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Sri Lanka: Your request for suggestions and engagementAsoka Weerasinghe Kings Grove Crescent . Gloucester . OntarioHon. Bob Rae, P.C., OC., QC., L.L.D., MP Liberal Member of Parliament for Toronto Centre (& candidate for the Liberal Party Leadership) House of Commons Ottawa Dear Bob:
I thank you immensely for your post of November 3 in which you said, “I welcome your suggestions and engagement in this issue.”
While in my 10th year as a Canadian and a consummate political junkie, and having admired you as a vibrant young politician in the House of Commons in the early 80s, I felt that you deserved that honour from me to make time to relay to you my thesis as to why Canada should keep her nose out of Sri Lankan politics, and specially the Liberal Party’s Canada. And let me assure you from the very outset that I will be honest and truthful with you and you wouldn’t have to second guess me.
As I told you earlier, now that you have prettied yourself by putting on the Liberal Party’s wolf clothing when it comes to your Party’s collective opinion on Sri Lanka, I still suspect you as a political chameleon since you acted shamelessly, worse than a Tijuana table dancing whore when you put out a “Statement On the Situation in Sri Lanka’, during your hustings, no doubt to garner the Tamil votes. My question was, “What the heck has Sri Lanka got to do with the Canadian federal election?”
The only thing that could very well be a slightly redeeming factor in your case is that, you are a late-comer to the Liberal Party and thus I cannot stick the tag on you saying that you are a ‘ rascally cunning, hypocritical and opportunistic Canadian politician’ as the rest of your Liberal colleagues are, who patronized the Tamil Tiger fund raising dinner in Toronto in May 2000; eulogized at Anton Balasingham’s wake, the Tamil Tiger who was responsible for the killing of 700 policemen on June 11 and 12, 1990. These policemen had been ordered to surrender by President Premadasa with a guarantee from Balasingham that they would be sent south without being harmed; and the TERRIBLE 9 Liberal politicians who publicly christened the ruthless Tamil Tiger terrorist serial killer, S.P.Thamilchelvam as a ‘Dove of Peace’, just a year ago standing in vigil as a bunch of Tamil Tiger groupies, together with 10,000 of their Tamil constituents on a cold shivering evening at Markham.
If you become the next leader of the Liberal Party, I hope you will charter a different course on the Sri Lankan issue without following the questionable position of your Pied-piper duo, Karygiannis-Minna of Agincourt-Beaches fame if you still believe that you have a voice to placate the 200,000 Tamils in the GTA.
I wish I could watch you pick the petals from a daisy saying, “Sri Lanka I love you - Sri Lanka I love you not”, “Sri Lanka I love you - Sri Lanka I love you not”, until you come to the last of the petals to see where you really stood on the issue however superficial this folksy exercise would be.
I want you to find some time from your busy schedule to read this post as it is coming from a Sinhalese-Buddhist, perhaps the only Sinhalese-Buddhist you will correspond with who says, “What, you must be joking! Who the heck is saying that the Tamils have been discriminated in Sri Lanka? That is a bunch of boloney.
“These people who were a privileged minority were cocks of the coop for 131 years of the British Rajs’ divide-and-rule colonial administration, and my Sinhalese people and I were the wronged majority. And these Tamils seem to be disenchanted when the Governments after independence tried to be fair and correct the inequalities among communities, and the Tamils cried foul and thousands flew out of the cuckoo’s nest after the 1983 riots flying over bypassing their homeland, Tamil Nadu, where 55 million of their brethren lived seeking greener pastures, and some landing on the shores of Canada. They have continued to keep belly aching, the majority having conned their way into Canada saying that they were not only discriminated but were also persecuted”. I will detail my reasoning for my stance destroying that outrageous cunning and humbug of the Tamils as I go along.
You said, “…I ask you to reconsider your position towards my involvement with your community.”
HOW COULD I BOB, when, after all you are part of the Liberal clan, that has been part of the problem in Sri Lanka’s Tamil separatist issue, letting the Tamil Diaspora collect two million dollars a month for 13 long years to stuff the Tamil Tiger war-chest to buy weapons to kill my Sinhalese people.
HOW COULD I BOB, when it was your Liberal Government that let the Tamil Diaspora cut a cheque in 1994 for 7 1/2 million dollars from a Bank in Vancouver to purchase 50 tonnes of TNT and 10 tonnes of plastic RDX explosive materials from the Rubezone Chemical Factory in Ukraine to be used as a truck bomb which brought down the Central Bank Building in Colombo on January 31, 1996, killing 114 innocent people and maiming for life another 1,400. They used the same explosive material to blow up the front of the Dalada Maligawa (Temple of Buddha’s Tooth relic), which you no doubt is familiar with from your visits to Sri Lanka, and the religious precinct that I revere.
HOW COULD I BOB, when your colleague Judy Sgro, the then Minister of Citizenship and Immigration whose bias in favour of the Tamils in Sri Lanka was as transparent as her flimsy negligee showing all her cruel unchristian blemishes and warts.
