Justice, Equality and Fairness are the Steps to Surmount a Freedom Struggle

by M.R. Wilson

Democratic aspirations of the suppressed are taken for a ride by nations with vested interest, resulting in wanton destructions and devastation.  

1. In Sri Lanka, racism and religious fanaticism are legalized by the Constitution formulated by the majoritarian, chauvinistic Buddhist Singhalese. Consequentially, only a Buddhist Singhalese can be ruler, Buddhism is the State religion, Singhalese is the official language, Buddha statues can be erected at random anywhere in the island, colonization of Tamil areas by Singhalese can be done at State expense, a contrived standardization procedure to enter higher education could be enforced to benefit the Singhalese with the  suppression of Tamil children who thrive on education, and any of the past historical records, together with the archaeological evidences of the country can be tampered with through surreptitious interpolations to the advantage of the Singhalese community.
2. The Republican Singhalese Constitution of 1972 robbed the minorities of even the scanty safeguards against discrimination provided under Section 29 of the Soulbury Constitution introduced at independence in 1948.  
3. The incumbent President Mahinda Rajapakse, who believes in the supremacy of the Singhalese over the Tamil race, is a racist like Adolph Hitler who believed in the supremacy of the Aryan race over the Jews. Obsessed with jingoistic patriotism, he jettisoned all the aspirations of the Tamils for peace by prioritizing war and captured power in 2005, with his formula called “Mahinda Chinthanaya,” which emphasizes “no Norway, no federal constitution, no right to a homeland, no self-determination, no nationhood for Tamils, no PTOMS, no recognition as sole partner in negotiations and no Oslo as a venue for talks.” As a result, the implementation of the "Joint Mechanism" agreed between the parties to address the damage caused by the war and tsunami has been indefinitely postponed.  
4. The armed forces have crept into the Tamil territories, usurped control of certain areas legally owned by the Tamils where once peace and harmony prevailed and made a hellhole of it, whereby families in tens of thousands, inclusive of children, are displaced from their legally owned properties. During acts of racial genocide, innocent Tamil civilians in tens of thousands including even children, have been killed extrajudicially, while men, women, young and old together with children, are left maimed or mangled. And also, children are orphaned, men and women are widowed and Temples, Churches, Schools, refugee camps, business establishments and houses are demolished.  
5. The Sri Lankan regime, though it is not capable of waging a war at any time to overpower any country in this world, attempts with all its might to terrorize only the Tamil community within its country and concentrates more on reserving enormous funds in the budget for war and amassing sophisticated weaponry and armaments than on spearheading the peace process.  
6. Since independence in 1948, an orgy of war crimes and terrorism has been unleashed on the Tamils  regularly and racial violence against them erupted in the country repeatedly, especially in the years 1958, 1977 and during the ‘Black July” of 1983 in the Singhalese areas.  
7. Racial genocide perpetrated repeatedly against the Tamils by the Singhalese was the primary motivating factor since 1983 inducing the mass exodus of the Tamils from Sri Lanka in hundreds of thousands to form the Tamil diasporas in America, Canada, Scandinavian and Western European countries. This violence against body, livelihood and culture led the Tamil youngsters to take to arms. 
8. On a careful scrutiny of the chronological compilation of violations and crimes of both parties to-date as from 22/02/2002, it would reflect that any allegations levelled against the militants were all consequential, retaliatory or prevaricated. Any killing of armed forces during confrontations cannot be termed as terrorism.  
9. As there was Judas to Jesus Christ and Brutus to Julius Caesar, so there are betrayers among the Tamils. Subsequent to the enactment of the CFA, when it was in effect and force, people heaved a sigh of relief.  All of a sudden like a bolt from the blue, Karuna, one of the most trusted erstwhile confidants of the LTTE militants, to escape justice from the movement because of his alleged embezzlement of tens of millions of movement funds, murdering fellow cadres, sexual escapades and abuse of female cadres, slipped into the hands of the Singhalese armed forces with a pledge to damage the reputation of the LTTE by pursuing his vendetta against it until it is crushed. On his pledge he was spared and his surrender impelled the armed forces to sideline the peace process, break the truce that prevailed by virtue of the CFA and embark afresh on violent activities shattering the peaceful atmosphere that existed in the country.  
