From North to the South, West to the East, the skies of Sri Lanka are now filled with the empty and virtual deceptive promises of two desperate presidential candidates. While the Sri Lankan politicians are beating their drums, While the so called war heroes of the nation are busy launching mudslinging campaigns against each other, while the strategic think tanks with geopolitical interests are making last minute manoeuvres to influence the outcome of the election, while the local business leaders, industrialists and bankers are speculating the election results, Sri Lankan Tamils are still on their knees praying what they have always prayed "Deliver is from the evil one"
Their voices are suppressed. They have lost their strength to fight back the oppression. But their heart cries are obvious. "Free thousands of our loved ones who are going through hunger and torture in the notorious Sri Lankan prisons,", "Give us back our homes and lands", "Give us the freedom to work in our own farms and fish in our own waters", "Stop abducting our sons and daughters" "stop abusing, torturing, raping and murdering our children", "Stop destroying our culture", "Give us back the freedom that we were all born with as humans on this planet"
Can the new King of Sri Lanka bring deliverance to the Tamils? If we look at the history of Sri Lanka particularly in the last sixty five years, the answer to this question will be quite obvious.
Sri Lankan Tragedy
Those who argue that Sri Lanka has finally brought an end to the Asia’s longest running conflict, are not only ignorant but making a blunder by indirectly supporting the dangerous regimes in Sri Lanka that are determined to wipe out a race from the face of this earth. Torture, murder and rape against the minority Tamils, abductions, summary executions, forced colonizations of Tamil lands, extension of military bases in Tamil areas even in the absence of war and various human rights abuses, have made this country as an island of hell.
Sri Lankan rulers use a simple binary logic that their categorise anyone who oppose their extremist policies and human rights violations as terrorists. They are able to see only two types of humans on this planet. Those who are with them or those who are against them. Since they identify the ones who disagree with them as terrorists, Sri Lanka has in many instances blamed Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Red Cross and many other humanitarian organisations as terrorist sympathisers. David Miliband, Hillary Clinton and many other western leaders were blamed as terror supporters. This is exactly like how the Al Qaeda blames the western countries as terror states and their leaders as terrorists.
Sri Lanka uses the same logic for the innocent Tamils who are fleeing for their lives in boats and ships to foreign shores. They blame the fleeing children and pregnant women as terrorists. Only crime they had committed was that they cried when their fathers and brothers were brutally murdered and they objected when their mothers and sisters were raped.
What make things worse in Sri Lanka are not just the atrocities carried out by the fascist forces but the compromise made by some international elements, who have decided to support the criminals but turned a blind eye to the victims. They danced when the war criminals sang, and hid their faces in the sand when thousands of innocents were murdered in cold blood. UN, who is supposed to be a guardian for the oppressed and vulnerable in the world, had in fact assisted Sri Lanka in mass murdering innocent Tamils, simply by ignoring the cries of the dying at the crucial hours.
Sri Lankan Tragedy is also about an unfair world that is letting the murderers and rapists to walk on red carpets but ignoring the plight of the innocents that are languishing in torture camps and prisons.
Sri Lankan conflict is sometime quite a complex one to understand not because the conflict itself is complex but, corrupt politicians, career minded journalists, biased terror experts, countries with geopolitical interests and those who are short sighted have twisted the stories that many in the world don’t exactly know what has been going on in Sri Lanka.
Those who are responsible for the misery in Sri Lanka for years have been successful in hiding the root cause of the problem in order to continue with their own agendas.
While many are doing this deliberately, there are also people including some Tamils tend to misinterpret the crisis in Sri Lanka, by looking and analyzing isolated incidents or judging various parties to the conflict based on their personal experiences.
Shocking Video from UK Channel 4 Television
Blind folded, hands tied behind their backs, naked, on their knees, not knowing what was happening around but hearing just the sounds of Sinhala soldiers mocking and laughing, occasional gun shots. What could have gone through the minds of these young Tamil men in their final hours? They were executed in a most cruel manner just for a simple reason that they were Tamils.
Their mothers bore them in pain, gave birth to them in pain, fed them from their breasts and toiled for years to bring them up. Their children found safety and protection in their arms. These were ordinary men who had dreams about their future. Just like any of us, they also wanted to see their children growing up. They trusted the world around them to come for their rescue even at their last minutes. But their lives were cut short. They were looked down by their enemies as rotten pieces of meat that don’t even need proper burial.
