Wick Gankanda Los Angeles, California, USA

May 21, 2009

To: Mr. Russ Stanton
Editor
Los Angeles Times
202 W. 1st St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Dear Mr. Stanton,

Let me begin by commending the editorial in the Los Angeles Times on May 19, 2009 for listing just some of the many atrocities committed by the Tamil Tiger Terrorists. I prefer to call them terrorists instead of the cozy term ‘rebel’ because the Tigers earned it. I found many glaring errors and misleading statements in your editorial that will give any reader a dangerously false picture of a very complex situation. Therefore lets us address those statements to clarify them, hoping to enlighten you and your readers.

The LTTE Terrorists are the most ruthless, and globally financed and supported terrorist enterprise in the world according to the FBI. With the LTTE, terror became a big and profitable business not only for Tiger Terrorists, but also for Western politicians, human rights groups, some inside the UN and even foreign journalists. Their tentacles reach some of the highest levels of governments all over the world including the U.S., Britain, France, India, Sweden, Canada and Norway.

Let us now discuss the “crushing military offensive that the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa executed over international appeals for a humanitarian cease-fire”. If you take the time to examine these international appeals and their true sources, you’ll notice one thing in common: that is a strong LTTE presence behind them! The Tiger Terrorists are wealthy and have members in strategic offices in high places around the world. Can you imagine what a terror war chest of 200 to 300 million U.S. dollars (according to Jane’s Defense Intelligence Review) can buy each year? Their plan was simple but conveniently ignored by the West. Let us now break it down to its components.

The Tigers took all civilians they could horde as hostages into an area that is dotted with terrorists and deadly terror hardware. They falsely claimed that these civilians wanted to die with them for a totally lost cause. Then they used the artillery setup right among the civilian population to fire at the military with absolutely no regard for human life. In such a brutal war, civilians die all the time, just as the Tiger Terrorists hoped, as we see in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is when the LTTE got lucky!

If the civilian casualties are not high enough, the LTTE killed their hostages batch by batch and got their captive doctors to make outrageous statements. Armed with this information and some doctored photographs, the LTTE used their global propaganda machine to feed the international community of “massive” civilians casualties. Their agents in the West did the rest and got international appeals for a cease-fire in the guise of a humanitarian cause. With shrinking territory and a dwindling supply of cadres and weapons, the LTTE was desperate.

If the international community did really care about humanitarian situation, why would they arm and let the LTTE Terrorists thrive for the last 30 years? The same concerned parties did nothing significant to disarm, eliminate the Tiger Terrorists or even force them to let the civilians leave even when they knew that the Tiger Terrorists were killing innocents escaping they clutches every day. Hope you see the disingenuous motives behind these calls for humanitarian cease-fires. It is noble to save innocent lives. But it is disgusting to save terrorists in the pretext of saving innocent lives. That’s what the international appeals for a humanitarian cease-fire was all about! The Rajapaksa administration in Sri Lanka saw right through the smoke-and-mirrors. Do you?

The final result was that the Army rescued all the hostages without any cease-fires.

Now let’s talk about the tactics used by the Sri Lankan government to defeat the Tamil Tiger Terrorists. The divide-and-conquer tactic you mentioned came from the best: the British! As you know the British are the masters of this strategy. They used it during the colonial times and are using it right now to gain from Tamil militants in the UK by pitting the Tamils against Sri Lanka. Rightfully, President Rajapaksa reached out to nations who were genuinely interested in a stable Sri Lanka. Let us take a moment to thank these noble countries for their generous support to defeat the world most brutal terrorist organization. Notice that Britain and U.S., once attacked by terrorists who are now killing many in Iraq and Afghanistan in the name of war-on-terror are not on that list.

Thanks to the Defence Secretary and the Commander of the Sri Lanka Army, the military offensive was conducted in the most professional manner with very high regard for civilian life. Can other nations claim the same standards? Did you hear about probe into the killing of 30 Afghan civilians after U.S. forces said it dropped two 2,000-pound bombs on May 20, 2009? Did you read the Amnesty International report on killing of civilians in Iraq by British armed forces? No mention of war crimes there. Why not?

