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Liberal MPs, Dan McTeague & Albina Guaneiri on Sri LankaAsoka Weerasinghe Gloucester . Ontario . CanadaJuly 4, 2007
Dear Prime Minister: A news item from the Tamil Eelam News Services mentions that you had been sent a letter by Mr. Dan McTeague, MP for Pickering-Scarborough East, urging you to consider locating a Canadian Consulate in Jaffna, in the north of Sri Lanka. He also points out ‘that Colombo is engaged in “ethnic cleansing”, and continues to marginalize the Tamil population’. In the same news item Parliamentarian Albina Guanieri, MP for Mississauga East-Cooksville has been reported to have said, “It is time for Canada to finally suspend aid and trade until the Sri Lankan government starts respecting the human rights of Tamil civilians.” I suppose you noted, as I did, that there was some commonality between these two parliamentarians. Both happen to be Liberals, who had difficulty to ban the Tamil Tiger terrorists for 13 long years,. This is the most ruthless terrorist group in the world, the only terrorist group that assassinated two heads of state, Rajiv Gandhi of India and President Premadasa of Sri Lanka, two Ministers of Foreign Affairs – Lakshman Kadiragama and Ranjan Wijeratne, and 31 other active bright politicians Tamils as well as Sinhalese including three Tamil Mayors of Jaffna. This is also the terrorist group that perfected the human suicide body- pack which is now commonly used elsewhere in the world by terrorists. And more so, both these MPs have been elected in ‘Little Jaffna’, where 250,000 Tamils live, in their Greater Toronto Area ridings. I would certainly take their concerns as suspect and with a grain of salt. Dan McTeague’s complaint that ‘Colombo is engaged in “ethnic
cleansing” In a way, I would tend to grudgingly excuse him, as he has exposed himself as a neophyte in Sri Lanka’s Tamil politics having engaged in the issue only after becoming a parliamentarian in 1993. This Tamil feud has been going on since the 1930s, wanting their separate, mono-ethnic, racist state, which came to a head in 1983, after the July riots. There was a reason for these riots. I wouldn’t want to tax you with the reason, this time around. But, however, when Dan McTeague claims that sending 301 Tamils from lodgings where most Tamil terrorists house themselves planning to bomb Colombo, out of 200,000 Tamils in Colombo, he is obviously over reacting to appease his Tamil constituents. What he obviously did not know, nor informed by the Tamils is that
in 1990 the Tamil Tigers asked 100,000 Muslims who had been living in
the North and East for generations to get out within 24 hours. All their
valuables, were taken over, gold earrings of women and girls were removed
with pliers And that was ‘ethnic cleansing’ not this eviction
of This is what one victim of that ethnic cleansing told a reporter which was published in *The Island* (June 20, 2007). “/The LTTE (Tamil Tigers) gave us only 24 hours to leave our homes. Also, they allowed us to take only the clothes we were wearing. They asked us to leave all our valuables, cash and jewellery and leave our homes with only a few hundred rupees to spend on our traveling out of the North. They assured us that they will look after our properties and homes and even wanted us to give them a list of properties we had. They signed a receipt for taking these over. They promised that they will hand them over whenever we returned. The LTTE cadres took our door keys along with the list of things in our homes.”/ / /I wonder where this incident fall in Dan McTeague’s definition of “ethnic cleansing”. Or will he find it difficult to categorize this incident as “ethnic cleansing” as the culprits were the Tamil Tigers, that the Liberals favoured for a along time while all the western countries were banning them as a terrorist group. Today’s (July 4) OTTAWA CITIZEN’s headline read, ‘Canada’s terror risk ‘elevated”. This was a reaction to the terrorist car attack at the Glasgow airport. You, as the Prime Minister of Canada, was dealing with an elusive enemy and quite rightly acted to safeguard the lives and property of your country. Sri Lanka’s situation is much more severe as although they know their enemy, and yet have to deal with an elusive enemy who have sneaked claymore mines and bombs in to Colombo to make mayhem where the political leadership and the national economy are prime targets. That is a reality check for Dan McTeague, who thinks that he knows it all about Sri Lanka’s ethnic crisis. Almost all the Colombo bombings were carried by Tamil Tigers who had come to Colombo and taken temporary shelter