{"id":102622,"date":"2020-05-20T15:46:55","date_gmt":"2020-05-20T22:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=102622"},"modified":"2020-05-20T15:48:29","modified_gmt":"2020-05-20T22:48:29","slug":"reconciliation-or-re-capitulation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/05\/20\/reconciliation-or-re-capitulation\/","title":{"rendered":"Reconciliation or Re- Capitulation?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><strong data-rich-text-format-boundary=\"true\">Palitha Sennayake<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>May 18<sup>th<\/sup> is a significant day for Sri Lanka because that was the day the country finally overcame terrorism that plagued the nation for three decades killing more than one hundred thousand people and pushing the country back economically by three decades. It is since that day that people could get about their activities freely, the children could be sent to schools with no fear of explosions, the businesses could carry on uninterrupted and most of all the investors would mull to move in, attracted by the positive prospects.\u00a0 Dividends of peace were apparent all over the country and especially in the north and east where child recruitment and death of young people have stopped bringing altogether a fresh breath of freedom, that the current generation didn\u2019t even know was possible. Therefore, this date was a date of significance for the entire nation where it came out from the shackles of the most ruthless and organized terror group, the world ever experienced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nprevious regime however, did away with the state commemoration of this day and\nthe reason given was that this celebration could be offensive to the Tamil community\nwhose youth died in this conflict and therefore a commemoration could infer\ntriumphalism over that community. In the same breath they argued that this could\nendanger reconciliation of the different communities affecting eventual\nnational unification. If that is what it takes to achieve national unity then a\nfew would have qualms about suspending the commemoration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nirony however is, with this decision to \u2018let go\u2019 this day we could observe a\nflurry of activity among Tamil nationalist organizations to commemorate this\nday with epithets ranging from \u2018Remembrance day\u2019 to \u2018Day of Tamil genocide\u2019. In\nthis regard, it is with concern that we note that the Leader of the Liberal\nDemocratic party in&nbsp; England, Edward\nDavie,&nbsp; proclaiming May 18<sup>th<\/sup>\nas the \u2018Tamil genocide day\u2019 while in Canada, May 18<sup>th<\/sup> is to be commemorated\nin grand scale as the \u2018Tamil genocide day\u2019 with the participation of the\ncountry\u2019s Prime Minister.&nbsp; However, the\nmessage people in Sri Lanka have to convey to the organizers of these events, especially\nif they are foreigners, is that to call what happened in Sri Lanka, a genocide,\nthey either do not know their English or they know nothing about the conflict\nthat raged in Sri Lanka. &nbsp;\u2018Genocide\u2019\nmeans the total extinction of a group or race of people in their own habitat. Own\nhabitat is to mean the country in which that race fostered their civilization\nall that while. Tamils are the natives of Tamil Nadu, in Southern India and\ntherefore any conflict concerning Tamils in Sri Lanka could not be called\u2018genocide\u2019.\nTherefore, those who have launched this campaign either have not understood the\nworld genocide or if they have, they do not know that Tamil are not an\nindigenous community in Sri Lanka. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nRed Indians in North America faced genocide in the hands of invading Spanish\nand English. In Canada the English and French subjected the native Inuit\npopulation to genocide; so are the Maoris in New Zealand, the Aborigines\u2019 in\nAustralia. Therefore, if genocide is to occur in Sri Lanka it is the Sinhalese\nthat have to be annihilated and even that is not an unlikely scenario given the\npropaganda advantage the Tamil nationalism has gained claiming \u2018 genocide\u2019 of\nTamils in Sri Lanka. &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet,\nin the end what matters is not the true situation but propaganda. As Hitler\u2019s\nNatzi propaganda chief Paul Joseph Goebbels always maintained that \u2018when a\nstatement is repeated more often and constantly, the unquestioning human mind\nlosses its guard and accept it as the truth\u2019. That is exactly what the Tamil\npropaganda machine has been doing for the past 72 years. &nbsp;Any unjust cause needs a lot of propaganda to\nsugar coat that cause. Hitler picked a very versatile propagandist to justify\nhis ambitious world conquering campaign and similarly Tamil nationalism has a\nvery effective propaganda campaign to support its separatist course in Sri\nLanka.