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka also had to deal with the LTTE inside the United Nations that tried to halt military operations against the terrorists. Many in the UN fell for the false casualties generated by the Tiger Terrorist Website Tamilnet. Even the Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Rosemary DiCarlo misled by the LTTE fraud made some absurd statements against Sri Lanka. No action is been taken to investigate these fraudulent conduct.

The pessimistic view taken by the editorial “ending a war is one thing, and ensuring peace is quite another” is exactly what the bitter LTTE wants to spread now that it has lost on the military front. Since Sri Lanka proved many to be wrong on military side of the issue, we believe that it will once again prove the world wrong and find its own solutions without international meddling.

Then the editorial goes onto quote one of the biggest propaganda lies of the Tamil Tiger Terrorists “Tamil minority’s struggle for independence began in response to their marginalization by the Sinhalese majority”. Your colleague Mark Magnier contradicts you on LA Times on May 20th saying that “the British employed the Tamils as administrators over the majority, a long-standing injustice the Sinhalese felt able to reverse only after independence.”

During their campaign of murder, over 10,000 Sinhalese were killed by the Tamil Tiger Terrorists. Tamils live and work in peace in all parts of Sri Lanka. The majority of Tamils live among the Sinhalese and not in the Tamil dominated areas. They own over half of the businesses, run political parties and publish newspapers freely in Sri Lanka. On the other hand, only a Tamil can live in the North or North-East of the island. All other ethnic groups live in fear of death or were systematically murdered by LTTE Terrorists. This is a great example of ethnic cleansing. Will UK investigate that?

The civilians displaced by the fighting, their lands and homes in ruin are all thanks to this racist LTTE agenda. And contrary to what was said in your editorial, these people are well fed and cared for by many agencies including the Sri Lankan government. There is absolutely no motive for the Sri Lanka government to persecute these people after saving them from tyranny, as you state. The well-being of Tamils is essential to everything and nobody understands it better than the current administration in Sri Lanka. In fact it was the Tamil Tiger Terrorists and their international supporters who took revenge on these poor Tamil people for the past 25 years by destroying their lives in every possible manner.

Hope you realize that restrictions are placed on journalists to battle zones all the time and it is up to the Sri Lankan government to decide what is best for the military offensive and the nation. We cannot expect the power-hungry politicians and headline-seeking reporters to understand that. Even with these so-called restrictions, you don’t see any shortage of shocking news in the media including false news, do you? That is because with or without restrictions to the battle zone, many media outlets got on the LTTE propaganda bandwagon and had a ride of their lives! That includes false information about government shelling of hospitals that led to media frenzy by the LTTE’s European and U.S. allies. Hope you can see the wisdom of the Sri Lankan government: regardless of the presence of anyone in battle zones, vultures find their prey. So why not put the security and welfare of the country first? And the result is: LTTE Terrorists gone and no more killing!!!

The Obama administration and the European Union had been stalling on the $2-billion International Monetary Fund loan to the Sri Lankan government because of intense pressure by LTTE front organizations in the U.S. and Europe. Individuals of these Tamil Tiger fronts have been pressuring President Obama and meeting frequently with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that resulted in her comments attacking Sri Lanka. That is also why the U.S. and Europe are unable to congratulate Sri Lanka on her historic victory. On the other hand, if these concerned parties were truly interested in the humanitarian situation, they should speed-up the IMF loan to rebuild the war zones and give massive humanitarian aid to Sri Lanka that will result in better prospects and living conditions for all. What the world needs to do now is to meticulously investigate those who backed the LTTE internationally for the last 25 years and prosecute them for the carnage and war crimes against Sri Lanka.

Looking behind the curtain, it is the LTTE Terrorists who stands to gain from blocked IMF loans, false war crime charges, bogus cease-fires, non-existing civilians casualties, unfounded allegations of so-called “failure to protect Tamils” and “more fighting in short order”. In summary, it should be obvious to all that after loosing the military battle, the sour Tamil Tiger Terrorists are thirsty for retribution and wants the people of Sri Lanka persecuted in every possible manner, which was the ideology of the war criminal Prabhakaran. That’s why we see its global proxies working intensely out there.

Wick Gankanda

Los Angeles, California, USA