The Murder of Tamilchelvan

On 2 November 2007, the Sri Lankan Air Force target–bombed a meeting in Kilinochchi, the effective capital of the de facto State of Tamil Eelam killing S.P. Thamilchelvan, the Political Head and Chief Negotiator of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and five, (now six), of his colleagues. I call it a de facto State based on the compelling article by Professor Kristian Stokke, University of Oslo, Norway, Tamil Eelam – a De Facto State. Building the Tamil Eelam State: Emerging State Institutions and Forms of Governance in LTTE-controlled Areas in Sri Lanka, published in Third World Quarterly this year.

Despite a spate of bombings and killings of Tamils in the Tamil North East by the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) in the two years since Rajapakse became President (November 2005), the repercussions of this particular killing will be serious. Just as the massacre of the Tamil civilians in the Sinhala South in July 1983 marked the turning point in Sinhala-Tamil relationships, the Government-directed assassination of Thamilchelvan could well mark the turning point in the relationships between the Sinhalese Government and the Tamils.  

I will not detail the major contribution that Thamilchelvan has made to get some justice for the Tamil people. I’d only say that he has taken part in every one of the numerous ‘Peace talks’ with a succession of Sri Lankan governments, and has been the key man between foreign governments and the LTTE. To ‘take him out’ is to seriously compromise any future political negotiations which the GOSL might be forced to have by the aid-givers.

The absolute dishonesty of the GOSL

Assassinating the political Head of one of the two parties to any possible negotiations exposes the absolute dishonesty of a Government which claims, to the international community,  that it is ready and willing to enter into negotiations. Obvious as this dishonesty is, it is the business of those of us who are concerned with the plight of the Tamil people to point this out to foreign Governments and, even more so, to the citizens of these countries so that they can ask the necessary questions from their political leaders who can ask the GOSL for an explanation.

A flagrant violation of the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement (CFA)

The GOSL claims that the 2002 CFA still holds and that the  military assault on the Tamil areas is ‘defensive.’ This is clearly arrant nonsense. The Ceasefire does not hold, and has not held, since Mahinda Rajapakse became President in November 2005. On 16 April 2007, Gotabhaya Rajapakse, the President’s brother, and Defence Secretary, said, “Officially we have not said there is no Ceasefire Agreement, probably to keep the international community happy.” The double negative indicates that the CFA does hold but it is only to keep the international community happy i.e. to bluff them. That is typical political duplicity characteristic of the GOSL. It is our business to point this out, not to foreign Governments (which know all this), but to the citizens of these countries, for reasons already stated.

I stress this since this important point is not appreciated by many expatriate Tamils. 

Take them out one by one

Gotabhaya Rajapakse, making no effort to hide his intentions, bragged to Reuters “This is just a message (to the LTTE) that we know where their leaders  are ……… if we want we can take them one by one”.

This threat shows how little the ruling junta, and others of their ilk, know about liberation struggles. As the Tamil leadership is taken out, ‘one by one’, others will be lining up to replace them. The replacements will probably be more determined than the ones they have replaced.

If the intention is take out the Tamils ‘one by one’, then it is genocide. If Genocide is the intention of Gotabhaya Rajapakse who is an American citizen, it is the obligation of the American Government to charge him under the UN Convention on Genocide (see later). If the US Government does not do so, then it is up to the expatriate Tamil lawyers (and others) to do so.

Genocide

The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Act of Genocide defines Genocide as "an act committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”

The numbers killed are not relevant. What is important is the intention and the act(s) to achieve this intention. There is not the slightest doubt that the intention (and the acts) of the current GOSL is to ‘take out the Tamils’, “one by one”, in reality, at a much faster rate.

As I have pointed out in the DVDs I have recently released on the ethnic conflict, bombing, shelling  and murdering  people is not the only way to kill them. You can starve them, withhold essential medicines, prevent ‘survival activities’ such as fishing and agriculture, and destroy their businesses, markets, homes, hospitals and schools. Once the intention is there, ways to achieve genocide are endless.

All of these the GOSL is doing, and has done, to the Tamil people in the North and East for at least two decades. This has markedly increased since Rajapakse and his blood-thirsty and irresponsible mob came into power in November 2005.

If genocide is what is going on in Sri Lanka (and of that there cannot be the slightest doubt), the International Community will have to act. It is our business to point this out. If the international community does nothing, then we will have to act. If we do nothing, we will be as responsible as those in Sri Lanka who are responsible for this universally condemned action.

Winning hearts and minds

The GOSL has repeatedly claimed that a priority is to ‘win the hearts and minds of the Tamil people’.

At the (massive) funeral for Thamilchelvan and his colleagues, with more than 25,000 people gathered to farewell a much-loved leader, Sri Lankan Kfir jets flew several sorties over this area. What were they doing there? Had they come to pay their respects to Thamilchelvan? Unlikely.

Had they come to check how many people (Tamils) were left in Tamil Eelam who had to be “taken out”? Possibly.

Was it to intimidate the people in the North? If it was, as was likely, it is hardly the way  to “win the hearts and minds of the Tamil people.” On the contrary, it is one certain way to convince many Tamils, if not all, that to be ruled by a bunch capable of behaviour such as this is simply unacceptable. We should be grateful to the GOSL for this type of unbelievable stupidity since it is making more and more Tamils realise that Tamil Eelam is the only solution.

The reaction in Colombo

Thamilchelvan’s assassination was predictably greeted by the ruling mob and the Sinhalese Armed Forces with unrestrained glee.

The Military

Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara  struggled to justify the murder, claiming that the LTTE’s  political leader had been involved in recent military operations. If that is adequate justification for murder, then if the LTTE takes out the Sinhala political leaders who have been involved, indeed directed, the recent military assaults on the Tamil people, it will have to be accepted as ‘justifiable’, and not an act of terrorism.

Nanayakkara boasted that the death was a ‘moral boost’ to the armed forces and would be a great loss to the LTTE. What this mediocre military man fails to appreciate is that no one is irreplaceable. There are many who will be lining up to replace Thamilchelvan. Indeed, the flood gates may well be opened and those who cannot contain their anger will turn themselves into human bombs. Velupillai Prabhakaran, the LTTE leader, does not need to recruit suicide bombers - the GOSL and its Armed Forces are doing it for him.

In the DVDS I have referred to, I have described ‘the suicide bomber mentality.’

“You shot my father, raped and killed my mother, hanged my brother, tortured and killed my sister. I have nothing left When I find life too difficult and decide to leave this planet, I will take you with me. If you happen to be the Army Commander who sent KFir bombers to bomb my home, I will surely take you with me.”

There is much condemnation of suicide bombers, but no thought given to how people reach this point of absolute desperation that they are even prepared to sacrifice their lives. The responsibility for suicide bombers rests with the GOSL.

The President

On the day that Thamilchelvan was murdered, Rajapakse was handing over houses to the families of disabled Sinhalese soldiers in the Sinhala South. Going from blatant lies to award-winning lies, he said, “I respect them profoundly and consider them the most disciplined Forces in the world. They have not killed or raped anybody.” The latter claim confirms what his predecessor said in an interview in London. She said that during her regime only one Tamil girl had been raped. I asked that this uniquely unfortunate girl be named, so that we can reassure thousands of others that the Armed Forces only pretended to rape them.

Sometime ago I attended a course on ‘Basic Politics’, to see what the game was all about and how it differed from Medicine. The opening sentence of the very first lecture said it all. “Governments lie.” Allowing this to sink in, the lecturer went on “Politicians are incapable of speaking the truth.”

I draw attention to a recently released book by that outstanding Sinhala journalist, Victor Ivan, describing Rajapakse’s predecessor as the “Mother of Liars.” The book was published in Sinhala. The English translation is “The Queen of Deceit.” It is well worth Rs 500 (US $ 5).

The new incumbent to the Presidency is certainly no better. He has recently claimed that his Government was dedicated to an “honourable peace.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

Rajapakse recently said that the LTTE could not “impose conditions.” These are catch phrases for ‘no negotiations’ with the LTTE, and by extension, the Tamil people. As I have pointed out in numerous publications and DVDs, it is not the LTTE who wanted a Separate Tamil State, it was the Tamil people in the North East who in the 1977 General Election, voted overwhelmingly for the establishment of a separate Tamil State, Eelam. Eelam is not the creation of the Tamil people but the result of Sinhala ethno-religious  chauvinism and extremism, rhe exclusion of Tamils from the decision making process, and the developmental neglect of the areas  they live in (the North East).

