Article titled ‘A Sri Lankan summit discredits the Commonwealth’ of June 24, 2013 by Gideon Rachman
Posted on June 27th, 2013
Mahinda Gunasekera Agincourt, Ontario Canada
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ I am writing with reference to the above article written by a little known correspondent named Gideon Rachman published in your journal of June 24, 2013, wherein he makes derogatory comments on Sri Lanka citing several unsubstantiated allegations.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚
The highly exaggerated guesstimate of 40,000 civilians being killed in the final stages of the military action conducted by the Sri Lankan authorities in the period from January 1 to May 18, 2009 against the Tamil Tiger terrorists (LTTE) to bring to an end a three decade long violent campaign of the LTTE including suicide terrorism, is an unverifiable figure picked out of thin air which the UN Panel of Experts on Sri Lanka admitted was not proven or conclusive.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚
Furthermore, the one sided evidence forthcoming to the UN from prejudiced sources was locked up for a period of 20 years as recommended by the Panel of Experts.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ It is interesting to note that the UN Resident Representative’s office in Colombo previously reported 7,000 civilian deaths between January 1 and April 30, 2009, which the UN Under Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs, Sir John Holmes rejected as the UN was not present on the ground and hence unable to validate same.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚
Census carried out by Sri Lanka in 2012 using Tamil school teachers as enumerators revealed a total of 7,432 war related deaths including 584 where the exact cause was not known, which closely resembles the number reported by the Tamil Tiger propaganda arm known as the Tamilnet which reported a total of 7398 deaths without distinguishing between fighting cadres and civilians for the same period ended May 18, 2009, vide http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://www.tamilnet.com .
If one were to eliminate the tiger combatants of around 4,200 and other tiger cadres doing battle in civilian attire and those civilians engaged in combat related duties, the remainder who could be classified as “True civilians” caught in the crossfire or done to death by the LTTE in their attempt to flee from tiger control is probably less than 2000, which is a far cry from the bogus figure of 40,000 often quoted by the western media.
Sri Lanka has been granted the right to host the next CHOGM in 2013 by the Commonwealth authorities after due process, and the media cannot make any changes by attempting to demonize Sri Lanka by publishing questionable and unsubstantiated allegations.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Sri Lanka certainly has faults just like any other nation, and needs to be rectified through discussion and debate in appropriate forums within the country.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ If however, one were toƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ stack up Sri Lanka’s alleged sins against those of the UK’s recent violations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chagos, Serbia, Libya, Syria, Northern Ireland,and elsewhere, even without reference to the crimes committed by her as a colonial power,ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ it will pale into insignificance.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Yet other members of the Commonwealth have many skeletons in their cupboards which yet continue to stink to this day. Canada’s play acting is not a principled stand, but an attempt by the ruling Conservative Part government to woo the significant number of Tamil votes in the City of Toronto and suburbsƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ which count for almost 15 ridings that may ensure a majority at the next elections.
A respected journal such as yours should avoid a mud slinging campaign against Sri Lanka called to host the next CHOGM based on unsubstantiated allegations, as you would harm the positive role of the Commonwealth of Nations in its attempts to inculcate noble ideals amongst her diverse members across the globe.
Yours sincerely,
Mahinda Gunasekera
Agincourt, Ontario
CanadaƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚
June 27th, 2013 at 4:14 pm
THESE ARE IMBECILES, WHO CANNOT UNDERSTAND THE PRACTICAL SIDE OF BURYING 40,000 DEAD BODIES, AND THE LOGISTICAL ASPECTS. THEY ARE TRULY SINGING FOR THEIR SUPPER FROM THE LTTE TREASURY RESTAURANT.
Let them answer these questions these questions:-
a…Where were these dead bodies buried ?
b…Who were those responsible to bury them, and how many participated.?
c…What is the land area needed to dig 40,000 graves ?
d…How long did it take to dig the graves ?
e…How long did they take to bury the dead ?
f…Have the imbeciles got any photographs of the graves, the dead, or the people burying them ?
g…Have the imbeciles got one photo of atleast hundred dead bodies ?
h…Have they got one eye witness who has seen these mass graves ?
They should be taken to courts for speaking untruths, and should be metaphorically skinned alive.
June 27th, 2013 at 4:45 pm
That article by Gidiot is partly payback by the continuing British Empire (Anglo-Saxon Commonwealth plus sepoy India) against Sri Lanka for seeking independence from their oppressive control.
June 28th, 2013 at 2:27 am
I love your reference to these liars as IMBECILES!. While it is patently obvious the numbers of the dead are seriously exaggerated and do not ‘add -up’ there is something here the GoSL has failed so far to do. The start of the exaggerated 40,000 casualty figure is from the book by Gordon Weiss. Having repeated this many times I am a bit sick to do that again but what is imperative for the GoSL is to sue GW for LIBEL. This is the only way to shut the mouths of these liars. If the GoSL is reluctant to do that for whatever reason that is not visible to me, these false allegations on the casualty numbers will continues ad-infinitum! – S de silva – London
June 28th, 2013 at 5:39 am
An Indian imperialist Kamalesh Sharma has put a letter in FT but unfortunately you cant read it unless you sub to FT.
