Asoka Weerasinghe. Kings Grove Crescent . Gloucester . Ontario . Canada

7 February 2014

Rathika Sitsabaiesan, MP., NDP Member for Scarborough-Rouge River, Ontario                                                                                                                                             House of Commons, Ottawa.

Dear Rathika:

I have just started to catch up with the Rathika’s Jaffna Gum Shoe Saga of your travels to Jaffna in the North of Sri Lanka.   What you had not acknowledged was that you were able to make that trip was purely due to the Sri Lankan Government’s soldiers having whipped the butts of the most ruthless terrorists in the world, your friends, the Tamil Tigers,  and eliminating them on the shores of the Nandikadal lagoon on 19 May 2009.  If they were still around, you wouldn’t have had a snowball chance in hell to visit Jaffna.  And that is a Fact and you know it.  So why not acknowledge this Fact and extend kudos to the Sri Lankan soldiers for giving you that opportunity?

Your tale of woe, although were partly unconvincing and naivet© for a Canadian parliamentarian, was an interesting story nevertheless!  I thought it was fit to be a script for a Spy Story that went Wrong.  But then studying what did go on with you in Sri Lanka, the heroine who decided to lie her way into a foreign country to continue with Sri Lanka bashing thuggish Canadian politics, we know what the conclusion of the story that you would  have liked  it to be.  But to arrive at your preferred thrilling end, your spy thriller was patchy in parts, it was weak, and it was pock-marked with glaring lies.  So, if I was the spy-story ghost-writer, I wouldn’t have wanted to waste my precious time trying a hand on it, as the plot of the story would have fallen flat on its face mid-way.

However, let me thank my God for bringing you home safely.  “Ram Ram Hari Ram…Ram Ram Hari Hari”                                                                

From what I gathered from the Toronto Star news item of January 16 filed by Alex Boutilier that you were scared being followed by Sri Lankan intelligence and immigration authorities on motorcycles.  Were you really?  Under my breath I said, “Poor thing….they shouldn’t have scared the jeepers out of you, which no doubt made you jump out of your underwear.”  You must have been shaking in fear of intimidation like leaves of that Jaffna mango tree in a blast of the North-west winds, that you played hop-scotch under when you were 4 years old.  I can’t imagine Sri Lankans could be that nasty to you.  Nasty-buggers, aren’t they?   I hope you won’t think of returning to Sri Lanka again on a tourist visa to continue with your Sri Lanka bashing boorish shenanigans, unless you sneak in wearing a Halloween costume.  Hopefully they may not recognize you to follow you again in motorcycles.

But please be sure that you don’t try entering the island in a Tiger Halloween costume as the Immigration people might lasso you and take you to the Colombo Zoo as a rare example of a Canadian Snow Tiger.  Don’t make that mistake.

I am curious.  How the heck did you all recognize motorcycle riders to be from Sri Lanka’s intelligence and immigration authorities?

You know what Rathika!  I am prepared to bet my last dollar that those motorcycle men may have got their commands wrong.  Do you think  that they should have been riding in front of your car escorting you flying Tamil Tiger flags with a banner saying, “Here comes the Tamil Tiger Queen of Canada’s Scarborough-Rouge River,  an Eelam supporter. Bow your heads when she passes by!”

Rathika, I want to share a true story with you which I experienced about 25 years ago.   Your story reminded me of that experience of mine.

I had a working colleague in the Public Service in Ottawa whom I supervised.  He was brilliant, an American, a Vietnam War dodger.  He was a natural scientist.  I recall giving him a reference where I said that he was a near-genius.  His partner was a concert violinist in Ottawa and she had two young autistic sons.  To help these two youngsters my friend started to do some research which involved the earth’s electro-magnetic field and the resonances of the music of the violin that Mum played.  He explained to me what he was trying to achieve, and I couldn’t understand.  It was beyond my comprehension.

On a Sunday, one warm summer’s day, about 25 years ago we all took off for a drive around Ontario’s wine country.  My friend was driving and I was sitting on the passenger seat. And we were driving along a country road and he sees a black car behind us from his rear view mirror.  He panics.  “Asoka, I am sorry I have to pull into the next side road, and let the CIA fellows pass by.  They have been following me for days now.    My research tampering with the earth’s electro-magnetic field is sensitive stuff and the Americans don’t like it.”

  So we pulled into a regional dirt side road and watched this black car speed along the country road.  No one in the car turned their heads to look at us.  We got back onto the country road.  After about five minutes driving the same thing happened again.  It was not red, blue or silver cars that scared him, it was the black cars, like you with the motorcycles that were following your hired car.

