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Sri Lanka: To help in your statements
An Open Letter To Senator Barack Obama

Asoka Weerasinghe Ottawa, Canada

January 13, 2008

Senator Barack Obama
Democratic Presidential Candidate
U.S. Senate
Washington
US

Dear Senator:

On the first week in January, I left a mini-mountain of snow in Ottawa to get away from the cold and get some sun on the Cuban beaches of Varadero.
But what transpired on January 8^th was that I was away from the sun and in my air-conditioned room in the hotel, glued to the TV with my fingers crossed, rooting for you during the New Hampshire Presidential primary.

Although my interest for you to win was not based on US domestic issues since I am your neighbour in Canada, but that I wanted you to create history by becoming a black US President, and that of your foreign policy which might affect
US- Sri Lanka
relations as Sri Lanka happens to be my Motherland.

You had touched on the subject in one of your statements, characterizing the conflict of Sri Lanka as a *“vicious civil war”* and *“the problem of the 21^st century is the* *problem of the other.”*

You also described the phenomenon as the inability of people to accommodate others, *“ who are like us”*, and mentioned Sri Lanka as an example of pointing out that war rages even when *“every body there looks exactly the same.”*

On your first comment, I fully agree that, any internal war which involves sophisticated military weapons becomes a “vicious war”, but it certainly graduates to a notch higher when one of the protagonists happens to be an internationally acknowledged ruthless terrorist group. And in Sri Lanka’s feud one protagonist happens to be such a terrorist group - the Tamil Tigers, trained by India in the mid-80s. Thus you are right to call this feud which has been going on for the past 25 years as a “vicious civil war”, all for the want of a mono-ethnic racist, separate Tamil state, Eelam, in an island of the size of the State of Virginia.

You were right again, when you disparagingly remarked that the inability of people to accommodate others “who are like us”, and mentioned Sri Lanka as an example when “everybody there looks exactly the same.”

However, although that remark has a superficial intrinsic value, under its cuticle the Sri Lankan issue takes an extraordinary twist and an awkward turn.

Although the Sri Lanka’s stake holders are several ethnic groups; the majority being the Sinhalese (74%), the minorities Sri Lankan Tamils (12.6% in 1981 and 3.9% in 2007), Moors (7%), Indian Tamils (5.6%), Malays (0.3%), Burghers (0.3 %), and others (0.2%), the minority Sri Lankan-Tamils (12.6%) were ruling the roost as the *‘privileged minority’ *during 131 years of colonial rule because of the ‘divide and rule”
policy of its colonial Masters, the British, in comparison to the ‘*wronged majority’*, the Sinhalese (74%), who were undermined in every walk of life.

Then came Independence from the British in 1948, and in the process of correcting the discrepancies, the Tamils, who “looked exactly the same” as the Sinhalese, had difficulty to accept the policy of equity, as they still wanted to continue being ‘cocks of the walk’ and continue to rule the roost and did not want to give up some of their privileges to the majority and other minority ethnic stake holders, and had every intention to be the rulers of the majority Sinhalese community. That is where the problem was, Senator. Not that the Tamils who are fighting for their separate racist state were discriminated on any account by the majority Sinhalese.

But please Senator, make note of this bit of information which will help you to make some informed remark on Sri Lanka the next time around.

*Blacks in the United States made up 12.1 % of the population, roughly the same percentage as the Sri Lankan-Tamils in Sri Lanka in 1981, just two years prior to the riots when the Tamils flew the coop and landing on foreign lands saying that they were refugees running away from persecution. Considering that charges of discrimination against Tamils in Sri Lanka are a cornerstone of the rationale of Tamil Tiger terrorists fighting for their separate, racist state causing over 70,000 deaths so far, it is enlightening to compare the status of American-blacks and Sri Lankan-Tamils, and I am certain that you would conclude, as I have, that the Tamil Tigers are full of humbug, and so are the Tamil Diaspora lobbyists who are supporting the Tamil Tiger cause,*

* I think that you will agree that American-blacks constitute an underclass by any criterion in the US. An article in the /Washington Post/ of February 3, 1986 entitled “Blacks on the Bottom’ details the litany of discrimination and neglect. Black infant mortality, for example, is nearly double that of the Whites. Blacks’ life expectancy and median age are below that of the Whites. So are the numbers of high school graduates and college graduates, 8% and 10% respectively. In January 1986 Black unemployment was 14.9% compared to 5.9% of the Whites. Unemployment among Black youth was 2 ½ times more than that among the White youth. The statistics go on. Another point made in the article was that the status of this underclass was getting worse. It is, of course, a shame that we see this kind of human anomalies in the world’s wealthiest nation.*

* How did the Sri Lankan-Tamils (12.6% of the population - 1981 census) who are fighting for their separate, mono-ethnic, racist, Tamil state complaining that they have been discriminated, do in Sri Lanka?*

* In 1981, believe it or not, unemployment rates were three times higher
(25.9%) among the majority Sinhalese than among the minority Sri Lankan-Tamils (6.7%). And yet they tell the world that they have been discriminated and thus the reason why they are fighting for their separate, mono-ethnic, racist state. Senator, go figure out that logic!*

* At the 1981 Census, the Sri Lankan-Tamils (12.6%) occupied the following percentages of the various professions among the over all
population: doctors 35.1%; dentists 24.7%; veterinary surgeons 38.8%; life scientists 41.5%; medical technicians 30.2%; engineers 34.9%; land surveyors29.9%; engineering technicians 24.3%; survey draughtsmen 27.8%, public sector administrators 15.9%. And so they feel that they have been discriminated and thus engaged in a war to claim their separate state.
Perhaps you are in a better position to be judge and jury on this issue to reconcile in your mind why these Tamil Tigers are fighting for their racist Tamil state, complaining that their 12.6% population have been discriminated. I call them humbug. And you being an experienced politician from America’s black population who understands minority discrimination quite well should be able to come to your own conclusions after studying these authentic numbers.*

**As I see this ‘privileged minority’ of Sri Lanka-Tamils (12.6%) by
1981 were wearing jewels on their crowns and were cocks of the walk were looking down on the majority Sinhalese even though they “looked exactly the same”; while the “wronged majority” Sinhalese (74%) would have been lucky if they could have found attractive river pebbles to wear on their crowns, and they felt down and trodden by an ungracious ethnic community who happens to “look exactly the same”. If logic had any meaning, then it should have been the majority Sinhalese who should have been screaming that they have been discriminated, but it so happens that they are not aggressive and are generally gentle people.

The FBI had quite rightly described the Tamil Tigers as the “most dangerous and deadly extremist” outfit in the world. The FBI had asked donors to be careful about charities established as front organizations by this terrorist group to raise funds to finance its terrorist activities. They had a valid point.

If 9/11 made America resolve that Terrorism should be wiped out from every nook and corner on Earth, then the Tamil Tiger terrorists should be prime candidates to be wiped out. And the Sri Lankan government should not be penalized for trying to do exactly that.

I, as a Sri Lankan-Canadian, who is rooting for you to be America’s next President, want to make one simple request. Please assess the Sri Lankan issue well before you make any comment that would be harmful to the present situation in Sri Lanka which might empower the Tamil Tigers to claim their right to go on killing innocent civilians with impunity and keep hemorrhaging that island nation.

Yours sincerely,
Asoka Weerasinghe
Ottawa, Canada
e-mail: weerasin@magma.ca**






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