Channel 4 UK : Tamils being executed by Sri Lankan Soldiers. Thousands were slaughtered like this in the land of Terror
This is not a bedtime horror story. This is not about something that happened thousands of years ago when giants and barbarians roamed the earth. This is not a Hollywood movie about man eating cannibals. What Channel 4 had shown in UK is a real story of a people group called Tamils in the horror island of Sri Lanka.
Many were shocked and felt so sick in and out after seeing the video clips of Tamils being executed as innocent lambs in broad day light. Strangely many Tamils living in the West haven’t found it as shocking because they have witnessed hundreds and hundreds of such incidents in their own villages and towns. Their eyes had seen their loved ones being butchered with knives, swords, guns and bombs.They saw their houses being burned down and farms being destroyed.
They saw their sisters and mothers being abused and raped. Their fathers were shot and killed in front of weeping children and mothers. Their loved ones and friends were killed in prisons, schools, hospitals and in their own homes. Tamils in Sri Lanka no longer have a voice and they no longer have the right to turn left or right. They see their enemies marching from the North, South, East and the West. A community that once fought for equal rights is now fighting for its bare survival.
Interestingly, Sri Lankan war criminals who have been committing such deadly crimes are not all happy about the world watching what they do to the vulnerable. They have no way to defend their atrocities so they just deny the video as fake. UN investigators have confirmed that the video was authentic.
What was shown on channel 4 is just a drop in the ocean. Many eyes in Sri Lanka have witnessed crimes that were much crueller than this. Thousands of digital pictures and video clips, many satellite images and other concrete evidences are available to prove without a shadow of doubt that Sri Lankan regime is still committing countless crimes against the Tamil community in Sri Lanka with the excuse of fighting terror.
What was shown on the British TV is what happened to many innocent civilians who were trying to escape the war zone and decided to get into the government controlled territory. The whole world had witnessed how the Sri Lankan regime was pretending like saviours of Tamils but engaged in killing innocent Tamils in thousands. This video clip is an answer to many who questioned why Tamils were not willing to go into the government controlled area during the War in Vanni. Tamils see the Sri Lankan soldiers as killer demons and not as liberators.
Story of Sri Lanka in the last sixty five years is simply the repetitions of hundreds and thousands of similar horrific events at different scales. 99% of the perpetrators were either Sri Lankan military or extremist Sinhala mobs and 99% of the victims were innocent Tamils.
Armageddon in Tamil land, War on the Innocents
Although Sri Lanka claimed that it was fighting a war with the Tamil rebels, guns and bombs were in fact turned against innocent Tamil civilians. Sri Lankan forces killed more than fifty thousands just within few months.
More than four hundred thousands innocent Tamil civilians including pregnant mothers, babies, young, old and sick were chased out of their own homes, bombed, shelled, starved and let to run for their lives for months. Fighter air crafts over the skies of Vanni dropped bombs on hospitals, schools and all other public places to target the civilians. Food and medicine were denied to the hungry and sick. Many were bleeding on the streets and inside bunkers and experienced painful slow death. Flesh of Tamils became food for stray dogs and wild beasts.
Fellowship of the dead, This was not an earth quake. Thousands of innocent Tamils were killed by Sri Lankan military
Despite international pressure, Sri Lankan government continued with the war. China and Pakistan were supplying unlimited weapons and ammunitions to the Sri Lankan military.
It is difficult to finds words to describe the horror that happened in the last few days of the war. Thousands were forced into a tiny strip of land. Men, women and children were hiding inside the bunkers without food and water. Sri Lankan military was firing from Tanks and multi barrel rocket launchers, in all the directions. Phosphorous and cluster bombs were dropped from the skies.
As the cries of dying women and children were shaking the earth, Sri Lankan military used maximum fire power to kill several thousands Tamils every single day. While the wounded were crying for water to wet their tongues, military tanks rolled over them. Wounded and the sick who were hiding in the bunkers were buried alive. Those who surrendered with white flags were executed in cold blood. Petrol and chemicals were poured over the tents and dead bodies.
Left alone. Many children have lost their parents.
Thick dark smoke rose to the skies. The whole world stood back and watched as the demons from hell descended over Vanni and danced in the lake of blood.
Reporters and journalists are still not allowed to the area where the Armageddon took place even after several months. Sri Lankan rulers are not prepared to show to the world what they did to the innocents with their ugly heads and cruel hands.
Battle is over but the oppression continues
Sri Lankan government claims that it has brought an end to the conflict. But the Tamils in Sri Lanka haven’t yet found the freedom that they have been longing for years. They are still like Jews that were in the hands of Hitler and Bosnian Muslims who were persecuted by Serbian extremists.
