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Terrorism, State Terrorism and Eelam Tamils
Featured Article: Terrorism, State Terrorism and Eelam Tamils |
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| Sunday, 09 September 2007 | |
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Independent observers from all walks of life conclude that successive Sri-Lankan Sinhala governments terrorise the indigenous Tamils in their homeland of the North and East of Sri-lanka for over 55 years since independence from colonial Britain in 1948. Though these reports are unbiased Sri-Lankan racist regimes scoff off these reports and call names after the writers of these reports. Some of the reasons for rebutting the charges are banal and idiotic.
This reflects the bankruptcy of intellectuals of international repute among the Sinhala ruling elite. Those wise men like Harry Gunatileka, Dr Brian Senivirutne and Wickremabahu Karunarutne MP are shouting hoarse but their reasoning once again get drowned in the communal hustle and bustle. The EU and the international community are mute for unknown reasons. They are being falsely led to believe that the government is doing something to bring peace after the conquest of the East from the LTTE who are the virtual voice of the Tamil community. They run a de-jure Tamil state. Please refer Karen Parker’s interview with The Tamil Mirror, Toronto, March 2007 on Tamils have a De Jure State on this. Other Tamils who are with the government are really phoneys without a mandate from the Tamils to join the Sinhala government. The Tamil National Alliance, which has a large number of democratically elected Tamil Members of Parliament, has recently disseminated information to EU countries and Norway on the present precarious position of the Tamils under a terrorist state. In spite of these presentations the IC has withdrawn into its shell pretending not to know the dastardly human rights violation and genocide of the present Sinhala regime. If god has given humans brains they should use it in the name of humanity to protect innocent and weak souls and thereby serve god......... Independent observers from all walks of life conclude that successive Sri-Lankan Sinhala governments terrorise the indigenous Tamils in their homeland of the North and East of Sri-lanka for over 55 years since independence from colonial Britain in 1948. Though these reports are unbiased Sri-Lankan racist regimes scoff off these reports and call names after the writers of these reports. Some of the reasons for rebutting the charges are banal and idiotic. This reflects the bankruptcy of intellectuals of international repute among the Sinhala ruling elite. Those wise men like Harry Gunatileka, Dr Brian Senivirutne and Wickremabahu Karunarutne MP are shouting hoarse but their reasoning once again get drowned in the communal hustle and bustle. The EU and the international community are mute for unknown reasons. They are being falsely led to believe that the government is doing something to bring peace after the conquest of the East from the LTTE who are the virtual voice of the Tamil community. They run a de-jure Tamil state. Please refer Karen Parker’s interview with The Tamil Mirror, Toronto, March 2007 on Tamils have a De Jure State on this. Other Tamils who are with the government are really phoneys without a mandate from the Tamils to join the Sinhala government. The Tamil National Alliance, which has a large number of democratically elected Tamil Members of Parliament, has recently disseminated information to EU countries and Norway on the present precarious position of the Tamils under a terrorist state. In spite of these presentations the IC has withdrawn into its shell pretending not to know the dastardly human rights violation and genocide of the present Sinhala regime. If god has given humans brains they should use it in the name of humanity to protect innocent and weak souls and thereby serve god.I fail to comprehend the reason for the IC’s inaction to bring the Sinhala government under control to protect the innocent Tamils whose civilisation and day to day living has turned into a nightmare. This is another dilemma for Karen Parker, the well known international lawyer on human rights. Mr K. Ratnayake, a sinhalese, gives a comprehensive argument for the present government’s trickery to fool the IC and carry on its genocidal war against the Tamils in his article of 1 September 2007 in the World Socialist Web Site titled “Sri Lankan government’s “peace” committee on point of collapse”. He says that the present chauvinist president Mr MR is on his way for a military solution for the vexed political problem of the Tamils. Tamils want self determination for North and East their traditional homeland. Please refer www.wsws.org. In this juncture it is pertinent to define the meaning of Terrorism and State Terrorism. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia defines Terrorism in the modern sense is violence or other harmful acts committed (or threatened) against civilians for political or other ideological goals. Most definitions of terrorism include only those acts, which are intended to create fear or "terror", are perpetrated for an ideological goal (as opposed to a lone attack), and deliberately target or utterly disregard the safety of non-combatants.According to the Britannica Concise terrorism is "systematic use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective". Many definitions also include only acts of unlawful violence. Any of these unacceptable action either by a state or non state actor can constitute terrorism.There is an intellectual consensus globally, those acts of terror should not be accepted under any circumstances either by a state or other actors. This is reflected in all important conventions including the United Nations counter terrorism strategy, the decisions of the Madrid Conference on terrorism, the Strategic Foresight Group and ALDE Round Tables at the European Parliament.Like the definition of terrorism and the definition of state-sponsored terrorism, the definition of state terrorism remains controversial. There is no international consensus on what terrorism, state-sponsored terrorism, or state terrorism are. Nations also disagree on what distinguishes a "terrorist organisation" from a "liberation movement". There is no international agreement or treaty defining these terms. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, State terrorism, also known as Establishment Terrorism, is "employed by governments—or more often by factions within governments—against that government's citizens, against factions within the government, or against foreign governments or groups. This type of terrorism is very common but difficult to identify, mainly because the state's support is always clandestine." Britain’s Terrorism Act 2000 is the largest piece of terrorist legislation in any EU member state. The Act says terrorism means the use or threat of action to influence a government or intimidate the public for a political, religious or ideological cause. It implies that a state or others can carry out terrorism. With this definition in hand let us evaluate what non-partition observers say on Sri-Lankan situation. Patricia Hyndman, in a report to Lawasia Human Rights Committee, June 1985, titled ‘Democracy in Peril’ describes Sri-lankan’s precarious situation thus "Detainees often have been held in army camps, incommunicado, without access to lawyers and relatives, and in some cases have been tortured and even killed whilst in custody……. Government explanations that it is impossible to find reliable evidence to identify those responsible for such killings cannot be accepted in the absence of a clear indication of a serious public and impartial attempt to investigate such events''.
On Aug 24, 2007 Basil Fernando wrote thus for Asia Online (Hong Kong) at 03:54 PM “Sri Lanka has been ruled through emergency regulations and anti-terrorism laws for the most part since then (1971), with Sri Lankans' basic rights having been suspended and regulations having even been authorised concerning the summary disposal of large numbers of bodies.
Tens of thousands of persons have been killed following arrest. Torture remains endemic to date. The state is clearly not doing enough to protect its people and the need is clear for the use of international legal instruments to regulate the state by obligating it to refrain from committing such acts. Should a bully be allowed to continue bullying without interference? Does humanitarian interference, which is non-violent in nature and designed to prevent mass murder, disappearances and torture, amount to bullying? Is it easier to accept that one is a bully or to blame others for one's own faults?
Sovereignty is frequently used as an excuse by repressive states to shield themselves from external criticism. Nationalism is used to attack international norms and standards and to justify the state's lack of accountability for any actions it may undertake against its own people. If such justification is accepted, the strong will always be allowed to bully the weak and society will be ruled by the law of the jungle. The degeneration of thought and expression concerning the respect for human rights is plummeting to unbelievable depths in Sri Lanka”. On 17-11-2006 Subramanian.g Executive Director, MANITHAM (mailto: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ) wrote to Koffi Annan Secretary-General of UN on the subject “DETERIORATING SITUATION: SAVE JAFFNA TAMILS” detailing the atrocities heaped on the Tamils of Sri-Lanka and calling the UN to prevent genocide.