Politically-active Buddhist clergy

It is reported that there were special thanks being offered at some Buddhist temples at the news of Thamilchelvan’s murder. What Buddhist stanza states that murder is a cause for celebration or for thanksgiving? What we see in Sri Lanka is a new type of violent Buddhism. It is time that Buddhists and ‘half-Buddhists’ such as myself (my mother was a devout Buddhist), lodged a strong protest at the desecration of the doctrine of one of the greatest teachers of peace and non-violence the world has ever known. As Thamilchelvan’s leader once said, “If President Jayawardene was a true Buddhist, I would not be carrying a gun.’ How right he was. The time for a revival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka is overdue.

The Colombo Press – “His Master’s Voice” Press

As was expected, the right wing Island newspaper celebrated the murder “Air Force avenges A’pura raid, bags Tigers’ public face at dawn.” Hopefully this rabidly racist ‘newspaper’ will not complain if the Tigers ‘bag’ the public faces of the Sinhalese ethnic chauvinists and extremists in Colombo.

Lakbima News published a photograph of the LTTE leader Prabhakaran paying his respects to Thamilchelvan under the provocative title, “This time its him – next time……?” , clearly urging the murder of Prabhakaran.

Here again is the fallacy - that people are irreplaceable. “Taking out’ Prabhakaran will only result in the appearance of someone who is even more determined to achieve the goal of justice for the Tamil people. 

Taking out leaders from a liberation struggle does not change the course of the struggle. Locking up Nelson Mandela for 25 years did not stop the march of South Africans to an apartheid–free country.

What has to be ‘taken out’ is not Thamilchelvan, Prabhakaran or the LTTE, but the extremist policy to make multilingual, multireligious, multicultural  Sri Lanka into a Sinhala Buddhist Nation.  Unless/until that is ‘taken out’, the division of Sri Lanka will be inevitable.

The other Sinhala political parties

As would be expected, the Sinhala extremist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) was jubilant. Wimal Weerawanse, the JVP parliamentary leader, urged the Government to declare the assassination of Thamilchelvan as a victory for the military and the people. If by “the people” he means the ‘Sinhalese people’, I, as a Sinhalese, object strongly. Ordinary Sinhalese are no more responsible for the murder of Thamilchelvan than they are for the renewed war, which is opposed by the majority of the more decent Sinhalese people who have to pay the price which Rajapakse’s children will not pay. That act of ‘patriotism’ is for the children of the poor who have to join the armed forces for economic survival, “economic recruits.” Their parents continue to see their children returning in body-bags.

The Opposition United National Party (UNP)

The reaction of the UNP, the darlings of some Tamils, was no surprise, at least to me. UNP MPs hailed the killing of Thamilchelvan as a “great victory” for the (Sinhala) Air Force. The UNP national organiser, S.B Dissanayake said that “There should be no regrets about (Thamilchelvan’s) death.” This is no surprise, coming as it does from a man who in a previous birth, suggested to the then President Chandrika Kumaratunga that “one or two newspaper editors” critical of her government, should be “taken out.” We are talking of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.

A week before the Presidential Election in November 2005, I published “The Political Ideology of the Sinhalese: Anti-Tamil”, in which I said that who was elected as President was of little concern to the Tamils since the entire spectrum of the Sinhala polity was anti –Tamil, and that the Tamils need not help the Sinhalese to choose an anti-Tamil President. Perhaps I should have pointed out that the only exceptions to this were politicians from the genuine Left such as Siritunga Jayasuriya (United Socialist Party) and Dr Wickremabahu Karunaratne (New Left Front). It is significant that the former contested the Presidential Election and got only 0.4% of the votes. This indicates that despite all the problems heaped on them because of this unnecessary war, the Sinhalese people are not ready for much-needed radical changes in their leaders. Jayasuriya is lucky to be alive. In January 2007, a protest meeting organised by him (and others) opposing the war, was broken up by 300 armed Sinhalese thugs led by a Minister in Rajapakse’s Government.

The foreign reaction

None of the countries involved in the so-called peace process – the US, EU, Norway or Japan have uttered a word critical of this act of blatant government terrorism. A week before Thamilchelvan’s assassination,  Robert Blake, the US Ambassador to Colombo, condemned the LTTE’s attack on the Anuradhapura Air Force base, expressing sympathy for the families of the military personnel killed.

No such statement has so far being issued over the unprovoked killing of Thamilchelvan who was personally known to many of the diplomats involved in the peace negotiations. This deafening silence can only be interpreted as approval for this blatant violation of the cease-fire  (the unprovoked bombing of a major town in the Tamil area), and the murder of a political leader.

A typical example, one of many, of the double-speak of foreign Governments was seen in Trincomalee on 8 November 2007, a week after the murder of Thamilchelvan.  US Ambassador Blake handed over radar-based surveillance systems and several inflatable boats to the Sri Lankan Navy, saying that he hoped it would help the Navy to intercept the arms shipment to the ‘rebels’ (i.e the LTTE). With the hypocrisy which has characterised foreign Governments,  he went on to urge the GOSL to pursue a negotiated settlement to the Sri Lankan conflict and stressed the importance of fully respecting human rights!

As I have said, and repeated, in my DVDs, it is this manipulation of the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict by foreign Governments for their own geopolitical and economic gains which has kept the conflict going. Foreign Governments, in particular the US, China and India, do not want to see an end to this conflict. If it ends, it will weaken their ability to manipulate the Sinhala regime in Colombo to give them the necessary facilities to control the Indian Ocean. The international games being played, particularly by the US, India and China, have more to do with their geo-politics than conflict resolution in Sri Lanka. For the sake of completeness, one should substitute the ‘US-EU-Japan’ for ‘US.’ This important perspective will be added to the updated DVDs which I will release in the next few weeks.

Will it weaken the LTTE?

Will the murder of Thamilchelvan be a “great loss to the LTTE” (as the military spokesman thinks it will be) and by extension, weaken the LTTE? Ironically, it might actually do the opposite,  in that Tamils who have not supported a separate state might well do so now. Those who have thought that political negotiations are the way to go might well realise that in dealing with a Government which is ‘taking out’ the negotiators, this is simply not a possibility.

Retaliation

There is certainly a possibility of retaliation by the LTTE or others enraged by this unprovoked act of aggression. If it is alright for the Sinhala Government to bomb the effective capital of Tamil Eelam, it might be argued that by the same token, it is alright for the Tamils to bomb the capital of the Sinhala State, Colombo.

Should the LTTE decide to retaliate in Colombo, with its dense population and buildings, the damage could be massive. To put it bluntly, it is ‘to be expected’- as was the recent retaliatory bombing (by the LTTE) of the oil storage facility just a few kilometres north of Colombo. Despite all the boasts, the Sri Lankan defences are so incompetent that two Tiger planes, no more than toy planes, flew to the South, dropped their bombs and flew back (safely). To their credit, they did not target or damage civilians or civilian property. They certainly had the capacity to fly further South and drop the pay load on Colombo itself. Had they done so, the damage would have been serious.

Should this occur, now or in the future, the Sinhala people will have to hold their Government responsible for this retaliatory attack.

The ability to shoot down the Tiger aircraft  is not a solution.  If bombs cannot be dropped from the air, they could be delivered on two legs, volunteers for which will not be too hard to find. As I have said in the DVDS, “desperate people do desperate things.”  

Guerrilla warfare

There is yet another possibility which the GOSL must appreciate. Should the LTTE decide to abandon open confrontation and revert back to guerrilla warfare, the GOSL and its Armed Forces will be in serious strife. A conventional army cannot fight a guerrilla force on guerrilla soil. The 4th largest army in the world, India, learnt this in 1988. It is unlikely that the Sri Lankan Army will be able to do what the mighty Indian Army had failed to accomplish.

Time is always on the side of the guerrillas. One cannot guard every road, every bridge, every building, and every installation, forever. Guerrillas can chose the time and the place to strike. The Sinhala Government has yet to learn this very basic lesson in guerrilla warfare.

The Agenda

The agenda of the Rajapakse Government in killing Thamilchelvan is far more complex than ‘taking out’ the Tamil leadership. It is part of ‘crisis management’ in the Sinhala South.

There has been a massive increase in  ‘defence’ spending which increased 45% this year (2007) and there are plans for another 20% increase next year. Government subsidies and services have been slashed, as well as pay and work conditions for workers in the public sector. Intolerable burdens have been placed on hundreds of thousands of ordinary people in the Sinhala South. In October 2007 inflation was 19.3%. The people are being called upon to  ‘tighten their belts’ for the war effort to ‘save the nation.’  This is now being openly questioned and people are taking to the streets.

In late October (2007), 200.000 public sector teachers decided to strike. A week later, police broke up a demonstration by thousands of unemployed graduates.

To stifle ongoing unrest, government ministers repeatedly band protests and strikes as unpatriotic and have imposed a series of emergency laws which have undermined democracy. On 29 October 2007, Rajapakse proclaimed new emergency regulations to censor any views of military deployment or activities, including purchases of military equipment. The latter was not only to suppress  criticism of the war  but also scandals over the purchase of MiG-27 jet fighters from the Ukraine. Amidst widespread protests, the regulations were revoked.

