Sam Archer

Sun is finally dawning in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka awaited for this day for nearly three decades, and all Sri Lankans, the Sinhalese, Muslims and the majority of the Tamils who have seen the true colours of the LTTE are rejoicing this day where the government forces have finally defeated the LTTE militarily. This is just the dawn of a long overdue, yet glorious day, and a lot needs to be done by the Sri Lankans to make this day not only memorable, but also worth the loss of tens of thousands of courageous soldiers and innocent Sri Lankan civilians sacrificed at the hands of the worst terror group in the world. There is no doubt that all Sri Lankan, irrespective of race or religion, salute the Rajapaksa government and its valiant armed forces for making this day possible.

Sri Lanka belongs to all Sri Lankans and all citizens should be able to live free from fear and harassment anywhere in the country. In return, all Sri Lankans must respect the Lion Flag, the symbol of the nation, and should give their best effort to make it the best country it can be. Even though terrorism has caused serious disruptions to the development of the country, as a result of which it had actually gone back by so many decades from where it could have been, it is now left for all Sri Lankans to join hands to make it a prosperous country.

In the recent past, it was bizarre to witness that the foreign media very openly supported the LTTE. Even though the LTTE is a proscribed organization in 32 countries around the world, Canada, US, UK and Europe saw a large number of terrorist supporters protesting on the open streets in several cities, with no attempt by the police or the city officials making any attempt to discourage them. It is reported that the majority of these protestors are either refugees themselves, their dependants or are awaiting refugee hearings. In other words, most of the protestors living expenses are borne by the Canadian tax payers. In addition, the policing and other logistical support expenses have mounted up into millions of dollars, which again will cause an additional burden on the tax payer. It will be a rude awakening to the tax payer, when the government finally imposes the extra tax burden to set off these expenses. It will be a tragic wake-up call when the citizens discover that they had welcomed these terrorist lovers with open arms as refugees, not knowing that they will continue to milk the system. Hopefully they will wake up, see and learn what it has cost them in real terms for allowing these terrorists to carry on undeterred with their terrorism support.

Sri Lanka became a sovereign and democratic country in 1948. Yet, in 1983, the LTTE, in connivance with the then Tamil Police Chief and several Tamil Inspector Generals of Police, orchestrated a backlash from the Sinhalese majority community by killing thirteen government army soldiers belonging to the majority ethnic group. When there was a backlash, the police orders coming from the top, it is understood, were to take a laisser-faire attitude to any carnage and mayhem. The LTTE, in the mean time, were armed with film crews to capture the carnage on film for using it as propaganda footage to get refugee status for as many Tamils as possible. These films were shown again and again in the western countries, and were followed by organized channelling of prospective refugee claimants to these countries. These Tamils refugees in turn had to pay back to the LTTE for providing them the opportunity for them to live in the western world, by not only paying back directly a percentage of their wages earned from employment, but also by collecting funds from the unsuspecting sympathizers with disinformation and lies to fight a separatist war in Sri Lanka. This went on for the last three decades, almost unabated until very recent times, and billions of dollars were collected for the LTTE weapons and its machinery.

As a matter of fact, a developing country like Sri Lanka had difficulty of spending funds to buy the badly needed weapons to fight a war imposed on them, and to make matters worse, the west imposed sanctions and were not willing to even sell their sophisticated arms. In spite of all this, finally the Rajapaksa government made a commitment to the masses at the last elections and promised an undivided country to all Sri Lankans. In spite of tremendous opposition and interference from western nations, with a deep commitment and resolve, he and his team managed to live up to his election promise. Well done Mr Rajapksa! You certainly have won the fullest respect of all peace-loving Sri Lankans and world citizens alike. They, no doubt, wish you all the best and courage as your real task has only just begun to unite a badly polarized Sri Lanka under the Lion Flag. The real victory is in learning to live together as human beings, respecting the human values. As a country with Buddhist values of metta, karuna and ahimsa embedded in its conduct, this is not too much to be expected. However, let’s hope, the politicians in the western nations, their news media and the misguided Tamil diaspora, in the mean time, will catch up to the truth and stop relying on the Tamil net and LTTE spokesmen for their latest news about Sri Lanka, as they seem to have been doing all this time.

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