{"id":88495,"date":"2019-05-10T00:12:12","date_gmt":"2019-05-10T06:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=88495"},"modified":"2019-05-09T16:42:26","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T23:42:26","slug":"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","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/05\/10\/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\/","title":{"rendered":"The intention of Tamil Canadians wanting the City of Ottawa to Declare May 18, 2019 as the \u2018Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day\u2019 and the \u2018Tamil Genocide Education Bill 104\u2019."},"content":{"rendered":"

Asoka Weerasinghe<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Kings Grove\nCrescent . Gloucester . Ontario . K1J 6G1<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8 May 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor Jim Watson & Councillor Tim Tierney (Beacon Hill)
City of Ottawa
110 Laurier West
Ottawa, On
K1P 1J1<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your Worship\nJim Watson & Councillor Tim Tierney:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Re:\u00a0 The intention of Tamil Canadians wanting the City of Ottawa to Declare May 18, 2019 as the \u2018Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day\u2019<\/em><\/strong>and the \u2018Tamil Genocide\nEducation Bill 104\u2019.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\nlittle way for the growth of this beautiful and fair City as Chairman,<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advocacy Committee of\nthe Gloucester Arts Council (1992-1994)<\/em><\/strong> to build the Shenkman Arts Complex in the East End;\nFounder-Organizer of the Gloucester Spoken Art,<\/em><\/strong> Poetry and\nStorytelling Series (1995-2007); recipient of the City of<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ottawa Arts and Culture\nAppreciation Award 2003;<\/em><\/strong> Gloucester City Millennium 2000 Arts Award for Leadership and\nDevelopment of the Arts; Province of Ontario Award for Volunteering for 15\nyears; and one-person Parents-Teachers Council at Rideau High School 1979, <\/em><\/strong>to\nstall the closing of Rideau HS,<\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 protest\nvehemently any effort by the Tamil-Canadian community, to pollute the sanity,\npeace, growth and positivity of our amazing City of Ottawa, sans ethnic hatred.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am one\nproponent who believe  that the\nMulticulturalism Policy of our fair City has no place for foreign ethnic wars\nwhich should be left behind on their shores by one and all immigrants to\nCanada, as well as refugees who arrive searching  for a home in our country.  Tamils from Sri Lanka who are seeking a home\nin the Capital Region of Ottawa should be told up front, by you Mayor Watson,\nand you Councillor Tierney and your Colleagues of the City Council, Your\nethnic wars back home has no place in our City. \nThey should  have been left behind\nin your country  before you left to join\nus in Canada.\u201d<\/em><\/strong>.  Councillor\nTierney, I am sure you know exactly what I mean since our Ward has a fair\nnumber of people from the African continent, whose problems that you have had\nto deal with and solve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wanting to\ncoerce the young class-room minds of Ottawans to learn the lies and hate about\nTamil Genocide\u201d with the proposed  Tamil Genocide Education Bill 104\u201d<\/strong> by\nthe Tamils should be dismissed without a second thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I brought up\ntwo beautiful daughters and two granddaughters through Ottawa\u2019s Public School\nSystem at Rideau HS, Henry Monroe MS and Colonel By SS in the east end,  never having or wanting to know about the\nfraudulent cry of Genocide\u201d of the Sri Lankan-Tamils. They did not want\nother\u2019s ethnic hate injected into their minds. Nor did their Dad and\nGranddad.  It should be left that way for\nour future school going generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Genocide\u201d<\/em><\/strong> is an ugly and a hateful word.  It also has a \nworking definition in the UN\u2019s lexicon. \nHere is a litmus test for you both to \napply on the Tamil Genocide\u201d <\/strong>cry\nand to make up your mind as a Judge and a Jurist. If you find that the Tamil Genocide\u201d cry is a lie and is a fraudulent\nmischief,  please dear Mayor Watson and\nCouncillor Tierney, do the favour to all Ottawans, by rejecting the request by\nthe Canadian Tamils, and keep our fair City \nclean as a whistle and reject such fraudulent mischievous Sri\nLankan-Tamil requests pitting the two Sri Lankan communities, the Tamils and\nSinhalese at each other.  I am a\nSinhalese and a Buddhist.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is the Litmus test:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

UN\ndefinition of Genocide\u201d<\/strong>.  The Article 2 of the UN Convention of the\nCrime of Genocide;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…any of\nthe following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a\nnational, ethnical, racial or religious group as such:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  •  Killing members of the group;<\/li>
  •  Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members\nof the group;<\/li>
  •   Deliberately inflicting on the group\nconditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole\nor in part;<\/li>
