{"id":84073,"date":"2018-12-11T22:24:25","date_gmt":"2018-12-12T04:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=84073"},"modified":"2018-12-11T07:35:10","modified_gmt":"2018-12-11T14:35:10","slug":"a-response-to-henry-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/12\/11\/a-response-to-henry-usa\/","title":{"rendered":"A response to Henry (USA)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Asoka Weerasinghe Kings Grove Crescent Gloucestd,m Ontario.<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
This response to Henry’s (USA) pertinent question to my response to Canadian High Commissioner David McKinnon’s meeting with former LTTE terrorists in Mullaitivu, recently.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
He asks: “Is there a possibility that newspapers in Canada will give\u00a0<\/i><\/b>due publicity to letters such as yours.”<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The answer is : Yes Henry<\/i><\/b>.\u00a0 During my involvement on this Eelam War file from August 1983 to\u00a0 August 2013, I have had just over 200 letters of mine published in – The Ottawa Citizen, The Ottawa Sun,\u00a0<\/i><\/b> \u00a0The Globe\u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/b>& Mail (Toronto),The Toronto Sun, The Toronto Star, Evening Telegram<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
(Newfoundland), the Gazette\u00a0(Montreal, Quebec), The Whig Standard\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/i>(Kingston, Ontario), The Windsor Star (Windsor, Ontario), The Province\u00a0<\/i><\/b>(Vancouver, British Columbia), Star India Journal (Toronto, Ontario), MacLeans\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/i>(Weekly\u00a0News Magazine, Toronto), National\u00a0Post (Toronto), and Embassy (Ottawa, Ontario).<\/b><\/i><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/b><\/i><\/div>\n
The bottom line was, if our Sri Lanka High Commission in Ottawa, responded to the news items on Sri Lanka which appeared in these newspapers and the trash they published of Eelam propagandists, then I wouldn’t have taken my precious time\u00a0writing letters, when I could have got on with my life.\u00a0 If they could show 25 letters that were published by them during my efforts of 30 years, we all would be happy.\u00a0 Perhaps, they were under strict orders from their Foreign Ministers not to get involved in letter writing.\u00a0 This I do not know.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The next question that would prompt Henry (USA) to ask me is – “Do you think\u00a0Canadians\u00a0<\/b><\/i>read your letters?<\/b><\/i>”\u00a0 My answer would be, “I like to believe so\u00a0<\/b><\/i>for several reasons.\u00a0 When I meet non-Sri Lankan Canadians, they want to discuss the whole Tamil issue and to elaborate on what I wrote,”<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
My wife who was Federal Government public servant, had gone to another Federal Department for a meeting and showed her ID to the Security Guard.\u00a0 He had looked at it, jotted her name, looked up at her and asked, “Do you know this person Asoka<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
Weerasinghe who writes letter to The Ottawa Citizen.”<\/i><\/b>\u00a0 She had said “Yes, he is my husband.”<\/i><\/b>\u00a0 Pat comes\u00a0the request: “Tell your husband that I haven’t read letters from\u00a0him <\/b><\/i>about the Tamils\u00a0 recently.\u00a0 Ask him to keep writing, as I want to know the otherside of the Tamil Tigers in Canada story.”<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The Editor of the Windsor Star <\/i><\/b>phoned me one day on a letter that I wrote as a response to a one page article Logan had written.\u00a0 The question was\u00a0 “How much funding do you get from the Sri Lanka Government to write these letters.” “:Not a penny<\/i><\/b>” I said. ““I don’t believe you,”\u00a0<\/i><\/b>\u00a0he responded.\u00a0 “How many researchers\u00a0 have you employed to write these informative letters.”\u00a0 “None” <\/i>I\u00a0s<\/i>aid..\u00a0“I do all the\u00a0research\u00a0myself.\u00a0 And I have\u00a0 a vast library to help me with\u00a0my writings.”\u00a0 “I don’t\u00a0believe you Mr. Weerasinghe, but I will publish your long response.” <\/i>he said.<\/div>\n
The long letter appeared as a middle spread on Monday, September 1984, titled –Separatists terrorists rend peaceful isle of Sri Lanka. <\/i>in the Windsor Star.<\/div>\n
I hope this explanation helps whether I am wasting my time with my letter\/essay writing<\/div>\n
on the Tamil Eelam separatist war in Sri Lanka.\u00a0 This was most I could have done for my Motherland who nurtured me during the first 19 years of my life. I didn’t have a heart to turn my back on her.\u00a0 No way!<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Asoka Weerasinghe<\/div>\n
Kings Grove Crescent<\/div>\n
Gloucestd,m Ontario.<\/div>\n
11 December 2018<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Asoka Weerasinghe Kings Grove Crescent Gloucestd,m Ontario. This response to Henry’s (USA) pertinent question to my response to Canadian High Commissioner David McKinnon’s meeting with former LTTE terrorists in Mullaitivu, recently. He asks: “Is there a possibility that newspapers in Canada will give\u00a0due publicity to letters such as yours.” The answer is : Yes Henry.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asoka-weerasinghe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84073","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=84073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84073\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}