You and I know as well the whole world knew that the two communities that were most effected by the Tsunami in December 2004 were the Muslims and the Sinhalese along the south-east coast of Sri Lanka. But, Oh, No…your Judy had the gall, temerity and arrogance to suggest that she did not need permission from the Sri Lankan government to post Canadian Immigration Officers in Jaffna to fast track Tamils to bring them over to Canada, no doubt to bloat the GTA Tamil voter bank. She couldn’t care two Prairie straws about the Sinhalese or the Muslims as according to her opportunistic psyche it were only the Tamils who were the children of God. How cruel! To ignore my Sinhalese community which was in distress did not go well with me at all. “You bunch of cruel Liberal bastards”, I said under my breath.
In a letter to Judy, I requested her to get off her high horse and go back to school and take the basic course in Diplomatic Protocol 101, without embarrassing us Canadians anymore.
HOW COULD I BOB, when your Liberal Party threw in a life-line to Prabhakaran and his Tamil Tigers by not banning this most ruthless terrorist outfit in the world, when 27 other countries had done so, thus giving them the license to go on killing my innocent Sinhalese people, let alone the Muslims and Tamils. You all had every excuse under the sun for not wanting to ban them, as your former Minister of Justice Irwin Cotler admitted to the National Post editorial board that it was because the Liberals did not wish to antagonize the Tamil community who had a large voter bank.
It was an embarrassing spectacle to watch your Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Security Anne McLellan on CPAC on February 14, 2005, getting red in her face like a boiled lobster and sometimes looking like Rudolphine the Red Nose Reindeer doing the Muhammad Ali shuffle, trying to dodge the scrutiny by the Conservatives Senator John Lynch-Staunton who took her to task for not listing the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (aka Tamil Tigers) during the Senate Committee hearing on the Anti-Terrorism Bill C36. This was the exchange between them:
Senator: The Bill allows for the listing of terrorist entities…why are the Tamil Tigers not on that list when they are banned in the Unites States, Britain and elsewhere?
McLellan: The list is constantly being reviewed and updated. It is not static. I continue to monitor that situation very closely.
Senator: What more information do you need when you know that the United States, Britain, Australia, Malaysia and others have banned them?
McLellan: It was related to me…because there was hope for peace talks in Sri Lanka, it was hoped that the process would lead to some sort of peace negotiation and it was perceived that it would not be helpful if this country listed the Tigers. But I want to reassure everyone here that I review the organization on a regular basis and I will continue to review that situation.
Senator: But money is being raised in Canada and shipped over to Sri Lanka to be used for terrorist activities. That is a known fact. That is a known fact, yet the government refuses to put the name where it belongs – on the list of terrorists’ entities so the government can move in, seize bank accounts and arrest people who continue to support rebels and terrorists.
McLellan: Senator, I take your point.
With that weak, yet haughty and arrogant defense in favour of the Tamil Tigers, your Liberal party tightened the noose on my innocent Sinhalese people and painted Bull’s eyes on the backs of all the Sinhalese grandparents, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts, pregnant mothers and breast sucking infants to be shot at or claymore mined by your Liberal ‘Doves of Peace’, the Tamil Tigers. That’s how dastardly you Liberals have been towards my people. I wish you could see me right now Bob. I am frothing and my eyes are spinning cartwheels of anger, spitting fire at the Liberals.
HOW COULD I BOB, when in May 2002 two of your cabinet ministers, Paul Martin (Finance, who later became Prime Minister of Canada) and Maria Minna (CIDA) together with other Liberal parliamentarians, Tony Ianno, John McKay, Judy Sgro, Tom Wappel, Bryon Wilfert, Jim Karygiannis and Joe Volpe, attended a $60 plate fundraising dinner organized by FACT. The monies went to the Tamil Tiger war-chest to buy weapons to kill my Sinhalese people.
With all the above indictments of sins and crimes against my people, give me one good reason why Liberal Party’s Canada should be trusted or allowed to poke its nose into Sri Lanka’s internal affairs. You Liberals are sneaky, you are suspect and you are blatantly evil.
With the Liberal Party’s support for the most ruthless terrorist organization in the world, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have come up smelling bouquets of jasmines and roses, having banned the Tamil Tigers within two months taking up office in 2006, and shutting the WTM offices in Toronto and Montreal and passing bills to curb the fund raising activities of the Tamil Diaspora to stuff the Tamil Tiger war-chest. That is what I call honest politics. That is what I call understanding the Sri Lankan issue well, and saying damn to these Sinhalese-blood soaked Tamil votes of the GTA.
Bob, with such indictments let me tell you that Canada forfeited its crown of the “Lester Pearsonian International Nobel Peace Prized Peace Negotiator”. Tough tiddy! That is how the cookie crumbles in my world that I happen to live in. How about you?
Little wonder why S.P. Thamilchelvam, the Liberal Party’s ‘Dove of Peace’ gave Paul Martin, our Prime Minister the dubious recognition saying that “Canada is our best ally”, when he visited the Tsunami ravaged south-east coast of Sri Lanka, in January 2005.
