BY: Dr. Chula Rajapakse MNZM- Spokeperson United Sri Lanka Assn.

The United Sri Lanka Association (USLA) of New Zealand held the annual Ranaviru day commemoration at Lak Madura, the association hall, in Tawa Wellington on the 21st May.

The meeting commenced with the singing of the national anthem, observation of a minutes silence and lighting of a candle by each of the attendees, in honor of the Ranaviru who had paid the ultimate price for the liberation of Sri Lanka from three decades of Tamil Tiger Terrorism.

Channa Ranasinghe, vice president chairing & welcoming the guests paid tribute to the war heroes. He recalled that though some had suggested after liberation in May ’09 that USLA would no longer be required to play it’s political role. The events of the last few months showed otherwise.

Hon. Consul for Sri Lanka in New Zealand, Mr. Aruna Abeygoonesekera speaking next having paid tribute to the Ranaviru recalled President Rajapaksha’s aim of reconciliation with and rehabilitation of , the victims of the war in what is a one country one nation, where all are equal. He also acknowledged USLA’s role in supporting Sri Lanka.

Dr. Chula Rajapakse , USLA spokesperson speaking for USLA, paid tribute also to the Ranaviru’s role in the worlds biggest hostage rescue and later rehabilitating them after a demining operation undertaken at great personal risk. He spoke of President Rajapaksa’s initiative to forge reconciliation by increasing the Tamil competency in the public service there by removing the genuine Tamil grievance of inability to communicate with the government in their mother tongue . He also sighted the Presidents personal example at reconciliation by addressing the UN general assembly in Tamil on more than one occasion, as the leader of two million Tamils, a step, that no other, not even the leader of 70 million Tamils in India, had thought important enough to , take.

Despite this President Rajapaksa was prevented from addressing the oxford union UK in Nov ’10 by vociferous Tiger Diaspora protests accusing him of war crimes. The British security forces stood by not prepared to violate their human right to protest but thought nothing of depriving the President of his human right to speak! Such are the contradictions of implementing democracy today bringing to mind the old saying ” Britania rules the waves and waves the rules!”. Apparently, partially true even today.

Having sighted many other measures of reconciliation such as northern spring and eastern reawakening development and development elsewhere such as roads, harbors and airport construction, he observed that all of these stand threatened by the activities of the Tiger international Diaspora, now cloaked as the Global Tamil Forum and the Transnational Government of Tamil Elam. This threat has come through fabricating an allegation with the help of their allies, that thousands of civilians had been killed deliberately by the SL forces in the last days of the war. This cry is now being internationally orchestrated. They are using the tactic of Adolf Hitler’s minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels that a big lie repeatedly uttered will eventually be believed, Dr. Rajapakse said.

He explained the evolution of these fabricated figures as follows. First the UN under secretary Sir. John Holms declared the number killed was impossible to estimate. This is probably the only reliable estimate. Then another UN a figure, made an estimate of seven thousand casualties using an unknown method The Times London next escalated the estimate to 20,000 based on areal photograph crater analysis . This figure was further escalated to forty thousand by ex UN employee Weisse through reexamination of same photos and was latched onto in the Darusman report . The figure has most recently been escalated to 140,000 by channel 4 BBC adding to it’s discredited videos. However, the American Association of Advancement of Science (AAAS) examining the same areal photos at the request of the human rights watch has not concurred with any of these estimates and simply stated “Crater analysis from satellite imagery is problematic”

Yet based on these estimations the accusation of genocide & war crimes and call for charging the SL leaders in an international court for this, was gathering momentum with demonstration screaming for the same in Middlesex at the SL cricket tour match and at a demonstration in Trafalgar square addressed by MP’s of all three main parties in the UK in the last few days. Keith Lock greens MP made a similar call a few days ago, in Wellington NZ.

Is it credible Dr. Rajapakse asked that, if as alleged thousands of tamil civilians had been killed by deliberate shelling of the SL security forces, three hundred thousand of them would stream into the arms of these same soldiers , in full view of news camera’s and the world, immediately after the tiger built embankment to prevent them from doing so was breached, as happened in May ’09 in the last days of the war. While conceding the possibility of collateral damage, which was inevitable as Tigers shielded heavy weapons behind civilians especially in the no fire zones , and these weapons had to be neutralized to rescue the civilians, he asked if the numbers were so high , would the civilians have streamed in with the calm and confidence they did.. Further, why should the soldiers shoot at the civilians and then rehabilitate them into their homes risking their lives to demine the land to do so as they have done in the to years following the war.

He called on Sri Lanka, all present and international Sri Lankan Diaspora to counter this misinformation through communication to western media and politicians sighting the above, lest the propaganda war in the western capitals reverses the hard won gains of Ranaviru. It was Sri Lanka not adequately countering the propaganda war in the western capitals in the first two decades that sustained the terrorists to wage war in Sri Lanka for three decades Dr Rajapakse reminded.