Open Letter to the Sigrid Rausing Trust on Yasmin Sooka & ITJP
Posted on June 15th, 2020
This open letter to the Board of Trustees of Sigrid Rausing Trust is based on the SRT website & to seek clarifications regarding funding in particular as a large sum of funding is going to an entity that is on a smear campaign against Sri Lanka.
Your Trust, as per your websitecovers the Balkans, Central & Eastern Europe, former Soviet Union, Lebanon & Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia in North Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe and South Africa. How is it that you are also funding ITJP Sri Lanka?
Is your Trust aware that Sri Lanka is not located in Eastern Europe or Africa but in Asia?
https://www.sigrid-rausing-trust.org
Your Trust, mentions 10 programs
- Advocacy, Research & Litigation
- Detention, Torture & Death Penalty
- Defending Civic Space
- Transitional Justice
- Women’s Rights
- LGBI Rights
- Xenophobia & Intolerance
- Transparency & Accountability
- Arts
- Conservation
It is under 4thprogram – Transitional Justice that details of funding is given to the International Truth & Justice Project (Sri Lanka) which is administered under the Foundation of Human Rights South Africa which EU launched in 1996. Yasmin Sooka has been EU employee of FHR South Africa from 1996 to September 2019. Whether she continues to be Director of ITJP (Sri Lanka) functioning within FHR (South Africa) we do not know.
However, as per Sigrid Rausing Trust website your Trust has been paying ITJP (Sri Lanka) since its inception in 2014.
As per Your Trust’s website from 2014 to March 2019 your Trust has given £471,500 to ITJP (Sri Lanka)
While your Trust has given a further £300,000 from 1stApril 2019 to 2020
This means from 2014 to 2020 your Trust’s allocation for Yasmin Sooka & ITJP is £771,500
She has so far written over 70 reports against Sri Lanka from ITJP. But her association with LTTE fronts cannot be overlooked. She attended the conference of such a front as its Guest Speaker to be introduced as ‘comrade’. She has been associated with other entities linked to efforts to smear Sri Lanka as well. While she was a member of the personally commissioned Ban Ki Moon Panel which in its report said they had ‘credible allegations’ months later in an article co-authored by the same 3 member panel – they replace ‘credible allegations’ with ‘credible evidence’. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/opinion/revisiting-sri-lankas-bloody-war.html?_r=0
Your Trust as per your website your Trust claims to ‘not accept unsolicited applications for funding’. As such, we would like to know how much of Sri Lanka’s conflict Your Trust is actually aware of. Your NewsStories from 2013 to 2020 has not covered a single story on Sri Lanka.
This is to educate your Trust on what Sri Lanka suffered and who the real enemy should be.
Sri Lanka is an island in the Indian Ocean with a population of just over 20million of which 70% comprise the Sinhalese and the remaining 30% minorities that comprise Tamils & Muslims. Sri Lanka was occupied by 3 foreign invaders from 1505 to 1948 (Portuguese – Dutch – British). Their divide & rule policies created most of the existing problems as a result of marginalizing the majority and providing preferential treatment to the minorities. The divisions created were inflamed covertly post-independence.
In 1970s groups of minority Tamil youth obtained armed training & returned to Sri Lanka. The main reason for them to take up arms was against their own rigid caste system which resulted in assassinating Tamil leaders initially. In order to reign over their own, these low caste Tamil youth, chased away the Sinhalese & Muslims who were living in North Sri Lanka. Not many questioned LTTE about ethnic cleansing of the 2 communities by LTTE from North Sri Lanka to claim it a mono-ethnic area.
These armed militants went on to vanquish other militant groups to reign supreme. They became internationally known as Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam headed by Velupillai Prabakaran. LTTE went on to commit the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in his own country in 1991. LTTE has killed scores of Tamils though claiming to represent Tamils. LTTE has killed Sri Lankan politicians, public officials, academics, religious clergy, children, villagers, unarmed civilians virtually across 30 years via suicide missions, bombs and assassinations. LTTE was eventually vanquished in May 2009 after LTTE closed the sluice gates that supplied water to 40,000 farmers in the East. This was a war crime to deny water.
LTTE continues to be banned by US-UK-India and 32 countries around the globe even 10 years after its ground force was militarily eliminated.