I say to you and Canada, keep your noses out of Sri Lankan politics. And to Sri Lanka I say, be wary when the Canadians come to you with trays of Klondike gold and baubles and Canadian green 20 dollar bills in aid money Just watch out.
You said, “My motivations behind my involvement in Sri Lankan politics is to protect its people and work towards bringing an end to the civil strife.” Don’t us all!
Isn’t it why President Mahinda Rajapaksa said enough is enough on July 20, 2006 when the Tamil Tigers cut off the water supply to 15,000 Sinhalese farmer families, and flooding 30,000 acres of paddy land, by shutting off the Mavil Aru anicut, and went after the terrorizing brutes not caring whether they were Canadian Liberals ‘Doves of Peace’ or not. That was to give back to these people their basic human rights; water to sustain their lives, as water is life, and their right-to-life. No one, let me repeat, absolutely no one around the world should penalize President Rajapaksa for this decision other than showing him that they are a bunch of international sadists. And the result of his decision is that the eastern province and its peoples have been liberated from the jackboot fascism of Prabhakaran, and within seven months they had provincial elections democratically. The Mayor of Batticaloa is a Tamil lady and the Chief Minister of the Eastern Province is Pillayan who was a former child soldier with the Tamil Tigers. This is Obama’s history played in the eastern province in Sri Lanka, where we never thought we would ever see a ballot replace a Tamil Tiger bullet. I think it is a good enough reason for you and I as democrats to pop a cork of champagne and rejoice. Don’t you, Bob?
If it is to “protect its people” is what you are concerned about, then what you are seeing is a litmus test of the government’s action which has had positive results, such as saving Tamil children from being abducted by Tamil Tigers and recruited as child soldiers and brain washing them to become suicide bombers, and giving back to the easterners their right-to-life. Let’s wish for such an evolution in the North too. What more do you want Bob? Isn’t it why President Rajapaksa breathes the words of Winston Churchill every morning when he wakes up hoping that the International consortium of the Tamil Tiger lovers, politicians (including you) , Human Rights Organizations and NGOs would hear, “You ask what our policy is. I will say, it is to wage war with all our might with all the strength that God can give us, to wage war against the monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime.” To that thought Bob, I would say supporting President Rajapaksa, “Hallelujah and Amen!!”
Bob, you may not like how all this has been achieved, but you might as well bite your tongue and accept the ‘Made in Sri Lanka’ methods in the field of achieving damn good results after 25 years of an unnecessary war with the ‘Made in India’ conventional army of Tamil Tiger terrorists who want to dissect that beautiful little island into two.
“International cooperation is necessary to bring about change in countries experiencing domestic unrest”, you said. What! You must be out of your mind, Bob. Either you may not have been following this unfortunate story, or you may be part of a consortium of international schemers who want to destroy that little island’s democracy which is tucked away in a remote part of the Indian Ocean. This island nation has had its democratic Buddhist roots well grounded for more than 2000 years. You just can’t beat that, Bob.
Let me take up three major international players who played and still want to play the War Game of “I am Your Saviour, the Goody Two-shoes: Let me solve your domestic unrest” – India, Norway and Canada.
INDIA :
By mid-70s Sri Lankan Tamils under the leadership of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), Appapillai Amirthalingam, were gearing to disrupt the government’s workings and destabilize the country by demanding an Eelam, their separate state carved out of 33 percent of the territory bordered by 60 percent of the coastline for 12.6 percent of the population, and India was watching with glee smacking her lips like a Cheshire cat wanting to pounce at the rat with a piece of cheese on its snout. (Amirthalingam was entertained by the NDP in the late 80s, especially by Pauline Jewett who got him introduced to the House from the Gallery and all of you stood up to welcome him with an applause. You may have joined him all three times at the reception given to him in a room in the Centre Block. (Amirthalingam was assassinated on July 13, 1989, shot at his home in Colombo by one of ‘Canadian Liberal Party’s ‘Doves of Peace’, a Tamil Tiger.)
The riots in July 1983 saw the Colombo Tamils getting the brunt of it for the sins and crimes of their brethren Tamil Tigers in the North and East. With the pressure from Tamil Nadu the home for 55 million Tamils, Indira Gandhi’s India was ready to move in. So they did by taking the bare-footed Tamil guerillas (they hadn’t by then graduated to become fully fledged terrorists) in the hundreds and trained them to become fully fledged terrorists in camps in Parangamali (about 40 km from Madras Airport for firing practice, Leopard crawl, Monkey crawl, Ghost walk, close quarter unarmed combat, First Aid); Kollimalai, Kakavel (AK47, G3 pistols, SLR, LMG, SMG, No.36 Browning revolvers, Rocket launchers, 2”mortar, explosives); Sengalpattu, Thanathur, Kongggurukolam in Erodi (for military tactics, guerilla warfare, jungle warfare, handling of weapons, 380 and 450 revolvers, 22 air rifle); a camp in Uttar Pradesh close to Himalayan foothills (PT, weapon training, jungle warfare, map reading, military tactics) and scores of other camps. They were sent back to Sri Lanka in military fatigues, jackboots, cradling Kalashnikovs and garlanded with festoons of live bullets. Bob, that’s a reality check for you on ‘international cooperation necessary to bring about change in countries experiencing domestic unrest’. Just come out of your day-dream, Bob. You are too intelligent to miss this mark by miles.