Whatever the claimed ‘victories’ on the battlefield in the Tamil North East, it is clear that the Sinhala Government is losing credibility and control in the Sinhalese South.

With a supposed ‘victory’ in the East, the Government claimed that the LTTE were seriously weakened (militarily) and were on the run. This claim was blown to pieces on 22 October 2007 when the LTTE Black Tigers infiltrated the heavily fortified Air Force Base in Anuradhapura and damaged or destroyed 26 military aircraft (a number officially admitted to by the Anuradhapura Police), costing some US$ 40 million. More damaging than the military and economic loss was the damage done to the credibility of the Government and its Armed Forces in the eyes of the Sinhalese.

Something ‘had to be done’ to restore confidence, and if that meant murdering the LTTE Chief Political negotiator and markedly setting back the possibility of a negotiated settlement, the Government could not care less. As I have said in my DVDS (The new killing fields of Asia), the arrogance of Rajapakse is that he does not care what the world thinks.

With mounting civil unrest in the Sinhalese South because of economic problems and people taking to the streets, the murder of Thamilchelvan was used by the Government to immediately intensify the roadblocks, security checks, raids, etc in Colombo, claiming that the LTTE would retaliate. The Police announced that additional troops were being mobilised to tighten security in the capital.

In reality, Colombo had to be secured, not from the Tamil Tigers, but from its own (Sinhala) people, enraged by the intolerable financial burdens imposed on them.

As the Sinhalese unleash their anger on their Government, more of the same might follow. I would not be surprised if this takes the form of a total destruction of the Tamil North. That it would make the ethnic conflict unsolvable is not an immediate problem for the ruling junta.

What has been achieved?

What has the Sri Lankan Government achieved by the murder of Thamilchelvan? Nothing, other than a massive shift in Tamil thinking towards a separate Tamil State, and a sabotage of any possible negotiated settlement to a conflict which is destroying the country. So much for responsible leadership. One hears a lot about the ethnic crisis, the humanitarian crisis, the economic crisis, etc. However, the biggest crisis in Sri Lanka is a crisis in political leadership. The country is not only economically bankrupt but, what is more serious, politically bankrupt. The murder of Thamilchelvan is evidence of this.

Our responsibility

In several recent meetings I have been asked, “What is the LTTE doing?” My answer has been, “Never mind the LTTE, what are you doing?” The question I was asked typifies the attitude of the expatriate Tamil community – buck-passing.

The LTTE are doing whatever can be done to cope with one of the most brutal and barbaric regimes ever to rule Sri Lanka. That this murderous regime is able to continue to destroy that which they have not built, the administration of the Vanni and the genocide of the Tamil people, is a reflection of our failure.

One of the most powerful forces the Tamils have is a million expatriate Tamils living and working in the most influential and affluent nations in the world. If this massive force did what it could to expose the duplicity of foreign governments and the criminal acts of the GOSL, already in the human rights dog-house, the necessary pressure would have been generated a long time ago. It is clear that the target will have to be citizens of these countries, not political leaders who know all this. It is for this reason that I put together the DVDs on the atrocities being committed on the Tamil people in the North East. The expatriate Tamil community is a long way from realising all this. Hence, its abysmal failure.

If the assassination of Thamilchelvan wakes up the ‘sleeping Tamils’ abroad, he would not have died in vain. 

Brian Senewiratne                                                        Brisbane, Australia     

A Truly Gratifying Day with Dr. Brian Senewiratne

by Cholan

He pointed out to me, he senses our people (he is referring to Tamils) seem discouraged and they need to be aroused and they need to be told in no uncertain terms that Tamil Eelam is a reality and is the only acceptable and workable solution to the protracted civil conflict between Tamils and Sinhalese for the last fifty years.

It was a blessing from God to have met a great personality like Dr. Brian Senewiratne, with whom I was graced with the opportunity to spend a day and interact with this unique gentleman. Dr. Brain Senewiratne’s remarkable knowledge about our Tamil freedom struggle amazed me a great deal. He is passionately involved for more than forty years in exposing sufferings of the Tamils at the hands of successive Sinhalese leaders (since 1948) to the world leaders, media and think tanks.

This unique personality has acquired educational qualifications  MA (Camb), MBBChir (Camb), MBBS Hons (Lond), MD (Lond), FRCP (Lond), FRACP, Consultant Physician and is the Clinical Associate Prof. of Medicine of the one of the world famous University of Queensland, in Down Under.  He is also from a very well to do family and the ruling elite both sides of Sri Lanka's political spectrum of the last 58 years, the UNP and SLFP; yet for more than 57 years he has himself identified with Tamils and their struggle for freedom.

I went to pick up this gentleman from the Toronto airport and drove him to a TV station for an Interview.  In my mind, I was thinking he would be very exhausted and fatigued when he landed at the Toronto airport, as he is a 74 years of age and since he was continuously engaged in giving numerous speeches to media and gatherings in USA and Canada prior to his arrival to the Toronto Airport. But, I was wrong; he was the most energetic person and he was all prepared and ready for the interviews.

I just could not believe what I was seeing and hearing from this unique gentleman.  He was very fluent in the subject areas of our Tamil Eelam struggle. The interviewer only had to ask the question; he responded quite spontaneously and courageously.  Every question the interviewer posed to him, his answers were decisive with no ambiguities in his responses.

He was asked to share his views on the killings of Tamils by the Sinhalese forces and its leaders. He did not mince his words when he was saying, that present and past leaders of Sri Lanka should be charged with genocide of Tamils in the International war crime tribunals. He also went on to define what constitutes genocide, based on the UN definition. He pointed out that it is not how many Tamil people got killed by the Sinhalese leaders. What matters is the act and intent of eliminating one ethnic group partially or whole which is defined as genocide.

Based on this definition, Dr. Senewiratne went on to charge the present Mr. Rajapaksa regime in Sri Lanka with the genocide of Tamils and the economic genocide of Tamils as the present regime responsible for numerous abductions, disappearances and killings of Tamil business and community members. He also went on to charge the regime on educational genocide of Tamil as students in NorthEast  are not able to go to school to educate themselves without the fear of getting abducted, raped or killed on their way to school.

When the TV interviewer asked this unique individual to comment on the possible solution to this protracted conflict of Sri Lanka, once again he did not mince his words. He said the only solution that would honestly work is a free separate Tamil Eelam nation for Tamils.  He spoke continuously on Television for roughly one hour and thirty minutes before he was driven away to attend another captive audience at a University in Toronto .

At the University, he gave a thundering lecture to our next generation of Tamil University students, who were so engrossed with his speech for two hours, thereafter answering their concerns and questions. 

After that lecture he willingly took part in another live radio show for almost two hours with live questions and answers from a wide audience of the radio.

By the time he was done with  the numerous interviews, live shows on radios and speeches, I expected him to be mentally and physically exhausted and probably expected him to say, "Let me go and get some rest before I fly back to US in the morning." But  he was not on that mood. We went to the place where he was staying at 12 am and once again he chatted with us for almost another hour about his personal life and his involvements in human rights issue for the last 50 years plus.

Next day early morning he has to fly to California and meet people and human rights activists in California. Also he has to give three lectures regarding our Tamil Struggle in three different parts of the California .

After all those tight scheduled speeches and meetings, he has to take the last available flight to Australia and fly for almost 20 hours, if not more, and within one hour of landing of Australia he has to see his patient who  was pre- booked before he committed to take part in all these lectures and speeches in North America.

I asked him, "Doctor, are you not feeling tired from all this hustle?”  “Are you going to be alright to see your patient after twenty odd hour of long flight from one end of the world to the other?” You know what he told me, “If I don’t do anything and sit idle, only then I will be tired. Since I am doing what I am passionately involved with from my fourteen years of age and I am voicing my concerns for my Tamil people, it doesn’t make me tired.” At this point my eyes were filled with water.

Here we are looking at this gentleman with wealth none of us can ever imagine from his forefathers and working as a well known medical doctor specialized in Cardiology in Australia since 1976 tirelessly working to bring out to the world leaders the injustice done by his Sinhalese race and its leaders.

Dr. Senewiratne pointed out to me, he senses our people (he is referring to Tamils) seem discouraged and they need to be aroused and they need to be told in no uncertain terms that Tamil Eelam is a reality and is the only acceptable and workable solution to protracted civil conflicts between Tamils and Sinhalese for last fifty years.