&nbsp; There however is a difference\nbetween the German Natzi movement and the LTTE, &nbsp;and that is Hitler spawned the Natzi\npropaganda to justify his campaign whereas the LTTE just walked in&nbsp; to the propaganda campaign spawned by Tamil\nnationalism and justified itself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What\nthe successive Sri Lankan governments have tragically failed to understand is\nthis propaganda dimension of the Tamil nationalist lobby and the fact that it overwhelmed\nall other tactics deployed by them up to now, including the LTTE terrorism.&nbsp; The LTTE reigned for 33 years and it is now\ngone but the Tamil propaganda outreach is more than 72 years old and it still prevails\nmaking the biggest humanitarian operation of the world that rescued 290,000\nendangered civilians in to a \u2018genocide\u2019.&nbsp;\nThat is not all, and let us now observe the issue of the number of\ndeaths that are said to have taken place at the Nanthikadal rescue operation in\nMay 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The important point to note here is that the number of deaths\nrecorded during the real rescue operation&nbsp;\nat Nanthikadal has been moderate and realistic but yet is in complete\ncontrast with &nbsp;the numbers that are being\nclaimed by Tamil nationalist today. For instance all the records available such\nas those of, the US military attache, the British military attache ( as quoted\nby&nbsp; Lard Neseby), the UN Country team,\nthe UTHR J report, the ICRC report, all gave the number of dead in the range\nbetween 7,000 to 9,000 and that number included the LTTE combatants as well.\nAll these were situation reports that recorded the events then and there during\nthe operation. Ironically however, the UNSG\u2019s Panel of Experts\u2019 report (\nDarusman report) that investigated after 2 years of the conflict has claimed\n40,000 deaths. Then the same report after 2 years and 6 months quoted a figure\nof 75,000 deaths. Rev. Rayappu Joseph, giving evidnce before the LLRC\nclaimed&nbsp; that 147,000 Tamil civilians\ndied at Nanthikadal. Franances Harrison, the BBC correspondent,&nbsp; publishing a book in 2014 ( 5 years after)\ntitled \u2018Still Counting the Dead\u2019also claimed 147,000 deaths. M\/s Yasmin Sooka,\na member of the UNSG\u2019s Panel of Experts, in a report published in 2005 by the\nEnglish Bar Association titled, \u2018The Unfinshed War\u2019 claimed 200,000 deaths. And\nthe latest now is that the Tamils in Canada are commemorating May 18<sup>th<\/sup>\nas the \u2018Tamil genocide day\u2019 where they claim 300,000 Tamils died. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thus, we could now see that by every month and every year\nthat passed since the conflict was over, that the number of deaths have\nincreased exponentially. There definitely is a correlation between the\nincreases of the&nbsp; number that died during\nthis rescue operation and the lapse of time since 18<sup>th<\/sup> May 2009 and\nhence it is very probable that, a few years from now the Tamil&nbsp; nationalist will be commemorating the deaths\nof about a million Tamil civilians in&nbsp;\nSri Lanka on the 18<sup>th<\/sup> May, every year. &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tamil nationalism has a cogent propaganda network that can\nturn things upside down with little help. With the turn of independence the\nTamils started fighting for the loss of privilehes that they enjoyed up to then\nbut they turned that in to post independent \u2018grievances\u2019. July 83 was the\neffect of years of terrorism by 5 Tamil militant groups up to then but they\nmade it in to a cause to futher their quest. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Therefore, the Sri lankan government, by doing away with the\ncommemoration on the 18<sup>th<\/sup> May is contributing to the Tamil\nnationalist propaganda by acknowledging that some wrong has been done to the\nTamil community; quite oblivious to the fcat that what matters is countering\npropaganda&nbsp; even above the elimination of\nterrorism. This is because a more indepth analysis will reveal that it is Tamil\nnationalism and its propaganda arm that created terrorism and sustained it for\n30 years&nbsp; and not vice versa.&nbsp; Therefore, the need of the hour is, not to be\nan aplogist for eliminating terror but to make a concerted and sustained effort\nto counter the Tamil nationalist proaganda arm that has done so much damage to\nthe image of this country and is still continuing to do so. Capitulation to\nTamil nationalist propaganda will only serve Tamil separatism making\nreconciliation that much more elusive. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Palitha Sennayake May 18th is a significant day for Sri Lanka because that was the day the country finally overcame terrorism that plagued the nation for three decades killing more than one hundred thousand people and pushing the country back economically by three decades. It is since that day that people could get about their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}