This move by Indira Gandhi was not for the love of the Tamil people, as by then India was locking horns with four of its neighbours – Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. India’s Prime Minister Indira Gandhi proclaimed what came to be known as the hegemonistic “Indira Doctrine”. She stated that no country in the region could go to the assistance of another neighbouring country nor could an outside power come to the assistance of a country in the South Asian region, if India considered it inimical to her interests. Thus the Big Brother and the Big Sister spoke.
Then came the blockbuster move by Indira Gandhi and figure this one out, Bob. It was a typical bully boy tactic, showing the kind of “international cooperation necessary to bring about change in countries experiencing domestic unrest. Perhaps she was on the same wavelength as you have been. And those were your words to me in your post of November 3.
On June 4, 1987, India launched its “Operation Poomalai (garland)” sending five Indian Antonov-32 transport planes escorted by four Mirage 2000 jet fighter planes screaming over Sri Lanka’s sovereign territory and violating its air space to air drop 25 tons of relief food and medicine for 800,000 Tamils in the Jaffna peninsula. I am not sure why Rajiv Gandhi figured out that providing 10 grains of red lentils (parippu) for each 800,000 Tamils will suffice to sustain their lives. What crap! Or was it that was all Gandhi could afford as he had to feed his starving millions in India. Whatever it is the intention was mischievous and I smelt a rat here.
However, the Indian air force pilots were instructed to return fire in the event that they were attacked, and the Indian air force was placed on full alert at Trivandrum to meet any eventuality This operation was preceded by a farcical naval operation and a virtual orgy of hand-wringing and lamentation by Indian authorities led by Rajiv Gandhi, who charged Sri Lanka with deliberate starvation of Jaffna residents. Let alone the necessary international corporation to bring change to Sri Lanka experiencing domestic unrest, that pompous and ill-conceived act by the Indians I am certain they have not been able to defend in terms of morality or international law.
After bullying and arm-twisting the Sri Lankan government to sign the Indo-Lanka Accord on July 29, 1987, on July 30, 100,000 Indian soldiers, later increasing the numbers rapidly, landed with heavy army equipment on Sri Lankan soil. The objective of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) was to disarm the Tamil Tiger terrorists, their prodigies, within 72 hours, guaranteeing and enforcing the cessation of hostilities and provide security to the Tamils. The Indians got that one wrong.
Having abused its weak neighbour, Indian soldiers returned home after just over a couple of years with bloodied noses and 1,500 of them in body bags and thousands maimed for life, embarrassed being the fourth largest army in the world and beaten the socks off by the Tamil Tiger terrorists whom they trained to fight with sophisticated weapons. Then, of course, the Canadian ‘Doves of Peace’ snuffed out Rajiv Gandhi with the help of a woman suicide bomber at Sri Perumpuddur, India on May 21, 1991 during an election meeting.
I hope India learnt an embarrassing lesson with this episode in their military history, and not to try her bully-tactics once again behaving like a sadist by deriving immense pleasure watching her puny neighbour shaking like a leaf in an autumn breeze when India’s French-built Mirage 2000 bombers streaked over Sri Lankan politician-heads.
Bob, so much for the necessity for ‘international cooperation to bring about change in countries experiencing domestic unrest.’ Let me repeat, you are nuts for even suggesting it. Just keep your nose off Sri Lankan politics, and ask your Liberal colleagues to do the same.
NORWAY
“International coorporation necessary to bring about change in countries experiencing domestic unrest’, you said. Norway, the home to 13,000 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees tried to play that part and that indeed is another story of international cheats, liars and down right sordid politicians. These are friends of Tamil Tigers, and a bunch of lutefisk eating Vikings who liked to be known around the world as International Peace Makers. They are screaming for international attention. They tried to make big political capital as a peace maker between Palestinians and Israelis, and failed miserably.
Bob, each year when October approaches I am mesmerized by Norway as would Salome’s Dance of the Seven Veils. It is a positive feeling towards a country which announces the crème-de-la-crème of Nobel Laureates around the world. I, in particular, look forward to finding who had been identified as the Nobel Laureate for Literature and the Nobel Laureate for Peace that particular year.
That was Norway at its first blush. But my sense of intrigue of Norway changes when she discards her veils one by one, and when the seventh veil comes off, there she stands naked to the core, not so pretty, uncouth, hiding her double tongue, dabbling in international politics and trying to the tell the world, “Hey! We spread the gospel of PEACE around the world, like in Sri Lanka. And we spend millions of kroner of our tax payer’s money to achieve this.” But it is not so in my eyes and Norway cannot fool me.
I am going to give you not one, not two, but ten reasons why you would want to tell these Vikings to keep off their raw lutefisk smelling palms off Sri Lanka’s throat, and agree with the Sri Lankan government when they tell these Tamil Tiger groupies to go, jump into their freezing fjords.
