affairs. In other words, I don’t believe in charity (at least in the long-term). In light of the above, the ultimate political solution should be to empower local communities to take charge of their own affairs, with minimal interference from the central government. Unfortunately, this is not the case in SL. GOSL is paranoid when it comes to Tamils. I doubt Tamils will have any peace for the next 40-50 years.
Heshan,
“…given the connection between democracy and prosperity – they only move together in the same direction (e.g. one goes up, so does the other)- we can conclude that S. Lanka is slowly digging its own grave.”
While I too have many misgivings about how the country is being run, I’m not sure the link between democracy and prosperity works in quite the way you describe: that the former is a pre-condition for the latter. In fact, it seems to me that the reverse is true – increasing prosperity leads to increasing democracy. Or more specifically, a prosperity that nurtures a strong and vibrant middle class.
longus:
“In this light Lee Quan has done a lot of good to Singapore with his despotic regime,Don’t you think that type of governance will do the same thing to Sri Lanka as well?”
Unlike Heshan, you seem to think that despotism is the way to prosperity. One look at, say, Zimbabwe, and we know that that is not true either.
The form of government is less of factor than some of these key ingredients: a relatively young population, a strong work ethic, thrift, entrepreneurial drive, political stability, sound macroeconomic management, decent education, social mobility, and a certain moral order.
Lee Kwan Yew made sure that all these boxes were ticked, and stayed ticked. To see him as merely a despot – and thereby conclude that despotism will make Sri Lanka like Singapore – is to miss the point entirely.
Dear Observer,
Kumar Ponnambalam was murdered in his vehilce in Wellawatte lured by a caller.
There are pictures to prove this. Where do you get your information?
Kumar was inveigled by Douglas Devananda and the tapes of the conversation were published by Sunday Leader.
True, he was prone to female courting.
Check out the archives of 2001.
But then Nimal Siripala De Silva, Bogollagama, Cyril Matthew (holding hands in parliament with Renuka Herath) Justice Seneviratne who wearing sunglasses search for good-time girls outside Kollupitya market, Justice Palakidnar who pounced on unsuspecting female employees in his office; I could give an endless list of the politicians and their proclivity towards the fairer sex.
With power comes prerogatives and in Sri Lanka from Presdient onwards these little side affairs are not taken seriously unless a jealous wife pours acid over the paramour.
Having said that Kumar did not sell his soul to win power. He stood by his beliefs; his belief that Tamils need redress. He also appeared without fee for journalists in court.
Dear Heshan and rajivmw,
I too admire the Ponnambalam’s “fearless” support of the LTTE. It is truly a tragedy that nobody voted for Gajendrakumar’s faction in the recent election.
Hi Belle,
“Nobody should have to beg for their rights, firstly. I focus on racism because it is at the core of the Tamil plight.”
If you rule out interaction with the majority community as a means to win rights, then how do you propose to win them?
What kind of racism is at the core of the Tamil plight- pro-Tamil or anti-Tamil racism? Or both?
“The fact that 40-60,000 Sinhalese perished under an elected government in 1987-89 (and 10,000 in 1971) rubbishes your suggestion that they could have stopped the violence- whether anti-Sinhala or Tamil- simply because there was an elected govt.”
There was a presidential election in 1988, and a parliamentary election in 1989. UNP won both even though its regime was the one carrying out the violence. Why? Could it be that the people did not care too much about stopping the violence? Perhaps there was no sympathy for the JVP. On the other hand, by 1994, they were tired of the violence and abruptly ended 17 years of UNP rule with their vote.
Whatever the case, you did not disprove my point that the Sinhalese voted in governments that wound up killing tens of thousands of other Sinhalese in counterinsurgency.
The SLFP was only voted in after the JVP was crushed. I would argue that now that the LTTE has been crushed, there might be an opportunity for the UNP to return to power if Mahinda goes overboard the same way that Premadasa did in the early 90s, AND if the UNP gets new leadership.
“Going back to the 1977 and 83 riots, they took place under a regime that was elected on the platform of reaching a negotiated settlement to the “ethnic conflict” (and fixing the economy that Mrs B busted).”
