INDICTMENT AGAINST SRI LANKA
Censorship, Disinformation & Murder of Journalists A Response to Dr.Peter Chalk
CSIS, P.O.Box 9732, Postal Station T
Ottawa, Ontario K1G 4G4, FAX: (613) 842-1312 Siva Muthulingasamy
London, 22 June 2000 ".... in most cases the media present news and events in a manner that not only agrees with the views of the powerful, but actually supports their domination.... the maintenance of order is the key idea to be examined in the media... in earlier times violence and the threat of physical force was used to maintain order. But today control is pursued through very different avenues; most effectively.... through cultural control, or controlling the common sense....Repeated representations of ideological domains continues to define or indicate culture, particularly for people who are heavily exposed to the media
media often interpret and synthesise images in accord with the assumptions of the dominant ideology..."(The Media, Framing, and the Internet - John Harrington) |
Dear Mr Chalk,
Re: Your article,
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's
International Organisation and Operations
- A Preliminary Analysis I read with utter disbelief your article branding the LTTE as a threat to the international community in Commentary #77. If you look at countries where Tamils are living, you can see how law abiding and productive we are to the host nation. We took to arms because the so-called "International Community" looked the other way when the Sinhala race went on a spate of government sponsored pogroms against the Tamils. The tea industry in Sri Lanka and the rubber industry in Malaya flourished and are still flourishing mainly because of the hard working Tamils who work in them...
 If the Sri Lankan state can bomb Tamil civilians from 15,000 feet and if the so called "International Community" chooses to ignore it..., then can you blame the LTTE for sending a dedicated cadre to immolate himself in order to inflict damage on the brutal enemy. This act seeks to take the fight to the enemies' territory as well as get the "International Community's" attention to the SL Government's atrocities.
I do not know who killed Rajiv Gandhi, but let me tell you, he is one of a handful of men in the history of the world who turned his guns unscrupulously on the very same people he ostensibly went to save...
If what you say is true, about the International scale of the LTTE's influence and exploitation of the latest developments in Information Technology, satellite communications, procurement of arms, shipping, propaganda etc, then would you not accept that the LTTE is being run effectively like a multinational company from the jungles of Wanni? If that is so, and given the massive Tamil support for them, do you not think that the LTTE should be given the opportunity to run EELAM for the Tamils? ...
 We, the Tamils are suffering today, not ONLY because of the heinous deeds of the Sinhalese but also due to the appalling silence and hypocrisy of the 'international community'. Pogroms against unarmed Tamils by the Sinhalese starting from 1958 have been well documented and recognised by all decent people. I was only 11 years old and living in Colombo in 1958, when my house was like a refugee camp, full of my relatives whose houses had been burnt and looted by the Sinhala mob, aided and abetted by the Buddhist monks while the so called "international community" stood-by watching. Mr. Pirabaharan, our beloved leader, was only 4 years old then, and there were no Tigers nor Leopards nor Panthers around to be blamed but only Sinhala chauvinism... |
