I write as a Christian, albeit a non-church going one (for reasons too complicated and probably irrelevant to go into here. Those interested in this can go to tamilcanadian.com, type my name in the 'search box' and scroll down the 50 + articles I have written and find the two written by me to the Head of my Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and you will know why I stand where I do. My letter to the Roman Catholic Bishop in Colombo

which is  there, might also be worth reading. There is another letter which I am sending the Pope which will appear at the same site in a few days).

What is going on with the Tamil refugees in the Sri Lankan North and East, and now on the asylum-seeker boats off Indonesia, and in the numerous hell-holes in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and my own country Australia, is not a Christian or non-Christian problem, nor is it a Sinhalese or a Tamil problem but a problem in Human Right

I have stressed this in the dozen DVDs I have recorded and distributed world-wide and which are still available for those who want them.

A number of emails have recently come my way asking for prayers for the refugees, asylum-seekers etc. As I said in a talk, a sermon I you like, that I was invited to deliver in the Elim Church in Auckland last March (and which is in a dvd now) I said "Prayer without action is dead". I said this in the clearest possible language to the Archbishop of Canterbury in the letters I have referred to, and just a few weeks ago here in Brisbane when I was asked to address a group of Churches.

Menik Farme Refugess behind barbed Wire I did the same when asked to preach the sermon on St Luke's Day in Kandy, in St Pauls Catherdral, Kandy where I said that "anyone can come to church and recite prayers and hymns parrot-fashion, but that real Christianity had to go beyond that. I said that I expected them to stand up in public and condemn what my aunt, Prime Minister Sirima Bandaranaike and her goons were doing to the Plantation Tamils who were dying on the streets in Kandy and were being transported by me to my ward in the General Hospital Kandy so that they can die withdignity, love and care".  If they could not or would not, do that, then all their Church-going was a meaningless ritual. All this is in a booklet called "What I have taught and learnt in Sri Lanka. The musings of a senile teacher" I do have a few copies of this still available if you are interested.

To get back to the Merak asylum seekers, the situation is somewhat more serious. We now have the unnecessary death of a 29 year old, whose only crime was that he was born a Tamil, was seeking refuge from a barbaric and murderous regime in Sri Lanka, and has died because of a refusal to administer minimally acceptable medical care. For this, those responsible must be held accountable, just as those responsible for he atrocities in North east Sri Lanka, must be held accountable. All this will be dealt with in a series of articles calling for action which I will publish in the coming weeks, if not days.

Right now, we are being carried away by "Christmas" which really has nothing to do with Christianity but a commercialized 'event' sponsored by big business to rake in some money, lots of it. This is not to say that the Birth of Christ should not be celebrated (not that there is any evidence that Christ was, in fact, born on Dec 25th.. Be that as it may, I think the spirit of Christianity, of doing what is right and not what is easy, must go

beyond Christmas.

In this spirit, I would urge you to get involved from tomorrow (Christmas Day 2009), to commit yourself to get involved in addressing some of the dreadful things that are going on, in many parts of the world, not least to the people of Tamil Eelam

  

By Dr. Brian Senewiratne, Brisbane, Australia. 

Tamil oppression worsens despite war's end

The Sri Lankan government claims that, after its military victory against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which was fighting for an independent homeland in the island's north-east for the Tamil minority, Tamil "terrorism" has been crushed, and that the outlook for the country is rosy.

In reality, Sri Lanka's problems have gotten worse. The need for international action against the crimes of the regime is more urgent than ever.

This year, the regime's genocidal war on the Tamil people killed more than 30,000 Tamils this year. This occurred after the government removed international witnesses.

"Genocide" is defined by the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as an act committed with the intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

More than 300,000 Tamils have been incarcerated in what are essentially concentration camps set up by the government in the north. A well-functioning defacto state in the Vanni region, four large districts administered by the LTTE for more than a decade, has been decimated.

Democracy in Sri Lanka has been dismantled and a politico-military dictatorship established.

More than any other country, China has assisted Sri Lanka militarily and economically. The quid pro quo is the establishment of a major naval facility in Sri Lanka. This will help supply oil to China from the Middle East and safeguard the movement of manufactured goods from China to the West.

China has also started a coal-powered power plant in the island's north-west. Eighty families of fisher people in the area have been evicted. The government claims they are "illegal residents" because they live in huts.

A US$500 million "soft loan" has been granted by the Export and Import Bank of China.

Slaughter of Tamils

The full-scale war against the Tamil people that ended with the surrender of the LTTE in May, started after the November 2005 election of Mahinda Rajapakse as president, backed by virulently anti-Tamil elements.