Thank you, FT and the author. Yours is one view and let us see view of a subject of the Indian Empire. The British-Indian Empire was built with the British violence and Indian non violent aggression and oppression. The British colonised the colder dominions like Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Falkl ands. Indians colonised the tropics like Ceylon, Burma, Malaya, KwaZulu Natal, Kenya, Uganda, Mauritius, Fiji, West Indies, etc. British were the absentee landlords and Indian colonial parasites (a word I do not like to use but a perfect explanation) were the colonists. British were the gunners while Indians were the Sepoys and Coolies who extracted wealth. They kept a lot, gave few pennies to the land lord and send a lot to India and they still do. The most celebrated Indian colonial parasite is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi who made his political and economic fortunes from Black Africa. He was a pole bearer with the British soldiers in killing poorly armed Zulus. Zulus did not have guns. British cocked them and barrels were cleaned by the Indian Sepoys.The so called Commonwealth; today it is the Indian Empire; from the British-Indian Empire. WWII saw the end of the British Indian Empire and the continuation of the Indian Empire. As soon as Burma got independence it kicked out a lot of Indian colonial parasites. Indians owned three quarters of the arable land of Burma and provided milled rice to the colonial parasites in the British-Indian Empire. Fiji has more Indians than the local native Fijians and Indian imperialists have managed to keep it out of the author’s “prestigious Commonwealth”.Ms Navi Pillai is another Indian colonial parasite from South Africa like Ms Yasmin Sooka who wrote some kind of a UN Report. “Canada has had the guts to say that it will not send its prime minister”; thanks to the ever expanding Indian population there, most of them Indian colonial parasites from Ceylon, Africa, West Indies, Fiji and of course from the UK. Kamalesh Sharma an Indian is no different to millions of Indian administrators who worked for the British Indian Empire. The human Rights Business is a multi billion dollar business engaged in bashing the poor, sick and hapless based on their some kind of morals. What the poor and helpless need is not these money making businesses but food, housing, medicine and their lands and ways of life back. Take Fiji, no the British or the Indians brought land with them to cultivate sugar cane to sweeten Ceylon Tea. Amnesty International, International Crisis Group, Human Rights Watch and others get a lot of money from Indians in India and Indians overseas. I recently asked HRW CEO about this and he said yes. I know Indians give a lot of money to AI because I was a past member of this nasty organization. Not only they give money to these organizations they provide other benefits.
The history is important to understand the situation today.
What we need is decolonization of Indian colonies. Indian colonial parasites should either integrate or return to India or go authors ““whites-only” countries.
I tried to post this comment in FT, unfortunately you have to subscribe to post a comment. The free sub is only 8 articles and it runs out before 8. Financial Times is in financial trouble and may be bought by Dubai interest or the News Ltd.
June 28th, 2013 at 7:21 am
Thanks very much for your response.CHRISTIE!!
I would have said the same thing, even our present political leaders are so concerned about what India might do. What can they do……..Lets find out what?….About time Sri Lanka speak to India in the language she understands.
India created LTTE, and Sri Lankans had to fight a war, with one hand tied……..Every action was closely watched by India, and for good measure India wanted the war ended BEFORE their general elections… What a parasite is India to demand such conditions for a war they created.
It is time to ask for the war damage, lives lost from India as the COOLIE of west. It is quite appropriate to teach these parasites a lesson.
Let them come, talk tough but in the end BOW down saying 1000 pardons Sir, and agree with you. STAND up to them & let Kashmir & other racist movements take hold, get China to occupy the north & let Pakistan move in pass the line of control.
Lets see what happens…….If Sri Lankan leaders had GUTS to say no to India, by now the parasite will be civilized and mooted…….Thank you again Christie.for taking words out of my mouth……..another concerned lankan~ J
June 28th, 2013 at 12:08 pm
As a culture Sri Lankans want to be perfect, error free and not on the bad side. This is how the GOSL got into trouble with these causality numbers (Similar to Ahmadinejad who said there are no Gays in Iran). GOSL had no strategy placed or planned for immediate post war public relations. GOSL should have stated and updated the real situation from day one. It is perfectly OK to say there are civilian deaths, we are counting the casualties, will give the right numbers as soon as we get, terrorist are in civilian attire so it is difficult to determine, we will entertain inquiries from families and loved ones to identify casualties, keep giving numbers as they come from different war fronts etc.. Even now the GOSL should maintain a data base of all information of people who have come forward looking for the missing. One striking point is haven’t heard of any claiming their family members or relatives were Tiger combatants.
Personally I feel the real casualty numbers were much lower than even 2000.
June 28th, 2013 at 12:40 pm
The Commonwealth or more appropriately the British commonwealth is practically a white elephant since the greatest powers on earth today never belonged to the Commonwealth of nations. Be it the US, Russia, China, Japan, Taiwan, Brazil, to all European nations outside of Britain that is now taking orders from the LiTE dominated Tamil community. If Sri Lanka exits the Commonwealth it would hardly effect Sri Lanka’s economy as more powerful European nations like Germany are heavily investing in Sri Lanka along with China, Japan, ASEAN nations, etc. which never belonged to the British Commonwealth. The UK is using the laws inherent in the Commonwealth to wield her power over Sri Lanka and is trying to marginalize Sri Lanka on human rights issues. A clear example was when President Rajapakse visited the UK. He waa met by thousands of Tamils carrying placards with LITE
June 28th, 2013 at 12:42 pm
labeled on them. Scotland Yard went out of their way to keep out of dealing with these protestors. had they carried a similar sigh with Al-Qaeda marked on them those placards would have been removed and the crowd dispersed. One could come to the conclusion that 10 Downing street orchestrated this protest to humiliate a leader of a nation.
June 28th, 2013 at 5:16 pm
“If Sri Lanka exits the Commonwealth it would hardly effect Sri Lanka’s economy as more powerful European nations like Germany are heavily investing in Sri Lanka along with China, Japan, ASEAN nations, etc. which never belonged to the British Commonwealth”
Good point Mr BW.
Sri Lanka would not have been worse off had the Japanese invaded and kicked the British out and weaned us away from the Indian Sepoy and Anglo-Saxon dominated Commonwealth.