Dear Real_peace
If you are in SriLanka you my not be able to access this – http://tamilnation.co/tamileelam.htm. You could start on this http://tamilnation.co/tamileelam/overview.htm . You may not like the term eelam. Just ignore that term and read the rest.

Anpu

Couple of questions:
1. What books can you recommend for a reasonably unbiased view of what happened in Sri Lanka?

2. What independent DOCUMENTARIES on the Sri Lankan civil war can you recommend for humanity to learn?
couple that was suggested are:
– the Award winning Channel4 documentaries(2). Sri Lanka Killing fields.
– Award winning film: “Silenced Voices”
http://www.moviesthatmatter.nl/english_index/festival/programma_en/film_en/1206

Thank you for your input.

1. Tremendous suffering was endured by the civilians caught in this conflict. There is no easy way to begin to understand the hopelessness of people that were trapped between the Sri Lanka army and the retreating Tamil Tiger rebels.

2. The graves observed in these images are likely to be a mixture of combatants and civilians. The combatants (from both sides) were embedded amongst the civilians, and in cases civilians were converted into combatants under force. It would be considerably difficult to know exactly who amongst the dead was a combatant and who was a civilian.

3. The change to the landscape and the flora is testimony to the ferocity of the war and events that took place. As one commenter concludes it would be interesting to see images of how the area looked before the habitation of civilian refugees.

4. SL government forces and Tiger rebels were guilty of attacking civilian targets as per identification for artillery locals, but it is not to be mistaken against actions that placed combatants amongst civilian targets and on occasion attacked civilians themselves. Under these circumstances it is a miracle that any civilians survived at all, and that this conflict didnt get prolonged further. Very often as in the case of the Israel-Palestine conflict an organized army has little options to root out rebel forces embedded amongst civilian populations. Under these conditions both sides are very much in the wrong for putting civilians in harms way.

4. A considerable loss of life has been laid at the feet of nationalism, whether it be for Sri Lanka or for the now non existent Tamil Elam. At the end of the day, so many years of conflict, blood shed and loss of life has yielded not one ounce of harmony for sinhalese, tamil, moor nor burgher. It is with great hope that the future will yield greater understanding as to the means of co-habitation and less about nationalism. Living together is a far better option to dying while fighting each other.

Dear Usha S Sri-Skanda-Rajah,

The difference from your all capitalised (shouting) post to the current one of meek withdrawal is noted.

Apparently you did not bargain for Logic and History when you started this exchange. That you had no defence other than illogical statements about Elephants, when faced with Dutch Govt records, shows very clearly, who has parted ways with logic.

Thank you Usha, for giving me the opportunity, to place factual evidence before GV, as my target audience was the Readers, whom people like you try to misinform.

I think the litmus test to know whether the Tamil people have realized the right to self determination (regardless of whether it is through the existing SL state or through an independent sovereign state of their own) is if they are able to publicly mourn the loss of their loved ones who died in May 2009. The day they are able to build a monument in PTK and Mullativu to remember those who died, is the day we know that they are free. Till then the Tamil struggle goes on..

Dear Usha S Sri-Skanda-Rajah,

You say “I rest my case”

You have rhetoric madam but no case.

You say “Who are you?”

Hmm now that you ask, let me explain a little. Aacharya is a relation, Tamil Chanakyan is a close relation and Manimaaran is a closer relation, got it?

“ I am beginning to like you; after all we share a lot of the same genes – South or North Indian genes may i ask and what’s your take on the Sinhalese being Aryans? “

Try thinking outside Sangam.org. The Internet also provides a wealth of information for someone who has the intelligence to use it, that is.

You say “First let me make it clear that I did not refute your list of other people who contributed, ….. “

Of course you did not refute as you could not.

“ ….Tamil separatism that the Rajapakse regime decided to crush with brute force and illegal weaponry, breaking every rule in the book of international law, knowingly targeting and indiscriminately shelling hospitals and safe zones showing no mercy – that’s an easy way of winning a war, nothing to be proud of for a government (a state actor) that had a duty to protect civilians”

What the Rajapaksa’s decide to crush, was Tamil Terrorism, that decades of Peace Talks and multiple International efforts failed to resolve, due mainly to the Terror Flag Waving Tamil Diaspora Bank rolling that Terror. Are you part of that diaspora?

