A Reply to Amb. Goonetilleke

by Wakeley Paul

Ambassador Goonetilleke's statements to the Washington diplomatic corps (Sunday Leader, January 7, 2007) represent the failed attitudes of this government which are both inconsistent and illogical. While with one breath Goonetilleke claims that peace cannot be possible by waging war, he goes on to say that the object of the government is "in the interest of the Tamil people to free them from the 'clutches' of the LTTE, adding that the government is working to erode the LTTE power base.

Who does Goonetilleke think the peace negotiations are with? If you eliminate the LTTE, the negotiations fall apart and war becomes inevitable. How illogical and disconnected with the realities that exist can he be?

Goonetilleke goes on to state that the Tamils, with 4% of the total population, are claiming 1/3 of the land space, forgetting that - despite the underhand Sinhalese effort to take over Tamil territory through what is appropriately called colonization - that this 30% is Tamil land to which the Sinhalese have no rights. Canada and Russia, with far smaller populations than than the U.S., have far greater territory than the United States.

Goonetilleke goes on to state that, in a today's world, you cannot have separate states being created on the basis of ethnicity or the tribal group you belong to. On what other basis does he concede "that the government has appointed a task force to give the Tamil people wide ability to self govern and establish a semi independent economy"?!

Goonetilleke then contradicts himself by stating that any change must be a democratic decision which the entire population must agree to. That is virtually telling the Tamils to forget any hope of any degree of devolution.

Goonetilleke begs the U.S. to increase their Tsunami aid to help the tourist industry, forgetting that his Supreme Court has ruled that giving Tsunami aid to the people of the North Eest, who were worst affected by this disaster, is unconstitutional.

Can anyone make this government sound any more insincere than it actually is?