Ira de Silva London, Ontario, Canada

Many articles have been written regarding the report from the U.N. claiming failure in Sri Lanka during the last stages of the war against the Tamil terrorists in May 2009. This implies that the U.N. considers itself “successful” in the almost thirty years that the Tamil terrorists waged war on the people of Sri Lanka and failed only in 2009.

Let us examine what this success was. These are some of the highlights. When there were massacres of civilians to ethnically cleanse areas the Tamil terrorists wanted to claim as their ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-homelandƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚, thousands of Muslims and Sinhalese were evicted from their homes, those who did not leave were murdered. The U.N. was silent. That was success. When children were conscripted as soldiers, suicide bombings were the order of the day, thousands were massacred, bombs exploded anywhere and everywhere in Sri Lanka, the U.N. did nothing ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” these are some of examples of their great success. Western media while reporting all these atrocities adopted the attitude that because of theseƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-successesƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ of the Tamil terrorists, Tamils who killed in Sri Lanka and sought asylum in the west were ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-genuineƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ refugees. The victims of terrorism were not given carte blanche refugee status. Another “success” but only for the terrorists,and their western backers and for the U.N.

Let us consider the last years of the war over which the U.N. and the western media is crying over. When the LTTE decided to evict the Tamils in the area they controlled in February 2007 and drive them out of their homes to use as a human shield, what did the U.N. do ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” nothing. When the LTTE detained two local Tamil employees of the U.N. as early as March 2007 for helping civilians to escape the war zone, the U.N. did not inform the Sri Lankan Government of their detention, instead they had clandestine talks with the LTTE to try secure their release. Even though the Norway led monitoring mission and the International Red Cross were operating in the area and must have known of these detentions, who gets the blame ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” the Sri Lankan government. The fact is that none of those now commenting on PetrieƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s report bothered to condemn the LTTE for abducting UN workers. That is the measure of the success of the U.N. and all those western countries who did nothing to prevent the funding of LTTE by their citizens and provided political support to the LTTE to terrorise Sri Lankans just so they could get a few hundred Tamil votes. The fact that 20 million people were suffering because of their actions was considered “success”.

One final question to all those wanting to indict Sri Lanka for getting rid of the leadership of the most brutal terrorist regime is, since these various reports hold both the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government responsible for the deaths during the war, when are they going to list the leaders of the LTTE who remain safely in Sri Lanka and in the west leading the campaign against Sri Lanka and bring war crimes investigations against them? Should they not be named and held responsible when the U.N. and other western countries throughout thirty years consistently tried to give the LTTE equal status with the elected government of Sri Lanka? What is really exposed is not only the dismal failure of the U.N. but the bias and constant double standard applied to Sri Lanka.

Yours truly,

Ira de Silva

London, Ontario