Everyone is speaking of the last phase of the conflict and the crimes that ensued but no one seems to be bothered about what the 20million citizens went through since 1980s
- LTTE butchered poor villagers living in border villages – cutting women, children & babies to death & scaring them from continuing to live in their homes. This was nothing but to expand their territory of rule
- LTTE began killing members of all communities including Tamils who they claim to represent. Anyone going against LTTE was assassinated. LTTE has even killed foreigners
- LTTE has bombed places of worship butchering people worshipping – no one was funding to count their tears or their dead
- LTTE planted bombs in buses, trains, offices, cars and road sides killing innocent & unarmed civilians going about their daily lives. They had done no wrong to be killed by LTTE. Why did no one fund any program to reach out to these poor people?
When LTTE closed the sluice gates denying water, they were asked to re-open the gates. They refused and went on to attack adjoining villages killing innocent people. A Government is bound to safeguard the lives of the People and it was after 30 years of weathering terror, taking part in numerous peace talks, negotiations, ceasefires some which were mediated by foreign parties and even presence of foreign peace keepers and foreign monitoring missions failed to bring peace that the GoSL ordered to militarily defeat LTTE. The country had suffered 30 years of LTTE terror and unlike 9/11 which was one incident that ended up in bombing Afghanistan and Iraq where foreign troops continue to be present even after 20 years, Sri Lanka has not seen LTTE bombings or suicide missions since May 2009. So 20million people are happy that LTTE is no more because it is we who know what we suffered not anyone else.
Entities that chose not to do anything more than issue statements when LTTE murdered suddenly began to call for war crimes investigation when LTTE was defeated. We find this very strange. LTTE recruited children and turned them into child soldiers. There was no Trust to fund an end to children being trained to kill. The Australian nurse who trained these children to kill also trained them to commit suicide and she lives in UK – her name is Adele B.
As for war crimes – why is everyone silent on the 49 injured LTTE who LTTE leaders put into a bus and bombed in May 2009 lest they should spill the beans on LTTE? When UN Secretary General & UNSC as well as members of the international community also appealed to LTTE not to shoot the fleeing Tamils – who are asking how many fleeing Tamil civilians LTTE shot & killed. When LTTE forced Tamil civilians to accompany them as they retreated – who is asking why LTTE did not release the civilians and not put them in harm’s way by firing from among civilians and keeping military hardware among civilians? Isn’t this a violation under rules of war?
The numbers being quoted as dead contradicts the figures that can be proved with names. It’s really time these lies ended.
When LTTE was given 3 chances by the Government to give up, surrender and lay down arms and when LTTE refused and declared it would continue the battle – they chose their destiny. Of course, there is collateral damage. But no one should forget that the Sri Lankan Armed Forces physically saved some 300,000 Tamils and brought them to safety. Each of these have a name but the Sri Lankan Armed Forces are being accused of killing a number which is unsubstantiated. So many people are quoting civilian dead but none of them have provided names or details of the supposed to be dead. What needs to be clearly mentioned here is that anyone quoting dead figures or names cannot plug the names of LTTE combatants because they cannot be featured as civilian dead.
The Trust must also note that LTTE fought in uniform, in civilian clothing and LTTE had its own CIVILIAN ARMED FORCE. Any civilian fighting in this unit cannot be categorized as civilian dead either. There are a lot of complications. Obviously, your Trust has been misinformed to tap into your generous funding.
As a citizen of Sri Lanka, we are doing our best to educate the international community because they have been victims of lies and false propaganda. No member of the international community can point fingers because they failed to give us peace from LTTE terror. Our Armed Forces did. Your Board should find out how we lived in fear from 1980s to 2009. We couldn’t attend school or work. Our parent’s eyes were filled with tears each time we left the house not knowing if we would return. We can give you lists of acts of terror committed by LTTE every day, every week, every month, every year for 30 years. You cannot understand how happy we were when in May 2009 we realized we did not have to leave our homes in fear.
This organization that your Trust is funding has even presented LTTE terrorist dead as ‘civilians’ and LTTE asylum seekers as civilians too.
Your trust has spent £771,500 on Sri Lanka. Perhaps it is time that you do a proper audit on ITJP (Sri Lanka) as well as do your own homework on Sri Lanka’s conflict by finding out the terror committed by LTTE upon all of the communities, upon Tamil children turned into child soldiers, killing their own combatants who were of no use to them and even killing foreign leaders.
A philanthropic Trust should spend its money on worthwhile efforts and know exactly the nature of what they are spending for.