Was it the promise to settle the ethnic conflict or the plan to open up the economy or the promise of larger free rations that won the day? As you note, Mrs B had busted the economy.
The economy played the major role in the vote. However, my point was that the promise to reached a negotiated settlement did not bust the UNP’s campaign. The Sinhalese were not as racist as you would like them to be.
“But hasn’t the gun led to the Tamils losing far more than when there was no gun?”
Yes, but the outcome could have been different if Prabhakaran hadn’t been a megalomaniac and had known when to strike a deal. I’m not trying to justify violence as a solution—I’m saying it should not have been allowed to come to that.
Unfortunately, Tamils who were willing to strike a deal were labeled “thurogi” and “Ettappan” by certain members of your community, so Prabakaran had every reason to play to the gallery and be a hardliner.
“Hence I was surprised to see you demolish your entire preceding argument with this line.The minute you say that anyone supported the LTTE, you are negating the LTTE’s identity as “terrorist” or “illegitimate.”
The article I read said that about 24 million a year was raised from donations from the SL Tamil diaspora all over the world. Even though it was a peripheral part of LTTE fundraising, and much of it could have come from extortion, I was trying to explain why there would be some in the diaspora who did donate to the LTTE.
Which article is this? Again, I am inclined to agree with you that the LTTE had less active diaspora support than commonly assumed. DBS Jeyaraj once gave an estimate of 10-15% of the diaspora as hardcore supporters and 5-10% as anti-Tigers. The remainder were somewhere in the middle with some level of sympathy.
“However, to be legitimate, to claim to represent the SL Tamils, LTTE needed substantial support of the people. I reckon whatever little support it had came from the diaspora, not from the local Tamils.”
Well, I think I would concede that the Tamils- diaspora or local- supported the LTTE to the extent that there wasn’t really anyone else out there standing up for them or at least claiming to. After all, it is inconceivable that the LTTE could have survived all these decades without any support at all.
In this way the Sinhalese are not too different. They voted for Mahinda in 2005- by a slender margin back then- because they felt that Ranil had sold out the country to the LTTE. The peaceniks by then had lost all credibility as they had nearly 4 years to tame the Tigers and they failed miserably.
“There could possibly have been guilt too about having abandoned their community as well as a desire to return, and they thought LTTE was the only way for that to happen. For the Jan Jananayagam types, I suspect the Eelam activism gives them an identity out in the West. I don’t know why they can’t see that fighting for rights and devolution would be more productive.”
Well, from what I gathered from Fuglerud, the LTTE served as a bridge of sorts between the homeland and the diaspora; it was the only trans-entity that existed in both places at once. I think I can empathize with that (to a certain extent). As much as some diaspora types brag about their freedoms in the West (which I do not dispute), the sad truth is that the Tamils will never be able to preserve their culture in the West as they can in SL.
I appreciate your honesty in your last sentence. For what it’s worth, I am similarly clueless why some Sinhalese see Tamils as a threat.
“Don’t scoff at Tamils when they try to tell you what is happening. Don’t accuse them of reading too much TamilNet.”
Ok, but we tend to scoff when you blame everything on us and refuse to engage in introspection. Your above statements appear to acknowledge that certain Tamils played at least an equal role in the current suffering of their brethren in SL.
“Rather find out for yourselves what is true. Go to the North and East, the camps. And when you do find out what is happening and what had been happening, disseminate that information to your community. Tell the stories of the ordinary Tamils in the North and East, what kind of life they’ve been leading since the 1980s.”
Believe it or not I lived in the N-E in the early CFA period (why else do you think I despise the Norwegians). I saw the checkpoints in Batticaloa where children had to pass through without being checked. I met the idiot cops in Jaffna who responded “Are you sure,” when we told them that our vehicle did not contain explosives. I visited orphanages where the children told me how their parents were killed during the war (usually by the security forces, although the LTTE also was included). None of the Tamils I met had the same anti-Sinhalese mentality that you have (with the exception of the Tigers, who told me rather bluntly how much they would’ve liked to splatter my blood all over the ithayabhoomi.
“I ask this because I don’t think the Sri Lankan majority community thinks of Tamils as real people. They are simply ‘things’–which is why the incarceration of hundreds of thousands of innocent Tamils can be accepted by them as being necessary for their security.”
