UNICEF: Double the power of your first gift - Stop supporting terror.

Wick G. [wick_sw_engineer@yahoo.com]

Dear Mr/Madam President of unicefusa.org:

I will not contribute to organizations that promote terrorism. You need to get your act straight before asking for money. How can the world citizens trust you not to use the funds you collect to assist the Tamil Tiger terrorists? I and my fellow US citizens, are thinking of asking our US congressmen/women and US senators to stop all US contributions to the UN to prevent it from funelling aid to Tamil Tiger terrorists. We believe that aid from the UN to Tamil Tiger terrorists are used to buy weapons to kill innocent civilians in Sri Lanka and then blame those acts on the Sri Lankan Armed Forces. Then the UN (probably pushed by Tamils who work for the UN)completely ignores the crimes committed by Tamil Tiger terrorists and falsely accuses the Sri Lankan Government of acts they have not commited. Shame on the UN!!!

I am sending copies of this email to US Rep and the two US senators for North Carolina and the next US rep to the UN, asking them to prevent the UN from assisting Tamil Tiger terrorists adn investigate everyone who might have a hand in providing support to terrorist organizations. We want the UN to do all it can to stop terrorists, not support them.

From a Web article "The Sri Lankan Government has reacted angrily to the statement made by Special Advisor to the United Nations and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict on Sri Lanka Mr. Allan Rock that security forces assist the Karuna group to forcefully recruit children in Batticaloa district seems somewhat duplicitous and two faced based on the President's willingness to accommodate him and hear him out rather than giving him at least a cold shoulder for brazenness alone!( Not the Rajapakske style of course!) despite this apparent attempt to meddle in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka with unjustifiable accusations quite disregarding the protocols involved and overplaying his role as a United Nation's Special Advisor where diplomacy seems to have flown out the backdoor and verbosity taking precedence over the truth!!

The position of the international community on Sri Lanka's conflict is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma-with apologies to Churchill. It says different things at different times and does exactly the opposite of what it says. The EU has condemned the LTTE for its violence and banned it. But, the outfit is very much active in the UK and continues to raise funds in other European countries. The US flatly rejected bin Laden's offer of a truce and told him in no uncertain terms that 'the best way to deal with terrorism is to put terrorists out of business.' True, the sooner that bearded terror mastermind is put out of business, the better it is for the whole world.
But, the US has a different policy towards Sri Lanka's terrorism. How sad!

The European Parliament in a recent resolution pointed out that the LTTE had rejected devolution at the district level, provincial level, regional level and the national level. If so, how can the international community expect the LTTE to agree to devolution without bringing adequate pressure to bear on it?
There are two ways in which the international community can deal with Sri Lanka's problem. Either it has to make the LTTE amenable to devolution at one of the aforesaid levels-it has been offered federalism in the Oslo Declaration-or tell Sri Lanka to go a step further and grant it a separate state. Dithering is not going to be of any help.

Despite bans, the EU and the US have stopped short of making the Tigers agree to devolution for some unknown reasons. All what they do is to pressure Sri Lanka to negotiate a solution, knowing very well that the LTTE won't accept anything other than Eelam. Negotiations are, no doubt, the best way to settle a dispute but forcing a legitimate state to subjugate its sovereignty to talks with an intransigent terror outfit without providing any safeguards is tantamount to the strangulation of democracy. Or, it is like throwing a ewe into a Tiger's cage for mating purposes. The history of peace making in this country has been a long drawn process of throwing a countless number ewes to the Tigers one after the other. The end result has been the institutionalisation of violence with the attendant culture of impunity.

A sinister campaign is on to urge the international community to confer pariah status on Sri Lanka and impose sanctions. Give a dog a bad name, it used to be said in the Wild West, and hang it. Sri Lanka is already being given a bad name. It is unfortunate that the UN has lent itself to be abused by terror fronts.

UN Representative for children and armed conflict on Sri Lanka Allan Rock has put his foot in his diplomatic mouth. He is reported to have alleged that the security forces are helping the Eastern Tigers led by Karuna with recruiting child soldiers. Before him a CNN correspondent who was here some years ago had had the audacity to claim that both the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government were using child soldiers! Mr. Rock has been here only for ten days and it is surprising how he arrived at that conclusion without a proper investigation. It is unbecoming of a UN official to go by hearsay like a village gossip. That the Eastern Tigers are having child combatants in their ranks is well known. (This newspaper has carried pictures of Karuna with child soldiers.) But, how on earth could it be that the army is rounding up children for Karuna to pick and choose, as Mr. Rock claims?

Rock 'n athe roll, a wag might say-athe roll in the journalistic jargon here means 'fabricated story'!
Perhaps, Mr. Rock shouldn't be faulted for what he has said. He may have been influenced by the glaring bias that some UN bigwigs in Colombo have for the LTTE.(Else, would they have paid for cement sent to the LTTE held areas where even a tyke knows that the Tigers get the Lion's share of anything, even tsunami
relief?)

If Mr. Rock has really said what is being attributed to him, it must not be allowed to go uncontested or without a probe, as the problem with misinformation is that the international community and some human rights groups readily stomach it. We would like to refer Mr.
Rock and his UN bosses to a report filed by Mr. Olara Otunu, who initially made the blunder of believing the LTTE but later did an excellent job as regards Sri Lanka's child soldiers.

Minorities in this country have got a raw deal and their interests must be safeguarded. But it is high time the EU, the US and other worthy members of the international community realised the difference between terrorism and minority rights (or even the majority rights for that matter) and that minorities could be helped without using terrorism as the medium.

The biggest blow that can be dealt to global democracy is to harass a sovereign state, however small it may be, and help further the interests of a terrorist outfit, under the guise of helping achieve peace. The foreign policy bungling of the US, the EU and other western powers has already earned them enough and more enemies all over the world. Are they trying to push Sri Lanka to the same position as those nations that rejoice every time terrorists take on western interests?