1. Twenty-one Tamil Tigers were invited to the Special Forces Rena Military Training Camp in April 2003, all expenses paid by the Norwegian Foreign Office. The Ceasefire facilitated by the Norwegian Government was signed on February 22, 2002.
2. Norway funded the Tamil Tigers through payments made by the Norwegian Government Agency ‘NORAD’. NORAD is part of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and reported to Mr. Erik Solheim during these payments.
3. In 2005 the Tamil Tiger front organization TRO, received 15 million NOK ($US 2.2 million).
4. The Tamil Tiger ‘Peace Secretariat’ received 5.6 million NOK. The payment went through Norwegian Foreign Ministry funds.
Norway smuggled high-tech communication equipment to Wanni. The recorded
conversation between Jon Westborg, former Norwegian Ambassador to Sri
Lanka with one Duleep from the Tamil Tigers in Kilinochchi, gives credence
to that allegation. According to that tapped conversation in 2002, a
total of six tons of electronic equipment was delivered to the Tamil
Tigers, including V-Sat equipment used in satellite communications.
6. General Trygve Tellefsen who headed the Sri Lanka Ceasefire Monitoring Mission Leaked information to the captain of a Tamil Tiger weapons warehouse Rogue ship smuggling arms asking them to vanish because the Sri Lanka Navy were in pursuit. And this Tamil Tiger smuggler-ship got away. “Darn! You Lutefisk eating bastard, I thought you were an impartial monitor”, I said under by breath.
After that incident Sri Lanka’s President Chandrika Kumartunga wrote to the Norwegian Prime Minister, Kjell Magne Bondevik to remove this no good Lutefisk eating Viking as the Head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission. So Retired Major General Tryge Tellefsen was sacked from this prestigious job. (Now you understand why the Ceasefire was abrogated).
During the Ceasefire Agreement the Scandinavian Peace Monitors let
the Tamil after being tipped off by the Norwegian Head of the Peace Monitors.
Norwegian ex.-Special Forces officers trained the Sea Tigers to attack
Sri Lanka. The Tamil Tigers have known to have used Thailand’s
Andaman Coast “to strengthen its capability to attack Sri Lanka’s
Navy. The Norwegian ex-Special Task Forces have trained the Tamil Tigers
to launch underwater demolition strikes.” 9 As reported in Asian Tribune, Norwegian government in 2005 funded Beate Arnestad, the producer of the Tamil Tiger propaganda film with Norwegian Kroner 250,000 (Us$ 50,000).
10. It was reported that Norway sent arms and ammunition to Eriteria for the use of the government there but in fact loaded in Eriteria into Tamil Tigers ships to be taken into the Wanni. What a bunch of lutefisk eating bastards!
Bob, that is my case against your proposal of “international cooperation is necessary to bring about change in countries experiencing domestic unrest”. Sure, Sri Lanka is certainly experiencing domestic unrest, but that doesn’t mean that Sri Lanka has to entertain countries who are sympathetic towards the Tamil Tigers and supportive of them having their own mono-ethnic, racist, separate Tamil state, Eelam.
If I have my way, I will not only bar these yahoos coming into Sri Lanka in the guise of International Fact Finding Missions but also kick out of Sri Lanka the yahoos who are in Sri Lanka in the guise of NGOs. It is that simple.
CANADA
Ha! Are we a bunch of Shriner Circus duns-cap wearing clowns or what? I don’t have to repeat Canada’s duplicity on Sri Lanka’s ethnic crisis. You read my spiel earlier about the nasty Liberal parliamentarians. The bit players in the Liberal Party who have contributed to taint the 31million Canadian peoples hands with a film of Sinhalese blood are – Paul Martin, Maria Minna, Jim Karygiannis, Derek Lee, Judy Sgro, Albina Guarnieri, Mark Holland, Yasmin Ratansi, John McCallum, Joseph Volpe, Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Dan McTeague, Bryon Wilfert, and John Cannis.
The bottom line is, you just don’t help to fund a war by letting the Tamil Diaspora collect Canadian dollars in the millions to buy weapons to kill my Sinhalese people, and in the same breath also want to help to find peace in Sri Lanka. This ruse is certainly not in the cards. It is just asinine. It just doesn’t cut mustard with me.
I rest my case on your ill-conceived notion that “International cooperation necessary to bring about change in countries experiencing domestic unrest.” I have just proved to you at least three countries that want to get involved in Sri Lanka. India, Norway and Canada are ‘rogue internationals”, and have no place in Sri Lanka. So, what I say to you as well as to Canada is, keep your noses out of Sri Lanka’s internal affairs.
And now to prove my thesis that, “What you must be joking! Who the heck is saying that the Tamils have been discriminated in Sri Lanka?....These people who were a privileged minority were cocks of the coop for 131 years of the British Rajs’ divided-and-rule colonial administration, and my Sinhalese people and I were the wronged majority.”
If indeed the 200,000 odd Tamil refugees who landed on Canadian soil are complaining that they ran away because they were not only discriminated but also persecuted by the majority Sinhalese, then I will tell you Bob with a straight face, these are all fairy tales and buckets full of my grandmother’s piffle.
