Selected Writings
Dr. Rajan K. Sriskandarajah
USA

Dr. Rajan Sriskandarajah is a Fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecology (UK). He is also a member of the American Medical Association, New York State Medical Association, and the Dutchess County Medical Society. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Ceylon, Colombo, Sri Lanka in 1969, and his Master’s degree in Public Health from New York Medical College in 1993. He has been a Clinical Assistant Professor at the New York Medical College since 1992. Dr.Sriskandarajah edited the Ilankai Thamil Sangam news letter Tamil Voice for several years. He also served on the Editorial Board of the Tamil Nation fortnightly from its inception in 1990 to 1993. He was the founding Editor of the Sangam.org website and served in that capacity for more than six years until 2004.

"..The bottom line is Tamils didn’t vote because they didn’t want to, and not because they were forced. The choices offered in this election are not something an average Tamil voter could get enthused about. One candidate was totally anti-everything for Tamils. He had denied the existence of a Tamil homeland and the right of the Tamil people to have a control over their own affairs. The second candidate signed a ceasefire agreement that benefited mainly the Sinhalese and did nothing to improve the devastated lives of the Tamil people. He reneged on an agreed mechanism (SIHRN) for rehabilitation of the Tamil victims and went globe-trotting to build international support against the Tamil leadership. What choices did the Tamils have? Choose the lesser of two evils? Tamils, tired of having to choose between two evils all this time, gave up playing this wicked game. Whoever they chose in the past didn’t bring any satisfaction. So, this time they decided not to choose any. What is wrong with that?..

"The most irksome aspect of July 1983 is that there is no guilt or repentance – then or now. No official inquiry, no compensation and no genuine apology. The then president Jayewardene blamed it on the communists and left it at that. The current president Kumaratunga is using it as a cudgel to beat her opponents with. Those in between didn’t behave any differently.Al Qaeda, which is steadfast in its mission against the US, is not elected by anyone and is not answerable to any mass of people. The government of Sri Lanka, which is persistent in their goal of enslaving the Tamils, is democratically elected by the Sinhala people. The Germans, who once democratically elected the Third Reich, have jettisoned Nazism in favor of a civilized government. In Sri Lanka the goals are still the same – only the methods have changed.Tamils will never forget July 1983.NEVER AGAIN" more

"..Thank you for your Press Release (# 475) of 26th May 2001, which your embassy was kind enough to send to me...I am impressed by the thoughtfulness of your embassy staff for taking the trouble to send this to someone who has long relinquished the citizenship of your country. Certainly Doctor Goebbels, whose tasks were similar to yours in Nazi Germany, would never have sent something like this to a Jewish person living in Germany or elsewhere..."

Re: US Department of State Report on Terrorism - Letter to US Secretary of State, Colin L.Powell

"I was disappointed, and also deeply offended, by the report titled 'Patterns of Global Terrorism -2000', released by the US State Department on 27th April 2001.Firstly, the statement that 'Tamils historically have served as drug couriers', is insulting to the Tamil people. I am a Tamil (one of 70 million worldwide), and the vast majority of us are decent, law-abiding citizens in our respective countries of residence/citizenship. Secondly, the inclusion of 'narcotics smuggling' in the context of the LTTE (background information on designated terrorist groups) implies that the LTTE and/or its supporters are engaged in this activity. There is no data to substantiate this accusation... The Sri Lankan government has been, for some time, at pains to depict the Tamil liberation movement and the Tamil Diaspora in a bad light, and the accusation of 'drug trafficking' is one element in this disinformation exercise. The uncritical inclusion of this 'rumor' in the US State Department Report seriously undermines the credibility of the US State Department..."

The tenth day of December 1948 was a historic day. It was a day of one of the greatest achievements, indeed a landmark, in human history. This was the day the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Fifty-two years on, on the 10th of December 2000, it is well for Sri Lankans to look back and reflect on what their government has done for human rights. What have they achieved?