These repeated incidents, apparently black CIA cars following him and pulling into side roads to let them pass by got to his partner who eventually decided to leave him.  But not before she got him to see a Doctor, who found that he was suffering from Paranoid Psychosis.  An extreme fear and anxiety with delusion, when people become convinced that they were under attack or someone is out to get them.  A delusion of grandeur.  I would have kicked myself if I didn’t relate this story to you as your story had some similarities.   Perhaps, I may be way out and I may be wrong!  But yet, I thought you ought to know.

I was intrigued with your hoaxy story which happens to be part of your repertoire trying to nail the Sri Lankan army as suspect killers of innocent Tamil kids.  You keep uttering like a mantra that you wanted to see the house where you were nearly shot dead at when you were four years old.  I am stymied to understand your hoaxy fairy tale of this incident.  If your insinuation is that it was a Sri Lankan soldier who shot at you, then why on earth should he spend an expensive bullet to swat a fly when he really would have wanted to use it to pierce the heart of a Tiger carrying a Kalashnikov.  That mantra doesn’t sit quite well for you Rathika, and your credibility even as an “I gotch ya Sri Lanka” fairy tale storyteller is sliding down hill quite fast.

Would that flying bullet come out of a Tamil Tiger assault rifle?  I doubt it.  Why should a Tamil Tiger kill an innocent Tamil kid when they kidnapped over 5,700  Tamil kids to brainwash and train them as front line Baby brigade soldiers and the girls as suicide bombers.  As you know, over half of the 388 suicide bombings were conducted by young Tamil girls.   If I were you, I would drop that silly story from your Sri Lanka bashing boorish repertoire.  It only keeps adding to your resume of lies for your want of your mono-ethnic, racist, Tamil separate state Eelam for your Tamil tribe.  I have concluded that story of yours as nothing but hog-wash.  Nothing but stupid piffle.

Now to the two Rathika’s, the Jaffna Rathika and the Toronto Rathika.   They both have been telling conflicting stories about your visit to Jaffna.   What you have to decipher for us is which one of the Rathika’s is telling the truth.   Once that is established we can conclude that the other Rathika is an outright liar.

Tobi Cohen , the Postmedia politics reporter says on 16 November 2013 reporting from Ottawa: “NDP MP Rathika Sitsabaiesan says she got a little taste of what Tamils experience regularly during a holiday visit to her native Sri Lanka where she was followed, interrogate and nearly arrested.”  Come again Rathika, did that really happen?

Rathika, I am disappointed with Tobi Cohen for not asking you, “If these Tamils were returning for holidays to their native Sri Lanka where they said they ran away from being persecuted, surely if some or all of them were Convention refugees, how come they are returning to Sri Lanka for their holidays?  Doesn’t that give credence for me to say that they are really ‘ economic refugees’ and not ‘Convention refugees’ who took flight from their native Sri Lanka no sooner the flood gates of Canada were thrown  open  after July 1983, coming in search of greener pastures, bypassing their Mother country, Tamil Nadu where 71 million of your people live just 24 miles away from the Jaffna coast?”

Rathika, now comes the doozy. This was, reported by CBC News posted on December 31, 2013.  It said: “Scarborough-Rouge River MP Rathika Sitsabaiesan has issued a statement denying Sri Lanka media reports that she was under house arrest in her former country Sri Lanka, where she has been visiting  family.”

Hmm…what the heck is going on Rathika?, Which one of the Rathika’s should I believe? So what’s this entire well orchestrated hullabaloo all about?  Is this a stunt pummelling Sri Lanka to embarrass that sovereign nation and gain attention, for refusing to give you your Eelam?   However,  you seem to have  succeeded somewhat as your portrait was plastered on many Canadian national news papers.   The once “Rathika Who” now urns out to be “Oh that Tamil woman who was harassed by the Sri Lankan government!”  What a way to get publicity!  Humm…crafty and cunning, isn’t it!

To add to your suspect story of woes, the HUFF Post of February 7, 2014 posted an updated Canadian Press report of 1 January 2014 which said: “New Democratic MP Paul Dewar who has spoken to Sitsabaiesan, said Wednesday his caucus colleague had been followed and closely monitored by Sri Lankan authorities during her stay.  Her intention was to visit the country of her birth, and to visit friends and family.

“As soon as she arrived it became clear that the authorities were keeping a close tab on her. And she started to receive warnings that she should be careful of whom she speaks to, where she goes.

“This is a pattern we’ve seen with the Sri Lankan Government.”