Shenali D Waduge
June 16th, 2020 at 12:27 am
Congratulations Shenali on your wonderful reporting. It is a fact that Rayappu, Wigneswaran and Sampanthan are well aware of what has happened in the past but they are still following of the monster Prabakharan’s pipe dream of Eelam. It is also obvious that they have duped Tutu, as evidenced by his ignorant actions of the past. Sooka, like certain other corrupt people in the pay of the UN and other such ill-informed (as clearly seen from how some of them have treated Sri Lanka in the past, obviously hates Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans, and your article comes at a time when she is facing legal action from another great Sri Lankan, Maj. Gen. Sallay.
Sri Lanka has survived the onslaughts of numerous foreign powers, and continues to make achievements that other countries only dream of-like the defeat of LTTE terrorism. Even as I write this, there are groups in the country as well as outside plotting to shatter the peace and well being of Sri Lanka. It will need the continued vigilance of the government and patriotic Sri Lankans to preserve her unity, peace and prosperity.
One thing that bothers me is that only a few people like Shenali and others are pinpointing the subversives out there-religious and political, local and foreign, with their own criminal intentions. Others, including the government must be extremely vigilant so that the blood that was sacrificed by our proud armed forces, as well as the victims of the ruthless terrorists will never be in vain.
vigilant so that the
June 16th, 2020 at 5:26 am
Destruction of the Sinhalese race, Sri Lanka and Buddhism started with parangi invasion. Parangi brought religion
of convenience which made a lot of Sinhalese alien to Sinhalese Buddhists thinking they are a class above and
they did a lot of damage to destroy Buddhism (the only true religion in the world: Buddhism’s Five Precepts are
used as the penal code in every country under the sun. That’s just one thing), Sri Lanka and the Sinhalese
race. Living example is traitor low life traitor chief die hard catholic token Buddhist mega thief mega thakkadiya, bay gal karaya, mass murderer (Sinhalese Buddhists only of course) Batalande wa(n)dakaya Pot Pot r@ni_leech wickrama Sinhala killer. Traitor chief’s wolf in sheep’s clothing disguise (that is catholic wolf in Buddhist’s clothing) did irreparable damage to Mother Lanka, Buddhism and the Sinhalese race to the delight of tamils, mussies and catholics. Thanks to traitor low life, Sri Lanka, Buddhism and the Sinhalese race are facing eternal threat from
the traitor foreigners tamils and mussies.
Dutch brought tamils from tn to work in tobacco plantations. Then British brought tamils again to work in tea
plantations. Then a lot of kallathonis crossed the 16-miles of sea to save their lives from the severe famine in
tn in the 60s. Knowing Sinhalese are divided thanks to anti Buddhist, anti Sri Lanka, anti Sinhalese, minority
worshiping, Mother Lanka dismembering GooandPee aka UNPatriotic_rats, they have become natives with
1000s of years of history without an ancient tamil brick older than 400 years to substantiate their bogus claim.
No Anuradhapuras, no Polonnaruwas, their mythical kings lived in sand castles or used cow boy builders?
While tamils stayed away from government, mussies after multiplying like , propped up every government
since 60s, landed powerful ministries promoted even more mass breeding, and filled up all the ministries under
them with mussies. So principled, so honest Sinhalese deshapaluwas never propped up any government and let
the mussies in to do the destruction. We all know how honest our deshapaluwas are. Sinhala modayas let the mussies in.
Today, both foreigners wants their exclusively them only kingdoms while living all over the country enjoying
more benefits, freedom than the native Sinhalese. Divided Sinhalese are easy prey. Even these traitors get their drealam and mussisthan kingdoms, they will be fighting eternal wars to expand their territories and with their
foreign backers Sinhalese are going to be refugees in their own land or going to be wiped out totally. Already Sinhalese are banned in N&E, and probably short-memoried Sinhalese already forgotten how traitor chief’s
catholic buddy barrel man hitler mala paharan used a visa system for us to go to N&E. Don’t ask a GooandPeer
or jaathidrohee vermins’ party aka jvper, he/she won’t remember that.
Since parangi invasion, Sinhalese have become prisoners in their own land and situation getting worse. After
killing 100,000+, mainly Sinhalese, to get their tamil drealam not a word to say sorry. Now the traitor foreigners
getting ready again to kill 100s of 1000s of Sinhalese to get the drealam home and abroad. Meanwhile, other
traitor lot mussies after multiplying like getting ready to kill Sinhalese by millions to establish its mussithan.
