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Selected
Writings
V.Thangavelu, Canada
On 'Peace a priority for Sri Lanka envoy Daya Perera'
19 November 2008
The Editor
Ottawa Citizen
Ottawa.
Dear editor,
Peace a priority for Sri Lanka envoy
 Daya
Perera, Sri Lankan High Commissioner for Canada , is doing what he is expected
to do. He is simply lying for his country. It is a supreme irony and a huge joke
that he speaks about peace while waging full scale war against Thamils. Thamils
are supposed to be citizens of Sri Lanka. Daya Perera remarks reminds one of
George Orwell's
1984 - "War is Peace" "Freedom is Slavery” and “Ignorance is
Strength.”
Sri Lanka's defence
budget has hit the roof costing US $1.77 billion dollars for 2009!
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Sri Lanka's Rising Military Expenditure in Billion Rupees... |
|
.75 |
6 |
24 |
38 |
56 |
63 |
69 |
139 |
164 |
171 |
|
1977 |
1986 |
1995 |
1996 |
1998 |
2001 |
2006 |
2007 |
2008 |
2009 |
More than 4,000 Thamil civilians have been killed just under 3
years. They were victims of aerial bombardment, artillery shelling, abductions
for ransom, involuntary disappearances, torture etc.
The present government headed by president Mahinda Rajapakse is
bent on seeking a military solution to what is basically a political problem.
Rajapakse has said no to
3 basic demands put forward by Thamil people during the
failed Thimpu talks held under the auspices of India in 1984. He has said
NO to
federalism, NO to Northeast being the
traditional homeland of the Thamil people and NO to the
right
of self-determination of Thamils. The
armed
struggle by the LTTE
is solely due to the failure of the Sinhalese ruling class to accommodate the
aspirations of the Thamils. Since independence
a series of
discriminatory legislative acts
have reduced Thamils to third class citizenship.
The language of administration even in Thamil majority provinces is Sinhalese.
The armed forces are 99% Sinhalese. The administrative service consists of 95%
Sinhalese. The President is a Sinhalese. The Prime Minister is a Sinhalese. Out
of 108 Ministers hardly any Thamil is a cabinet Minister. A few are Non-cabinet
Ministers. Admission to Law College is 99% Sinhalese.
More than 2,000 Thamils have been arrested under emergency
regulations on suspicion that they are Tigers and locked up in prisons without
charges or trial. The Police and the army have ordered all Thamils to register
themselves at the nearest police stations and hang the family photograph in a
prominent place in their homes.
Every day Thamil civilians are abducted, killed and their bodies
thrown in ditches. So far 80,000 Thamil civilians have been killed by the armed
forces. Over 9 Thamil journalists have been killed during the last 3 years.
Five Thamil parliament members have been killed by the army or
Quislings operating with the armed forces. Over 500,000 have been internally
displaced.
Fishing and farming in the North east, especially in Jaffna
peninsula have been severely restricted. Over 40,000 troops are occupying Jaffna
peninsula. There is daily curfew from 6.00 pm to 6.00 am. Daily bombing in Vanni
in which scores are dying or getting injured.
The Presidential Commission on Disappearances in a damning report has said that
more than 1,100 persons missing or abducted in the past two years are still
unaccounted for. The Commission’s Chairman, Retired High Court judge Mahanama
Tilakaratne has reportedly said that these include 771 persons who had
disappeared and 334 others who had been abducted. According to Tilakaratne, the
Commission has received complaints regarding 543 unsolved murders and 308
unidentified bodies. He had added that 15,222 disappearances of persons had been
reported in the two-year period up to August 31, 2008, and 14,451 of them have
been found, and of the 1,138 incidents of abduction, 804 abductees have
returned. Tilakaratne had also said he is still receiving complaints about
persons being arrested on terrorism charges and organised abductions in white
vans.
The boast of Gotabhaya Rajapakse, Defence Secretary and sibling of president
Mahinda Rajapakse is that the government has unloaded 14.4 million kilogrammes
of bombs in the Vanni. He seems immensely proud of that achievement. 14.4
million kilogrammes of today's military grade explosive is equivalent to the
explosive force of over 18 kilotonnes of TNT. The nuclear weapon dropped by the
United States on distant Hiroshima had an estimated yield of between 13 to 18
kilotonnes of TNT.
Sri Lanka is a
fascist and a racist state like that of Hitler's Nazi Germany.
Like Hitler an absurd claim is made that the country is owned by
the majority Sinhalese who are Aryans and Thamils (Muslims as well) are just
intruders who can live but cannot made "unreasonable demands!"
Army General Sarath Fonseka said it all. That
Sri Lanka is a
democracy and therefore the Sinhalese have the right to rule the country.
