Comments on: Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Second-Term: A New Beginning? https://groundviews.org/2010/11/30/mahinda-rajapaksa-and-the-second-term-a-new-beginning/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mahinda-rajapaksa-and-the-second-term-a-new-beginning Journalism for Citizens Sun, 12 Dec 2010 10:23:49 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.1 By: eureka https://groundviews.org/2010/11/30/mahinda-rajapaksa-and-the-second-term-a-new-beginning/#comment-25555 Tue, 30 Nov 2010 21:34:33 +0000 http://www.groundviews.org/?p=4664#comment-25555 The President was not only intent on decimating the LTTE but also the Tamils. He could decimate LTTE by outright military assaults – there will be at least some support from the international community.
But he cannot do that with the Tamils(though he used aerial bombing quite liberallyin driving the Tamils from Trincomalee district to Batticaloa district and Tamils from Northwest Vanni to Northeast Vanni), but can only go on slow genocide of Tamils: cordoning off Parts of Northeast from the rest of the country (and starving the people), not maintaining law and order, making paramilitary do the dirty jobs of killing and abducting people, not holding investigations into crimes, denying free entry to jurnalists, aid agents, flooding them with drugs and pornography, militarisisng their areas, keeping them out of their houses, schools, hospitals, etc by occupation army, Sinhalisation of Northeast with the help of the army and the navy, etc.
Last Friday he openly told the Tamil Parties Forum when they complained about Sinhalisation of Northeast, he said: there are Tamils and Muslims in Colombo !

That answer is the most unacceptable answer:
Muslims and Tamils are in Colombo as
i.individual citizen families seeking livelihoods in the capital of the country in the near-absence of economic investment in Northeast since independence and
ii.fleeing aerial bombing, intense shelling and economic embargo of the last 35 years.

]]> By: MV https://groundviews.org/2010/11/30/mahinda-rajapaksa-and-the-second-term-a-new-beginning/#comment-25554 Tue, 30 Nov 2010 00:22:29 +0000 http://www.groundviews.org/?p=4664#comment-25554 “When the LTTE showed, consistently and convincingly, that it did not understand the language of ‘peace’, President Mahinda Rajapaksa, correctly, turned to a language that the LTTE understood well; ‘war’. All other options were exhausted,”

Does Kalana realize that these same arguements could be made by the Tamil side to defend the LTTE? Afterall, that was the explanation for Tamil armed resistance.

By the same token, Kalana should ask themselves whether there ever was any genuine effort for peace from the government side, without coming to be labeled as “appeasing” Tamil separatists or being terrorist sympathizers.

It is also a wrong assumption if Kalana believes Tamil separatism was defeated along with LTTE. Lets not forget LTTE was just a violent expression of Tamil nationalistic politics.

It is ought to be better if Kalana could campaign for democratization and the removal emergency laws than for power devolution, so that PTA/emergency laws are not used to intimidate political dissidents, including those who support self-determination.

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