In a speech at the Capitol Hill-Washington DC Peace Rally on July 23, 2007 Dr. Ellyn Shander M.D vouched “You see for me this crisis IS personal. The Tamils who are being bombed, killed, abducted, tortured, starved and denied medical care are family to me. Their pictures are in my home, and I will NOT stop fighting for peace and justice for them”. “The war is reported as a fact sheet of military conquests. Very little is said about the real victims of this war. The Tamil people who are dying in the thousands”. This doctor who took the oath of Hypocrates was volunteering medical help in Tamil areas during the Tsunami and witnessed the atrocities and human rights violation of the Sinhala racist regime.
On August 1, 2007, rep. Gary l. Ackerman, Chairman, subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia on “Political Crises in South Asia” stated “The 2002 ceasefire in Sri Lanka exists only on paper as both the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam have resumed full scale conflict resulting in over 4,000 dead, hundreds of thousands displaced and massive human rights violations committed by both sides. In particular, the government of Sri Lanka seems intent on winning the conflict militarily and has resorted to alliances with pro-government Tamil militias, extrajudicial killings and disappearances of political opponents. Hundreds of Sri Lankans have been detained under newly strengthened emergency regulations. The expansion of emergency powers, the wide-spread use of extra-judicial killings and disappearances by the government and the free reign given by the government to Sinhalese nationalists only accelerates Sri Lanka’s descent into chaos and drift away from democracy”. Again on 25 August 2007, 13:35 GMT] Queensland Pediatrician and Director of Townsville Hospital's Neonatal Unit, Dr John Whitehall, talking with Richard Fidler of ABC radio in the program "Conversation hour" early this week (3rd week Aug 2007), spoke of state terrorising “If you look at who has been inflicting terror on whom, it has been Colombo that has been bombing Tamil areas using fancy Jets. It is true Tigers have taken the war to Sinhala territory on two occasions. If they are pushed for survival they may take down the island with them . We should get involved it is our duty to prevent Sri Lanka from sinking. In order for that to happen, we should argue for some kind of federal sharing of power. You can't understand the situation in Colombo if you only focus on the terror which is coming from one side, and you don't mention the state terror, the terror inflicted by Colombo state. It doesn't come out in the media here- bombing of a school where 61 girls died. Killing of people, forced refugee status etc. Human rights groups have said that at least 5,000 Tamils have disappeared in the last six months and many of them have later turned up dead with torture marks. The Chilean dictator Pinochet, whom we all revile, might have only 300 victims to his credit in those years. Using the same kinds of torture, the same kind of white vans to pick people terror is being inflicted upon Tamils. While we revile Pinochet, we don t even seem talk about the terror inflicted by Colombo”. Sinhala state terrorism is definitely impacting on the Tamils in a serious way, which the world has not seen even during Hitler’s time. Still the IC is strangely inactive. No one can explain their inaction. What is their motive? These terrorist activities are in fact crimes against humanity. In international law, a crime against humanity consists of acts of persecution or any large scale atrocities against a body of people, as being the criminal offence above all others. The Rome Statute Explanatory Memorandum states that crimes against humanity "are particularly odious offences in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings. They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy (although the perpetrators need not identify themselves with this policy) or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority. However, murder, extermination, torture, rape, political, racial, or religious persecution and other inhumane acts reach the threshold of crimes against humanity only if they are part of a widespread or systematic practice. Isolated inhumane acts of this nature may constitute grave infringements of human rights, or depending on the circumstances, war crimes, but may fall short of meriting the stigma attaching to the category of crimes under discussion." It is high time all politicians in the EU come out clean and “be true to thine own self” and follow ahimsa leader Mahatma Gandhi and prevent terrorism through truth and non-violence. Prevent the massacre of the innocents Tamils by the Sinhalese racist regime that utilise extra powerful weaponry provided by vested interests. 3 millions Tamils are an endangered intelligent minority in their own traditional homeland of the North and East of Sri-Lanka. What an irony? Where have Nelson Mandela, Desmand Tutu, Ban Ki-moonand Tamil stalwarts of South India gone? Do they think that Tamil issue is ultra vires? Set as favorite Bookmark Comments (0)
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Dr C P Thiagarajah |