Rajapakse believes that Sri Lanka is a Sinhala-Buddhist country. The Sinhalese, largely Buddhist, are the ethnic majority in Sri Lanka and have dominated the state since independence in 1948.

The assault on the Tamils was launched in January 2006, increased in June 2008 and further escalated in January this year. On one day alone, May 17, 10,000, possibly more, Tamils were slaughtered by the military.

In September last year, all aid groups, including United Nations agencies, were asked to leave the conflict zone so that genocide could be committed without witnesses.

On May 18, the regime declared "victory".Despite this, international observers and humanitarian organisations are still denied access to the conflict zone by the Sri Lankan government, which says it is carrying out "mopping up" operations.

The regime is "mopping up" the evidence that would show the scale of the slaughter.

Thousands of unarmed civilians were bombed and shelled. The regime claims it was targeting LTTE fighters hiding among the civilians. Whether or not this is true, Sri Lanka's actions violate the 1977 Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, signed and ratified by the Sri Lanka.

Article 50 of the protocol states: "The presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come within the definition of civilians does not deprive the population of its civilian character."

Hospitals were bombed. This is in violation of the Geneva Conventions 1 and 4 that state: "Fixed establishments and mobile Medical Units of the medical service may in no circumstances be attacked."

LTTE leaders who surrendered to the military were executed, a serious offence under international law.

Food has also been used as a weapon of war, with food and medical supplies denied to civilians in the conflict zone. Article 55 and 56 of the Geneva Conventions states: "An occupying power has the duty of ensuring adequate food and medical supplies in the area under occupation."

Concentration camps

Some 279,000 Tamil civilians have been herded into 40 barbwire-enclosed "welfare camps" in the north. Outsiders, including relatives, are not allowed into the camps.

Young Tamil men are identified as LTTE fighters by masked men (from Tamil groups that broke-away from the LTTE) and executed.

International demands to have the interrogations of suspected LTTE fighters monitored have been refused.

Tamil girls and women are raped. There are claims that pregnant women are aborted and some even sterilised. It is not possible to confirm or refute these claims since independent observers are not allowed into the area.

The regime says the camps will be dismantled within six months, but similar detainees in camps set up in the north-east are still operating a year after being established.

The most likely scenario is that the camps in the north will be there for many years.

Holding people in these detention centres violates not just international law, by Sri Lankan law as well, as Sri Lanka's chief justice Sarath Silva has said.

Much of the Tamil population in the east are now refugees. The Jaffna Peninsula, in the far-north, is run as a virtual police state.

Tamil state demolished

The defacto state in the north, built and operated by the LTTE, has been totally demolished.

The long-term implication of this wanton destruction of functioning structures is that anything built by the Tamils will be destroyed by the regime. This must be taken into account in formulating any long-term solution to the ethnic problem.

Sri Lanka's dictatorship regime is run by Mahinda Rajapakse, his three brothers and numerous relatives. The ruthless military is headed by one of the most anti-Tamil soldiers in Sri Lanka, General Sarath Fonseka.

Opposition MPs have been bought or silenced. Tamil MPs have been gunned down.

The media has been silenced. Reporters Without Borders ranks Sri Lanka as 165 out of 173 countries in terms of freedom of speech.

Anyone who questions what is going on is branded a traitor or a terrorist, and dealt with as such. A 2008 UN Human Rights Watch report said Sri Lanka leads the world in "involuntary disappearances".

Corruption is rampant. The police are among the most corrupt in the world. Use of armed hoodlums and thugs is a feature of this government.

The most recent suggestion is that there is "no need to have another election". Even if one is held, the result, in the setting of massive voter intimidation, is a foregone conclusion.

What can be done

The only actions available to assist the struggle of the Tamils for justice are the same as those used to deal with the apartheid regime in South Africa.

The imposition of economic sanctions is essential to bring this totalitarian regime, that has scoffed at international outrage about its human rights violations, to its senses.

Trade unions across the world should stop handling goods in and out of Sri Lanka (as was done with South Africa). Companies providing goods and services to Sri Lanka should be targeted. Tourism must be specifically targeted.

Sri Lanka has to be isolated. An international "razor-wire fence" will have to be run round Sri Lanka, until the razor-wire fences around the Tamil civilians are taken down and the people are allowed to return to their homes and are compensated.

The isolation of Sri Lanka should include cricket — as it was with South Africa.

Sri Lanka should also be expelled from the Commonwealth until the violations of human rights cease.

Legal action should be launched in the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court against those responsible for crimes against humanity.

International protests should be launched to make politicians and others from this ruthless regime unwelcome wherever they travel.

