What are Those Legitimate Grievances of Tamil People?

by RS Kathir, December 11, 2007

In response to Cholan’s series on “We Send Them the Money”, a Mr. Neville wrote to the discussion group at the Sangam website:

“Is there any truth in this comment? What are those legitimate grievances of Tamil people? Tamil people can live anywhere in Sri Lanka. Most of the businesses in Colombo [are] done by Tamil people. They are in the Govt. They are everywhere. We Sinhala people cannot go to Jaffna. We cannot buy land in the North. It is not the Tamils but the Sinhalese being discriminated in our own land.”

Neville is absolutely right. I, too, cannot understand why so many Tamils live in the south, owning all the businesses, depriving the Sinhala people of their livelihoods. It is so safe for them in their homelands.

These rumors about 4-5 people being killed every day in the northeast is a lie. There are no disappearances. It is a big international conspiracy, hatched by organizations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, etc. to tarnish the good image of Sri Lanka. Thank god, the international community doesn’t believe this lie. Have you heard America or Europe or Australia or India say anything about these so-called killings?

You see, Sri Lanka is Buddhist country, and the Sinhala people believe in Ahimsa. They don’t harm anybody, for that matter, not even the animals. What is this nonsense about Tamil people being killed in the northeast?

The poor Sinhala people cannot even go to Jaffna. The forty thousand Sri Lankan soldiers in Jaffna are all Tamils. Would they kill their own people?

Neville is right. The Sinhala people can’t even buy land in the north, because Tamil people can’t sell it to them if another person from the north offers to buy it. That stupid Thesavalamai law. You know what, there are thousands of good Tamil people, and they got around this problem by giving their houses and lands away FREE to the Sri Lankan army, for the high security zones.

The Sri Lankan army is there only to fight the terrorists, who are terrorizing the Tamil people. The Sri Lanka government is spending so much money to save the Tamil people from these damn terrorists, and this is the thanks they get from these ungrateful Tamil people.

Even when the SL Air Force attacks the terrorist hideouts, they use laser-guided precision bombs, targeting only the terrorists. When they bomb schools and houses, they do it only when they know for sure that there are no civilians in those buildings. The children who get killed are all child-soldiers.

For the love of god, I don’t understand why the Tamils don’t like to live in the northeast. There is so much economic prosperity there. I think the Tamil people should let the Sinhalese come there and share in the prosperity of the northeast.

 “What are those legitimate grievances of Tamil people,” Neville wants to know. I agree. Please tell me what they are. You see, the Tamil people are in the government, even holding cabinet positions. The government chose only those people who got elected by the Tamil people with the largest number of votes, making sure that they have the utmost confidence of the Tamil people. Actually, the government didn’t choose them; the Tamil people have so much political power they elected them directly to the cabinet.

The honorable Douglas Devananda got 3.5 million votes in the last election. That is the total number of Tamils in Sri Lanka, and everyone voted for him. That is why he is in the cabinet. That Ananda Sangaree lost his deposit at the last election is a big lie – the Tigers actually stole the deposit money.

The TNA is a bunch of crooks. They didn’t even get 10 votes each, and I don’t know how they got into the parliament. Must be through the back-door, or something like that!

Tell me what are those legitimate grievances? The GoSL spends disproportionately large sums of money in the northeast and deprives the south of their share. The hospitals in the northeast are fully equipped, schools are well run, roads are well paved and there is plenty of food. In spite of the terrorists not allowing food and medicine to be transported by road, the GoSL sends shiploads of these every single day.

Can’t these Tamil people show a little gratitude for what the Sinhala people are doing for them?