Do you think of the Sinhalese as “real people?”
To an extent I agree with you, but that is largely because the Sinhalese have had limited contact with the N-E. With the LTTE gone, I hope that the Sinhalese who travel to these areas will develop more empathy.
Tamilnet and other Tamil media outlets have played a large role in dehumanizing the Tamils in the eyes of the Sinhalese. During the CFA, Tamil media presented virtually nothing of the Tamils’ plight but rather chortled how powerful the LTTE was and how helpless the govt was. I don’t recall photos showing ordinary Tamils but there were dozens to cover Pongu Thamil and other LTTE celebrations. How would you expect us to react or feel when we saw this? To give a hint, we did not see ourselves as a “majority” when Tamil media included the rallies in Tamil Nadu organized by Vaiko and Nedumaran.
“Research the regime. Everyone talks about misuse of public monies, but it’s all vague. Find out the details. Put out the info.”
I’m not opposed to this but what difference will it make when SL has no political opposition?
“(Yes, I too have an agenda. It is to help SL Tamils attain their rights as citizens, but in a way that will also benefit the Sinhalese and other national communities. I am totally at peace with the ethics of that. If I come across as quarrelsome or polarizing, it is because I am responding to beliefs that stand in the way of my own agenda, such as ethnic chauvinism.)”
Fair enough, and again I feel that much of your criticism of the Sinhalese is valid (particularly when it is tempered with introspection). Can you elaborate more on these rights and how they will benefit the other communities as well?
“I would like the majority community to reflect on their responsibilities–to their own community and to others. Do they not have an inherent responsibility as a majority community with more substantial political and cultural power to assure that equal rights are given to the minorities? If yes, why is the behaviour and beliefs of the LTTE or even of the Tamil diaspora relevant to that?”
Now that the LTTE is gone, your questions are highly relevant and legitimate. To answer your second question, most Sinhalese cannot distinguish between SL Tamils and the diaspora or LTTE. Again, Tamilnet has reinforced this lack of distinction by painting all as the same. So I think that part of the solution will involve Tamils like yourself educating us on the distinction.
“Do they not also have a responsibility to protect their own community against state terror–against the killings of just about anyone who dares to have a different opinion?”
I would argue that the killing of people like Lasantha demonstrates that the govt is not simply anti-Tamil but rather anti-anyone perceived to be anti-govt.
“I would like them to the streets and demonstrate against the regime’s abuse of power. To send a message to the regime that you do have a tolerance limit.”
Who will lead them?
Wijayapala,
“I too admire the Ponnambalam’s “fearless” support of the LTTE. It is truly a tragedy that nobody voted for Gajendrakumar’s faction in the recent election.”
It’s truly a tragedy that there was a very low turn-out at the northern polls last election!
“Tamilnet and other Tamil media outlets have played a large role in dehumanizing the Tamils in the eyes of the Sinhalese. During the CFA, Tamil media presented virtually nothing of the Tamils’ plight but rather chortled how powerful the LTTE was and how helpless the govt was”
Oh boy! I think you may have read Tamilnet more often than I have. Please do tell us what other independent media were allowed into the north-east by the gov’t, so that the plight of the Tamil people could have been highlighted without being given a white van ride?
“They voted for Mahinda in 2005- by a slender margin back then- because they felt that Ranil had sold out the country to the LTTE. The peaceniks by then had lost all credibility as they had nearly 4 years to tame the Tigers and they failed miserably.”
All you critics out there who blame the Tigers for the failure of CFA, please do enlighten us as to what is holding back the present regime from coming up with a negotiated political settlement with the LTTE out of the scene?
“DBS Jeyaraj once gave an estimate of 10-15% of the diaspora as hardcore supporters and 5-10% as anti-Tigers. The remainder were somewhere in the middle with some level of sympathy.”
Quoting DBS – may I also know who funds him? I know asiantribune is playing a different tune these days.
Wijayapala,
“If you rule out interaction with the majority community as a means to win rights, then how do you propose to win them?”
