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INDICTMENT AGAINST SRI LANKA
Censorship, Disinformation & Murder of Journalists
A Response to Dr.Peter Chalk
CSIS, P.O.Box 9732, Postal Station T
Ottawa, Ontario K1G 4G4, FAX: (613) 842-1312
Siva Muthulingasamy
London, 22 June 2000
".... in most cases the media
present news and events in a manner that not only agrees with the views of
the powerful, but actually supports their domination.... the maintenance of
order is the key idea to be examined in the media... in earlier
times violence and the threat of physical force was used to maintain order.
But today control is pursued through very different avenues; most
effectively.... through cultural control, or ‘controlling the common
sense’....Repeated representations of ideological domains continues to
define or ‘indicate’ culture, particularly for people who are heavily
exposed to the media… media often interpret and synthesise images in accord
with the assumptions of the dominant ideology’..."(The
Media, Framing, and the Internet - John Harrington) |
Dear Mr Chalk,
Re: Your article,
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's
International Organisation and Operations
- A Preliminary Analysis
I read with utter disbelief your article branding the LTTE as a
threat to the international community in Commentary #77. If you look at
countries where Tamils are living, you can see how law abiding and productive we
are to the host nation.
We took to arms because the so-called "International
Community" looked the other way when the
Sinhala race went on a spate of government sponsored pogroms against the
Tamils.
The tea industry in Sri Lanka and the rubber industry in Malaya flourished
and are still flourishing mainly because of the hard working Tamils who work in
them...
 If
the Sri Lankan state can bomb Tamil
civilians from 15,000 feet and if the so called "International Community"
chooses to ignore it..., then can you blame the LTTE for sending a dedicated
cadre to immolate himself in order to inflict damage on the brutal enemy. This
act seeks to take the fight to the enemies' territory as well as get the
"International Community's" attention to the
SL Government's atrocities.
I do not know
who killed Rajiv Gandhi, but let me tell you, he is one of a handful of men
in the history of the world who
turned his guns unscrupulously on the very same people
he ostensibly went to save...
If what you say is true, about the International scale of the LTTE's influence
and exploitation of the latest developments in Information Technology, satellite
communications, procurement of arms, shipping, propaganda etc, then would you
not accept that the LTTE is being run effectively like a multinational company
from the jungles of Wanni? If that is so, and given the massive Tamil support
for them, do you not think that the LTTE should be given the opportunity to run
EELAM for the Tamils? ...
 We,
the Tamils are suffering today, not ONLY because of
the heinous deeds of the Sinhalese but also
due to the appalling silence and hypocrisy of the 'international community'.
Pogroms against unarmed Tamils by the Sinhalese
starting from 1958 have been well documented and
recognised by all decent people.
I was only 11 years old and living in Colombo in 1958, when my
house was like a refugee camp, full of my relatives whose houses had been burnt
and looted by the Sinhala mob, aided and abetted by the Buddhist monks while the
so called "international community" stood-by watching.
Mr. Pirabaharan, our beloved leader, was only 4 years old then, and there
were no Tigers nor Leopards nor Panthers around to be blamed but
only Sinhala chauvinism... |
