As It Happens...
by Chandi Sinnathurai
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In fact, only yesterday I put the phone down with utter frustration when I heard from a man in Batticaloa that Karuna is opening political offices in the Batticaloa district with the help of the State Forces. People of the East are scared stiff!
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Since the Geneva talks much has been written; many suggestions and alternative opinions have been put forward. I’ve yet to have my dim view about the talks changed. Call me a stubborn old man! One strains to understand in what way these talks are a “Diplomatic victory.”
There is no change of opinion in the West regarding the Tamil Tigers. The quisling parasites have not been disarmed. Abductions; involuntary disappearances; killings; extortions; gun-point coercions; underage conscriptions; to name but a few, are continuing under the very noses of the SL Security Forces. In fact, only yesterday I put the phone down with utter frustration when I heard from a man in Batticaloa that Karuna is opening political offices in the Batticaloa district with the help of the State Forces. People of the East are scared stiff!
A Jesuit Priest told me that when Karuna was a Tiger Colonel he was so disliked by people because, more than anything, he was a ruthless extortionist. His apparent “return” leaves the people with bad taste in their mouth.
One finds it hard to believe the gullibility and guile of the Western mainstream Media! They seem to love to hate the Tamil resistance movement. All that they are trying to do is to make a subtle divide between a Tiger and a Tamil. I wrote some while ago that the Peace Talks would be employed to divert attention from the core issue and to divide Diaspora opinion.
The rationale is simple. Tamils want to be liberated from the clutches of the Sinhala state. The Tamil Tigers are the ONLY credible movement that is fighting to restore their rights. Dividing Tigers from a Tamil is like splitting an atom. As for the Sinhala mindset, whether one likes it or not; whether one is from the East or the North; every Tamil is a Tiger. For Colombo, stooges like Douglas and Karuna are like paper napkins.
The West, especially the US, is waxing eloquent about human rights issues. One remembers the words of the Lord Jesus: First shift the beam (or plank) that is blocking your own eye before you clean the dust in another person’s eyelashes! The West refuses to “see” the Sri Lankan crisis as blatant racism. Why? With all the talk of democracy and human rights, the West has a racially stratified society. One Canadian academic brilliantly put it as “Multi-layered Pigmentocracy.”
The Tamil national question is much bigger than a mere minority grunt. It is about the thralldom of Tamils under a half-century of blatant racist apartheid and internal colonialism! The Peace Talkers must persuasively make the West understand the reasoning behind the Tamil armed resistance rather than giving lame excuses in apologetic tones!
“Freedom is not asked or begged for, it is won; and rights are not handed out anywhere, rights are fought for and belong to all. If we go on asking for our rights, we will DIE waiting because we will have lost them.” (Jorquera 1998)
The people of the NorthEast are living under a de facto state of war. There are covert tactical manoeuvrings which are essentially anti-Tamil and are currently in an over-drive operation. Below we mention for your reflection just three tactics:
Political
Karuna and Douglas (and other hangers on) are empowered by the State to pull rabbits out of hats in terms of North East politics. These men making any impact on the Tamil National consciousness is a red-herring. Only time will prove what a hopeless pursuit this is! Political in terms of international affairs there is, of course, diplomatic pressure - or call it a charm offensive - brought to bear in the corridors of Western Capitals. One such stunt was the recent extortion media-blitz. The PR people tell me that negative advertising more often than not, sooner or later, backfires negatively. One hopes that’ll take care of itself!
Diplomacy
There are behind-the-curtains “diplomatic talks” taking place, one overhears, about the so-called "illegal Tamil illegal immigration.” Some small-minded Tamils are part and parcel of this coercive campaign! It is interesting that, to the racist Sinhala, every Tamil is a “Kalla Thoni.” The official line to the West from Colombo is, "Send the Tamils who are refugees or asylum seekers back to their motherland. They are safe and have nothing to fear in Sri Lanka." I’m sure that will be music to many Western ears (talking of Pigmentocracy!).
There is another sinister twist to this tactic in the West. That is to marry the Tigers to the so-called human trafficking and other shady deals. Arresting and detaining “Tiger activists,” if possible without trial under the PTA could be part of the package as well!
In short, all these operations are to frighten, intimidate, cripple and gag Tiger sympathy in the Western world – Tamils who support such a stand might be handsomely rewarded (even a quick permanent residency?). Betraying your own kind requires no backbone.
“Sanctions”
Finally, there is talk of economic sanctions. The phrase reveals Colombo’s desperation and its moral depravity. These sanctions come in the form of destruction of soil and vegetation. A bio/eco-terror shrouded in secrecy.
Say, for instance, on the one hand to infect the fertile soils of Vanni (and even the paddy fields of the East) with various fungal agents in efforts to infest fields of rice, onion, chillies, tobacco, etc; and to seriously hamper the economy of the agrarian society. Famine can bring out the worst in people! On the other hand, to hamper importation of food, textbooks, medication, etc; the litmus test of this exercise is to see: will such a disaster encourage emigration from Tamil Eelam [Vanni in particular] into Sri Lankan controlled territories, for Colombo to launch a humanitarian campaign in the glare of International media? The militaristic rationale is once the civilians are flushed out of Tamil territories…Your guess is good as mine.
Why do I smell a star-spangled rat in this obnoxious geopolitics?
It is hard to imagine that such a covert war will be won when the Tamil Eelam Agricultural Dept will have acted decisively by putting in place stringent security systems, especially on imports of agricultural goods.
While these underhanded “kiss and tell” sheenanigans are taking place, the Tamils must ask the question:
What is the central plank of the Western Foreign Policy that has a fatal attraction towards the Sri Lankan genocidal intent against a wounded Tamil Nation?”
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