“Let our people remain in our homeland”

Protest in London

The obviously organised demonstrations carried out in London, Norway, Paris and Sydney by the Tamil diaspora is somewhat disheartening and guile. You see placards of “Let our people remain in our homeland” and yet they seem oblivious to the fact that the people trapped in the war stricken pocket of land are in their homeland as hostages or as shrapnel sponges of the LTTE leadership. What seem to be dished out is their anger that the “homeland” they sponsored all this time was only an illusion as most of the money seem to have gone into killing machines of all sorts. These guns that they so funded are today used to shoot down any relative of theirs who try to escape the clutches of the LTTE. So how can these people cry for the dead and wounded when they have no idea of the suffering of the people still trapped in war stricken areas. There is no visible evidence of a homeland that the LTTE has built for these people what is evident is that these innocent civilians has become a mere human blanket for the egotist terrorist leader to hide in.

These diaspora seem not to realise that the flag they so proudly raise advocates terror. This flag depicts guns and bullets and the diaspora is willing to stand by and support terror while their relatives, friends and fellow citizens are dying every single day. They do not shout to help the people displaced or the people who are held against their will by the LTTE. The diaspora shouts to save their leader! They have definitely shown the will power to stand behind a megalomaniac leader and not their own people. It is easy to do that when they are in their own comfort zone while the fellow citizens in Wanni struggle to survive.

Protest in Sydney

It is a disgrace to quote from the nonviolent move of Gandhi when they are holding placards of a egotist with a revolver in his belt and a cyanide capsule hanging from his neck. Where is the non-violence in the flags and placards they are waving? When did glorifying a leader who preaches and advocates violence justified non-violent? The Tamil diaspora needs to evaluate their decision to support war from their comfortable adopted countries as opposed to extending a helping hand to the civilians who are at the receiving end of this war in Sri Lanka. It is high time they stopped this nonsensical rantings and got their act together to pressure the LTTE to release these civilians.

Why can not the diaspora organise means to help the people who have escaped the clutches of these terrorists? Rather than waving a flag that depicts weapons which can kill people why not wave a flag of hope and extend a hand to their fellow citizens in need at this timely hour. The people already displaced in their own homeland does not have the money to organise massive rallies around the globe to ask for assistance. The diaspora should consider taking a step back to open their eyes and ears to see and listen to the pleas of their brothers and sisters in the Wanni and lend a hand to help them live. At least that is what the people in the “homeland” we call Sri Lanka are trying to do at the moment.

For more information see here and here. There is also a “Ne Gam Yame Viyapruthiya” or visiting relatives for the Sinhala and Tamil New Year which is aimed at providing necessary items to the displaced in Wanni. The Colombo collection point for Ne Gam Yaame Viyapruthiya in Colombo is the Shanti Foundation on Buller’s Road (near Kanatte junction). Contact 071-377-7666 for more info.

Just pondering…

In the recent post titled “Will Tamils and Sinhalese “never lose an opportunity to lose an opportunity?”" in Transcurrents, Dr Dayan Jayatielleka summed up his article in this manner:

“To sum up then: On the part of the Tamils, the choice is whether they opt for a moderate leadership which the Sinhalese will be willing to share power with, on a basis that the Sinhalese are willing to accept, or whether they wish to live in permamnt confrontation by choosing a leadership whose immoderate demands will be unacceptable to the Sinhala majority.”

If Dayan is referring to the current leadership in Sri Lanka to be the “moderate”leadership to govern this country in a post-war scenario, I wonder if we will have the backing of a majority of Tamils let alone the “moderate” Sri Lankans (Note In the use of “Sri Lankans” here I refer to the rest of the population in Sri Lanka eg Sinhala, Muslim etc). Although we do agree that the initiative to stop this war instead of milking it is one of the greatest deeds of this government simultaneously we need to observe the rest of its character record as well. The government propaganda spells out nationalism without doubt. The killing of prominent media personnel, mysterious disappearances and abductions of numerous other journalists and the iron hand over the rights of not of just those trapped in IDP camps but also of the general population who are frankly in my humble opinion brainwashed by the government propaganda. This is why people end up dumping media reports like the recent SBS report “Hunting the Tigers” as pro-LTTE. Frankly the reaction of the Defence Secretary in this clip is very disturbing. It leaves us to the conclusion that he is taking the business of securing the country to a personal level!

