Suspending aid to Sri Lanka-An
Open Letter to His Excellency, Dominick Chilcott British High Commissioner
in Sri Lanka
Asoka Weerasinghe Ontario,
Canada.
Kings Grove Crescent . Gloucester . Ontario . Canada
May 6, 2007
His Excellency, Dominick Chilcott
British High Commissioner in Sri Lanka
British High Commission
190 Galle Road
Colombo 3
Sri Lanka
Your Excellency:
Reading an AP report filed by Krishan Francis, headlined “ Sri
Lanka to discuss suspended aid package with British government official
says”, I noticed that there is a bit of arm twisting going on,
or rather flexing the British muscle on her former colony.
What was disappointing for me was to read, *“The payments will
resume if a series of conditions are met, including no unjustified
increases in military spending and no instigations of hostility.”*
I could well imagine, if you had told your country’s decision
to your WWII Prime Minister, Sir. Winston Churchill, who once said,
*/“We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall
fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall
fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills;
we shall never/* */surrender”/*, he would have straightened his
hat, taken a puff on his cigar, looked straight into your eyes and
admonished you by saying, “Now, Chilcott old boy, the government
of Sri Lanka, which governs an island like ours, is fighting a bunch
of ruthless Tamil Tiger terrorist killers, who are trying to carve
out one-third of its island for them, and are you expecting the Sri
Lankan government not to defend their island’s sovereignty and
the security of its peoples?
“This is tantamount to the bloody Scots claiming all of Scotland
and a sliver of land bordering the coast off Northumberland, Durham,
Lincolnshire, and Norfolk in the east, and Cumberland, Lancashire
and North Wales in the west saying that it is their homeland, and
expecting me as Prime Minister not to deploy our Army, Navy and Air
force to chase these bloody Scots away? That is foolish. And surely
Chilcott old boy, you don’t expect Sri Lanka’s President
Mahinda Rajapaksa to be that foolish too, do you? And all what the
Sri Lanka President is doing is to tell the world, */“We shall
defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the
beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in
the fields and in the streets in the hills, we shall never surrender.”/*
And I say to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, “Bravo, you good old
chap, and don’t let these Tamil buggers intimidate you!”
Your Excellency, you and your parliamentarians amaze me no end, when
you all keep forgetting your own recent history, trying to fight off
intruders who wanted to claim what you thought were legitimately your
territory. The Falkland Islands war of 1982, is a case in point, and
how your British troops fought the Mau Mau in Kenyan jungles and your
police had no difficulty with their conscience to open fire on striking
workers at Uplands Bacon Factory killing three African-Kenyans. Wasn’t
all that a necessity for the British? Why is it so difficult for the
British to accept what the Sri Lankan government is doing to defend
its territory from the marauding bunch of Tamil Tiger terrorists,
who were trained by another Commonwealth country, India, fed financially
by other Commonwealth countries like England, Canada and Australia,
by letting these Tamil terrorists collect monies to buy military hardware
to stock up their armoury to fight their terrorist war wanting their
mono-ethnic, racist Tamil state, Eelam. The British should not even
pretend that they are lily-white, because they are not, being tainted
by a film Sri Lankan blood from the 69,000 deaths since 1983.
And to demand from the Sri Lankan government, *“…including
no unjustified increases in* *military spending and no instigations
of
hostility,”* is International bullying of the first order and
flexing your muscles hoping that little Sri Lanka will roll over and
pretend she is dead, because her former colonial master spoke. Wow!
that is too pretentious, don't you?
Don’t you all understand, or don’t you want understand
that the Sri Lankan government military actions are “reactive”
rather than “instigations of hostility”?
And to demand for *“no unjustified increases in military spending”*
to fight the most ruthless and innovative terrorists in the world,
who perfected the suicide bombers body and bra-packs and have an army,
sea-wing (Sea Tigers) and an air force (Tamil Eelam Air Force), which
even the IRA cannot boast of., is a dictate of arrogance. And when
these terrorists have forced the Sri Lankan government to shut down
their only International Airport for night flight, your demand in
favour of these terrorists is absolute poppycock and shameful. I smell
a rat here.
However, I feel confident that the Sri Lankan government will present
their case that dictates their ‘Doctrine of Necessity’,
that persons in power may act through extra-ordinary legislation,
departing from all accepted norms of good government , including the
violation of the constitution if “…the evil perpetrated
upon the citizens by so departing is less than the evil avoided by
such departure”, for military spending and defending their sovereignty
as they are engaged in a conventional war, as they cannot fight it
with sling shots and catapults, against the Tamil terrorists who are
using claymore mines, LMGs, RPGs, SAMs, commando mortars, grenades,
bombs, Kalashnikovs, et cetera.
If the British still believes that Sri Lanka is a ‘Whiteman’s
burden’, it is about time that you all dismiss that patronizing
attitude.
Your Excellency, while I have heard quite often the British strains
of
“Rule, Britannia rule the waves:
Britons never, never, never will be slaves”,
don’t be surprised if you hear the strains of proud Sri Lankan
voices singing,
“Rule, Sri Lanka rule the waves:
Sri Lankans will never, never, never will be slaves,”
which is absolutely a sweet nightingale song to my ears.
I will appreciate it very much if you would be kind enough to share
my observations with the following Honourable Members of the British
parliament who have, of late, taken a special interest in Sri Lanka’s
affairs – Keith Vaz, Kim Howells, Simon Hughes, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown,
Christ Mullin and Andrew Lowe.
Yours sincerely,
Asoka Weerasinghe
Ontario, Canada.
e-mail:weerasin@magma.ca