This is the time for our Tamil Diaspora to wake up if they are still sleeping and do what we all have to do which is strengthen our struggle whatever way we all could do. “Do not try to stand on the fence; it is now or never” are the exact words he repeatedly used to make this point the entire time I with was with him. He also told me, we Tamils have these infightings among ourselves and focus on trivial issues.

All this nonsense must stop now and we must work as a united force to achieve the legitimate aspirations of our Tamils freedom with dignity to look after our own affairs in our own homeland. He also categorically told me that , in Sinhala areas we may see the UNP, SLFP, JHU, JVP, etc… but when it comes to the Tamils, all these parties are united, which is essentially a strong anti Tamil position and they make sure no powers will ever be shared with Tamils.

So, let us all get united regardless of what your status is, whether you are professionals, you are religious leaders, you are intellectuals, or ordinary Tamil folks,  it is time to shed all those petty differences among ourselves and work hard every minute to achieve something which by our rights is ours, Tamil Eelam.

He also made another interesting and nailing point. Tamil Eelam is already established. All the infrastructures and administrative functions in Tamil Eelam are functioning for the last five years. All we will have to do is get some recognition from this so- called International Community.

This is where he said, our leader Mr. Prabkaran will not be able to do much from Vanni. This is where we, the Diaspora, fit in well and have a huge role to play. This is what the ultimate fruits of our long struggle depend on. We Diaspora need to do a lot more work every minute to educate, inform and lobby as many International players as we can.

We have to tell the International Community to accept our legitimate struggle for our freedom. Dr. Brian Senewiratne quoted, “The brains of the entire Sri Lanka were forcefully evicted by the Sinhalese from Sri Lanka and those brains are here in the western world doing very well for the uplifting the economical and social fabrics of those countries, but shying away from wholeheartedly rallying behind the just cause of freedom of their future generations.” He sited our freedom struggle well within the UN definition of a freedom struggle of any national group.

He also made a point we, the Diaspora, by ourselves can sustain the economy of the emerging Tamil Eelam. He said “Mark my words, within ten to fifteen years of the free Tamil Eelam, Tamil Eelam could well pass the economic status of Singapore.”

Dr. Brian Senewiratna spoke of his sadness on the state of affairs of the Sinhalese in real terms, and said, "We have many thousands Sinhalese army deserters who deserted with dangerous arms and ammunitions which are lurking in their hands in the underground of South. Once Tamil Eelam is liberated, the Sinhalese state will become ungovernable as these deserters will destabilize the government. That is the thing the Sinhalese leaders should worry about and do something about it now, before it is too late."

Finally, he wanted to pass one message to his captive young Tamil University audience. He said, “Students, the future of Tamil Eelam rests in all your able hands, your fathers, mothers, brothers have done whatever they could to bring the freedom struggle thus far; now it is your turn to carry the mantle of this legitimate Tamil freedom struggle further reach the destination without further delay."  He proposed to create a grand union of University Tamil students all over the world (if one does not exist already) and bring them to raise the awareness among them to carry the message to the International Community in an effective way.

He shared his view as a human rights activist and an observer of our struggle that none of his Sinhalese leaders and people wished to either identify themselves with him or share his views, and many times he was verbally abused for speaking out for Tamils.

But he is not worried about these abuses from Sinhalese, as he still remembers what the leftist leader and his uncle, the late Mr. Edmund Samarakody, taught him when he was fourteen years old. His uncle told him to always “say what’s in your heart” in a protest meeting organized by his uncle in the aftermath of the disfranchisement of millions of plantation Tamil workers because they were Tamils. "Since that day onwards, I always say what’s in my heart."

The o nly viable, reasonable, and acceptable solution to this protracted conflict in Sri Lanka would be two separate nations in place co-existing side by side. If fifty years down the road these two nations after prospering in their own ways and wanted to be united, then that is the choice for the future generations of those two nations.

Finally, I prayed to the God to give Dr. Senewiratne long life with wonderful health and wealth for years to come. I said good-bye and wished this wonderful gentleman full of such excellent charisma to have a safe trip to his destination at around 1:30 am. I must admit that this memorable day I spent with this great gentleman was a very emotional and inspirational experience for me, which I shall carry with me for years to come.

THE DEFENSE OF OUR PEOPLE

Charged by the Brisbane City Council for damaging “significant vegetation”, in reality some bushes of grass and gum-tree saplings in my back yard, tried and convicted by a Magistrate in a potty little suburb in Brisbane, and awaiting sentencing on September 20, 2007, my mind is too confused to write a proper article on the terrible suffering of our Tamil people. However, someone has to address the dreadful things which are happening to our people, and to ask for international help. I apologise if this article is disjointed and poorly presented. It is the best I can do at this time.

In the four DVDs I have recently released to show the world the suffering of our people in the North and East, I said, “The Sri Lankan Armed Forces having finished with the East, the North will follow, if we do nothing.”

We did nothing
• The North followed (shelling on 22 August 2007, bombing the next day), and now, 29August, Mannar. The next will be the Wanni, if we continue to do nothing.
At a recent talk to expatriate Tamils, I was asked, “What is the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) doing?” I chose to answer the question with another, “What are you doing”. The answer is “Nothing, other than hallucinating about Eelam and trying to shift  the responsibility for its achievement, to the LTTE”.
What can we do?A great deal. Addressing the 29th AGM of Illankai Thamil Sangam, USA, in November 2006, I spelt out what we can do. This was reproduced in the Souvenir “Turning Points. Building bridges for the Hope of our children”. Tammy Sriharan, the dynamic (non-Sri Lankan wife of the straighttalking, no nonsense President, Sri Haran, might still have a copy. Drop a note to Sangam at P.O.Box 46, Maryknoll, New York 10545 or log on to www.sangamevents.org, drop a cheque (or, as you call it, ‘a check’) and get a copy. You will find two articles,
1. A comprehensive article on the history of the Tamil struggle – “Chronology of the Tamil struggle and the turning points in the Sinhalese-Tamil relationship” by M.Nadarajan. This is essential reading for those who need to know what they should
.
2. “Lobbying the International Community” by me.

In this article I set out the score. “The only three ‘forces’ that could possibly block Rajapakse’s disastrous agenda to prevent a war (it is too late for that) which will be unwinnable (by either side) and unstoppable, and which will only result in a massive destruction of life and property, and economic bankruptcy are:
1.The international community – in particular the crucial aid-donors,
2. The military power of the LTTE,
3 The Sinhalese people in the Sri Lankan South, where opposition to the war is escalating – not because of any empathy towards the Tamils but because they have to pay the human and economic costs of a war.
I went on to expand on this nebulous entity, “The International Community”, and said “This is far wider than is generally accepted and should include:-
 1 Foreign Governments and their respective Opposition politicians
 2. Non-Sri Lankans living in these countries  3 The expatriate Tamil community, now a million people.
Each group has a specific role to play and must be targetted separately.” I then set about addressing the problem of a well-organised ‘dis-information campaign’ launched by the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) over the past several decades, to convince the world that the only problem is ‘Tamil Tiger terrorism’. The real problem is, of course, Sinhala-Buddhist ethno-religious chauvinism.

I launched a series of DVDs (I have lost count – I think about half a dozen) - to show the world what has been happening to our Tamil people (yes, they are my people as much as they are yours).

I opened the batting in every DVD with, “I am a Sinhalese from the majority community. I am not a ember of the brutalised Tamil people. My concerns are entirely humanitarian. I quit Sri Lanka some 30 years ago and who runs that country, whether it is Mahinda Rajapakse or any one else, is of no concern to me as long as it is run without bloodshed, chaos and the extensive violation of human rights and the taking of the country to a fascist dictatorship and economic ruin, fighting an unnecessary war.”

In the updated and expanded DVDs (July 2007), I included a piece on the ‘War of National Liberation of the Tamil people’ and pointed out that what was going on was a War, whether the GOSL admitted this or not. If it is a ‘War’, Humanitarian Law applies and the participants (GOSL and LTTE) are combatants. Banning one side and calling them ‘terrorists’ is not only unhelpful (since you cannot negotiate with terrorists), but on Humanitarian Law, is illegal.

The DVDs vary in length (and depth), from 120min to 20min. The long one is comprehensive, covering everything from Vijaya, the grandson of a  lion who founded the Sinhala race(!), to Mahinda Rajapakse, today’s  Dutugemunu, the Sinhalese worrier from the same area that Rajapakse comes from, who killed the just Tamil king Ellala. This DVD is too long for people in a hurry, or with a short attention-span i.e. politicians.

The shortest, International Appeal to stop bloodshed in the Tamil Areas is for the ‘tell-me-about-itin-a-few-words’ people.
I begged of people to have a copy of this DVD on the desk of every politician and decision-makermin every country. Was it done? No. Why not? Because the expatriate community cannot see the importance of the absolute need to show the world the ground situation in the North and East. So, the GOSL gets away with mass murder, bordering on Genocide.