Generations come and generations go. Life becomes better and better for many people in the world. But the Tamils, whose standard of living was better than Singaporeans and South Koreans forty years ago, are now living below the poverty line. They now wander like vagabonds as many have lost their homes.
Sri Lanka is still recruiting more people for the military and extending military bases in the North and East of the country. Tamil children are surrounded by uniformed soldiers with guns and bombs twenty four hours a day. Tamil women are daily harassed, intimidated and abused by the Sinhala soldiers.
More than eleven thousands youth that were arrested by the Sri Lankan authorities have still not been released. Even the Red Cross are not allowed to see the detainees. Many families still haven’t found out where their sons and daughters are. Thousands of families have lost their entire livelihood but they are not provided with any help to re-establish their lives.
Abductions and killings of Tamils are still continuing. Few months ago, a Tamil youth was beaten to death by Sinhala police officers in the city of Colombo. This happened in broad day light, in front of spectators and television cameras.
Tamil youth was beaten to death by Sinhala police in broad day light in front of TV cameras
Farm lands belonging to the Tamils are forcefully taken by the government and given to Sinhala settlers
Many Tamils are risking their lives by fleeing the country on damaged boats and ships. Sri Lankan rulers are not only persecuting the Tamils in Sri Lanka but also making the lives miserable for those who are fleeing to other countries.
Agents of Sri Lanka, some of them who work as pseudo terror experts and journalists in other countries are demonising the Tamils who are struggling for their survival even in the seas. These fake experts continue to deceive the international community by identifying every Tamil child, mother and father as terrorists.
Some Sri Lankan senior cabinet ministers are seeking access to the fleeing refugees so that they can torment the victims even outside Sri Lanka. No laws in the world would allow the persecutors to meet the their fleeing victims in foreign soil or in international waters unless these foreign countries are also having worst human rights records as Sri Lanka who have no respect for the law.
Who are the real Terrorists in Sri Lanka?
The words “Terrorism” and "Terrorists" are mostly misunderstood words in the world today. Regimes in Iran and North Korea call the Western countries as terror states. Majority of us will not agree with Iran or North Korea. Developments of destructive weapons in these two countries are not just posing danger to the neighbouring nations but to the entire world.
Sri Lanka has been playing the same game for many years but it has taken quite a while for many of us to understand the reality. Sri Lankan rulers have been successful in hiding their crimes against the Tamil minorities and exaggerating the Tamil resistance. Sri Lanka spends millions of dollars in propaganda to justify, hide and deny the atrocities against the Tamil minorities
Now Sri Lanka has started to blame international aid organisations, international rights organisations, and western democracies as terror entities. One should question if many of us have been right in taking the same view of Sri Lanka by blaming the Tamil resistance against the Sinhala Chauvinism as Terrorism.
If we consider terrorism as a destructive act against innocent people and their properties, a simple statistics about Sri Lanka would show us who the real terrorists are and why we should believe in the fact that terrorism is still destroying the lives of people in Sri Lanka and the culprits are Sri Lankan rulers who continue to harbour racist and extremist views.
Even a primary school child with simple mathematical skills would not just be able to understand the deadly conflict in Sri Lanka but also would be able to identify who the real victims are and who the culprits are, just by looking at these simple and obvious facts.
In the last sixty years more than three hundred thousands Tamils died in Sri Lanka. They were killed by bombs, guns, swords and knives. Many Tamils went through physical abuse, torture, isolation and rape in the hands of the Sinhala soldiers before their death. Thousands of Tamil women were raped. More than fifty thousands were maimed. Many thousands have become orphans and windows. More than a million had to flee the country in order to save the lives.
Majority of the homes, schools, public libraries, churches, temples and hospitals in the North and East of the country have all been destroyed by the bombs and shells fired by the Sri Lankan military. Most of the lands where Tamils lived are now looking like giant grave yards.
Sri Lankan military has caused a great environmental disaster in Tamil lands by uprooting millions of trees and destroying the wild life.
In the middle of the last century, More than 30% percentage of the population in Sri Lanka was Tamil speaking (Indigenous Tamils, Upcountry Tamils and Muslims). This has now been reduced to 20%.
More than 20% of the land that was originally belonged to the Tamils were forcefully be taken away and given to the Sinhalese. Hundreds of Tamil villages and roads were turned into Sinhala villages and their names have been changed to Sinhala.
30% of the Tamil land is currently occupied by Sri Lankan Sinhala soldiers.
Tamils were once the majority in two eastern districts but they have already become minority as the successive Sri Lankan governments have been changing the demographics in Tamil districts by implementing Sinhala settlements.
