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Wednesday 11 December 2013

England and Sri Lanka’s problem – IV


There are so many things we have to learn from England in dealing with the Tamil problem in Sri Lanka. It is not so much connected to acts such as destroying the documents related to wars and appointing commissions then sending one or two “war criminals” to the prison with all the facilities (luxuries), and giving them a pardon after a few months.  Sri Lanka has not committed any war crimes and there is nothing to learn from England in this regard. As we have already said it appears that Darusman’s figures of 40,000 killed in the last two weeks of humanitarian operations stem from a myth not substantiated by any evidence. The type of argument used to arrive at this magic figure of 40,000 was revealed by Sampanthan recently.

The TNA leader Sampanthan has stated in the parliament that there were 360,000 in the Mullavaikkal region in Vanni east during the last two weeks of the operations. Of this, 280,000 have come over to the camps of the armed forces surprisingly in spite of the fact that the army was involved in apparent mass killings or genocide as described by the Tamil racists, though a vast number of Tamils are still living in Sri Lanka. The Tamil racists should explain how so many Tamils continue to live after genocide. The Tamils were used as a human shield by Prabhakaran,  a fact that Sampanthan wants to ignore, and it is strange that they came over to the mass killers in order to escape from the sole representative of the Tamils as admitted by the leadership of the TNA that was proxy to the terrorist organization.

Sampanthan continuing has stated that if 280,000 of 360,000 escaped then 80,000 would have been killed, implying that nobody was in Mullavaikkal after the end of the operations. Of the 80,000 even if 40,000 were LTTE terrorists, as Sampanthan states, it implies that at least 40,000 civilians would have been killed during the last two weeks of the operations. The arithmetic is not bad but the assumptions behind the simple calculation are questionable to say the least. Who gave those figures to Sampanthan? It is clear that the 360,000 Sampanthan is talking about is a figment of imagination of the Tamil racists. There was no survey or any head count statistical or otherwise and anybody can quote any figure in these circumstances.

However, this implies that there were 80,000 dead bodies and the interesting question is who was responsible for burying them? As far as we are aware neither any NGO nor Channel 4 was engaged in burying the bodies, and unless the dead themselves buried the bodies it remains an unsolved problem as far as death is concerned. If the bodies were not buried the stink from them would have been unbearable and it is nothing but a surprise that the stinking Darusman report or the equally stinking reports by Navi Pillai do not refer to this stink. If a Tamil racist wants he could increase these figures merely by adding a few thousands to the number held by the LTTE as a human shield and subtracting from the number of LTTE terrorists killed. The fact that these civilians came running to the armed forces to get killed, if Sampanthan is correct, is the best evidence against mass killings by the armed forces, which makes any further inquiry on charges of war crimes redundant.

There may be so called eye witnesses who would give “evidence” in England and other places before so called independent international committees appointed to look into the “war crimes” of the Sri Lankan armed forces. Most of them are asylum seekers and people seek “asylum” for various reasons including jobs and schools for their offspring in the “affluent” societies. One cannot rule out the possibility that some of the witnesses are paid by those with vested interests. In this regard it is interesting to find that Sarath Fonseka has volunteered to go to Geneva to clear the name of the Army with respect to charges on “war crimes”. He is the last person to be sent to Geneva as he was the first person to come with “war crime” charges with his white flag story (sudu kodi kathava). It is clear that he has ulterior motives other than collecting some preferential votes (manape) at the forthcoming western province provincial council elections. Undoubtedly he did an enormous service to the country as the commander of the Army, but unfortunately his track record after leaving the Army is not something to be emulated by any retired general.

What we have to learn from England is on telling the world something and doing the exact opposite in actions. The Tamil racists in connivance with the English rulers have been trying to present a wrong picture of the Sinhala Buddhists from the nineteenth century. It is not only the English and the Tamil racists who are responsible for this propaganda but some Sinhala Buddhists themselves. How did the members of the latter category who were born into Sinhala Buddhist families turn against Sinhala Buddhists? They did not do that on their own by following any so called scientific method. It is nothing but the education given by the English, which “converted” the Sinhala Buddhists to call themselves “enlightened” “prabuddhayas” instead of Sinhala Buddhists.  What these “prabuuddhayas” do not understand is that they are willingly or unwillingly have become Judaic Christians by culture through their education. Unfortunately for the Sri Lankans, and Asians and Africans in general their so called educated are not good at all in abstract thinking and they are incapable of coming out with new concepts or theories created within the Greek Judaic Christian (GJC) Chinthanaya. Though they may call themselves scientists and thinkers they cannot think within the GJC Chinthanaya and all that they can do is to imitate their western masters and mistresses. Recently I was amused to read a news item with the title when Scientists do not agree. When there are no scientists they as scientists cannot either agree or disagree.     

At least a few books and articles have been written on the communal politics during the latter part of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. However, the authours fail to realize that it is these communal politics maneuvered by the English governors that have led to the present Tamil problem in Sri Lanka. The English used the educated Tamils as a force against the Sinhala people who continued to fight against English colonialism and the English were determined to make the educated Tamils the leaders of the country. However, their miscalculation to give universal franchise in 1931 upset the apple cart and the educated Tamils were gradually displaced of their leadership and the privileges that they enjoyed until that year. It is this loss of leadership and privileges that were interpreted as discrimination against the Tamils. The Tamil racist leaders even before 1947 had spoken of separation and with the establishment of the Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi or the so called Federal Party in 1949 they formally began to agitate for a separate state. However there is a fallacy in their argument as they speak of discrimination against all the Tamils, very often the Tamil speaking people in the country, but as a solution of the problem want to establish an Eelam in the Northern and Eastern provinces only, the so called traditional homeland of the Tamils, which have been demarcated by the English only as late as 1889.


The English continue to take revenge from the Sinhala people for all their defeats at the hands of the latter right up to Nandikadal and would do everything possible to punish their elected leaders, and the armed forces by any means including Geneva human rights commissions and other so called international fora. The dispersed Tamils in western countries are now being used by England, Canada and USA, mainly the Anglo Saxon Christian countries, and England being the prominent country against the Sinhala people allows the front organizations of the LTTE to continue to operate while proscribing the LTTE for pseudo democratic reasons. It is not the vote of the Tamils of Sri Lankan origin that England is after, as it does not do anything to win the votes of the Muslims in England who outnumber the former category, though the Sri Lankan imitators continue to believe their masters Camerons and Milibands. 


Nalin De Silva

11-12-2013