The decision was forced on the SL Govt as it had a duty to protect civilians, as you yourself observed. The Civilians that needed the protection exceeded 20 million a part of which was held hostage by a Terrorist Thug and his gang of thugs and of course the Terror Flag waving Tamil Diaspora who paid the bill. The other part was at the receiving end of the Terrorist Thugs indiscriminate terrorism. Bombs in Public Transport, Land mine attacks on School Buses, Ambulances, Public transport and then machine gunning the survivors and finally cutting off and depriving Water to farmers and civilians that laid 30,000 or so acres of agricultural produce to waste and a population deprived of even drinking water, by closing the sluices at Mavil Aru which was under the control of that Terrorist Thug.

That Terrorist Thug and the Flag wavers who bankrolled him, miscalculated and now you are licking your wounds and shedding crocodile tears for the Vanni Tamil people that the Thug and his Diaspora supporters used as Sand Bags.

You say “What if the LTTE directed its fire power at the Sinhalese villages.”

Oh they did. But their mistake was doing it once too often.

“Rakapakse has LTTE to thank for his Presidency, don’t forget.”

Hmm wise words … and the LTTE and the Flag Waving Tamil Diaspora has Rajapakse to thank for Nanthkadal. Wise choice.

“This is the President who stood alone in front of the UN fighting for justice for JVP insurgents who were brutally liquidated. What hypocrisy! Good you’ll have him and his progeny for the rest of thy kingdom come”

And what was he supposed to do when over 20 million of his people were being indiscriminately targeted by a Terrorist thug supported by similar heartless thugs from abroad who were using Tamil civilians from the Vanni as Sand Bags? Roll over and hope the innards wont be blown to bits and splattered, like Rajiv Gandhi’s and Premadasa’s?

Even Churchill had to go, when his usefulness to the public was no more. Rajapakse’s usefulness to the Sri Lankan Public is prolonged by the Terror Flag wavers.

You say “Also your list was silly”

If it is silly refute them with facts, not by silly statements.

You say “ – you seem to have some sadistic pleasure in maligning Adel. For me she is a great woman, a foreigner who believed in the legitimacy of our freedom struggle.”

Yes the GV readership can see that to you, Prabhakaran’s accomplice, who kept an under aged Tamil girl kidnapped from Lanka, under her roof and allowed her to be seduced by that Terrorist Thug and who created a Baby Brigade out of Tamil Children is a Great Woman. Since YOUR children were safe and having an Education with pen in hand while those under Adele had a Cyanide Capsule and a Gun in their hands and DEPRIVED of an Education.

What you don’t see is that, this singular defence of Adele, who is a War Criminal by any standard, makes your call for investigation of war crimes, an EMPTY one, driven not by the need to seek Justice but by your desire for Revenge.

You say “The elephant story is a bit laughable – like taking coal to Newcastle using a difficult terrain, through thick jungles in the 17th century?? Seems a bit far fetched. I suppose the elephants used the trunk to uproot and clear thick vegetation to get through to go, as you say, all the way through Elephant Pass to Jaffna and from there to India????? “

Why are you intent on making a foolish spectacle of yourself?
Please read some good books on Lankan History before you display your absolute ignorance of it on a public forum. If you don’t have access to a good library use the Internet, you obviously have access to that.

If you have any questions about the Dutch Fort at Elephant Pass that was at the extreme North East Boundary of the Kandyan Kingdom and the Extreme South of the former Tamil Kingdom and Peninsular Jaffna, you should question the authenticity of that record from the Dutch Govt. I only referenced it.

You say “I didn’t say the Kandyan Kingdom was Tamil, …”

Then what did you impute?

You say “ …… but on another note it is a bit odd for the Kandyan Sinhalese to get down Tamil Kings, don’t you think, and why was that so?”

To a Racist mind it may look odd, but to the Sinhalese of that day, it was not odd, as they were not Racists.

You plead “Enlighten me, enlighten me please OH please, though art the authority on history, the harbinger of truth, unfiltered and unadulterated.”

Basing my assessment on what you write and your signal inability to defend what you write factually, I don’t believe even God himself can do that.

I only QUOTE the authority, I have made no other claim. But then you are so inept, that instead of logical argument, you descend to irrational rantings.

You say “Sinhalese or Tamil I am for humanity – in the spiritual sense we are all one, BUT I shall defend the Tamil right to self determination until my last breath”

Well tongue in cheek pronouncements serve no purpose.
If you are for Humanity, you would not have sacrificed the Multitude of Tamil Children, that you obviously was prepared to sacrifice (as long as they were not your own), as seen by your blind defence and glorification of that Pied Piper, who led Tamil Female Children of the Vanni, to their Death and Destruction.