Tamils don’t need to “win” their rights—it is theirs by virtue of being citizens. They don’t have to show that they ‘deserve’ it. If somebody stole your wallet, should you “work on building a relationship” with the thief to get back your wallet? Should you have to show that you deserve, that you are worth having it returned to you? Obviously, the Tamils need to interact with the government and the majority community in demanding their rights, and they can certainly choose to build alliances with the majority community and with government or the opposition, but they must be very, very vigilant against being co-opted in the process.
“What kind of racism is at the core of the Tamil plight- pro-Tamil or anti-Tamil racism? Or both?”
Anti-Tamil racism, of course. It is my belief that if SL Tamils are given their rights either through federalism or some other mechanism/s, the Eelam struggle will dissolve on its own. It currently gains its traction from SL government behaviour. Wanting your own nation because you have been not been recognized by the nation you are in as equal, is not racist. Racism is about wanting to dominate another race, taking political and other control over them. Neither the LTTE nor the Eelam struggle was/is about wanting to take over Sri Lanka and its majority community. But inevitably, fighting against racism leads to the targetted community developing its own racism as a defense mechanism. Which can be easily dissolved with a show of majority/state support of the people.
“Whatever the case, you did not disprove my point that the Sinhalese voted in governments that wound up killing tens of thousands of other Sinhalese in counterinsurgency.”
Your point was that the mechanism of electing governments did not STOP the violence, not that it lacks the capability to AVOID violence. As I said, when two occasions arose for the people to vote against the perpetrators of the violence, the UNP government, the 1988 presidential elections and the 1989 parliamentary elections, the Sri Lankan people did not do so. They returned them to power. They played a role in the continued violence. What’s the point of crying afterwards about the government killing 40-60K Sinhalese? Why did they not feel a need to protect fellow-citizens?
“The SLFP was only voted in after the JVP was crushed. I would argue that now that the LTTE has been crushed, there might be an opportunity for the UNP to return to power if Mahinda goes overboard the same way that Premadasa did in the early 90s, AND if the UNP gets new leadership.”
I hope so,but I doubt it. Mahinda is not Premadasa–he is far, far worse. You think China is going to allow a regime change?
“The economy played the major role in the vote. However, my point was that the promise to reached a negotiated settlement did not bust the UNP’s campaign. The Sinhalese were not as racist as you would like them to be.”
The economy played an overwhelming role in the vote. It was a really bad economic situation and other issues were merely peripheral. In 1977, the Sinhalese were in control of the ethnic conflict so there wouldn’t have been any expectation that a negotiated settlement would really amount to giving away much.
Let’s not forget that after Bandaranaike’s playing the race card, the people voted for his wife, who pledged to continue her husband’s policies.
“Unfortunately, Tamils who were willing to strike a deal were labeled “thurogi” and “Ettappan” by certain members of your community, so Prabakaran had every reason to play to the gallery and be a hardliner.”
Prabhakaran always danced only to his own tune. You must be joking if you think the majority of the Tamils in the North wanted the violence to continue.
“Which article is this?”
I gave the link the first time I mentioned it.
“They voted for Mahinda in 2005- by a slender margin back then- because they felt that Ranil had sold out the country to the LTTE. The peaceniks by then had lost all credibility as they had nearly 4 years to tame the Tigers and they failed miserably.”
I don’t have a problem with them voting for Mahinda back in 2005. They were trying to get rid of violence. But to vote for him and his party again post-war, given that his tyrannical nature, his Sinhalese chauvinism and hardline anti-Tamil politics had already become evident, is another matter.
“Do you think of the Sinhalese as “real people?”
Yes, I do. But I also refuse to be blind to how they work as a collective political force, the harm they can do in that dimension. I am not anti-Sinhalese in the sense that I do not want harm to come to them. But I am anti-Sinhalese in terms of their chauvinistic politics. I hate the way they make it so easy for politicians to oppress Tamils.
“Tamilnet and other Tamil media outlets have played a large role in dehumanizing the Tamils in the eyes of the Sinhalese. During the CFA, Tamil media presented virtually nothing of the Tamils’ plight but rather chortled how powerful the LTTE was and how helpless the govt was. I don’t recall photos showing ordinary Tamils but there were dozens to cover Pongu Thamil and other LTTE celebrations. How would you expect us to react or feel when we saw this? To give a hint, we did not see ourselves as a “majority” when Tamil media included the rallies in Tamil Nadu organized by Vaiko and Nedumaran.”