Except for a small 10 percent who were really affected by the ’83 riots, the rest were not discriminated nor were they persecuted to be granted Vienna Convention refugee status as all of them return to Sri Lanka for their annual pilgrimage with jars of Maple Syrup in their handbags as gifts, happily skipping down the tarmac at the Colombo International Airport, every one of them singing “O Canada! What a bunch of fools are thee.”
And they are right and I take my hats of to each and every one of them for taking the Canadian Liberals for a ride and being clever to bilk the system, and make us look like a bunch of stupid idiots.
Here is a revealing story which is worth a thousand dollars. I was employed at the Sri Lanka High Commission as a senior staffer between 1989 and 1994. When the Consular Officer was not available to deal with the Tamils who had come to obtain travel documents to return to Sri Lanka from where they ran away saying that they were persecuted, I had to interview them. Generally during the months of October and November, just before the Christmas holiday season, they all come in droves with telegrams in their hands saying “Father dying of cancer, come home immediately” or “Mother dying of cancer. Return home immediately.” So on humanitarian grounds we issue travel documents to return to Sri Lanka and back. But I always commented to them, that I find it extremely strange that come October and November each year only the Tamil parents are afflicted by the cancer epidemic, and not the Sinhalese, Muslim or Burgher parents. So while waiting for their refugee hearing, they are off to the country that they say had discriminated and persecuted them.
The Canadian High Commission in Sri Lanka in a Report which came out in early 1990 said: “Well over 400 Tamils allowed to live permanently in Canada spent 6-month or more visiting their homeland last year”.
Hon. Peter McCreath MP, former Cabinet Minister for Veteran Affairs, who was a member of the Canadian Fact Finding Mission to Sri Lanka in January 1992, told the Standing Committee of External Affairs on Development and Human Rights on Monday May 4, 1992 –
“At the same time the refugee process is being used by people to gain access to Canada who may not in fact be refugees in the true sense of the word. As a matter of curiosity, when I was flying home from Sri Lanka, I sat beside a fellow on the plane who had refugee status in Canada but who had just been home in Sri Lanka for six months vacation. Clearly we have a problem.” (Minutes of Proceedings Issue No22:28)
Paul Kaihla, a senior writer for MacLean’s in his cover story for its April 29, 1996 edition said, “According to the records from the consular section of the Sri Lankan High Commission, more than 8,600 Sri Lankans with refugee claims pending in Canada applied for travel documents to visit Sri Lanka in 1992. The following year, the figure was 5,865. If those refugees feared persecution in their homeland, why are they so eager to return?” Good question.
And there you are Bob. The question that you have to ask yourself is, can I believe these liars when they complain with their belly aches saying that they have been discriminated and persecuted in Sri Lanka. Once you figure that one out, let me know as I am curious.
Discrimination! Ha!! Let’s see where the Tamils stood in Sri Lanka compared to the Blacks in the US.
Blacks in the United States made up 12.1 per cent of the population, roughly as the Sri Lankan-Tamils (12.6%) in Sri Lanka, two years prior to the 1983 riots which in fact was a God’s send giving these Tamils an opportunity to get out of Sri Lanka seeking greener pastures pretending to be convention refugees, when in fact they were economic refugees.
American Blacks constitute an underclass by any criterion. Black infant mortality, for example, is nearly double that of Whites. Black life expectancy and median age are below that of Whites. So are the numbers of high school graduates and college graduates, 8 per cent and 10 per cent respectively.
In January 1986 (Sri Lankan riots happened in July 1983) Black unemployment was 14.9% compared to 5.9% of the Whites. Unemployment among Black youth was 2 1/2 times that of White youth. The statistics go on.
How did the Sri Lankan-Tamils (12.6% of the population) do in Sri Lanka (1981 census)? Believe it or not, unemployment rates were three times higher (25.9%) among the majority Sinhalese (74% of the population) than among the Sri Lankan-Tamils (6.7%). In professional employment the Tamils occupied the following percentages of the various professions: Doctors 35.1%; Dentists 24.7%; Vet. Surgeons 38.8%; Life scientists 41.5%; Medical technicians 30.2%; Engineers 34.9%; Public Administrators 15.9%. With such statistics, the Tamils should not attempt to pull wool over my eyes, as I am no stupid Liberal, nor pull my wrong leg as the other has jingle bells, as I refuse to believe that these belly aching Tamils who landed on Canadian soil were discriminated nor persecuted. Come on you lying Prabhakarans’, Nadesans’, Thamilchelvams’, Sellasamys’, Nadarajas’, Selvadurais’, and Suntharalingams’ of Scarborough, give me a break, I say!
Bob, the question that you have to ask yourself is, can I believe these belly aching Tamils of the GTA, when they lied to us that they were discriminated as well as persecuted by the majority Sinhalese. Figure that one out and let me know, as I am curious.