Action needs to be taken to counter the disinformation campaign launched by the Sri Lankan government so that the outside world can see what is concealed behind Sri Lanka's closed and censored doors. I have produced DVDs as part of this campaign.

People around the world should lobby their parliamentarians to ask what they and their governments are doing about the outrageous situation in Sri Lanka. The expatriate Tamils doing this by themselves is simply not enough. Non-Tamils need to get involved.

The Sinhalese population, who mostly live in Sri Lanka's south, need to be appealed to as part of solving the Tamil problem. Today it is the Tamils bearing the brunt of the regime's repression, tomorrow it will be the Sinhalese — especially the poor.

Impoverished Sinhalese are facing crippling economic hardship with an inflation rate of 30%, the highest in Asia. They need to be won to an understanding that it is widespread corruption and abysmally poor governance that are the problems, not "Tamil terrorism".

The Rajapakse regime is the enemy of Sinhalese workers as well as the Tamil people. With thousands of Sri Lankan workers losing their jobs under the impact of the world recession, Rajapakse's government has re-established the National Labour Advisory Council (NLAC) — enabling mass layoffs and attacks on workers' rights.

In the first three months of this year, 96,000 jobs were lost in the industrial sector and 36,000 in the construction sector.

The labour ministry said between September and March, 220 factories closed and more than 70,000 workers lost their jobs. More layoffs are certain.

A Central Bank report said export earnings in April fell by 28.2% to US$438 million. Rubber and textiles exports dropped by 36.1% and 10.1% respectively

Under the Termination of Employment of Workman Act (TEWA), companies can impose speedy lay offs and reduce working hours

If Sinhalese workers and poor do not act, the guns, now turned on the Tamil civilians, will be turned on them by a regime determined to suppress dissent.

The socialist parties in the Sri Lankan south are possibly the only groups who can deliver this. They must be supported by the outside world.

If action is not taken, the Tamil north could become another Gaza — the comparisons are already alarming.

Genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka while Australia looks on

May 7, 2009 -- Socialist Alliance Australia -- I am a Sinhalese from the majority community in Sri Lanka, not from the brutalised Tamil community. I have campaigned for some five decades for the right of the Tamils to live with equality, dignity and safety in the country of their birth.

I am releasing this media briefing as a concerned Australian (here for 32 years), and as a member of the Socialist Alliance, the only non-Tamil organisation [in Australia] to support the struggle of the Tamils for justice.

The Sinhalese-dominated Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) claims it is fighting a "war on terrorism". What it is really doing is fighting the Tamil people to force them to accept Sri Lanka as a Sinhala-Buddhist nation. To this end, it is prepared to commit genocide of the Tamils, similar to Hitler’s "final solution of the Jewish question".

The Tamils are now facing genocide or internment in concentration camps that masquerade as "refugee camps". The Tamil civilians were supposedly “liberated” from the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) by the GoSL. But if they are liberated people, why keep them behind barbed-wire fences, and why are international observers, including the media and humanitarian workers, prevented from visiting these camps?

There are 154,000 Tamil civilians, some in tents, others under trees, in 24 camps, behind barbed-wire fences. The tents are for five people, but house between seven and 21. Living conditions are appalling, with deliberate starvation and the denial of adequate medical help.

The women and girls are raped by the armed forces, pregnant women are aborted and some even sterilised. The GoSL would deny all this. Can foreign observers check these allegations? No they may not. Why? Because it is an "internal affair". We disagree.

There are some 120,000 Tamil civilians left in the government "safe zone", which is regularly bombed by its armed forces. Even hospitals have not been spared. The defence secretary, the president’s brother, in an interview with British media, said that bombing of hospitals is "acceptable". This contravenes the first and fourth sections of the Geneva Convention, signed and ratified by the GoSL.

The UN Convention defines genocide as "an act committed with intent to destroy in whole, or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group". In Sri Lanka, this "part" are the Tamils who live in the North and East.

The GoSL expelled all humanitarian workers and agencies, including UN agencies, from the conflict zone so that genocide could be done without witnesses. This has not been done in any other country in the world.

More than 6000 Tamil civilians have been slaughtered in just the past four months. Last week, the only obstetrician in the area was gunned down by the armed forces. Why? Genocide.

Kfir jets, bombers, multi-barrel rocket launchers and helicopter gunships have been used by the GoSL dropping, in addition to conventional arsenal, cluster bombs and white phosphorus bombs. The GoSL will, of course, deny this, but the photographic evidence, including UN aerial photographs, recently leaked to the outside world, leave no doubt that these banned weapons are being used.