10. Nowadays, the Tamil community in Sri Lanka is obsessed with a fear psychosis because of the dreadful terror that prevails among them by the existence of SL Government-sponsored paramilitary groups comprising Tamil renegades. These undesirable elements, with the complicity of the Singhalese armed forces, go on a killing spree when they come across any Tamil who exhibits his/or her aspirations for equal rights or does not submit to their extortions of money. Further, they stray into the territories where women are found and force them into sexual relations under coercion. Furthermore, they indulge in abduction or killing of prominent, erudite and intellectual personnel among Tamils to subdue them and suppress their aspirations. Moreover, these elements have not released yet the humanitarian aid personnel of TRO whom they abducted nearly five months ago and their fate is still not knownl.  
11. Sponsored by and in connivance with the international and regional superpowers with their own vested interests, the Sri Lankan regime, which entice Tamil renegades into their paramilitary groups with fat remuneration and perquisites to disintegrate the infrastructure of the LTTE, is steering firmly towards full - scale war. Any ban or restriction on the LTTE or irrelevant and counter-productive rhetoric levelling untenable, ill-conceived, vicious slander against the Tamils who struggle for their basic rights would only encourage the hawkish hard-line and ruthless policies of the Singhalese regime against the Tamils in the country.  
12. The Sri Lankan regime, instead of undertaking peace talks from where they was interrupted in strict adherence to the conditions stipulated therein in the Cease Fire Agreement signed on 02/02/2002, resorts to a subtle move of degrading strategy to exterminate the Tamils gradually, but steadily and to diffuse their demand for equal rights.  
13. Tamil civilians cannot be held collectively responsible or should not be subjected to three-prong combined attacks and atrocities in the Tamil territories by the armed forces anywhere at any time, for any attacks carried out by the Tamil militants on those armed forces. During the insurgencies of the Singhalese JVP extremists, the government’s forces never resorted to such tactics in the Singhalese areas, in consideration of the safety of the Singhalese civilians. There is no report of the LTTE killing any Singhalese civilians in their areas since the date the CFA was signed.
14. It has to be borne in mind that, the LTTE has confined itself only to the Tamil territories in Sri Lanka and targeted its attacks at any time only on Sri Lankan tyrannical security forces or their interests and not on any international entity or their interests.    
15. If the Tamils and the Singhalese cannot share together, the system should be changed, loosened up or broken off with a clean cut by separation as in the case of Singapore from Malaysia. A community with its own linguistic identity and identifiable homeland is free to determine its political status to live with equal rights with other communities and is entitled to pursue its economic, social and cultural development, besides establishing its self-autonomy and self-identity according to the United Nations' Charter.  
16. Eritrea declared its independence from Ethiopia on 24th May, 1993. The official date of international recognition of East Timor's independence from Indonesia is 20th May 2002. Even Montenegro (13,812 sq.km) has formally declared independence from its union with Serbia (88,362 sq.km) as from 4th of June, 2006.   We can have two States in Sri Lanka, which is approx. 65,610 sq.km. A few of the UN Member States actually smaller than either the future Singhalese Sri Lanka approx. 46,777 sq.km. or the Thamileelam approx. 18,833 sq.km (in order of Area) are as follows:  Fiji, Kuwait, Swaziland, East Timor, Vanuatu, Qatar, Gambia The, Jamaica, Lebanon, Cyprus, Brunei, Cape Verde, Luxembourg, Comoros, Mauritius, Singapore and so on.

"The world is a dangerous place not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing about it." - Albert Einstein

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