Asoka Weerasinghe

Kings Grove Crescent . Gloucester . Ontario . K1J 6G1

8 May 2019

Mayor Jim Watson & Councillor Tim Tierney (Beacon Hill)
City of Ottawa
110 Laurier West
Ottawa, On
K1P 1J1

Your Worship Jim Watson & Councillor Tim Tierney:

Re:  The intention of Tamil Canadians wanting the City of Ottawa to Declare May 18, 2019 as the ‘Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day’and the ‘Tamil Genocide Education Bill 104’.

I, Asoka Weerasinghe, a proud citizen of the City of Ottawa (East) since I set foot on Canadian soil on 16 October 1970, who has contributed handsomely in my humble little way for the growth of this beautiful and fair City as Chairman,

Advocacy Committee of the Gloucester Arts Council (1992-1994) to build the Shenkman Arts Complex in the East End; Founder-Organizer of the Gloucester Spoken Art, Poetry and Storytelling Series (1995-2007); recipient of the City of

Ottawa Arts and Culture Appreciation Award 2003; Gloucester City Millennium 2000 Arts Award for Leadership and Development of the Arts; Province of Ontario Award for Volunteering for 15 years; and one-person Parents-Teachers Council at Rideau High School 1979, to stall the closing of Rideau HS,

 protest vehemently any effort by the Tamil-Canadian community, to pollute the sanity, peace, growth and positivity of our amazing City of Ottawa, sans ethnic hatred.

I am one proponent who believe  that the Multiculturalism Policy of our fair City has no place for foreign ethnic wars which should be left behind on their shores by one and all immigrants to Canada, as well as refugees who arrive searching  for a home in our country.  Tamils from Sri Lanka who are seeking a home in the Capital Region of Ottawa should be told up front, by you Mayor Watson, and you Councillor Tierney and your Colleagues of the City Council, Your ethnic wars back home has no place in our City.  They should  have been left behind in your country  before you left to join us in Canada.”.  Councillor Tierney, I am sure you know exactly what I mean since our Ward has a fair number of people from the African continent, whose problems that you have had to deal with and solve.

Wanting to coerce the young class-room minds of Ottawans to learn the lies and hate about Tamil Genocide” with the proposed  Tamil Genocide Education Bill 104” by the Tamils should be dismissed without a second thought.

I brought up two beautiful daughters and two granddaughters through Ottawa’s Public School System at Rideau HS, Henry Monroe MS and Colonel By SS in the east end,  never having or wanting to know about the fraudulent cry of Genocide” of the Sri Lankan-Tamils. They did not want other’s ethnic hate injected into their minds. Nor did their Dad and Granddad.  It should be left that way for our future school going generations.

Genocide” is an ugly and a hateful word.  It also has a  working definition in the UN’s lexicon.  Here is a litmus test for you both to  apply on the Tamil Genocide” cry and to make up your mind as a Judge and a Jurist. If you find that the Tamil Genocide” cry is a lie and is a fraudulent mischief,  please dear Mayor Watson and Councillor Tierney, do the favour to all Ottawans, by rejecting the request by the Canadian Tamils, and keep our fair City  clean as a whistle and reject such fraudulent mischievous Sri Lankan-Tamil requests pitting the two Sri Lankan communities, the Tamils and Sinhalese at each other.  I am a Sinhalese and a Buddhist.

Here is the Litmus test:

UN definition of Genocide”.  The Article 2 of the UN Convention of the Crime of Genocide;

…any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such:

•  Killing members of the group;
•  Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
•   Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
•   Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
•   Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Ask this simple question from the Tamil-Canadian who is proposing that the City of Ottawa recognize May 18 as the Tamil- Genocide Remembrance Day’, and the ‘Tamil Genocide Education Bill 104.”

 Please explain to us, how would you explain and reconcile the following FACT which took place in the North of Sri Lanka as ‘Tamil Genocide’?”

During the last five months  from January 1 to May 19 of the Tamil Eelam War of 2009, when the Tamil Tigers were annihilated on the beach of the Nandikadal Lagoon in the east coast, 295,873 Tamils who were used as Human Shields by the Tamil Tigers, marching them for 30 tropical-hot months from the west coast to the east coast under the scorching Jaffna-Killinochchi sun, like unwashed cattle and were rescued from the Tamil Tigers clutches by the Sri Lankan Sinhalese soldiers and housed them in temporary refugee camps.  It would have been easy to snuff them out, but they weren’t.   All this doesn’t look like Genocide, does it?”

Tell, us how would you reconcile the FACT that the 295,873 Tamil refugees who were not snuffed out and housed in refugee camps were sustained with three hearty meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner every day.  A million meals were prepared by mainly Sinhalese people, and some were Sinhalese soldiers. They  could have told the authorities, Sorry, we don’t want to cook the meals, let these Tamils starve to death!” No, that didn’t happen.  They opted to cook and feed their Tamil brothers and sisters and keep them alive to see another day.  This doesn’t look like Genocided does it?  Can we have an explanation about your charge of Genocide”.  You are upto some intolerable mischief, aren’t you?”

All of the 295,873 rescued Tamil refugees were sent back to their homes after most of the 1.5 million landmines planted by the Tamil Tigers were  diffused, and their houses were renovated or rebuilt

You know what Mayor Watson, and Councillor Tierney, the majority of our First Nation peoples in Reserves would have moved heaven and earth to exchange their places with these 295,873 Tamil refugees, as they were looked after much, much better by the Sri Lankan Government,  than the Canadian Government looking after our First Nation Peoples, Think about it.

AN ALERT.  I have just read a note from Riccito Giula that … the City of Ottawa has issued a proclamation in recognition of the week of Remembrance for War Victims of Sri Lanka for the period of May 11th to 18th, 2019, as it does comply with our proclamation policy.”

WOW! I am not sure what to think of it.  I am foxed.  I am not sure whether to laugh or to cry.  I am not sure whether both of you deserve a Merry Christmas card from me this Christmas.  Right now, I would say No.

I am pleased that you used the words ….Remembrance of war victims of Sri Lanka..”

Immediately my thoughts went to the Sinhalese infants who were plucked from their young Mother’s breasts and bayoneted by the nasty, brutal Tamil Tigers, in front of the Mother’s eyes, and some infants were bashed on to granite rocks splitting their heads by the Tamil Tigers enjoying the sight of oozing thick ketchup coloured blood, as if they were  bashing coconuts as a Hindu ritual, at the  Nallur Kovil in Jaffna  That still hurts.  These infants didn’t have a chance to fight back these brutal Tamil Tigers wanting to feel their young Sinhalese Mother’s  warm loving hug, one last time.  That was cruel.  That was sad!

Please, try not to pit the two Sri Lankan communities, Sinhalese and Tamils to go at each other when we are trying  our best to reconcile and heal.  Stop being another two insensitive  Canadian politicians who pride themselves as We are Holier than Thou” who have sold their souls for the mono-ethnic, Tamil racist separatist state of Tamil Eelam cause, to buy a Sinhalese blood-soaked vote,  I have met quite a few of them since July 1983.

Sincerely,

Asoka Weerasinghe (Mr.)