The foreign ministers of Britain, France and Sweden tried to get into Colombo to discuss the humanitarian disaster with the GoSL. The Swedish foreign minister could not even get a visa to enter the country. The other two got there and returned saying that they had “tried very hard” but achieved nothing

In the face of increasing international concern at the civilian casualties, the Tamil Tigers declared a unilateral cease-fire. The GoSL refused to reciprocate saying that the offer was a "joke".

On May 21, 2008, Sri Lanka was tossed out of the UN Human Rights Council on account of its outrageous human rights record.

However, little or none of this is mentioned in the Australian media. Australians have a right to ask why.

The Australian government has failed to act in condemning a serious abuse of human rights by a country with which it shares an ocean. Commercial and geo-political considerations are clearly more important than humanitarian ones, however serious.

This is simply not acceptable, and damages the image of Australia by its failure to condemn a murderous regime that has the temerity to call itself a "government", and for failing to institute sanctions on Sri Lanka until the killing stops.

The Australian government and the Australian media have a serious case to answer for their silence and indifference towards a horrendous genocide.

The only possible action

As the entire civilized world, with the exception of ‘patriotic’ Sinhalese (which excludes the likes of myself), is aghast at the mass murder of Tamil civilians in Northern Sri Lanka, by the politicomilitary junta which calls itself the ‘Sri Lankan Government’, the options available to stop the  slaughter of Tamils are limited.
No amount of protests, hunger strikes, self-immolations, human chains, endless letters, lobbying  (deaf) politicians, calls for action by the impotent United Nations, the equally impotent Global  Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) endorsed by the UN World Summit in 2005, will  do anything to stop the genocide of the Tamil civilians, or their incarceration in concentration  camps.
This is not an attempt to underestimate the importance of the unprecedented massive rallies  that have occurred all over the world, especially in Britain and Canada (which, indeed, should  be escalated and expanded).

It is not an attempt to belittle the enormous contribution made by groups such as the British Tamil Forum, the finest group in North America, the Canadian Tamil Congress, Tamils Against Genocide, Canadian-Voice-for-Eelam-Tamils, and Tamil Info (whose daily emails flood my computer), the extraordinary dedication of those who keep Tamilnet going, Eelamnation, the outstanding websites such as Tamilcanadian, Sangam, Nadesan Satyenda’s Tamilnation  the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation and those on the ground in the North who risk life and limb to send photo-evidence of what the suffering of the Tamil people, the Jaffna ‘situation Report’, the Tamil Centre for Human Rights, Tamil Writer’s Guild, , and the
dedicated work of scores of individual Tamil activists and concerned people who spend many hours, day after day, trying to publicise what is happening to the Tamil people. Any omissions are unintentional, there are so many others who enable me to function. These contributions are invaluable and must be acknowledged and applauded, but we now have to take the next step – imposing serious economic sanctions, which is what this paper is all about.

The Players and their games 
The UN, the international tea-club of nations good and evil, are playing their usual game of ‘big talk but no effective action’ The UN Secretary General, Ban-Ki-Moon, has expressed”deep concern” at the situation, which is a predictable result of their cowardly act, leaving the conflict zone  on 9 September 2008, when asked to do so by the murderous Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL), so that there would be no international witnesses to the Genocide of the Tamil people. He now says, (23 April 2009, Brussels) that he is dispatching a humanitarian team to monitor the situation because “so many lives have been sacrificed. There is to time to lose”. Did he have to wait six months to realize this?

To quote the UN figures (almost certainly a gross under-estimate of the actual figures), the UN spokesman in Colombo, Gordon Weiss, said that in the 3 months since 20 January 2009, 6,432 civilians had been killed and 13,048 wounded. He added that the fighting was now expected to intensify, and with it, the inevitable civilian casualties.

Gotabaya Rajapakse, Sri Lanka’s Defense Secretary and the President’s brother,  who is personally supervising the Genocide, predictably rejected the proposed UN action. He told the BBC, “It’s not asensible thing at the moment. Here is a civilian rescue operation going on in the area and allowing aid agencies inside the conflict zone is not matching with ground realities”. This assessment of the “ground realities”, comes from an ex-Sri Lankan  soldier, who went in search of greener pastures to the US, became an American citizen, and was running a “7-11” Convenient store in Los Angeles. He returned to Sri Lanka because his brother was elected President. To put what he said more accurately, the “ground reality” is that the genocide, from bombing, shelling, starvation, and the denial of medical help, and the incarceration of the Tamils in concentration camps, have not yet been completed. So it is not a ‘sensible thing’ for aid agencies to go in and sabotage the intention of the Sri Lankan government.
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Predictably, the UN will ask the military arm of the Tamil people to lay down their arms, but will do nothing about the military arm of the Sinhalese people, the so-called “Sri Lankan Security Forces”, the greatest source of Insecurity for the Tamil people in the North and East, to say nothing of the insecurity of Tamils in the Sinhalese South.  It will ignore the stark fact that International NGOs, including those affiliated to the UN, have been expelled from the Tamil areas by the GoSL, so that Genocide can be done without
witnesses or hindrance.