In June 2007, I was in Geneva for the UN Human Rights Council meeting, where I addressed some 15,000 people who protested outside the UN building, in pouring rain (there’s dedication for you). I would go again for the September meeting if I could have afforded the fare. I cannot, thanks to the trumped-up charge by the Brisbane City Council which I have referred to. The day after the massive protest (the largest Geneva has ever seen), I was in the UN lobbying the diplomats and others, from a number of countries. Almost every one of the 30 people I saw, asked me for the DVDs which they had heard about, but not seen. Did I give them a copy? No, I did not. Why not?  Because none was available. There’s poor organisation for you.
Opposing us was the sleek Sri Lankan Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva,   promoting the GOSL and its murderous Armed Forces, ironically called ‘Security Forces.  He was backed up by the Sri Lankan Attorney General, Solicitor General, an array of Rajapakse’s Ministers, spewing out disinformation by the bucket load, and handing out glossy brochures which had even more lies.  It is this stark difference in approach by the two sides, which makes the Tamil struggle remain a struggle, and why a  brutal, indeed bestial, regime survives.

The window of opportunity
There is a fast-closing ‘window of opportunity’ for the Tamils. Despite Rajapakse’s grandiosity, the GOSL is on the financial rocks (evidence- the recent desperate attempt to raise $500 million at any rate of interest), and in the human rights dog-house. If anything is going to sway the IC in favour of the Tamils, it has to be the escalating violation of human rights, by the ruthless, brutal Sinhala regime, led by a murderous bunch in uniform, in yellow-robes, and ‘national dress’, with or without a red shawl.

Some of them wave multi-barrel rocket launchers, and cheer the Kfir bombers as they drop their deadly load on schools, hospitals, refugee camps, homes, or just Tamil civilians. If it is Tamil, it is fair game. Others wave red flags claiming they are Marxists, which must make Marx turn in his grave. Others wave copies of the Mahavamsa, that textbook of anti-Tamil ethno-religious chauvinism, masquerading as a historical document.
We could have had these extremists and political opportunists on the mat if we had played our cards well. We could have shown the world that in the face of such brutality, bestiality and subhuman behaviour by the GOSL, there is no alternative to a separate Tamil State. Eelam. But we have failed, the window of opportunity is closing,  and the Tamils in the North and East are gradually disappearing.

As I have said in the DVDs, Eelam is not the creation of the Tamil Tigers or the Tamil people. It is the creation of Sinhala-Buddhist ethno-religious chauvinism, political opportunism and the exclusion of the Tamils from the decision-making process for at least the past half century, which has sabotaged the building of a Sri Lankan nation. If Sri Lanka is to be a Sinhala-Buddhist nation, then there is no alternative to a separate Tamil State, Eelam. It is as simple as that. This is the message we have failed to deliver internationally,  and why so many thousand Tamil lives arebeing lost. And now?

The bombing and shelling of Jaffna has started. On  21 Augusat 2007, the GOSL shelled the Poonakari-Vadamaraachi East area in the Jaffna Peninsula. from 8am to 4 pm. The following day, Mullaitivu was bombed. 16 bombs were dropped in an area where GCE (A level) students were about to sit for their examination. On 29 August 2007, there was an artillery attack on areas controlled by the Tamil Tigers in the
Mannar district.
And then? The rest of the Wanni will be bombed, as surely as day follows night I am not sure how many Tamils are left in the North and East, I suspect there are less than a million. The question is whether the Sinhala regime in Colombo, their murderous Armed Forces, the yellow-robed not-so-cleanly-shaved supposed followers of Buddha, and the Sinhala ‘patriots’ of this Sinhala-Buddhist nation, want to shed every drop of Tamil blood. If they do, it is Genocide.

Genocide
As I have repeatedly said in all the DVDs, Genocide is defined in the  Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide , as an act committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. Genocide has nothing to do with numbers killed, it is the intention and the act(s)  to achieve this intention that are important in defining Genocide.

Methods of achieving Genocide.

There are several ways to achieve genocide. One can murder them in large or small numbers, murder them at once, or gradually, starve them - by blocking the A9 Highway, the only land access to the Jaffna Peninsula with some 600,000 civilians, 150,000 of them children, block survival-activities of the population by bombing fishing villages and boats, banning fishing, and imposing serious constraints on agriculture by declaring some of the most fertile areas of Jaffna as ‘High Security Zones’, block the supply of fertilizer and agricultural equipment and impose endless curfews which prevent the population from leaving their homes. One could  bomb and shell markets, businesses, homes and hospitals, and prevent  essential medicines from reaching the people. The GOSL has done all of these (and much more) to make sure that the Tamil people
in the North and East do not survive. Once the intention is there to commit genocide, the methods that can be adopted to achieve the desired goal are endless

Different types of genocide.
In addition to ‘conventional Genocide’, one must recognise ‘Educational genocide’,‘Cultural genocide’,  and  ‘Economic genocide’. These I define as  ‘the intention, backed by the act, of “destroying in whole or in part the education, culture or economy of a national, ethnic, racial or geographic group”. The GOSL is guilty of all of these
Can we stop this?
Yes we can, but time is running out. As I have said over and over again, the most powerful force the Tamils have is a million expatriate Tamils living and working in the richest countries on earth.
This is very different from other theatres of conflict eg East Timor, Sudan, Upper Burma, and many other places.
The Sri Lankan situation is unique in at least two important ways.
1. The massive number of highly trained and skilled people in the expatriate Tamil community
2. The Tamil Tigers, with a well-organised and trained army, a navy, and even a (rudimentary) air force, capable of creating panic  in the adversary. No other guerrilla force in the world has these facets.

Will the Tamil Tigers be crushed?  I do not think they will be. Janaka Perera, of ‘Chemmani-fame’ (or ill-fame) in an interview just a few days ago says that he has never had any doubts that they can be crushed. Gotabaya Rajapakse, another genius  from the Sri Lankan military and the current Defence Secretary, says he will do so, just give him 3 years.   People with little understanding cannot see that the Tamil Tigers are not the problem, it is Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinism that is the problem. As such, crushing the Tigers will not produce a ‘solution’. What has to be crushed is Sinhala ethno-religious chauvinism, and this they will not do,being the leading proponents of this doctrine.
The only solution they have is the Kfir bomber, multi-barrel rocket launcher, the mass murder of Tamil civilians, and destruction of their property. Their ‘vision’ for Sri Lanka is a blood-drenched country wrapped in a Lion flag with a Sinhala-Buddhist label as an emblem. A better Sri Lanka, divided if necessary, is possible.
Of one thing I am certain – the GOSL can crush anything, but will not be able to crush the will of the Tamil people for freedom from the racist and murderous Sinhala regime. The only way to crush this is by genocide using whatever military hardware is necessary. We do not have the power to stop this slaughter, but protest we must and will; resist we must, and will.

There are three groups of people in this world -. those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who don’t know what happened. The vast majority of expatriate Tamils are in the latter two groups. Our problem is to move them to the first group. If we succeed, there will be not just a ‘solution’, but a just solution.

All the brutality currently being unleashed on our people can delay, but not alter, the final result.
In fact, it will make it the only possible result.
The most important need is to develop the necessary ‘mind-set’. The Sinhala mind-set for centuries has been the ‘Mahavamsa mind-set’. It is the Tamil mind-set which is the problem. This is still in the pre-Independence era. It has to change, to accommodate the ground reality. The Tamil mind-set has to be a Separate Tamil State, Eelam. There simply is no alternative. This is not an attempt to divide and destroy the country, but to divide and enable all parts of Sri Lanka to develop. Essentially, it is an attempt to reverse the Colebrook-Cameron ‘Reforms’ of the British (1833), which has had such a disastrous effect on Sri Lanka, in particular, the prevention of development of the Tamil North and East.

Once the necessary mind-set is in place, there has  to be positive action. This has to be an involvement in the struggle. One of the most serious problems with Ceylon, as it then was, was that Independence from Britain was obtained without a struggle. This is in sharp contrast to what happened in India. In Ceylon, there was no involvement or participation of the population. Hence the failure to build a nation. History must not be allowed to repeat itself in the evolution of Tamil Eelam. This is why I have, in numerous addresses across the world, urged people to ‘get involved’.