Again, trying to gain traction for your racial chauvinism by pointing to the LTTE and its supporters. As I said, as a majority community with the political power, you are inherently obliged to give rights to minorities. That obligation does not change because some Tamils are behaving badly, especially if their bad behaviour is a response to not getting their rights. As for being frightened by rallies in Tamil Nadu, I think your community is very much aware that Indian politics does not equate with Tamil Nadu politics.
“I’m not opposed to this but what difference will it make when SL has no political opposition?”
Reflect then on why you don’t have an opposition. Because that in itself is a symptom, a sign that points to other factors. Also, people need information in order to act wisely. Doesn’t matter if the opposition is weak–the people will know what to do as soon as they know what is really happening.
“I would argue that the killing of people like Lasantha demonstrates that the govt is not simply anti-Tamil but rather anti-anyone perceived to be anti-govt.”
I have dealt with this issue before. Does the killing of Tamils by the LTTE suggest that they were not simply anti-Sinhalese?
“Can you elaborate more on these rights and how they will benefit the other communities as well?”
That depends on whether you choose the federal system or the unitary state with a strong central government. I reckon the former gives more flexibility and will probably appeal more to the majority community–the latter may involve taking away too many privileges that they enjoy now. For eg, in a federal system, you could keep the current significance of Buddhism and the role of the central government in promoting it. If there’s a Tamil-majority province, they won’t care what you do in the other provinces. But if you want to retain the unitary state with strong central government, then the emphasis on the state’s role with regard to Buddhism will have to be toned down. It can still get special attention, but there can’t be the strong links to government that there is now. Government must be secular–it can’t be protecting and fostering the Buddha Sasana because that makes it a Buddhist state. If it is to remain that way, then the minorities should be given their separate states. Also, the government has to commit to protecting the status of other cultures/religions on the island if it wants to give special protection to the Sinhalese Buddhist culture. The current clause on Buddhism says that freedom of worship of other communities will be maintained–that’s hogwash. As we saw with the incident of the First Lady carrying a Buddha statue into a Tamil-inhabited area, clearly your Buddhism clause allows for the domination of other cultures by the majority culture. That’s not equal rights. Other things need to be done too for the unitary state option. There should be equal opportunities for jobs, including in the civil service, and education,etc, based on meritocracy and not the quota system. There must be a political mechanism where the minority communities can stop pro-majority legislation that compromises or damages minority interests. Political parties should be required to run a certain percentage of the various minorities for parliamentary elections. The various languages should get similar privileges, but English education should be encouraged–for the simple reason that it gives best access to developing knowledges around the world.
How would giving equal rights to minorities help the Sinhalese? The country will be run by the very best talents it has. If I may quote from Lee Kuan Yew rhetoric, the pie will be larger for everyone. Even if Sinhalese get a smaller percentage of the nation’s wealth as a result of equality, they will still get more pie than they did before. Giving equal rights to minorities necessarily entails greater democratization–and that’s a plus for everyone. There will be more intellectual and cultural vibrancy. With Buddhism lifted out of the political realm, I daresay that Sinhalese people will be free finally to engage with it at a spiritual level, i.e. it will be a religion, a philosophy and value system, and not be just an identity-marker. A real, deep-level incorporation of Buddhist values and ideas into governance will become more likely, and not just the fetishistic thing that Rajapakse does, appearing to promote Buddhist values in government while betraying the religion’s philosophy in every respect. Who knows–this might lead to a development of a contemporary Buddhist political philosophy. The same goes for the minority cultures, who also would have opportunities to intellectually develop their own cultures in the crucibles of modernity and post-modernity,globalization and inter-cultural contacts.
What’s happening now with all this craziness about Sri Lanka being a Sinhalese Buddhist state–it’s a total farce, mere theatre. It’s that alone that prevents the further development of Sinhalese Buddhist culture. You all get frozen in a time warp.
“Who will lead them?”
Does somebody have to lead them? Can it not be a community thing? That way, the white vans won’t know who to abduct.
Belle,
“Obviously, the Tamils need to interact with the government and the majority community in demanding their rights, and they can certainly choose to build alliances with the majority community and with government or the opposition, but they must be very, very vigilant against being co-opted in the process.”