This is what he said
"The Sinhala nation has to sacrifice if you want to protect
the country and survive….. In any democratic country the majority should
rule the country. This country will be ruled by the Sinhalese community
which is the majority representing 74 percent of the population" (The Daily
News – 19.7.2008).
In an interview to National Post (Canada) he reiterated his
claim that Sri Lanka belongs to the majority Sinhalese. He said
“ I strongly believe that this country belongs to the
Sinhalese but there are minority communities and we treat them like our
people...We being the majority of the country, 75%, we will never give in
and we have the right to protect this country...We are also a strong nation
... They can live in this country with us. But they must not try to, under
the pretext of being a minority, demand undue things."
People with common sense should know the racist character of the
Sinhalese state. Daya Perera is a racist and he is part of the problem! Sri
Lanka today is a not a paradise – a pearl in the Indian Ocean - but a hell-hole
on earth and the killing field for the Thamils.
Although Daya Perera has dismissed the concerns of Governor General of Canada,
Michaëlle Jean on the occasion of the presentation of credentials this is what
she told him "
“We strongly support the presence of the Office of the UN
Commissioner for Human rights in Sri Lanka with a full mandate to report on
the human rights situation.. It is important to ensure that civilians in
conflict zones are protected, that they have access to humanitarian
organizations, and that their human rights are respected”, she said while
conveying deep concern of her government “over the future of the Sri Lankan
people”. (Canada News Centre - October 24, 2008)
A country that has showed its back to the presence of the Office
of the UN Commissioner for Human Rights has no right to speak about peace. It is
the Sri Lankan government that
torn the Ceasefire Agreement in January this year and declared war on
Thamils.
No amount of subterfuge and double talk by Daya Perera will cut ice with the
300,000 strong Thamil Canadians in Canada. He and his president Mahinda
Rajapakse will be kept where they rightly belonged to - in the dog's house!
Yours truly
Veluppillai Thangavelu
Ottawa Citizen:
Peace a priority for Sri Lanka envoy
Jennifer Campbell
Citizen Special
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Sri Lankan High Commissioner Dayananda Perera has one overriding goal for
his time in Canada -- to unite the majority Sinhalese and separatist Tamils.
He wants to do that among the Sri Lankan ex-patriate communities in Canada,
and in his beleaguered homeland where civil war broke out in 1983 and has
continued to flare up periodically ever since.
A ceasefire brokered by Norway in 2002 broke down after the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam became increasingly violent in 2006 and the
government responded and ultimately regained control of an eastern breakaway
province last year. The government announced it was officially withdrawing
from the ceasefire in January and fighting has intensified since.
Sri Lankan troops made a push over the weekend and captured three more towns
on Monday from the LTTE, a group the Canadian government, along with the
United States, European Union and India, have named a terrorist
organization.
Sri Lankan Tamils are one of the fastest growing ethnic
minorities in Canada, particularly in Toronto, home to some 250,000 Tamils
who left their homeland to escape the violence. And while practising
non-violence, many are sympathetic to the causes of their counterparts in
Sri Lanka who want an independent Tamil state. Some have been accused of
raising money for the LTTE's efforts.
For his part, Mr. Perera, a lawyer for some 50 years, and
former Sri Lankan ambassador to the United Nations, just wants peace. He
sees his role as trying to bring both sides together. The day after he
arrived in Canada in October, he attended a cricket match in Toronto where
Tamil activists made their presence widely known.
"I try my best to see the Tamil people," he said. "Their
loyalty should be to Canada, not to a mass murderer in Sri Lanka."
He noted that when he presented his credentials to Gov. Gen.
Michaëlle Jean -- "a charming, wonderful lady" -- she asked him what Canada
can do to help resolve the bloodletting. He replied simply: "I told her,
'You can do one thing: understand us.'"
Regarding the Harper government's move of joining others in
officially labelling the LTTE a terrorist group, Mr. Perera said "that was
the most sensible thing they did."
While the latest government victories in Tamil territory are
encouraging to him since some of the towns the troops have secured are seen
as important Tamil sites, he said Tamil leader Velupillai Prabhakaran will
not back down because he knows "no other job.
"He's got an unprecedented jail term and a death sentence in
India," Mr. Perera said, and added that ending the war isn't an option the
Tamil leader will likely consider.
Mr. Perera, who will travel across Canada to connect with
Sri Lankans, has a son in New York and a daughter in Toronto. His wife of
many years died suddenly, at the age of 75, just one month before they were
due to leave for Canada. He said she was looking forward to their time in
Ottawa because she'd heard there were several clubs for diplomatic spouses
-- even more than there were in New York.
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