These are just facts that speak for themselves. Racist Sri Lankan regimes have persecuted the Tamils for a long time and they have also been very successful in ethic cleansing in the last sixty years.
Root cause of the Conflict, Mother of All the Evils
It is a sad reality that many international think tanks haven’t either still identified the root cause of the Sri Lankan conflict or they are deliberately ignoring it in order to fulfil their own hidden agendas.
Sinhala Chauvinism is the mother of all the evils that is destroying this beautiful country. It is built on ignorance, arrogance, jealousy, insecurity, anger, lies and deceptions. This is a dangerous disease that has blinded the hearts and minds of the extremists. Sinhala Chauvinism or Sinhala Buddhist extremism can be compared to Nazism.
Sinhala Chauvinism is nothing to do with the ordinary Sinhala people. This is not even to do with the Sri Lankan military although they have incidentally become the tools and weapons of the extremist, racist and corrupt religious and political leaders.
Many Sinhala people are peace loving and in fact there are many Sinhala intellectuals, journalists, human rights activists and people from all walks of life, are fighting for the oppressed Tamil people and some have even laid down their lives for their fellow humans.
Buddhism in Sri Lanka has been hijacked by the extremists and what we see today in Sri Lanka is a perverted version of Buddhism. Perverted religions are most dangerous ingredients for deadly conflicts all around the world.
Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism talk about peace and harmony among the inhabitants of this earth. They preach about tolerance, peace and respect for others. Unfortunately, we have seen so many religious wars in the world and the root cause of them were not the religions in pure forms but their perverted versions.
Rise of Al Qaeda in the west, Violence by extreme Hindus in India, War between Catholics and Protestants, Sinhala Buddhists extremists destroying churches in Sri Lanka are all showing the dangerous signs of religious perversion and religious extremism.
As opposed to many people think, Sri Lanka hasn’t got a genuine democracy. Sri Lanka is in reality, indirectly ruled by a violent religious Buddhist cult that preaches and practices hatred against the Tamils. Ordinary Sinhala Buddhist people are brainwashed by Buddhist clergies. Political parties that support such extreme racist policies are selected by the majority Sinhala people as the rulers. Rulers of Sri Lanka come up with discriminative policies to stay in power and to satisfy the hunger of those who want to see the land free of Tamils.
Sinhalese and Tamils in Sri Lanka have both been living there for more than two thousands years. The sad reality is that the Sinhala Buddhists want to make Sri Lanka as a Sinhala Buddhist country which means they want the Tamils out or continue to treat Tamils as second class citizens.
Psychology behind Racism
Racists are the most foolish people on this earth because they either perceive that they are superior to others or they imagine that their survival, quality of life and social status are threatened by another race. They wouldn’t be able to digest, when someone with another colour, religion or race prosper in front of their eyes.
Ignorance, insecurity, jealousy, pride, selfishness, greed and all the evils come together and make people to hate those who are not like them. Mugabe chasing out White farmers in Zimbabwe, Extremist Serbians killing the Bosnian Muslims, Hitler massacring the Jews and Sinhalese killing the Tamils are all telling us the same story.
Current unrest in Sri Lanka can be traced back to the middle of the last century when Tamils were comparatively doing well in education and business. Sinhala extremists in Sri Lanka couldn’t digest the fact that Tamils still being a minority, dominating education and business. Since 1950, almost every ten years, Tamils were killed in thousands and their properties were burned to ashes. These attacks were always masterminded by the Sinhala rulers who were in power.
In the last thirty years, with the excuse of War on Terror, Sri Lanka has managed to destroy most of the homes, Schools, libraries, hospitals, factories and farms in the Tamil areas. Sri Lankan Tamils who were once, one of the most literate and prosperous people groups in the South East Asia is now fighting for their bare survival.
How is the world responding?
As usual, the geopolitical interest of other countries in Sri Lanka is one of the main reasons why this conflict has been dragging on for years. Corrupt Sri Lankan leaders easily become puppets of the foreign governments. Sri Lanka is located on strategically important sea route that is vital for the security of many countries.
It has now gone beyond an acceptable level that human rights abuses are sending shock waves across the world. Even the ones that were once supporting this country are now at least pretending to be neutral to save their own skins.
Sri Lanka is ranked as South Asia’s No.1 human rights violator. Sri Lanka scored the highest negative points for the right to life, the rights of the child, attacks on human rights defenders and violations of the rights of the minorities. On press freedom, Sri Lanka was ranked second worse only after Bhutan — which has no independent press. Sri Lanka was ranked number 97 in an index compiled by Transparency International, an anti corruption watchdog, in 2009.