Why do have to put up with these ungrateful menaces who don’t want to co-exist with us and plotting to kill us
all. If the traitors get their kingdoms, Sinhalese going to lose all and become refugees in our own land. Do we
want that, apart from the smanala gang who doesn’t have any off spring? Of course not. We should petition
(e-petition) the government to send these people back to where they came from. After all Mr Modi recently
opened the door for tamils to come any time.
Mussies can go former Buddhist countries, iran, afganisthan, pakisthan, bangladesh, malaysia and indonesia (Google those countries’ Buddhist heritages) they turned to mussie after multiplying like . Or there are 80
mussies countries they boast and halal, sharia, buriya, goni billa dress (high fashion in hell among ghosts),
multi wives, child brides etc. etc. etc all there and don’t have to kill any Sinhalese to get them.
650,000+ estate tamils volunteered to go back under patriotic Sirima B who negotiated Sirima-Shasthri Pact.
Then while the repatriation going on she lost elections and traitor alugosuwa (to Sinhalese Buddhists only) thambi
mudiyanselage jr@ gave citizenship to all of them for their votes. Today, they must be numbering 3-4 millions
or even more and aspiring for a greater drealam (remember 2019 Presidential Elections voting map aka
drealam map).
Can we trust these foreigners? Their record during the last 400 years is abysmal (apart from Murali). Even to put
up a name borad, to sing our Natioanl Anthem, keeping our archaelogical sites safe, living all parts of our own
country etc etc we are banned or need their permission. Name any country on the planet in a sad situation like
this letting foreigners to rule over them. Enough is enough and it’s time to claim our country back and win our freedom to go back pre parangi era. Now the traitor menace getting ready to annihilate us all.
Petition GoSL to send them back to save the Sinhalese race. Or within a few hundred years there will be no Sinhalese left in Sinhale! For a start take the civic rights of Sinhalese, tamil and mussie deshapaluwas who
brought Sri Lanka to where we are today. Hang traitor chief die hard catholic token Buddhist who did the most
damage (other two alugosuwas are dead, thambi mudiyanselage jr@ and lk porisada R@). Their murder
Sinhalese, get Sri Lanka to themselves only agenda destroyed the social fabric of the country. To avoid eternal bloodbaths and to avert extinction of Sinhalese in Sri Lanka, PETITION the Government now to send these
undesirables to where they came from! Then no UN, AI, AB, CD, EF, sooka yaka, maha sona, reeri yaka, macermutt, monkey boon (previously), david milibanda etc. etc. who putting screws into Mother Lanka for
diasporats votes/payroll won’t make any noise. What’s more the paid foot soldiers will be pleading GoSL to keep
these undesirables! Do it now to save Sinhalese race, Sri Lanka and Buddhism.
June 16th, 2020 at 6:44 am
Archbishop two three, kasippu joseph, pig the pigneshwaran, one foot in the grave hatred in eyes etc. etc. all
should remember this.
All the crimes (sins) any two legged creature can do anywhere under the sun:
1 killing (two legged only? according to religions of conveniences which do not regard sins as sin)
2 stealing
3 sexual misconduct (affair with neighbour isn’t against the law. But if the 3rd party aka hurt party make a hole
in the chest of guilty party?)
4 LYING
5 alcohol/drug abuse (having a bottle or arrack isn’t against the law. But sit behind that round thing and
mow down someone?)
While the above five are used as the PENAL CODE in every country under the sun, refrain from them is
Buddhism’s Five Precepts. Remember those people singing for their supper/votes, lying is a major sin and
people who sin pay for their sins in the animal kingdom for 100s of 1000s life times before being ‘promoted’ to
be two legged creatures (Darwin’s Theory of Evolution?). Charles Darwin showed the two legged creatures how
we came to be being after evolving for 3000 million years. Then his book, The Tree of Life, explained how all
these other millions of creatures, flies, mosquitoes etc. etc. came to be being. Today, the Theory is science fact
and all honest, literate people accept it to be true and all the museums in the world dedicate large section to showcase it while no gods are displayed. These foot soldiers of catholic tigers of tamil drealam should take note, next 100s of 1000s of life times you will find more than two legged existence.
There can be only one truth with regard to any one thing. Religion is same. There can be only one true religion
on the planet. What The Buddha preached over 2,500 years ago, science keeps proving to be true. The Buddha
preached every universe life time a Buddha is born to guide two legged in the right direction. We all know
(honest only) now the universe has a beginning and end and it is a vast vast vast place where distances are
measured in light years and no scientist knows where the edges are todate just like The Buddha explained.
