Proscribing LTTE an Adventure that led to the Genocide of Tamils.

“Genocide is the absolute negation of the human rights of the individual as well as of the existential rights of the group of which he or she forms a part. It is the most serious denial of the dignity of an entire group — and in its starkest form - complete annihilation. The reality of such large-scale suffering almost escapes human comprehension. By focusing on the acute pain suffered by individuals, the Museum provides us with a sense of the sheer intensity and magnitude of such crimes. As has been stressed so many times, if we forget the past we are condemned to repeat it”.

Mary Robinson said in her address on the opening of this important Conference on ‘Genocide and Crimes against Humanity: Early Warning and Prevention’, on December 8, 1998, at the Holocaust Memorial Museum.

We entered the new millennium in the hope that the international community can finally hear and heed the warning signals of impending massacres and untold cruelty and take effective action to prevent a Government or faction from unleashing carnage born of hate. There remains a very long way to go in establishing strong, reliable and effective means by which to spare future generations from the monumental suffering we have witnessed in the past.

The genocides in the Former Yugoslavia (1995 Srebrenica massacre) and in Rwanda (1994) are but recent examples of the failure of our governments to confront genocide in time to save lives. The names change, but not the human suffering or the international community’s studied indifference and inaction as clearly seen in, what happened in Sri Lanka?

Genocide in Style.
More than fifty thousand innocent Tamil civilians and about ten thousand freedom fighters, were slaughtered on the sandy beaches and jungles in Vanni, with the weapons and unlimited ammunitions supplied by the emerging powers. This is not a massacre of homo-sapiens using primitive knives and machetes but highly modern weapons. Most of the killings were done with the multibarrel guns, tanks and by aerial bombing, in style. This was done by the Sri Lankan forces acting ever with full impunity. One will always remember that Soldiers acting with full impunity, no matter how they are decorated and uniformed, are mere murderers.
The justification for our inaction in the face of genocide is frequently the same: “wait, it is not quite genocide yet,” or “we don’t really have a strong national interest in that part of the world.” No! It is Terrorism of some sort of, you know..! We declared “War on Terror” against each and every single armed group in the world, including the ones that are genuinely fighting to free their communities from oppressive governments. That was only done as an adventure!

Tamils in the UK
What Des Brown told Stephen Sacker in the BBC programme, ‘Hard Talk’ will clear any doubt in the minds of Tamils, what the British govt was up to. On all historic moments it was the British who worked against unsuspecting Tamils behind the scene and sadly even today they seem to be continuing it.
Such method can’t be called as conflict resolution but it is an unfair conflict termination by eliminating one party to the conflict. So against this backdrop, the importance of London campaign and exposing the British complicity against Tamils more vocally, gain much more importance than ever before.

In spite of the opposition by Tamil Nadu, India simply wanted to continue and protect Sinhala regime as much as possible until it “finished” the job, the job of seeing the LTTE Leader Prabhakaran’s and Pottamman’s demise at any cost, just because they insulted the Indian Army, the IPKF, though the excuse was that the LTTE killed Rajiv Gandhi. This was well seen by the victory mood in a video clip showing M.K Narayanan, Shiv Shanker Menon, the President Rajapakse and Goethabaya, in Colombo day after the announcement that the LTTE leader was dead.

Sri Lanka wants to weaken the Tamils permanently in order to establish an exclusive Sinhala Buddhist State. The Tamil Freedom Struggle in Sri Lanka is a useful and needs timely look at the 60-year-long struggle of the Tamil people for selfdetermination and the complicity of imperialism in the oppression of the Tamil people. Tamils know that the LTTE was “fighting for the Tamils’ rights” in the face of “fullscale genocide” by the Sri Lankan government with the covert support of India and the western world.

Tamils have learned good lessons. “You died when you refused to stand up for right, you died when you refused to stand up for truth, and you died when you refused to stand up for justice.”
The United Nations Human Rights Council saw the divisive politics and geopolitical aspirations of some in regard to the Sri Lankan issue. It is really a shame that the policy-makers didn’t have Sri Lanka on the G8 agenda.

They justify our inaction and the lies we have conditioned ourselves to believing, but the children will see them for what they are, at least, as long as they remain children and retain their empathy for the suffering of others. 10 year old son of my friend suddenly told me, “Uncle asks Obama not to send his daughters to Sri Lanka” after seeing the web site I was watching, the censored one.

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