at these lodgings. It is with this background that the expulsion of 301 Tamils out of 200,000 in Colombo should be reviewed. Unfortunately, the right to life of thousands of innocent people , in this instance had to supersede the ‘human rights’ violations. Sometimes, countries have to adopt extraordinary measures to protect themselves. This was one of them for Sri Lanka, like the War Measures Act in 1970 for Canada and the extraordinary rounding up of all Japanese-Canadians after the Pearl Harbour bombing during World War II and isolating them. It does seem that Dan McTeague has conveniently forgotten these extraordinary measures adopted by Canada and tries to wield a Liberal bully-stick on Sri Lanka’s government. With this backgrounder Dan McTeague has little right to be so righteous about himself nor talk for the Canadians. Dan McTeague knows very little about Sri Lanka’s ‘ethnic
cleansing’. In August 1977, the Tamils stoned and chased 400 Sinhalese undergraduates and lecturers from the Jaffna campus, and they were brought south by the army and police in buses while they were lying prostrate on the floor dodging the hail of rocks. That is how the Tamils claimed ethnic purity in the Jaffna University, when hundreds of Tamils studied at Universities in the South without being harassed or subjected to ‘ethnic cleansing’. Sir, now you know why I requested you to take Dan McTeagues’ comments with a grain of salt. He knows absolutely nothing about Sri Lanka’s ethnic crisis. He also tells you, “…and continues to marginalize the Tamil
population”. Tamil women walked the Colombo streets identifying themselves as Tamils with the crimson thumb mark between their eye-brows. They walked with much pride of their ethnicity with a dose of dignity as no Sinhalese harassed them. Majority of the business people were Tamils and their shops were patronized by the Sinhalese and don’t seem to be marginalized nor boycotted. On one occasion a Tamil Mum and Dad quite proudly announced their daughter’s marriage to a Sinhalese male in the matrimonial columns of the local newspaper. That is dignity and acceptance of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. Who said that they were marginalized? So, don’t take in Dan Teague’s grim fairy tales as I smell a rat here. As for Albina Guaineri’s request saying “It is time for Canada to finally suspend aid and trade until Sri Lankan government starts respecting human rights.” Well, all what I can say about this Liberal MP is that she is not a
socio-economist nor an honest human rights advocate. What she does not
understand is that in a dirty war human rights is indeed a victim. I
doubt that she can produce a ‘war model’ for the Sri Lankans
to follow where human rights are safe guarded while the war is fought
with a sophisticated armoury. She certainly has not advocated suspending
Canadian aid to Afghanistan until they start respecting human rights.
As Ms. Guaneiri being a lousy socio-economist wanting to cut aid to Sri Lanka, she ought to get a briefing from your Deputy Foreign Minister, Deepak Obhrai. He was told quite eloquently by Sri Lanka’s Minister of International Trade and Export Department, Dr. G.L.Peiris, during his recent visit to Canada that, “Poverty will inhibit implementation of the peace process. There must be activities of prosperity for tranquility to return. This demands resources, and cutting aid is extremely counter productive.” If Sri Lanka has to fight her battle with a bunch of Tamil terrorists who are trying to dismember the island, they have little choice but to defend themselves with or without Canadian development aid. But what should be recognized is that the Tamil Tigers are fighting this war having being bolstered by the Canadian Tamil Diaspora monies to buy explosives and weapons which were collected at the rate of two million dollars a month during the Liberal government reign. This is the party that Dan McTeague and Albina Guaneiri represents in parliament. Little wonder why their conscience bleeds for the Tamils! Prime Minister, with my charges against Dan McTeague and Albina Guaneiri, I leave it to you to be judge and jury as a leader of a sister Commonwealth nation, to help Sri Lanka as a peace builder and not to encourage the Liberal Tamil Tiger lackeys to dismember that friendly little Commonwealth sister nation, Sri Lanka., for the want of 100,000 Tamil votes. As a paying member of your political party, I have a sense that intelligent and a better sense of judgment will prevail when dealing with Dan McTeague and Albina Guaneiri’s requests. Your truly, Asoka Weerasinghe
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