This calls for some degree of self-sacrifice, generosity, risk, sweat, and commitment. The ‘reward’ will be a Nation which will be a pride to all of us who participated in its production. The alternative is to watch the Genocide of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka, for that is surely the agenda of this brutal, fascist, irresponsible and murderous regime in Colombo, the most dangerous that has ever taken power in that county.
The immediate problem is the survival of the Tamil  people. The only three factors that can prevent the wiping out of the Tamils is, as I have said,
1.  International public opinion (which is why I made the DVDs),
      2.   The military power of the LTTE,
      3.   The political power of my people, the Sinhalese, in the South.
These have to be our priorities, whatever the difficulties and the risks, if our people in the North and East are to survive. The strategy of the GOSL, well-planned, well-financed and well conducted, with whatever it takes by way of expense, bribery, or intimidation. This is what has to be beaten. What the Tamil need is
not better military equipment or even an air force (neither of which are possible), but a strong, well organised and run, international pressure campaign to show the bad faith of the GOSL where a just and equitable result is concerned. It must be pointed out that negotiating with this regime is an exercise in futility, something that had been documented over the past 50 years. There simply is no intention or the will, for the Sinhala Government, present or past, to settle this problem in a just and equitable way. There is no reason to believe that it will change. If that is reality, and it is, what is the purpose of further negotiations? The Tamil National Armed Force opposing the brutal Sinhala Force has to be supported. If it is weakened, the Tamils will be back to square one, sitting under the conference table, rather than at it, picking up the crumbs which fall from the Sinhala masters at the table. this is what the Tamils did for three decades before their youths picked up arms to force the Sinhala regime o look at the Tamil problem seriously. Until then, the Tamils and their problems were a joke.

Blind Freddy can see the GOSL strategy to cope with this reality. Block LTTE fund-collection abroad, criminalise those who support them, arrest, charge and imprison those who even collect funds for humanitarian purposes, and have the LTTE banned in every country (interestingly, they are not banned in Sri Lanka itself!)
What has never been explained to me is how it is legal to supply funds and military equipment for a Government to bomb its citizens (believe it or not, the Tamils are citizens of Sri Lanka), but it is illegal to supply funds or military equipment for the Tamils to mount a defence. It is something that must be challenged openly and firmly, with a demand for answers from the international community.

In my recent travels across the world, the overwhelming impression I got is that the expatriate Tamil community is simply afraid. It has now become a fearful thing to be a Tamil. The GOSL has managed to get foreign governments to criminalise an entire community, the expatriate Tamil community. It is totally unacceptable and if we cave in, the GOSL would have won, at least abroad. We simply cannot afford to let this happen.

It is worth remembering that if we stand as one, they cannot arrest us all. The problem is that we do not stand as one but are crouched in fear with our heads below the parapet wall, afraid to even admit to being Tamil, let alone being a supporter of the Tamil struggle for justice. Those who dare to raise their heads above the wall, or do the right thing i.e. to support those in the North and East who, in the eyes of their Government, are non-people, find themselves locked up.

This is happening all over the world, Melbourne, Sydney, New York, Toronto, London and probably many other places which I am not aware of. This must be challenged, as we are doing in Melbourne, at whatever the cost.

Three young Tamil boys, one of them a close friend of mine, were arrested, two in Melbourne, one in Sydney, and detained on an absurd charge. An application for bail was refused by a potty little Magistrate. However, when one of them had his bail application taken up in the Supreme Court, it was granted. The Magistrate got the message and granted bail to the other two. In the bail application, I submitted the reasons why it was inappropriate, indeed illegal, to charge them. If any one wants a copy of my Submission, I would be glad to send it to them. There are compelling reasons why what is happening to our Tamil boys in several counties, can be challenged on Humanitarian Law.
I will not deal with the third (and very important) problem of lobbying the Sinhalese in the Sinhala South. I plan on releasing a DVD targeting the Sinhalese. There are several Sinhalese groups in the South, almost all of them from the Left, who are addressing, or trying to address, this crucial problem. They must be supported.
There is not the slightest doubt as to the final result. The history of liberation struggles of an oppressed people over the past 100 years, has been  liberation. Sri Lanka cannot be the exception. In front of the UN in Geneva is a string of flags from all the UN countries. At one end are empty places. One of them is for the flag of Tamil Eelam.

LIES, DAMN LIES AND THE BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL 1 Dr Brian Senewiratne replies

Thank you for asking me to respond to your queries  about the replies you have had from the
Brisbane City Council (BCC). Daniel David’s article on the net is essentially correct. There have been a few omissions, since he did not have access  to some of the letters I have had. The sequence of events he describes is correct and attempts by the Mayor to claim otherwise, is simply dishonest.

My wife (73) and I (75) have been charged  and convicted for  “interfering with protected vegetation” on our property in Brisbane. We will be sentenced on September 20, 2007. What we will do after that, I do not know. Our bank balance is low, very low, fighting this outrageous Case for so many months (which BCC made sure of, by dragging it out as long as possible).

I am not given to swearing but on this occasion I will. I swear on Almighty God or the Bible or
whatever, that I have not cleared ‘protected vegetation’. For a start, there could not have been
protected vegetation in the area in question, since it is our backyard which I have regularly mowed for the past 30 years.

I have enough credibility in the international arena, and in Australia, to say this without having to swear. This is not necessarily true of BCC whose employees have, as we will see, lied on oath, having hypocritically taken the Bible in their hand. As a Christian, I wish they had left this Book aside, if they were going to do what they did.

Going well beyond the realms of credibility, during the trial, BCC claimed that our whole property had‘significant native vegetation’, despite there being a house and a large mango plantation.

If dragging us through the Courts on a patently false and malicious charge was not enough, BCC has decided to compulsorily acquire two thirds of our land, in a completely illegal act. It is in violation of the Acquisition of Land Act 1967, hence unlawful, and ultra vires the power of Council.
Before I deal with this gross abuse of power, I will state what I said in Geneva at the June 2007 UN Human Rights Council meeting. Referring to Sri Lankan Government violating the human rights of its citizens, I said, ”The citizens of a country should not rest their hopes too much on the Law, the Courts and the Constitution. Justice, fair-play, truth and conscience lie in the hearts of men and women. When that dies, no Law, noCourt, and no Constitution, will save them”.

When I came here 30 years ago, I did not dream that a comment relevant to Sri Lanka will also apply equally well to Australia. What has been tried and convicted on August 8, 2007, is not just a couple in the closing years of their lives, but Australia, which is now on par with some of the more dreadful countries. Australia does not need to be there.


The Charge  
         
1) “Interference with protected Vegetation when the interference was not strictly in accordance with the permit issued by Council”.
        2) “Failing to comply with the Compliance Notice dated 11 November 2004 ”.
For good measure, it is a criminal prosecution. The implication and sly insinuation is that we are criminals. It is a shameful proposition. The Mayor might have a more user-friendly explanation. Whatever his convoluted explanation, on 20 September 2007, my wife and I will be asked to stand up, and be sentenced like any convicted criminal. Does that bother me?  Not half as much as it bothers me about the damage done to the good name and international standing of Australia, still struggling to put behind it the outrageous acquisition of Aboriginal land (with peanuts being paid as compensation) - Mabo or no Mabo. There is a particularly Australian phrase, “a fair go”. I doubt whether what has happened to us, with worse, much worse, to come,  is a shining example of this.

Charge 1. 
     
What was the ‘protected vegetation’? Some miserable gum-tree saplings (there are thousands on the land), which were making it impossible for us to access the lantana, a noxious weed, we were ordered to clear. As one of the expert witnesses, a legendary “fair-dinkum Aussie” observed during our trial, “Dr and Mrs Senewiratne were damned if they did, damned if they didn’t”. It was the decency and inherent fairness of people like him, which contrasted so strikingly with those who gave evidence against us, who had neither. Most of them were BCC employees and others with despicable vested interests.

As I have said, and I will say it again because of its importance, there could not have been any ‘protected vegetation’ since the area in question is our back garden which had been regularly mowed by me for years (till the BCC clamped a Vegetation Protection Order and then an Environmental Protection Order to devalue the land, in preparation for acquisition). So, whatever vegetation was there, and still is there, is secondary growth.

How much of this supposedly ‘protected vegetation’ did we clear? About 100 sq meters out of the  26,000 square meters which BCC is about to compulsorily and completely illegally, take from us. Why just 100 sq.m? Because that was all that was necessary for the clearing machine to access the lantana. So, all this fuss, this criminal charge, this terrible trauma, humiliation and expense, is about 100 sq m of insignificant secondary growth? Yes, it is. Unbelievable. Yes, unbelievable, in a so-called ‘civilized country’. I suggest that this  unbelievable action has more to do with intimidation and bullying than any sanctimonious concerns about the environment.
For a start, there is a mass of lantana growing on BCC property on the other side of our fence and virtually every BCC land in the area!

What were the ‘conditions of the permit’ which we failed to observe ‘in strict accordance’? It is hilarious. The BCC Permit was that a 10 metre firebreak be cleared all round the property and the area cleared be replanted and watered for a period of 2 years.  The ‘Environmental Experts’ in BCC do not seem to understand that a fire-break is to clear vegetation. Having cleared it, if it is replanted, it is an exercise in futility, as are most of the activities of  BCC.