The most significant is that Sri Lanka has achieved the ignoble distinction of being ranked number two among countries with the worst human rights record, next only to Iraq. As a matter of fact, Sri Lanka being such a small country, on a per capita basis, it should have been ranked number one.   

Over ninety thousand deaths, mass graves and disappearances, rapes and torture,, massive displacement of people and flagrant deprivations of basic human needs – all in the name of a war for ethnic and religious superiority. How did they get to be this way?

"Truth, they say, is the first casualty in war. In Sri Lanka, however, truth was a casualty long before the war. Falsehoods and Propaganda about the Tamils justified oppression. The world was told that the problem in Sri Lanka was Tamil terrorism. The story about the dysfunctional political system, which procured power to the one who could inflict the most damage to Tamils, was cleverly disguised..."

Bait and switch is a well-worn sales tactic. Supermarkets use it with bargain-priced items to attract customers. Unscrupulous sidewalk vendors use it, showing one item and then palm off another when the sale is clinched. Fishmongers do it with a display of fresh fish to sell rotten ones. And now a Sinhala President of Sri Lanka is trying to do it to the Timils. The package President Kumaratunga tendered on August 31, 1995, after guilefully ousting the LTTE from the political theater, has been swapped. With an apparently innocuous change in the title - from "Proposals for Devolution' to "Legal Formulations for Devolution" - the first of many bait and switch swaps to come has been accomplished. ..

The lack of sincerity in its negotiations with the LTTE was manifest at a number of levels, and the following is a partial list.

• The government's efforts to have a dialogue with the LTTE have been perfunctory at best. The government negotiating team consisted of individuals with no official status, and the composition of the team changed repeatedly. A Political columnist in Sri Lanka wrote,
• "The President had two senior ministers beside her in her discussions with the Tamil groups who were voting with her in Parliament, (whereas) she sent as delegates to negotiate an end to a war that has cost 30,000 lives, her architect, her banker and her clerk. The only person she forgot to send was her cook!"
• The teams flew into Jaffna once in two months or so, and that too in the mornings for a few hours of talks with the LTTE, and returned before sundown; an effort that one would hardly consider as serious. Mr. M.Vasantha Raja, ex-chairman of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, said,
• "If the government was seriously trying to establish trust and avoid misunderstandings there were many measures it could have taken. For example as a part of a formal cease-fire, a "video link" between the LTTE headquarters and the Presidential secretariat facilitating regular talks, would have been of enormous value...
• ...In my estimation, the Sri Lankan government betrayed the sincere intentions of the Sinhala people who put them in power - people who pleaded for, and deserved, a wholly genuine peace effort. "

"The brutality of the Sinhala army and their blatant disregard for Tamil lives and limbs has reached a new level. The deliberate recklessness with which refugees in churches, patients in hospitals and children in school-yards are savagely attacked and killed under Chandrika's presidency is a new peak. The defiance of the people of Thamileelam, in the face of such cruelty, is also a new zenith. Well over six hundred thousand people fleeing an army, that they were told was coming to rescue them from these awful Tigers, is unprecedented; something that did not happen even during the brutal occupation of Jaffna by the Indian army! "

"Aiyo", cried a mother whose child was wounded in the air-raid. "Please take my child to the hospital" she begged a cyclist, who looked around first, and then decided to help. "She was alive just a few minutes ago," cried a man cradling the dead body of his pretty young wife. "She just came to help the refugees, and now she is dead," cried a brother. Wails and cries such as these were heard (and recorded on video) on July 9th, soon after the Sinhala Airforce decided to drop, not one but nine bombs, on the Navaly St. Peter's Church, housing refugees in Tamil Eelam.

Only a few hours earlier, the Sinhala Airforce had dropped leaflets asking civilians to take shelter in churches and temples. The poor, unsuspecting Tamil civilians had complied. This was preceded by a massive propaganda effort initiated in Colombo, to justify the newest Sinhala army offensive on Tamil Eelam, code-named "Operation Leap Forward." Proclamations were made that this was a sacrificial effort made by the Sinhala people, to "liberate the Tamils from the clutches of the LTTE."  more