Thank you for answering my question.
“Neither the LTTE nor the Eelam struggle was/is about wanting to take over Sri Lanka and its majority community. But inevitably, fighting against racism leads to the targetted community developing its own racism as a defense mechanism.”
Is this your excuse for the LTTE’s treatment of Muslims? (hence my question about “pro-Tamil racism”)
Couldn’t one argue that the original federalism project was about establishing Tamil hegemony in the NE, the same way that SWRD Bandaranaike established Sinhala hegemony in the island?
“But I also refuse to be blind to how they work as a collective political force, the harm they can do in that dimension. I am not anti-Sinhalese in the sense that I do not want harm to come to them. But I am anti-Sinhalese in terms of their chauvinistic politics. I hate the way they make it so easy for politicians to oppress Tamils.”
In this sense, do you think Sinhalese are very different from the Tamils?
“Your point was that the mechanism of electing governments did not STOP the violence, not that it lacks the capability to AVOID violence.”
Ok.. I fail to see how whatever your point is justifies the LTTE’s actions while condemning those of the various governments’.
“Mahinda is not Premadasa–he is far, far worse. You think China is going to allow a regime change?”
I think you mean India. China is a bit too far away, and they are probably preoccupied with more pressing concerns than Mahinda’s grinning.
“In 1977, the Sinhalese were in control of the ethnic conflict so there wouldn’t have been any expectation that a negotiated settlement would really amount to giving away much.”
Thank you for confirming my point, although you haven’t really clarified how the Sinhalese were not “in control” from 1956 through 1977.
“Let’s not forget that after Bandaranaike’s playing the race card, the people voted for his wife, who pledged to continue her husband’s policies.”
And let’s also not forget that unlike SWRD, Mrs B was not so friendly to anti-Tamil pogroms. She was in power for nearly 14 years without any significant communal violence. Seems that she didn’t do such a great job upholding SWRD’s legacy after all.
“Prabhakaran always danced only to his own tune. You must be joking if you think the majority of the Tamils in the North wanted the violence to continue.”
I never said that the majority of Tamils in Sri Lanka wanted the violence to continue. The last thing they wanted was for the CFA to end. But you made a curious distinction above specifying Northern Tamils- What about the majority of Tamils outside SL?
“The article I read said that about 24 million a year was raised from donations from the SL Tamil diaspora all over the world. Even though it was a peripheral part of LTTE fundraising, and much of it could have come from extortion, I was trying to explain why there would be some in the diaspora who did donate to the LTTE.”
Thank you for pointing out the article. The author seemed to contradict himself saying “Contributions from the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora spread across Canada, United States, UK, France, Switzerland, Australia, Sweden, Finland, Norway and India constitute the major sources” and then adding that the LTTE got only $2 million a month from contributions.
“I don’t have a problem with them voting for Mahinda back in 2005. They were trying to get rid of violence. But to vote for him and his party again post-war, given that his tyrannical nature, his Sinhalese chauvinism and hardline anti-Tamil politics had already become evident, is another matter.”
I’m afraid I again do not follow. You say you don’t have a problem with Sinhalese voting for Mahinda in 2005 because “they were trying to get rid of violence” (even though it was rather clear that he would “get rid” of the violence through war), and Mahinda did exactly that- he “got rid of the violence” and ended the war. So why would the electorate have punished him for that? How else could Mahinda have ended the violence without annihilating the LTTE?
And whom should the Sinhalese have voted for in 2010?
“Again, trying to gain traction for your racial chauvinism by pointing to the LTTE and its supporters.”
To give a Sinhala perception, I necessarily have to write in a way that may strike you as “racial chauvinism,” just as you “try to gain traction for your own racial chauvinism” by pointing to the Rajapakshas. The fact remains that the LTTE and its supporters by far have been the most visible part of Tamil society- **and that’s not our fault.** As a Tamil, you assume that we know as much about the Tamils as you do. We don’t.
“As for being frightened by rallies in Tamil Nadu, I think your community is very much aware that Indian politics does not equate with Tamil Nadu politics.”
The events of the 1980s quite disproved this notion of yours.