The only source of water is our garden tap.  A measurement showed that a garden hose would have to run for 1.2 km to cover the entire periphery of the block.  The pressure generated would not be enough to move the water, let alone work sprinklers. If they did work, the area covered by each sprinkler is such that there would have had to be 1,200 sprinklers, probably more.

We would have had to use domestic water, since the creek that runs across the land is dry for most of the year. I remind you that we are on level 5 water-restriction which prohibits even the watering of your garden  The Magistrate made the point that there were no water restrictions at the time. That was absolutely correct, as one would expect from someone of his standing.  Did I hear someone say that Australia is a dry continent and a drought is always on the cards?.  So, whatever was planted would have died. We could, of course, have re-planted, re-re-planted and re-re-re-planted for 2 years (which BCC said we will have to do).

The entire suggestion was preposterous, and I wrote to the Council saying that the conditions on the Permit were unacceptable.
BCC responded by sending another Pest Control notice asking us to clear the lantana and other weeds, or face prosecution. Because of this, the drought, and the increasing fire hazard (we had already had a major fire  which  took our garden shed and very nearly our house and those of our neighbours for which we would have been liable), I decided to clear the lantana and other weeds, as well as the dead branches on the ground and some of the scrub, leaving the large trees, as requested by the Fire Officer.  I had to hire a machine with a long arm to do this as much of the lantana was growing on the other side of the creek.

In the subsequent Court Case against us, a Council worker (who boasted about her qualifications which was made much of in the judgment), said in evidence, that she had told me not to use a machine to clear the lantana. That was an absolute lie said in Court, under oath, and constitutes perjury. In most countries one would be locked up, here there was applause.

According to this BCC ‘expert’, waving her shining degrees, the only acceptable way of clearing lantana is to cut each stem and put a drop of poison on the cut stem in 15 seconds! I need hardly dwell on the absurdity of this – we are talking of  8 acres of land. I’d challenge her to go over several acres across which lantana had spread, cut each stem and put a drop of poison within 15 seconds. She would have been there for years, by which time the lantana, growing in profusion in the adjoining BCC property, would have come back to our land!

Charge 2
.
Lets leave the absurd and move on to the ridiculous - the Compliance Notice’ of 11 November 2004.
1. Cut down and remove 5 dead trees on the property
2. Remove all the dead branches and scrub that the machine had placed in a dry gully (which BCC could not distinguish from a creek)
3. Prepare the soil, mulch and replant the cleared  area of some 8,000 sq. metres with 4,200 trees, shrubs and ground cover (most of which had not existed there previously), space as specified, water and look after them for 2 years, replacing any dead plants.


It is of interest that the area we were asked to plant was land which the Council wished to acquire. Effectively, we were the ‘gardeners’ for the BCC. What I would dearly like to see is BCC planting 4,200 plants in this area, and watering them with water that is available only in their imagination. I doubt if I will have that pleasure.

We complied with 1) and 2) but not with 3) since it was physically impossible to do so. As I have said, the area they wanted replanted is too far away to be watered.  During the Court Case, a Council Officer said we could have hired a water bowser to come in and water the plants. This is yet another absurd suggestion since there are no roads in the land other than our driveway. There are certainly no roads where BCC wanted the plants put down.

This is the evidence, “beyond all reasonable doubt”, on which we were found guilty and convicted.  Incidentally, the property is jointly owned, but we are being charged and convicted, individually.
Presumably, each one will be sentenced individually. So if we get fined, say $20,000 (the fine imposed on us by BCC was $35,000 for clearing ‘protected vegetation’), it will be $20,000 x 2 = $40,000!!! In algebra we called it Q.E.D  quad erat demonstrandum. -  that which had to be demonstrated or, in this case,‘achieved’.

Now for the real agenda – acquiring our land
BCC had decided to  compulsorily  acquire 2.591 hectares of our land. What for? For “environmental  purposes”. Is that legal? Of course, not.
Lets look at the Law, check it yourself, it is on the net. In Queensland, freehold land is acquired under the Acquisition of Land Act 1967. Land can be compulsorily acquired for a essential road, hospital, school etc but not for a vague ‘Environmental purpose’. “Environmental purpose” is not identified  in the Acquisition of Land Act 1967. As such, the action is prima facie,  unlawful, ultra vires the power of Council.

Did we point this out to Council? We sure did, and at no small cost. And the response? Let me quote Doug Muir, the Acquisitions and Disposal Officer BCC, 6 July 2007, “This matter has again been considered by Council, which after due consideration of the objection……..,is still of the opinion that the land described is required, and has resolved to make an application to the Department of Natural Resources and Water for approval to the proposed resumption”. Amen.(the ‘Amen’ is mine).

Recently I was invited to meet the Shadow Health Minister to discuss restructuring the Health system. Also present was a prospective MP who happened to be a long-standing Councillor. I spilt out my tale of woe. With disarming honesty she said, “Council cannot compulsorily acquire your land for environmental purposes. Council simply does not have the power. I have been in Council for long enough to know that”.

The small matter of being ultra vires the power of Council does not bother BCC. As I have said, I had a letter from the appropriate BCC Officer that BCC had decided to ask the Minister of Natural Resources and Water to resume the land. Priya Thamoderam, Vice Chair of the Tamil Writer’s Guild, London, who has spent endless hours trying to stop this injustice, wrote a desperate appeal to the said Minister. The reply was that the Minister was in fact not the right person. The right person was the Minister of Local Government, Planning and Sport! So BCC had sent the acquisition request to the wrong Minister! The roars of laughter from Priyas’s office in London, were heard here. Metaphorically, I mean. To lay on  aninternational comedy show is not a recognised function of BCC.

The face behind the Agenda 
Of interest is a letter circulated by a ‘gentleman’ who has bought one of the houses adjoining us. He urges the others in the area to write to the Lord Mayor and their Councilor,  “It is in our interests as local residents (to have this land acquired)…….The alternative is a never ending threat to development on Doctor’s block and this one (that’s the next block)”.He goes on, ” … the increased cost of a subdivided block could go beyond what Council is prepared to pay.  We must beat this developer now and have the whole of both  blocks acquired and rehabilitated as conservation land”. The cat is very much out of the bag.

This gentleman is in for a shock. I had a very experienced property lawyer from Sydney  who told me what will happen (as has happened many times). Council will take this land from us, wait till the dust settles (and my death), change the current classification of the land from “Emerging Communities” to a more user-friendly one, block it up and sell it, making about a 500% profit. The reason, if reasons need be given, “People don’t have a place to live and it is the responsibility of a caring Council to address this humanitarian issue by releasing land” (as they offered to do for me in return for a gift (see below).

A problem
I am not sure how the Mayor is going to explain this one, but there is a (small) problem. I have a letter from the Kim Shields, BCC Asset Officer, Land Acquisition, dated 13/4/05 which states, “Council desires to secure an area comprising two hectares in area.  That area comprises all the land with the Environmental Protection Area designation.  The same area is covered by VPO (Vegetation Protection Order)  The valuation has been assessed on the basis that a 7,200 m2 lot could be developed but the remaining part of the 2.0 hectares would be provided to Council free of cost as a condition of the development”.

So, BCC is acquiring 2 hectares in an Environmental Protection Area (also covered by a Vegetation Protection Order)  but 7,200 sq metres of this so-called protected area can be developed provided I donate the rest to BCC free.   What BCC must explain is how an “environmentally protected area” become unprotected by the act of donating part of it to Council?  When I did not agree to this nonsense, 2.0 hectares suddenly became 2.591 hectares. The  extra 0.591 hectares is completely cleared land behind my house i.e. part of my back garden which has no “protected” vegetation (because I have mowed it for the past 30 years)  Come off it.  We are not stupid!

Post-acquisition  
The Mayor, in response to some very worried people  in this country and in many countries outside Australia says, “When acquired, this land will form part of an extensive land holding by Council in the area dedicated to preserving the natural bushland and wild life corridor” That had me in fits of laughter. In the middle of this “natural bushland” is a very unnatural quarry, a massive one at that, owned and run by…….. guess? Yes, BCC.


As for wild life running across our land, running where? The adjoining lands are fully developed with stacks of houses. Beyond that is the main road (Creek Road) with 4 lanes of traffic. I rather like the idea of animals racing from the forest into people’s homes, and then crossing Creek Road  to be knocked down by passing vehicles. Animals are not that stupid (Kamalini and I did a degree in Zoology before I did medicine).
The despicable strategy of BCC which I have set out, is a pathetic attempt to bully us, tarnish our image, portray us as criminals and irresponsible people who cannot be trusted to look after the environment, and even unfit to own land which must, in the public good, be taken away from them. When it is, it must be ensured that we are not in a position to defend ourselves by financially taking us to the wall on some trumped-up charge, so that we have no option but to accept whatever crumbs are thrown at us by BCC. It is a dreadful thing to do. It is a violation of basic civil rights which we must resist, and will.
Think about it. Council workers have lied to have people convicted on a criminal charge, denying them a fair trial and justice. Has Australia got down to that level? It must make us all sit up and worry.

