Ratnajeewa HalpitaƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  Singapore

Just as the Sri Lankan Government completely defeated Tiger terrorism from Sri Lanka and the whole island is rejoicing the victory, the Western Powers are busy contemplating another plan to destabilise Sri Lanka. The European Union in Brussels are plotting to bring in War Crimes charges against Sri Lanka. There is no bigger paradox than this situation. Instead of supporting and extending a helping hand to a country that is striving hard to raise its head from the effects of three decades of terror, West is hell bent in finding fault with Sri Lanka on non-existent issues.

Sri Lanka became the first country to rid terrorism from its land. This feat is yet to be performed by any country-the US,UK or France,not even when they were combined. But now Sri Lanka has proved that terrorism can be eliminated and shown the world how to do it by fighting the terror groups and their controlling masters of the west. One wonders if these superpowers were envious of the great achievement of this little country.

The biggest question Sri Lankans have is that where these Western countries were when LTTE terrorists were violating all norms of human rights and carrying out gross atrocities against the innocent civilians. Let me give you a few examples of these crimes the LTTE terrorists kept on doing undisturbed for 30 years:

1. Employment of children in warfare for 30 years.(Many western leaders met these terrorist leaders on many occasions and dealings on different issues did not bring enough and effective pressure to stop this gross crime in spite of G0vernment Of Sri Lanka raising the issue!)

2. Brainwashing and lining up thousands of youth as suicide bombers to cause immense destruction at civilian targets throughout the country. Some western delegations inspected the guard of honour from the suicide carder black tigers when they visited Killinochchi when the area was under the tigers.(The LTTE pioneered suicide attacks be the effective weapon of all terrorists)

3. Massacre of entire villages adjacent to the north and the east (Kent and Dollor farm, Kebilithigollawa and many more) in the ethnic cleansing exercise.

4. Mass murder of religious leaders in Aranthalawa and mass murder of innocent pilgrims at Anuradhapura

5. Umpteen number of bombs detonated in civilian locations in the south of Sri Lanka killing unarmed people (Maradana,Wllawatta,Dehiwala,etc.etc.etc…the list goes on)

6. Displacing thousands of civilians and taking them to areas that the LTTE relocated to use them as Human Shields (This fact is being confirmed by the thousands of civilians who were rescued by the Sri Lankan Army recently -)

7. Firing on the people who were escaping from the terrorist areas (A fact that is being confirmed first hand by the civilians who escaped the LTTE areas-not the web reports written by the misguided Diaspora who are thousands of miles away)

8. Mass murder of 700 POWs in the most inhuman manner

(This list does not include the number of local and foreign leaders, intellectuals and Tamil politicians killed by the LTTE. This also does not include the cyber terrorism, Money laundering, human smuggling and Drug dealings carried out by the LTTE.)

Sri Lankans silently witnessed the West tolerating all the crimes of a terrorist organisation and the major world aid agencies including the UN were involved in supporting and helping the LTTE by employing terrorist carders as their staff. It was revealed that the aid agencies had not done anything for the poor masses who were under LTTE rule but building safe houses for the terrorist leaders and donating high tech communication equipment (+/-weapons). Now the very same group have come forward and accuse the democratically elected government of Sri Lanka when it launched a major campaign to rid the country from the menace of terrorism. A democratically elected government has every legitimate right to protect its people from all forms of terror. This is what made the US to invade Afghanistan even though it still could not finish what it started. This is what made the UK to send troops to Iraq with the US with the false claim of Weapons of Mass Destruction but only succeeded in creating a mess of that country -yet get away scot free!! This is what the Israel government is doing in Gaza with no end in sight to the human suffering in the land of Palastein.

When the Government of Sri Lanka launched the offensive against the Tiger terrorists, this same group wanted it stopped, warning about genocide, humanitarian catastrophe and tragedy. They based these assumptions on a few pro-terrorist web sites which are being handled thousands of kilometres away from Sri Lanka. But when the government of Sri Lanka concluded the world’s biggest humanitarian rescue mission successfully with minimal civilian casualties, it could have caused these Western powers feel small. But one wonders why these nations were so against the Government of Sri Lanka- Is it because they showed the whole world that what the super powers could not do, Sri Lanka could do with style or is it because that the Sri Lankan government destroyed an establishment that these countries invested so much to make Sri Lanka and the region unstable!

(The writer refrained from mentioning war crimes the west has performed, which the analysts divide in to pre 20th century, World War I & II, and post WWII)

Ratnajeewa Halpita

Singapore