Will a UN Peace-Keeping, or even Human Rights Monitoring Force, be introduced, in the setting of an outrageous massacre of Tamil civilians on a mind-boggling scale? No, it will not be. Such action is not on the agenda of the UN. That is the reality of UN ‘action’. Any other course of action would have been exceptional, and to expect exceptional events to occur is just wishful thinking.

As for the UN Secretary General’s “deep concern”, it is a nonsensical comment. Who is  notconcerned? The only ones I know of are some blood-thirsty Sinhalese celebrating  in the Sri Lankan South, led by those hoodlums in yellow-robes and not-so-clean shaven heads, supposed followers of one of the greatest teachers of peace the world has ever  known, Gautama Buddha, and the political opportunists in the ‘Marxist’ JVP, that  has long since abandoned Marxism for the far more politically rewarding Sinhala-Buddhist ethnoreligious chauvinism. Indeed, the leader of the latter, who fled to the UK to avoid prosecution on a murder charge, and later returned to lead his notorious Party, said that Marx had got it all wrong!
They still wear a red cap with the hammer and a sickle, but their “Marxism” stops there.

What about  Navaneetham Pillai, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights? She has stated that the casualties may reach “catastrophic levels” if the fighting is  not stopped. But ‘catastrophe’ i.e. the genocide of the Tamil people in the North (and East), is precisely what the Sinhalese regime is determined to achieve.

Will protests by any other politician or eminent person in any part of the world, make the slightest difference to the genocidal intent of the Sinhalese regime in Colombo? No it will not.  Will India intervene? India might intervene to help the GoSL (there is some evidence that this is already occurring, and that the Indian casualties are being flown to Tamilnadu), but there will be no intervention to save the Tamils from Genocide, however strong the protests are in Tamilnadu. As so often happens, these protests will subside after the current Indian elections, whatever the outcome. One of Rajapakse’s cronies got it right when he described the politicians in Tamilnadu as ‘political jokers’.

As for Tamil Americans eg ‘Tamils for Obama’ who expect the new regime to intervene, they are not in the world of reality. The brief comment of concern from the Obama administration is appreciated, but will not stop the Genocide of Tamils. More than an expression of concern is needed.  Will Hillary Clinton fly to Colombo with a non-Sri Lankan who can understand Tamil (so that Rajapakse does not need to provide an interpreter’ whose interpretation  might be very different from what is told), and demand that she and her staff be allowed to see the ‘concentration camps’ and speak with those who have been ‘liberated’? Will she tell Rajapakse that unless she is allowed to do so, all US aid to Sri Lanka will stop? Not a hope.

A more likely scenario is for the US to contact Delhi and negotiate a deal with the Indian leadership for a share of Trincomalee harbour, the 4th largest natural harbour in the world, so that the American troops in distant Diego Garcia can be brought to a location from where the control of the economically crucial Indian Ocean is possible. This is ‘reality politics’ – geo-politics played out in the real world.

With massacres of Tamil civilians on an unprecedented scale, here is what Hillary Clinton told lawmakers in Washington on 22 April 2009, “I think that the Sri Lankan government knows that the entire world is very disappointed that in its efforts to end what it sees as 25 years of conflict, it is causing such untold suffering.” Is being “very disappointed” an adequate response to Genocide / Crimes against Humanity? To put this into its proper context, this was said 48 hours after the worst massacre of Tamil civilians in a single day (see below).

Robert Templer of the International Crisis Group seems to have fallen into the same trap as the Tamil Americans.  He says, “Barack Obama’s administration has said it is committed to the principles of international law and humanitarian protection. Sri Lanka is the perfect opportunity for the new U.S. President to show that this is not empty rhetoric’. He, like the Tamil Americans, is about to realize that it is empty rhetoric. It always is, when human rights are pitted against commercial gains and geo-politics. That is politics in practice.

As for the American ‘Model Indictment’ to charge Defense Secretary, Gotabaya Rajapakse and Army Commander Sarath Fonseka (both ‘green card’ holders in the US), in the US Courts, it is just a pathetic (and costly) exercise, which will appeal only to desperate people clutching at straws. It is time that this futile exercise was buried with a monument which reads, “Rest in Peace” (or costly pieces).

