"To us all towns are one, all men our kin. |
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Home > Tamil National Forum > Oru Paper Editorial > International Community's New Pastime TAMIL NATIONAL FORUM International Community's New Pastime Editorial, Oru Paper , 20 August 2007
Almost two years after His Highness Mahinda Rajapakse –President of the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL), Czar of Vakarai, Emperor of Thoppigala, democratiser of the Tamils, etc., etc. – launched his "War for Peace", the International Community (IC) has a new pastime. A 'positive and frank' discussion with the GOSL they say. And this discussion is all about 'access to humanitarian work'. In the mean time the GOSL is carrying on with its murderous war augmented by policies of divide and rule. It has been using international aid money to train and arm its murderous armed forces and the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission is blamed for the murders of aid workers. While the opposition parties in Colombo claim that the war has not been executed at full throttle, they claim that they can engineer Tamil divisions much better than the GOSL etc. Unbelievable you may say. Tamils have been informing the IC about their demand for equal rights and the violent replies they have been getting from the GOSL for many decades. After all these efforts, in 2007, their right to self determination has been reduced to their right to aid and charity by the IC. What is appalling about these `positive and frank' discussions is that just as the Tamils are as far as ever from having a peaceful resolution to their demand of self determination the IC and the GOSL are indulging in a fantasy. In this necrophilic fantasy, Tamils have a safe and secure peace and the next step is the development of their economic and civic well being by giving them aid. Is the IC totally blind you may ask. Indeed, when the GOSL wants to destroy the Tamil nation, it tries its best to make the IC blind first. Obviously, there is no peace in Tamil Northeast, and there may never be one within the next few years. The Tamil North is like prison cell: a hermetically sealed cage, populated by refugees; with no control over their own affairs; political, economic or cultural. Not to mention the chronic shortage of water, food, electricity, gasoline, and medicines. All strictly controlled by the armed forces of GOSL. And as for the Tamil East, it is enough to look at its recent map prepared by the UN to understand why no peace can emerge there: notice how this region has been chopped into numerous tiny cages for humans, separated by Sinhalese settlements and GOSL Army fences, roadblocks, and checkpoints.
Cages for non-Sinhalese humans only, mind you; Sinhalese move around freely in their (whose?) land. The Colombo media once again celebrates peace in the Tamil East. Mr Rajapakse is extremely serious, Colombo analysts say. Some suggest he is now strong enough to make peace, others claim he is so weak that peace is his only survival strategy. Who cares why, as long as Mr Rajapakse is portrayed as a man of peace, his spin doctors think. Thus they invited just another IC high flyer, Sir John Holmes to Sri Lanka. Sir John Holmes is a veteran British diplomat. He studied at the same Oxford College as the late Mr Kadirgama(r), the ex-foreign minister of the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) and the greatest of all anti-Tamil spin doctors. In January 2007, Sir John Holmes was appointed Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Thus Sir Holmes is the best agent of the IC to see the ground breaking peace efforts of Mr Rajapakse his spin doctors must have thought. Mr Holmes visited Sri Lanka last week and it was intended as a familiarization visit. Just before he left, he said that Sri Lanka had one of the worst records in the world for humanitarian aid worker safety. He further said that he had his 'positive and frank' discussions with GOSL officials, and had been reassured that this would be looked into. He called on the GOSL and the Tamil Tigers to ensure aid workers have access to the needy. And that was it. Never mind the fact that the Tamil Northeast has been isolated and strangulated by GOSL for more than three decades because the occupants arrogantly demanded equal rights. Never mind that thousands of innocent Tamils have been killed since 1956 in the name of democracy and sovereignty. Never mind hundreds of Tamils have disappeared in the name of national security. Never mind the generations of Tamils who do not know anything other than war, malnutrition, poverty, disease and a slow and painful death because they decided to cling on to their own land. This pre-eminent UN diplomat did not utter a word about any of these. But still, at a press conference this week the Chief Whip of GOSL Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, who is also the Sri Lanka's highways minister, said he believed Sir Holmes had taken a bribe from the Tamil Tigers and had deliberately tried to harm Sri Lanka's reputation.
A recurrent theme in pro GOSL propaganda is "you are a terrorist if you blame us." This is based on the fact that GOSL is democratically elected and it is governing a sovereign nation state. Thus GOSL should be allowed to kill its own citizens or violate any human rights norms if it so fancied. Since it is fighting a 'war against terrorism' just like the star players of the international community, thus GOSL should not be criticised. Not now, at least: perhaps after the 'Tamil problem' has been eradicated. While Sir Holmes and Mr Fernandopulle have been bickering over diplomatic semantics (or the lack of it) the Tamil Northeast has been under Sri Lankan Military siege for months. The numbers of dead have reached historic levels; more than half a million people have been locked in the tiny Jaffna peninsula, deprived of proper medical care and food, standing on the verge of starvation. Sir Holmes did not even mention this evil or any of the other countless atrocities inflicted on the Tamils at the hands of GOSL. And yet this poor pre-eminent humanitarian has been branded as a corrupt white English terrorist by the GOSL. |