“Reflect then on why you don’t have an opposition.”
We lack a credible opposition because its leaders- whether UNP or JVP- are far less in touch with the people than Mahinda is. For this UNP this has been symptomatic all the way back before independence.
“Does the killing of Tamils by the LTTE suggest that they were not simply anti-Sinhalese?”
No, but it proves that the LTTE was not a pro-Tamil organisation and that its supporters were lying to the world.
“I reckon the former gives more flexibility and will probably appeal more to the majority community–the latter may involve taking away too many privileges that they enjoy now.”
Actually with the choice you just gave me, I would take the unitary state minus Buddhism within a heartbeat. This is not because I’m a secularist the way Burning_Issue is, but rather because federalism will be a dubious prospect in SL.
Take a look at p. 15 of this survey (click on #000277 from 2008):
http://www.peacepolls.org/cgi-bin/documents
I found it interesting that only 50% of the Tamils and Muslims found it “Unacceptable” that Buddhism is given a special status in the Constitution (the other categories being Essential, Desirable, Acceptable, and Tolerable). In other words, secularism does not appear to be a significant issue compared with some others, such as the language policy.
Wijayapala,
“Is this your excuse for the LTTE’s treatment of Muslims? (hence my question about “pro-Tamil racism”)”
It’s not an excuse but an explanation—an explanation that links LTTE racism to Sinhalese/GOSL racism. How does anybody in SL escape the racist/racialist mindset institutionalised by the state? For eg, GOSL appointing Muslim Home Guards—why did the State deem it necessary that (untrained) Muslims protect Muslims when the (trained) national army and police should have been made available to them? Are we to infer then that the professional national army and police are solely for Sinhalese protection rather than for citizen protection?
“Couldn’t one argue that the original federalism project was about establishing Tamil hegemony in the NE, the same way that SWRD Bandaranaike established Sinhala hegemony in the island?”
That amply illustrates your Sinhalese majority paranoid racialist mindset, which is why Tamils don’t have even basic human rights in SL today. How would a numerical minority in a proposed federal state maintain hegemony without access to the central government’s institutions? Didn’t the end of the war prove such hegemony would be impossible? The Tamil federalism project was about escaping Sinhalese hegemony, not installing a new one in its place.
“In this sense, do you think Sinhalese are very different from the Tamils?”
Yes, they are very different (and in large part because the State allows them to be so). The difference is between a majority community set on political and cultural domination in a context where this is encouraged, and a minority community wanting to escape discrimination and oppression in a context where this is made impossible. They are very, very different.
“I think you mean India. China is a bit too far away, and they are probably preoccupied with more pressing concerns than Mahinda’s grinning.”
No, I mean China. India is not trying to become a superpower in the ranks of the US.
“Thank you for confirming my point, although you haven’t really clarified how the Sinhalese were not “in control” from 1956 through 1977.”
I meant that the Sinhalese were in control of the ethnic conflict in 1977 in a way that they were not to be with the later emergence of the LTTE. I wasn’t comparing it to the past period.
“I never said that the majority of Tamils in Sri Lanka wanted the violence to continue. The last thing they wanted was for the CFA to end. But you made a curious distinction above specifying Northern Tamils- What about the majority of Tamils outside SL?”
I specified the Tamils in the north because the Sinhalese government should be thinking in terms of the interests, aspirations and behaviour of the local Tamils and not the diaspora–their allegiance should be to their own citizens. One of the ways in which Sinhalese try to avoid giving rights to the local Tamil minority is to pretend that the Tamils are a scary majority that threatens to dominate them (re: Tamil diaspora, and Tamil Nadu). The local Tamils, the only ones you need to consider, are a minority that shrinks with each passing day due to state genocide, poverty, etc.
“Thank you for pointing out the article. The author seemed to contradict himself saying “Contributions from the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora spread across Canada, United States, UK, France, Switzerland, Australia, Sweden, Finland, Norway and India constitute the major sources” and then adding that the LTTE got only $2 million a month from contributions.”