For sure, these criminals, including Mahinda Rajapakse, who is the Executive President, Minister of Defense and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, will have to be charged. But this is for a professional in this field such as the British barrister Geoffrey Robertson QC, the author of Crimes against Humanity, who has the necessary runs on the board. The expatriate Tamils, despite all their education and intellect, are, for some bizarre reason, simply unable to see this. God knows I have tried to make them see reason but, as the saying goes, “There are none as blind as those who will not see”.

Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) will, undoubtedly, produce yet another Report when it is all over, and make the usual suggestions for ‘good behaviour’. I have just (22 April 2009), had an email from the local AI representative in Brisbane. “We are in touch with the IS (International Secretariat of AI, London) about the situation and asked yesterday for a position statement but they are not planning any work at this stage”. What? AI has not planned “any work at this stage”? For the record, on 20 April 2009, more than 1,000 Tamil civilians were killed and 2,300 injured in one of the worst atrocities in a single day in the series of massacres of Tamil civilians that have occurred in the past 25 years. To claim that
AI was not aware of this is simply unacceptable. One could legitimately ask, “What more needs to be donebefore AI will ‘plan any work’? The total annihilation of the Tamils? When the belated Reports comeout, the GoSL will simply toss them in the dustbin, as has been done for years. The parts in these Reports that condemn what the Tamil militants have done will be applauded; the parts critical of the Government will simply be denied or labeled as “Support for Terrorism”.

Most Sri Lankan politicians and their cronies lie. What makes this serious, is not only that the lies are blatant, but that with the international media excluded and the local media heavily censored, the only information available to the outside world is from these globe-trotting inveterate liars. One of many examples was when the previous President Chandrika Kumaratunga was interviewed in November 2001 on the BBC Hard Talk by Tim Sebastian. She claimed that the US State Department’s 2001 Report on human rights was a lie. Sebastian, “Why would they lie?  Kumaratunga, “Well, there are all sorts of people who want to lie”.
She then went on to make the hilarious claim that only one Tamil girl had been raped in Jaffna. It would have been important to get the name of this unfortunate girl so that the hundreds of mothers of Tamil girls who have been raped, could be reassured that it was only a ‘pretencerape’, and if they got pregnant, it was a‘pseudo-pregnancy’.

The other characteristic of Sri Lankan politicians and their cronies is their abysmal ignorance. Here is an example, again from the previous President Chandrika Kumaratunga.  She was interviewed by Zain Verjee of CNN in November 2001.. Verjee, cited the Human Rights Watch Report of 2001 which criticized her government for the way it treated Tamil civilians in the north and the east (discrimination, restriction of freedom of movement, arbitrary arrests, abuse at the hands of government, army and police, and imposing forced labour).  Kumaratunga, “Lot of it is lies. What is that report? By whom is it written?” Verjee, “It was written by Human Rights Watch. It’s the 2001 Country Report for Sri Lanka”. The gaffe-prone President Kumaratunga,  “The Human Rights Watch, what is that?”

Examples from the current regime are too numerous to count, and is now  farcical. Gotabaya Rajapakse in a media interview said that hospitals are a ‘legitimate target’ to be bombed. This ‘ex-7-11 manager’ has no idea that this violates Article 1 and 4 of the Geneva Convention, signed and ratified by the GoSL which specifically states that in no circumstance could civilian medical facilities be attacked.

This will continue when the AI and HRW reports come out, by the even more gaffe-prone
Gotabaya Rajapakse, the supposed Defense Minister, but in reality, the one actually running the
country and who has even more to hide and/or deny. Any adverse comments in  the AI and
HRW reports will be flatly denied, or claimed to be ‘supporting Tamil ‘terrorism’.
 
As for the expatriate Tamils, some 1.3 million, they are suffering from, what can best be described as “unrealistic expectations”, or hallucinations. This is a ‘disorder’ they have suffered from for years, much to the frustration of those of us, non-Tamils, who have supported the entirely justifiable struggle of the Tamil people to live with equality, dignity and safety in the area of historical habitation of the Tamil people, the North and East.
The world can shout itself hoarse – the arrogance of the Sri Lankan regime is such that in their view, “The world can go to hell”.
Attempts to get foreigners ‘negotiators’, however distinguished, into Sri  Lanka, will simply not succeed – as Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, realized a few weeks ago. They will not get past the airport.
 Nor will foreign media. Jeremy Page, a reporter for the famous British newspaper, The Times,was escorted to the detention room on arrival at the Colombo airport a week ago, locked up for the night, and deported to the UK the next day. Sri Lanka was ranked 165th out of 173 countries in the Reporters Without Borders 2008 press freedom index. 
Tossing Sri Lanka out of the UN Human Rights Council for it’s outrageous human rights record (21 May 2008) was also an exercise in futility.  The Sri Lankan regime could  not care less.   These are futile gestures of no practical value, similar to acts taken against the likes of Zimbabwe’s Mugabe.  Dictators and tyrants are not swayed by public opinion or protests.