What a nasty, and arrogant, lying spins.  Rathika, I always wondered what Paul puts in to his coffee the morning when he utters such bull about Sri Lanka.   “As soon as she arrived…” he said.  Tell him, that no one knew who you were, other than another Tamil woman, an economic-refugee-immigrant  coming back home from Canada.   Ask Paul to cut out that misplaced grandeur about you.  This is eventually going to bite at your persona as your compass needle is pointing that way.   Let’s cut out that crock full of cods-wallop.

So Paul says that you had gone to Sri Lanka to “visit friends and family.”  And you had defended yourself that all the meetings you had with the separatist Tamil politicians were your relations.   Hmmm….I just don’t believe you Rathika.   Perhaps you could prove your claim by publishing your Family Tree with all the separatist Tamil politicians from the Tamil Tiger proxy party, the TNA and activists including the Catholic priests of Mannar that you met, explaining their relationship to you.  And don’t forget to characterize your relationship with the Tamil  political activists Sheeman and Thirumavaluvan whom you met in Tamil Nadu, who were banned and eventually deported from Canada.

Concluding my observations about the Rathika’s Jaffna Gum Shoe Saga, let me be honest and brutal.

What is clear as the sounds of voices singing Haro Hara…Haro Hara, when approaching the Kataragama Murukan Kovil, is that your motive with your stories of being under house arrest in Sri Lanka, and being followed  and interrogated by Government authorities and subjected to ‘political intimidation’  publicized in the Canadian voice and print media was to embarrass  Sri Lanka. You shouldn’t even try to deny this fact.

The fact is you flouted the immigration laws and regulations of Sri Lanka with impunity.  You entered the sovereign nation on a tourist visa and started to engage in your Sri Lanka bashing political activity.  To interpret what had been pointed out to you by immigration authorities that you had been breaking Sri Lanka’s immigration laws and regulations as a visitor with a tourist visa as “political intimidation”, is mischievous and disingenuous.    Remember that you are no Canadian parliament’s Tin-Goddess to give you immunity!  Am I to conclude that such misinterpretation of reality would only come out from a Canadian Rookie MP!   If you had a few more years of experience as a parliamentarian this would never have happened, even if you decide to wear the cloak of a self-appointed judge to pass judgment on Sri Lanka’s human rights.

Rathika give that island the much won Peace a chance.   The 30 year  bloody war by your Tamil Tigers inflicted much harm to those islanders and inflicted death through assassinations of the former Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi; President R. Premadasa of Sri Lanka; three Mayors of Jaffna (Alfred Duraiappah, Sarojini Yogeswaran & P. Sivapalan); two Foreign Ministers (Lakshman Kadiaragamar & Ranjan Wijeratne);  Minister of Industries (C.V.Gunaratne), the Leader of  the Opposition (A. Amirthalingam);  the following MPs of your Tamil clan  killed by your Tamil terrorists –  A. Thiagarajah (Vadukkodai),  V. Dharmalingam ( Manipay), K. Alalasundaram (Kopai), V. Yogeswaran (Jaffna), Sam Thambimuttu ( Batticaloa),  A. Thangathurai (Trincomalee), S. Shanmuganathan (Vavuniya), Neelan Thiruchelvam (TULF MP), K. Rajanayagam (TNA MP), J. Pararajasingham (TNA MP), and Nadarajah Raviraj (TNA MP) and several others.  Phew!

Your friends, the Tamil Tigers also hijacked the right-to-life, the most treasured human right of the 22 million people of Sri Lanka for 30  long years, which were given back to each one of them by the Mahinda Rajapaksa government after wiping out the Tamil Tigers militarily on 19 May 2009.

This was a classic text book example of restoring the most treasured of human rights of any human being.    Canada, and you, have still not acknowledged this fact, but yet are concerned about Sri Lanka’s human rights.  That’s a God damn joke isn’t it, Rathika?   What a bunch of disingenuous crazies!

Let me try to convince you with one last statement.  Sri Lanka owes a comfortable life to the Tamils who stayed back in Sri Lanka without getting on a plane and land at the Pearson Airport and claim that they were Convention refugees running away from persecution but only to return to Sri Lanka on holidays once they possess their Canadian passports.  And the Sri Lankan Government owes absolutely nothing to the ones who ran away and are having a comfortable life abroad and that includes you, leading a comfortable life pulling in around $150,000  in wages  a year courtesy of the Canadian voters.

And that is how the cookie crumbles Rathika.  And that is indeed the rub.  Whom are you trying to kid?  Most certainly not this Sri Lankan-Sinhalese-Canadian.

Sincerely,

Asoka Weerasinghe.