There’s no contradiction. I read it as saying that the “major sources” from diaspora fund raising come from the specified countries—not that diaspora funds are a major source of LTTE income. This article does not actually say which is the biggest source of income. I got that from another report , by Jane’s Defence Intelligence Review in 2007, which stated that LTTE made US$200-300 million a year. I synthesized the two reports to argue that diaspora funds were thus not a major source of LTTE income.
“You say you don’t have a problem with Sinhalese voting for Mahinda in 2005 because “they were trying to get rid of violence” (even though it was rather clear that he would “get rid” of the violence through war), and Mahinda did exactly that- he “got rid of the violence” and ended the war. So why would the electorate have punished him for that? How else could Mahinda have ended the violence without annihilating the LTTE?”
I accept that when the LTTE refused to negotiate, the State declaring war on them was inevitable. But war against terrorism should not also be secretly a war against civilians.
“And whom should the Sinhalese have voted for in 2010?”
That’s my point–you had nobody but racial chauvinists to vote for. How did that happen? Do you have no democratic-minded political leaders in your country? That absence is a symptom.
“The fact remains that the LTTE and its supporters by far have been the most visible part of Tamil society- **and that’s not our fault.** As a Tamil, you assume that we know as much about the Tamils as you do. We don’t. ”
Of course, it’s your fault. It’s because the Tamils were treated as a non-entity, with its political reps always swatted away like flies, that the LTTE emerged in the first place. Post-LTTE, how come we still don’t hear the Tamil voice in your country? You should be ashamed that you don’t know as much about your fellow-citizens,especially a disenfranchised minority that clearly needs help, as people who are coming from outside SL! And considering that you don’t know, why do you then keep rejecting information that is given? Is it because the ignorance is deliberate and politically strategic?
“The events of the 1980s quite disproved this notion of yours.”
Forgive me, I thought you were talking of rallies during the CFA period. Indian politics has changed between the 1980s and the new millenia, has it not, in response to changes in global geopolitics?
“We lack a credible opposition because its leaders- whether UNP or JVP- are far less in touch with the people than Mahinda is. For this UNP this has been symptomatic all the way back before independence.”
You lack an opposition that is in touch with the people because of Mahinda’s stranglehold on information and state terror against dissidents. If there was freedom of information and opposition, any opposition party could have wiped the floor with Mahinda. A few business scandals exposed, nepotism, state involvement in killing of dissidents, previous Mahinda deals with the LTTE revealed (this is why I think key LTTE leaders all had to be killed rather than taken as POWs), war crimes against innocent civilians, the profitting of army personnel in releasing Tigers from the IDP camps (with government knowledge), Mahinda’s deals with China, etc. would have done the trick.
“Take a look at p. 15 of this survey (click on #000277 from 2008):
http://www.peacepolls.org/cgi-bin/documents
I found it interesting that only 50% of the Tamils and Muslims found it “Unacceptable” that Buddhism is given a special status in the Constitution (the other categories being Essential, Desirable, Acceptable, and Tolerable). In other words, secularism does not appear to be a significant issue compared with some others, such as the language policy.”
Thanks very much for this link! Survey findings are very interesting! I think 50% of Tamils and Muslims finding the Buddhism clause “unacceptable” is a very strong objection to it–given that the survey did not sample people in the Northern province, where the strongest objection to this could have been expected. Also, I am not sure that you can conclude from this that secularism is not an important issue to the Tamils because giving Buddhism a special status in the Constitution does not necessarily mean that government itself would not be secular–respondents could have interpreted it as government giving special assistance in promotion of Buddhist culture, but not to the extent that government must bring Buddhist principles into play in governance (which is a totally different matter, which actually makes SL a Buddhist state, and which is currently stated in the Constitution).
I also find it interesting that only 13% of Sinhalese found this unacceptable. I suspect that this reflects the size of the liberal section of the community. But then again, I don’t think the Sinhalese survey respondents understood the question because a sizeable majority of them indicate that both equal status to all religions and giving Buddhism special status are acceptable. That’s contradictory. If you compare that with the Tamil response, there’s no contradiction–59% find equal status for all religions essential, and only 2% find it essential to give special status to Buddhism.
I also find it interesting that 42% of Sinhalese find it unacceptable to reintroduce section 29 of the Soulbury/Independence constitution giving citizens protection against religious and ethnic discrimination whereas only 6% of Tamils are against this.