Taking on tyrants 
It has taken the Tamils, both in and outside Sri Lanka, a long time to realize a simple truth. To put this crudely, “It is not possible to bring down KFir jets with bows and arrows”. I was sent a heart-rending videofrom the Tamil North which moved me deeply. A Kfir jet had dropped a bomb on a hut, killing the mother. The daughter, about 10 years, rescued a piece of  her mother’s saree, all that was left of her. Her 5 years old brother was by her side. The Kfir jet retuned for a second round of bombing. The girl protected the only part of her mother, the piece of cloth, while the boy, with anger written all over his face, picked up a stone which he threw at the on-coming jet to bring it down. It was one of the most moving scenes  I have seen, and illustrates in a dramatic way, the problem.

Once the GoSL got into using KFir bombers. helicopter gunships, and multibarrel rocket launchers, for the Tamils to take on the fight militarily was quite impossible. With Armed Forces, armed to the hilt by China, America, India, Pakistan, and Israel, to name just a few, all that was necessary was someone with the mentality of Hitler, and his ‘Final Solution’ to appear. Such a person appeared in the form of Mahinda Rajapakse, elected President in November 2005, and enhanced by his ex-Army brother, Gotabaya, and the Army Commander, General Sarath Fonseka (who has openly stated that Sri Lanka is a Sinhala-Buddhist country and had  the necessary weapons to deliver on this ethnoreligious chauvinism). This lethal combination was not prepared to set any limits on civilian deaths or suffering, and was prepared, indeed more than prepared, to commit Genocide of the Tamils – the ‘Final Solution’. The results are there for
all to see.

This politico-military monster had a soft underbelly, vulnerable to attack. That was the economy. The Tamil response, especially of the expatriates, should have been to go for the  soft underbelly, instead of putting all their eggs in the military basket, the GoSL component of which was internationally-backed, sponsored and equipped militarily. The Tamils could never match that, whatever their commitment. This fundamental truth has to be appreciated even at this late stage.
We cannot get rid of the KFir bombers, but we can make it impossible for the GoSL to buy the fuel to fly them, or the shells to enable the multi-barrel rocket launchrs to continue the human carnage.
Action 

In a sentence, it is a boycott and isolation of this dreadful regime, The most urgent immediate action is one that can only be taken by Trade Unions across the world. Trade Unions, or rather, the workers who give the Trade Unions the power they have, will have to be apprised of the injustices suffered by the Tamil people over some 60 years, and extent of the violation of their human rights, now with unarguable features of genocide.  That done, the Trade Unions should be asked to refuse to handle any goods and services in or out of Sri Lanka. Tea, rubber, garments, spices coming out of Sri Lanka and anything going into the country, be they goods or tourists, will have to be targetted at once.  Any delay will see another Rwanda.

This is the single most important and urgent action needed, one which can be done and which cannot be blocked by the Sri Lankan regime. Tamil civilians in the North have been encircled by the Sri Lankan Government, which, in turn, can be encircled by us in the international community if we get our act together.


In addition to this critical Trade Union action, a well-organised boycott of Sri Lankan goods and services (and service providers) is very important, although it might not have the immediate effects that Trade Union action will have.  This will need some work to determine who provides what service eg telecommunication services, and who imports what. It must include Travel agents and tour operators, and those who import spices and goods from that country. I am aware that Palestinians and others who oppose what Israel is doing in Gaza, have extensive lists targeting Israel. This must be done with the Asian-equivalent of Gaza – Sri Lanka, and the lists circulated widely if the campaign is to have any effect.

All other avenues of isolating this barbaric regime can be taken up simultaneously or at a later stage. These must include an expulsion of Sri Lanka from the British Commonwealth (which will end the cricket), and also seriously affect the ability of the regime to raise funds from Commonwealth countries, or export goods at concessional tariffs to these countries.
On the macro-economic front, the IMF is the only institution that can supply Sri Lanka with the funds urgently needed to stave off bankruptcy and wholesale economic collapse. Having turfed out the IMF two years ago, the Government has now had to go cap in hand for a $1.9 billion bail-out package. This is now being considered and must be blocked, although the IMF usually does what it wants to prop up some of the most corrupt and barbaric regimes in the world.