Bob, you have been to Colombo and have surveyed its scenario. I am sure you wondered why these Tamils are fighting for their separate state, Eelam, when they are doing a booming business in retail and grocery stores patronized by Sinhalese, When the Tamils and Sinhalese stream down streets in Borella to kneel beside each other on pews at All Saint’s Church for the Wednesday Novenas; when you could open the Daily News and read the announcements of proud Tamil parents announcing the marriages of their daughters to Sinhalese sons and vise versa; and why Tamil women walk the streets proud as peacocks showing their array of glistening gold jewelry and colourful saris and a crimson thumb print between their eye brows identifying themselves as ‘Hey! I am a Tamil”, without neither being stoned nor being hooted at by a Sinhalese. And 75% of the real estate in Wellawatte, a rich suburb of Colombo is owned by Tamils, and that not a single square-inch of land in the Jaffna peninsula is owned by a Sinhalese. Did you ask why? Did you ask the GTA Tamils, why are they belly aching about Sri Lanka, and why did you all run away when all what I see is a harmonious positive in the capital city.
We have been discriminated by the majority Sinhalese the Tamils say. Discriminated! What rubbish. They were the cocks strutting around the ‘wronged’ majority Sinhalese, holding them down stopping every conceivable progress. And what right have these Tamils got to complain about?
Here are more facts on the ground which reveals that these Tamils who landed in Canada saying that they were running away from discrimination and persecution by the majority Sinhalese.
The Sri Lanka Universities Commission Report of 1959 (p.303), 11 years after independence states: “The proportion of Tamil students receiving University education compared to their population is 1:320. This is as good as the educational facilities provided in the United Kingdom. But the proportion of the Sinhalese receiving University Education in comparison with the population is 1:3213. This is being second-class with an immense disadvantage.”
This Report also provides some revealing statistics. Bob, you being the Chancellor of Lakehead University will find these numbers fascinating and no doubt will consider the GTA belly aching Tamils as a bunch of no good humbugs who will try to pull at your heartstrings to get your support for their Eelam.
NUMBER OF SCHOOLS WITH UNIVERSITY ENTRANCE SCIENCE CLASSES
District Population No. of Schools
Anuradhapura 229,000 1 Badulla 467,000 2 Batticaloa 270,000 3 Chilaw 170,000 1 Colombo (multi-ethnic capital) 1,709,000 32 Jaffna (ethnic Tamils) 492,000 33 Galle 524,000 5 Kandy 840,000 12
Contrary to what the Tamils say about being discriminated against in education, any dispassionate reader of these statistics would come to the conclusion that it were the majority Sinhalese who were “wronged’ during 450 years of colonial rule. The Tamils were a ‘privileged’ minority who had it good right a long – the strutting cocks of the coop.
Bob, the two questions that you have to ask as a politician as well as an educationist are – Were the governments after independence wrong to try and correct inequalities among its ethnic communities, and can I now trust and believe the GTA Tamils when they say that they were discriminated and thus want their mono-ethnic, separate state, Eelam. Once you come to your conclusions, let me know as I am curious as to how this new Liberal, and perhaps the next leader of the Liberal Party thinks on the Sri Lanka file.
Let me continue with my demolition Derby, to demolish every conceivable notion of the Tamils that they were discriminated by the majority Sinhalese. Bob, strap yourself on to your seat, as this bit of information will show how foolish the Liberals have been to fall hook, line and sinker for the Tamil baits whom you all christened as ‘Doves of Peace’ on November 6, 2007, at Markham Recreation Ground.
It would be interesting for you to note that the colonial favouratism for the Tamils were carried way beyond the post-independence years.
Schools in the Jaffna Educational District were well supported and qualitatively superior in comparison with the situation elsewhere in the country. Even in 1981, two years prior to that eventful riot in July 1983, the Jaffna Educational District had 555 Government Schools for a student population of 207,524, where as the capital Colombo had only 251 such schools for 231,690 students.. In 1981, the Sri Lankan Tamils enjoyed a literacy rate of 88.3% compared to 86.5% for the majority Sinhalese. The privileged position of the Jaffna Education District schools was evident from school facilities and amenities such as approved science laboratories. They were available in 41% of Jaffna schools compared to the all island average of 19.6%
So with these impressive numbers the Tamils cry foul and go killing the innocent Sinhalese with weapons bought with Canadian dollars, wanting their separate state, Eelam. No wonder why the Tamil refugees return to Sri Lanka for their annual holidays skipping down the tarmac at Colombo’s International Airport singing, “O!Canada, What a bunch of fools are thee!”
Tamils cried out “genocide” when in June 2007, 301 Tamils of a population of 125,036 Tamils in Colombo were removed from lodgings and bused North, as it had been suspected for months that these lodgings were cocoons for the Tamil-Tiger bomber assassins. So the Human Rights advocates in Sri Lanka and the likes of AI abroad jumped up and down like Jacks-in-the-Boxes with their arms flaying at the Sri Lanka government calling them human rights violators.
Bob, do you know what was amazing about all this hoop la? These complains came from the maestros of “genocide” applicators in Sri Lanka, who were always blessed not have triggered a reaction for their acts of “genocide” from squeaky clean international Human Rights organizations like AI.