  •   Imposing measures intended to prevent births\nwithin the group;<\/li>
  •   Forcibly transferring children of the group\nto another group.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    Ask this\nsimple question from the Tamil-Canadian who is proposing that the City of\nOttawa recognize May 18 as the Tamil- Genocide Remembrance Day\u2019, and the\n\u2018Tamil Genocide Education Bill 104.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Please explain to us, how would you explain\nand reconcile the following FACT which took place in the North of Sri Lanka as <\/em><\/strong>\u2018Tamil Genocide\u2019?\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    During the last five months  from January 1 to May 19 of the Tamil Eelam\nWar of 2009, when the Tamil Tigers were annihilated on the beach of the Nandikadal\nLagoon in the east coast, 295,873 Tamils who were used as Human Shields by the\nTamil Tigers, marching them for 30 tropical-hot months from the west coast to\nthe east coast under the scorching Jaffna-Killinochchi sun, like unwashed\ncattle and were rescued from the Tamil Tigers clutches by the Sri Lankan\nSinhalese soldiers and housed them in temporary refugee camps.  It would have been easy to snuff them out,\nbut they weren\u2019t.   All this doesn’t look\nlike Genocide, does it?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Tell, us how would you reconcile the\nFACT that the 295,873 Tamil refugees who were not snuffed out and housed in\nrefugee camps were sustained with three hearty meals – breakfast, lunch and\ndinner every day.  A million meals were\nprepared by mainly Sinhalese people, and some were Sinhalese soldiers.\nThey  could have told the authorities,\nSorry, we don\u2019t want to cook the meals, let these Tamils starve to death!\u201d No,\nthat didn\u2019t happen.  They opted to cook\nand feed their Tamil brothers and sisters and keep them alive to see another\nday.  This doesn\u2019t look like Genocided\ndoes it?  Can we have an explanation\nabout your charge of Genocide\u201d.  You are\nupto some intolerable mischief, aren’t you?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    All of the\n295,873 rescued Tamil refugees were sent back to their homes after most of the 1.5\nmillion landmines planted by the Tamil Tigers were  diffused, and their houses were renovated or\nrebuilt<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    You know\nwhat Mayor Watson, and Councillor Tierney, the majority of our First Nation\npeoples in Reserves would have moved heaven and earth to exchange their places\nwith these 295,873 Tamil refugees, as they were looked after much, much better\nby the Sri Lankan Government,  than the\nCanadian Government looking after our First Nation Peoples, Think about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    AN ALERT.  I have just read a note from Riccito Giula\nthat … the City of Ottawa has issued a proclamation in recognition of the\nweek of Remembrance for War Victims of\nSri Lanka for the period of May 11th to 18th, 2019,<\/strong> as it does comply with\nour proclamation policy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    WOW! I am\nnot sure what to think of it.  I am\nfoxed.  I am not sure whether to laugh or\nto cry.  I am not sure whether both of\nyou deserve a Merry Christmas card <\/em>from\nme this Christmas.  Right now, I would\nsay No. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I am pleased\nthat you used the words ….Remembrance of war victims of Sri\nLanka..\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Immediately\nmy thoughts went to the Sinhalese infants who were plucked from their young\nMother\u2019s breasts and bayoneted by the nasty, brutal Tamil Tigers, in front of\nthe Mother’s eyes, and some infants were bashed on to granite rocks splitting\ntheir heads by the Tamil Tigers enjoying the sight of oozing thick ketchup\ncoloured blood, as if they were  bashing\ncoconuts as a Hindu ritual, at the \nNallur Kovil in Jaffna  That still\nhurts.  These infants didn\u2019t have a\nchance to fight back these brutal Tamil Tigers wanting to feel their young\nSinhalese Mother\u2019s  warm loving hug, one\nlast time.  That was cruel.  That was sad!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Please, try\nnot to pit the two Sri Lankan communities, Sinhalese and Tamils to go at each\nother when we are trying  our best to\nreconcile and heal.  Stop being another\ntwo insensitive  Canadian politicians who\npride themselves as We are Holier than Thou\u201d<\/em><\/strong> who have\nsold their souls for the mono-ethnic, Tamil racist separatist state of Tamil Eelam<\/em> cause, to buy a Sinhalese\nblood-soaked vote,  I have met quite a\nfew of them since July 1983.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Sincerely,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Asoka\nWeerasinghe (Mr.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Asoka Weerasinghe Kings Grove Crescent . Gloucester . Ontario . K1J 6G1 8 May 2019 Mayor Jim Watson & Councillor Tim Tierney (Beacon Hill)City of Ottawa110 Laurier WestOttawa, OnK1P 1J1 Your Worship Jim Watson & Councillor Tim Tierney: Re:\u00a0 The intention of Tamil Canadians wanting the City of Ottawa to Declare May 18, 2019 as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88495","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\/88495","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=88495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88495\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}