Dublin war-crimes tribunal, conducted by Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) based in Milan, which held hearings on 14th and 15th of January 2010 has found that Sri Lanka Government is "guilty of War-Crimes" and "guilty of Crimes Against Humanity." Eye witnesses included several escapees from the final week of Sri Lanka offensive in the Mullaitivu "No Fire Zone" where more than thousands of innocent Tamil civilians were allegedly slaughtered by Sri Lanka Army with heavy weapons.
The U.S. Department of State‘s Office of War Crimes has recently released its investigation into the final stage of the conflict in Sri Lanka.
It was based on a wide range of sources, including Amnesty International’s own reporting, and uses both traditional and innovative evidence such as satellite imagery and aerial photographs. This report provides a disturbing overview of what happened in the so-called “No-Fire Zone”.
The European Commission has decided to suspend Sri Lanka’s preferential trade status following a probe criticising the island’s human rights record. The suspension follows a year-long European Commission probe that concluded that the Sri Lankan government was in breach of commitments on human rights and good governance that come with the preferential trade status.
Commonwealth has decided not to host the next summit in Sri Lanka. If the situation doesn’t improve, suspension of this country from Commonwealth is another possibility.
International community should continue to take tough measures like economic embargoes and war crime inquiries to make sure that this country won’t slip further into darkness and the culprits are brought to justice. These steps are necessary to convince the people of Sri Lanka that they will be isolated from the world if they continue elect leaders who chose the path of extremism and violence instead of path of peace.
How does Sri Lanka defend its atrocities?
Non-compliance, denials, refusals, justifications, blackmailing and other techniques are used by countries like Sri Lanka to escape justice.
Sri Lanka is simply a rock state that no longer has any respect for human rights. Leaders of this country are only interested in fulfilling their racist agendas and to satisfy their own greed.
Sri Lankan government regularly appoint individuals with doctorates and other higher degrees as cabinet ministers and propaganda activists to lobby in the UN and in foreign countries. Many of them speak in fluent English and having citizenships in other western countries and their main role is to justify the atrocities that are committed by the Sri Lankan government. These individuals are experts in blaming the victims and protecting the criminals.
Sri Lankan government also has their own pseudo terror experts working in foreign soils and their main role is to defend the Sri Lankan government and to identify anyone that opposes the Sri Lankan government as terrorist. Sri Lanka spends millions on propaganda and to pay for consultants and propaganda firms that are working round the clock to hide or justify the atrocities committed by the rulers of Sri Lanka.
Can the new King of Sri Lanka bring deliverance to the Tamils?
In the last sixty years three hundred thousands were slaughtered, several thousands were raped, tortured, imprisoned and disappeared in Sri Lanka. More than a million have fled the country with the fear of persecution. 99% of the victims were Tamils and 99% of the perpetrators were Sri Lankan military personal or members of Buddhist Sinhala extremist groups. One doesn’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand what is going on in this country.
Freedom is a God given right to every living human on this earth. Tamils in Sri Lanka, Muslims in Bosnia, Jews in Jerusalem, Hindus in Pakistan, Christians in North Korea, Blacks in France, Whites in Zimbabwe and Aboriginals in Australia should all be enjoying the same rights as any other people groups on this planet.
Nazism, Sinhala Chauvinism, Racism, Fascism, you can name them how you like, but these are all manifestations of a social evil, that destroy lives.
The madness that is going on this country can only be stopped by destroying the demon of ignorance from the hearts and minds of those who rejoice in hatred and violence against their follow citizens. This is not a battle against flesh and blood but against the forces of darkness clouding over this nation
Unless the civilised world stand against the perpetrators of human rights abuses, war criminals and corrupt politicians in Sri Lanka, unless we stop dancing to the tunes played by Sri Lankan rulers, unless we confront the agents of Sri Lanka who have been deceiving the international community through lies and deceptions, unless we stop doing business with Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka will continue to persecute its minorities with the blessing of those who are determined to be on the wrong side just to satisfy their own greed.
Governments come and go but there is no end to the suffering of Tamils in this Island. No matter who comes to power, the root cause of the conflict will again be ignored by the rulers of Sri Lanka deliberately to keep the majority happy. Unless the root cause of the ethnic problem is dealt with, Sri Lanka will face another wave of violence that could even be detrimental to the peace and stability in the whole South East Asia.
Click here to read it on Telegraph
Richard Dixon
Richard Dixon – Can the new King of Sri Lanka bring deliverance to the Tamils?
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