Each time one has to defend one’s self from unjust, even illegal, acts exercised by a Government, an Institution or any other body, in a frank abuse  of power, the nearer one moves towards fascism. If we do not challenge this unfettered abuse of power, we become part of the problem. Compensation
 
The compensation for illegally stealing some 2.591 hectares of my land is laughable -. $430,000 for 2.0 hectares (it has since increased to 2.591 ha ie 26,000 sq m). A doctor who works at the local hospital has just bought a 700 sq m block down the road and paid  $750,000 i.e $1,000 a sq m. And what is BCC offering us for 26,000 sq m? I told you. Get your calculator out and see what ‘big time’ stealing is.

Actually BCC is not even offering that. If you look at Kim Shields’ letter, what it says is that we can get $430,000 for the land that BCC has kindly allowed us to develop. There is no monetary offer, as such, from BCC.

The Mayor has written to you that if I am not satisfied, I can go to the Land Court. And who will  pay for that? It will not be ourselves, because we have already been taken to the cleaners by the lantana case and our combined bank balance is in three figures.
.
When the Minister (once BCC gets the right one) signs the document, its all done bar the shouting. Most of my life’s ‘savings’ – what I hoped would enable me to stop seeing patients and do what I really want to do – to address the major human rights violations in a number of places, will be gone. In most countries they call this stealing, here they call it ‘Environment purposes’. Excuse me while I laugh.

The Mayor and Deputy Mayor must explain 
1.  The claim by the Mayor, sent to heaps of you, which states that the decision to acquire the land was subsequent to the Court Case. “   The decision to the compulsory acquisition of the Senewiratne property for environmental purposes was made independently of the prosecution some considerable time after the prosecution was well advanced”.  This is a half-truth. Remove the ‘compulsory’, and it becomes a blatant lie.   The decision to acquire the land, as informed by the letter from Council, was dated July  2002, the Court Case was filed in August 2005.  There is a strong possibility that whoever in BCC is putting out this falsehood is doing so to try and show that the intimidation of a Court Case and the attempt to take us to the financial wall, was not done to force us to accept whatever was on offer from Council for the land.



2.  The claim by the Mayor that we can go to the Land Court is equally absurd.  Having taken us to a serious depletion of our financial resources, where does he think we can find the money to pay for lawyers to appear for us in the Land Court?
3.  If environmental concerns are the reason for the acquisition of our property, can the Council explain
   
  a) How it is that a quarry right in the middle of a so-called environmentally sensitive area is still functioning. Obviously environmental sensitivity is applicable only to other people’s lands.
  b) How it is that lantana is growing freely on BCC property immediately adjacent to our land and in several other areas in Brisbane Clearly, BCC does not seem to practice what it preaches, or is it some special ‘protected’ noxious weed?.  The clear impression is that ordering us to clear the lantana and then charging us for doing so in a  manner unacceptable to Council, has an ulterior motive that has nothing to do with lantana but much to do with intimidation.
   c) How is it that if we were prepared to donate part of the 2 hectare bock that Council wanted, the rest of this ‘environmentally important’ area suddenly lost its importance and could be developed? Bribery of a sort (donation of land) seems to be the answer to ‘environmental concerns’. Is that BCC policy? If it is, rate-payers and the public have a right to know.          

BCC is doing well 
In his letter to you, the Mayor boasts that BCC has “an extensive landholding”. With land prices sky rocketing, that is very good (economic) news. I only hope that this was not acquired the same way that BCC is proposing to acquire my property.
A postscript in the letter of the Mayor to some of you says, “our credit rating remains a healthy AA+ and rate rises have been the lowest in 15 years”  Just as well, since with rate payers being taken to the wall, higher rates will not be payable by some, who, alas, now include me and my wife.

There is some confusion here. It is the same confusion that exists with the public hospitals. A hospital is not judged by its 5-star buildings, but on how it treats its patients. A Council is not judged by its AA rating, but how it treats its rate-payers. Where BCC is concerned, it is abysmally poor.

What happens next? 
Court Case
We will be Sentenced on 20 September 2007 in the Holland Park Magistrate’s Court by His Honour, Magistrate Arnold. We will be asked to stand and be sentenced like tow common criminals. My lawyers want me to plead in mitigation, saying that it is my first offence, what great things I have done in the field of Human Rights etc.  I will do no such thing. I am not going to say it is my ‘first offence’, which is an admission that I have committed an offence. I have not. As I said at the start of this document, I swear on almighty God that I did not clear protected vegetation. BCC does not have a scrap of evidence to prove that ‘protected vegetation’ was at the path I cleared to access the lantana and to reduce the fire hazard. I could not even do the latter because a BCC office, bright there by the neighbours, stopped me. Why should I say Ihat this is a ‘first offence’?


To get on my knees and grovel is not my style. I will leave the Court with my dignity intact. The nature of the Sentence is up to the Magistrate. I will not grovel to have this altered. What do I want to do?

Leave Australia. If Kamalini was not there, I’d leave the day after I am sentenced. Leave and go where? Anywhere, where people are treated better than I have been by BCC. I’d hand over the sale of my property and my house to my solicitor, ask him to deposit in my bank the peanuts he will get, less his charges,  and deal with the next victim. I see no reason to live in, or contribute in any way, to a fascist dictatorship where people in authority lie on oath, where people are convicted for offences they have not committed, and then
have their property acquired completely illegally. Why should I? I can make a contribution to one of a dozen countries where I will be treated better. It could be a country with a much lower ‘rating’,BCC can keep its gross injustices. And its AA+ rating.

What can you do? 
Or rather, what more can you do? Nothing, absolutely nothing.  Should you write more letters? To whom? And for what purpose? You will get the same reply, now firmly embedded in the hard-disk of the BCC computer, which a single stroke on the key board will ‘emit’. Save some poor clerk the bother.

I guess we still have the Media – the conduit to the last remaining “Court” – the ‘Court of Public Opinion.’ If ordinary decent people, those who vote in Counsellors, the Mayor, MPs, Ministers etc know  what is happening to others among them, there might be some action. BCC could, of course, tell the whole lot to go to hell, as they have done to the Acquisition of Land Act.
Do the  rest of the Councillors know all this? I do not know. Should they be informed of the injustice that has been done, with much more to follow? I do not know. Can they be contacted? Yes they can, their emails are on the BCC website. Are they decent people? I do not know, but I hope so.

Will God help? I do not know. You can try Him, I know from personal experience, this current problem excepted, that He can, and does. He can handle most things, BCC might be the exception. Do I still believe in God? Yes, I do, He (and public opinion) are all I have left in a world seeped in injustice. I will not allow a unjust, crooked, bullying, lying, and sinful organisation to get between me and my God. If I do, I will lose  much more than I have.

Do I regret coming to Australia?

I did have a wide choice of countries. So, do I regret the choice I made to come here as Associate Professor of Medicine and Visiting Physician? “Yes” and “No”. “Yes I do, because I have lost all, or nearly all”. “No I don’t because I have met some of the finest people on planet earth”.  Australia is a wonderful country, one of the finest I have lived in. On a rating from 0 -100, most of the people, the ordinary Aussies, are in the 80 -100 group, some, whom I count as friends,  are 110+. At the other end are a set of bastards, rating from 5-0, some -10.  Most are in BCC and the rest on the other side of my fence (and whom I had invited to use my pool and in return, gave very damaging and totally false evidence against me at the trial).

In choosing a country to live in, it is important to see how their citizens are treated. Some of thesecountries at the bottom of the economic ladder, in the so-called ‘Third World’, with an abysmally poor AA rating, whatever that might be, treat their citizens in a more just way. Had I been single, I would have moved to one of them tomorrow, telling BCC that they can have the bloody lot, as so many others, unable to fight any longer, have done Let me get back to where I stared – that piece I said in Geneva about Justice, fair-play, truth and conscience lying in the hearts of men and women and that when that dies, no Law, no Court, and no Constitution will save the citizens.  Australia is not yet a Republic and should sing “God save our Gracious Queen”. We can replace this with “God save our gracious people, from the likes of those in BCC”.

Brian Senewiratne      30 August 2007  

BCC Quarry in 'protected area'                     My land BCC
                                                                               want nearly 2/3
           

The rubbish we cleared(100sq m)
to access Lantana at the back

                                                                                

Lantana flourishing on BCC land