What’s more the earth’s size is a grain of sand in the vast vast vast universe. So what god will make the earth
a grain of sand with built in volcanoes, earth quakes, tsunamis and people in different colours to kill each other? After all 7 billion+ lived/living two legged never seen one and WW1, WW2, Spanish flu, Covid 19 etc. etc. which killed millions gods, never bothered to show up since they were all man-made.
People used to worship trees, rivers, mountains, gods in the OLDEN DAYS IN THE ABSENCE. Darwin buried them nearly 200 years ago, still they keep the concept alive by putting fear into people saying god will punish the
wrong doer with millions of paid staff/rich powerful organisations to propagate/safeguard religions of
conveniences. If the god punishing people, he himself going to be a baddie and lose his ‘job’, doesn’t it?
Buddhism doesn’t have any paid staff or powerful organisations since it is up to the individual to live this life peacefully and make the next even better and eventually stop being born. No one else can can do it for you and therefore Buddhism doesn’t have paid staff or fast breeding to propagate the religion.
The Buddha preached, health is wealth. How appropriate for a uncaring, selfish, greedy society/world today.
Covid-19 is the curse of the animals who give their lives in billions on daily basis to fill the greedy two leggeds’
stomachs. Two legged who used to run in the wild naked looking for food has evolved to be flying in jets,
landing on the moon etc. etc and these helpless animals didn’t evolve at all? It’s absurd to think that way. Two
legged runs a mile as soon as they see a danger to life and think animals don’t have any instinct is only cheating
yourselves. Even trees have mechanisms to survive. That’s why we see trees spreading their branches towards
the sun or ‘hibernate’ in winter in the cold climes. But greedy, uncaring two legged attitude is oh, these creatures
are our food and we pray several times a day and our fake gods are fine with it. Animals have diseases too since
they don’t have hospitals/doctors and they pass those on to two legged when they keep devouring them (their
revenge?). Now science has proven meat eating causes a lot of illnesses including cancers. After all one look at
two legged teeth and then cat’s/dog’s/lion’s teeth (in a picture) tells you what sort of diet we should be eating. Livestock generate a lot of green house gases and a lot of jungles are being cleared to rear them
adding more destruction to poor mother nature. Covid19 is a warning to two legged to behave or even deadlier
ones waiting in the wings.
The Buddha touched all the civilisations at the time and iran, afganisthan, pakisthan, bangladesh, malaysia and
indonesia (Google to see those countries Buddhist heritages) used to be Buddhist countries before the fastest
breeding religion aka religion of violence mussies arrived in those countries with their baby machine wives
(BMWs?). Within a few hundred years mussies outnumbered (murdered) and turned all of them to mussie countries. This is what the mussies are doing in Sri Lanka with the help of GooandPee traitor thieves to turn our country to a mussie country. Now mussies use thing called vote to make countries mussies by multiplying and
multiplying. The dirty trick was recently tried in Buddhist Myanmar but miserably failed thanks to their
patriotic leader.
Buddhism didn’t fit the Indian society with caste systems, animal sacrifices etc etc. and people quickly reverted
back to religions of conveniences which don’t regard sins as sins. Then invading mussies killed all the Buddhist monks and burnt down all the Buddhist universities (a world first) and uprooted the only true
religion on the planet from its birth place. Anyone visiting the north of India where The Buddha lived can see the
remains of ancient building spread across 500/1000 miles area. That alone should be enough to realise
The Buddha had a vast following unlike the religion of conveniences birth places which are limited small
areas. Science has shown what The Buddha has preached is true again again. Two leggeds listen to science,
listen to Buddha whose teachings guaranteed right to life for all living things (animals included) and be kind
to nature. Covid19 has shown the all too powerful two leggeds they are no match for the mother nature.
Remember, lying is a major sin. If you sin, karma follows you all the time like the cart behind the bull. There
is no escape. Why? The victim/victims curse the culprit and those curses send ‘bad energy’ to seriously damage
the wrong doer. No one keeping a notebook/computer to keep track unlike religions of conveniences. It’s all
automatic. Ditta dhamma vedaniya kamma! Remember hitler, barrel man hitler mala paharan, traitor alugosuwa
lk porisada R@, sad man hussein, gadda fi etc. etc. they all tasted their own medicine in this life, not forgetting
next 100s of 1000s of life times in the animal kingdom.