These are the very rascals, the “Canadian Doves of Peace”, who in 1990 ordered 100,000 Muslims to get out from the North of Sri Lanka within 24 hours leaving their belongings and treasured valuables at the nearest mosque. This was a par excellance text book example of ‘ethnic cleansing’. This act by the Tamil Tigers made Uganda’s Idi Amin look like an angel with a big heart, when he gave the Asians in Uganda three months to leave the country with a deadline of November 9th, 1972.
Not only that Bob, these were the very rascals who between 1971 and 1981 kicked out 27,000 Sinhalese who had lived in the North for generations, by killing and terrorizing them. This was ‘genocide’ in the first order committed by the Tamils. So why are the Scarborough-Agincourt-Beaches Tamils griping? Do you know?
Here is one more incident that churns my stomach with anger. “Genocide” these Tamils hollered when 301 Tamils were sent up North in June 2007. But no Human Rights advocate hollered at the Tamil Tigers to “stop this genocide”, when they stoned and chased 400 Sinhalese undergraduates and lecturers from the northern Jaffna University campus. That is where the double-stands lie. That is where the hypocrisy lie among these Human Rights rogue organizations like AI and Human Rights Watch. That is where the rub is that I cannot stand, to which the international Human Rights organizations extract my comment, “You slimy bastards!”
Here is the story and this is neither a fairy tale nor my grandmother’s piffle. On July 22, 1977, the United National Party (UNP) formed the Government after an overwhelming victory. Three weeks later, on August 13, in Jaffna in the North, Tamil extremists attacked government buildings and Sinhalese shops (reminiscent of the July ’83 riots in Colombo, but only this time the Tamils were leaders in this sordid act) in Jaffna (Tamils are no innocent babes in the woods when it comes to riots and destroying and killing members of the Sinhalese community).
There were 400 Sinhalese lecturers and undergraduates at the Jaffna University at that time. The Vice Chancellor, on hearing of the anti-Sinhalese disturbances, closed the University. While the Tamil students went to their homes, the Sinhalese students had no place to go. The staff of the University met and decided to move them to the Third Floor of the Main Building. While some Tamil staff members went to their homes a few stayed back to protect their Sinhalese colleagues and students.
Around 10 o’clock that morning a group belonging to the Tamil Tigers (The Liberal-Canadian ‘Doves of Peace’) tried to force their way to the Third Floor, but were prevented by the Tamil staff members. The Tamil Tigers went back threatening to return. The Tamil staff members stayed on. Around 2 o’clock in the afternoon an armed gang of Tamil Tigers forced their way in. The Tamil lecturers again did not allow them to go up, and at that point, a professor informed the Government Agent (GA) of the situation.
The GA arrived around 5:00 in the afternoon and provided meals to the Sinhalese students and lecturers who had not eaten since morning. By 7:00 PM he arranged for Army and Police escorts to transport these 400 Sinhalese in buses. These unfortunates were taken south, out of Jaffna, all lying on the floor of the buses, out of line of flying meteorites of rocks and stones. The DNA of the griping Scarborough-Agincourt--Beaches Tamil musketeers will confirm that they are indeed linked by association to maestros of ‘genocide’ mutated since the early 1970s, and they cannot fool me, although they have found it easy to fool your Liberal colleagues like Karygiannis, Minna, Sgro, Lee and a bunch of foolish others.
And you see why this Sinhalese Buddhist says, “What, you must be joking! Who the heck is saying that the Tamils have been discriminated in Sri Lanka? That is a bunch of boloney.” This is why I will not accept the complains of the Tamils that they were discriminated and persecuted when they indeed had a charmed existence being the ‘privileged minority” for 450 years of colonial time and many years after independence and even now. What the heck are they belly aching about?
If I were one of them, I would keep my gab Velcroed having conned myself into Canada saying that I was ‘discriminated; and ‘persecuted’, when I damn well know that I was not.
This post is getting ridiculously long, but I hope you see my thesis and got my point as I could go on and on in chapter and verse.
I will be releasing this letter to your colleagues who are candidates like you for the Liberal Party leadership, as they too would be circled by GTA Tamils like a bunch of hawks around a carcass, trying to get a piece of the influence that they would be seeking for their mono-ethnic, racist, separate Tamil state, Eelam from the new leader of the Liberal Party. No doubt they will be baiting you and the others with funds for the Leadership campaign. Since money is the route for all evil, just watch out and keep your hands off Sinhala blood soaked money.
Let me repeat again Bob, just keep your nose out of Sri Lanka’s internal affairs, as Canada has no place in the peace process when we have been part of the problem having helped to fund this war with millions of dollars which has killed thousands of my innocent Sinhalese people, let alone the moderate Tamils and innocent Muslims.
I thank you again for your November 3 post where you said, “I welcome your suggestions and engagement in this issue”.
If you have a genuine interest in the Sri Lankan file, I will be glad to meet with you over a cup of tea or a dinner in Ottawa when you have a free moment.
Sincerely, Asoka (Asoka Weerasinghe)
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