Then there is the question of whether the Tamil people who are being harassed daily on the streets as well as in the IDP camps and war stricken areas would be able to work or live freely under this sort of government attitude, where imho all Tamils are seen as LTTE? Of course there needs to be a compromise between the Sinhalese and the Tamils but for it to happen we need to first give reassurance to the Tamil people that the Sinhalese are willing to go one step further and drop the nationalist agenda as should the Tamils who need to stop feeding terrorist leadership like that of Prabhakaran and realise that there is a possibility of finding a solution without killing lives of innocent Tamils and Sinhalese. It all comes down to an issue of trust and good leadership.

This is where we get disappointed by the likes of Dayan and Rajiva who are two great intellectuals with the capability of opening avenues to enlighten and inform the Sri Lankan expatriates, specifically the Tamil diaspora that are being misled by LTTE propaganda. We need good leaders to close the gap between the Tamil-Sinhala divide not those who further separate it.

What more do you need?

Today I address the diaspora in these articles:
Excerpt: More than 25,000 Tamils, especially youth, across the Europe took to the streets of Brussels on Monday demanding EU to de-proscribe the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam, to exert pressure on the Sri Lankan government to allow medicine and food to the civilians besieged by its military in all fronts and to demand the Sri Lankan military to pull out from the Tamil homeland.
40,000 Tamils stage protests in front of EU, UN in Europe

Protesters in Brussells

Rally in New York urges UN, US to intervene to stop genocide

Rally in New York

Excerpt: More than 200 expatriate Tamils protested in front of the Office of the United States Mission to the United Nations Monday, urging the United States and United Nations stop Sri Lanka military from firing into the ‘safe zone’ on the Tamil civilians. Demonstrators shouted slogans calling upon US Ambassador to the United Nations, Dr. Susan Rice, to ensure that refugees fleeing the war zone are given shelter and basic facilities, and not confined to internment camps without any freedom to lead a normal life.

Tamils jam Toronto, demand Sri Lanka to stop genocide

Protesters in Toronto

Excerpt: More than 100,000 expatriate Tamils crowded downtown Toronto between 1:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. Monday to raise the plight of the more than 250,000 Tamil civilians trapped in the war in Vanni, and subjected to continuous artillery attacks and aerial bombardment by Sri Lanka military.

My question to the ranting diaspora on the streets of Toronto, Brussels and New York is why would you want to help save Prabhakaran and not the fellow Tamil citizens who are living in IDP camps and those that are being used as shrapnel guards for the LTTE!?! They keep on shouting genocide and to recognise Tamil Eelam from their safe havens in the European countries whereas the Tamil citizens being imprisoned by their so-called liberators in Sri Lanka are going through unspeakable atrocities as we speak at the hands of the LTTE.  Have we seen even a single one of these diaspora willing to help these fellow citizens? Have they tried to reach out to those that escaped the clutches of LTTE? What is visible is their selfish demand for a Tamil Eelam on the expense of the poor souls who are left in the Wanni and the war stricken areas.

The diaspora need to clarify facts from fiction. If they have stepped in to the country at least once after leaving it some twenty years ago they would realise what is going on. This is where I think the government needs to act wisely. If we are to enlighten not only the diaspora but also the international community of the plight of the war stricken civilians the government needs to open up the doors to an independent media. It needs to create a media space for the benefit of all instead of the false propaganda stations they allow at the moment. People need to realise that not only are brave soldiers sacrificing their lives for the betterment of ours but the government is doing an injustice to their slain lives by blindfolding the general population. Certain government top guns have taken matters to their own hands and personalised this war which is quite evident by the out lash in the recent SBS video documentary “Hunting the Tigers”.The extent of the government propaganda stunt is quite visible in most of the comments left on this article by fellow Sri Lankans. Emulating the Bush propaganda the current government propaganda screams “either you are with us or against us” in all it’s media rantings creating a “good vs evil” scenario. This is reason enough for people to see even SBS as a pro-LTTE site, and who knows people who are brave enough to read this article to the end might be thinking that I am pro-LTTE as well just because I love my country and want to be able to point out the wrongs from the rights and make the government who ever and which ever is in power a better one at providing guidance to the betterment of the country.

Unfortunately for most of the people in Sri Lanka they have no freedom to express their views in the current situation. Everyone is talking about the human rights of the people indisplaced by or in the midst of the conflict. This has quite ironically shrouded the fact that the state of human rights in the whole country is appalling. Abductions, killings, threats and misery lies at all corners aiming people in the media to ordinary dwellers and bloggers. What more do you need to understand that the government needs to pave way for an independent source of information not only to educate the diaspora but also the international community. By restricting this the government is backing in to a corner which ends in totalitarianism.

We are all patriots and as Mark Twain once said “Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.” True we salute the government for its efforts to stop the war but that does not mean that the all that the government does in the pretext of war is justified. Think my fellow Sri Lankan citizens what more do you need?