No IMF package comes without strings and these usually involve a cut in social services, an increase in taxation (the current inflation rate, 28%, the highest in Asia), and a cut in government spending. Sri Lanka is in no position to bargain since several loan and line of credit payments fall due this year with almost $1 billion of debt repayments due in 2009.
The economic crisis, as serious as the humanitarian crisis, makes it imperative to strike where it hurts, ie the economy, if this barbaric and irresponsible regime is to be brought to its senses.
This must involve the blocking of exports, imports and services to this highly export/import
dependent country.
International support 
On April10-13, 2009, I was invited to address the International Socialist Convention in Sydney,  Australia, and present the problems facing the Tamil people and what can be done.
There were some 200 delegates, none of whom were Sri Lankans. They came from  several South American countries, South Africa, India, (the delegate from Pakistan  had his visa blocked), Indonesia, Palestine, Malaysia, Zimbabwe, Haiti, Cuba, Sudan, the Philippines, West Papua, Timor Leste, Vietnam, New Zealand and, of course, a large number from Australia.  When I showed them what was  going on behind the closed and censored doors of the so-called “Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka”, they were horrified. The  support for the Tamil struggle and the condemnation of the Sri Lankan government was extensive. There was not a single dissenting voice.

When I suggested a boycott of goods and services, and an isolation of the regime, as the only answer, there were no dissenting voices among the 200 delegates from all parts of the globe  They cannot all be wrong. Many of them had dealt with the likes of Rajapakse and know what works and what does not.
 
On the last day of the Conference, the youths (all non-Sri Lankans), took over. Their support for the Tamil struggle was even greater. After the meeting, as a gesture of solidarity, a unanimous decision was made to go outside the Australian Prime Minister’s Sydney residence, where three Tamil boys were fasting, protesting at what was going on in Sri Lanka.Protests in Sri Lanka are possible but not without risk, with a murderous gang  running the country, backed by Sinhalese thugs, hooligans, and the overwhelmingly Sinhalese Police and Armed Forces, Dissent equates with treason, the penalty being assassination. As such, it is difficult for progressive Sinhalese in the Sinhalese South such as Dr.Vickremabahu Karunaratne or Siritunga Jayasuriya, to do much by way of mass protests. The murderous regime could well turn the guns on protesting Sinhalese, even if they can be marshalled.


It is only, and I again stress only, those outside Sri Lanka who can act.  I am not trying to reinvent the wheel.  I am only setting out what worked in a much less vulnerable country –apartheid South Africa – which brought that regime to it’s knees.  If South Africa, rolling in gold and diamonds, with a growth rate at the time only second to Japan, could have been brought to its knees, to bring an already near- bankrupt Sinhalese regime in Colombo to its senses should be relatively easy.
 
With such extensive and wide ranging support, I simply cannot see that it is impossible to get the support of the Trade Unions in these counties (and many others), if the reality of what is going on is presented to them.
As for the canard, “sanctions will affect the civilian population”, we have been down that road before (in Apartheid South Africa).  For sure, they will, but far less than would genocide.
The problem is that the expatriate Tamil community has simply not focused on this most powerful ‘weapon’. The problem is their  thinking  which will have to change, and with it, the actions taken.

The most critical and urgent need of the hour is to counter the disinformation campaign which, to date, the Sri Lankan Government has won by throwing millions of dollars into a professionally planned and well executed campaign which the Tamils have not been able to deal with.
It is to counter this disinformation campaign that I have recorded and distributed a dozen dvds to show the world what the Sri Lankan regime is struggling to hide, by excluding international observers and media from the Tamil areas. There was a huge demand for the dvds and absolute shock and horror at what they saw when some of the dvds were shown. I have not the slightest doubt that there is a huge untapped ‘resource’ here to fight the brutal and murderous regime in Colombo.  It is a highly receptive group and one that will act if the atrocities and injustices being done in Sri Lanka are bought to their attention.
Action has to be immediate and worldwide. I urge you to go down this road since it is the only
one that will save the Tamils from Genocide or life in concentration camps.
Brian Senewiratne                                            Brisbane, Australia           24 April 2009

India more responsible than any other country for the continuing slaughter of the Tamils

I am a Sinhalese from the majority community and not from the brutalised Tamil community. I quit Sri Lanka in 1976 and who runs Sri Lanka, whether it is my cousin Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga or Mahinda Rajapakse, is of no concern to me as long as it is run without bloodshed and the violation of the human rights of its people – now with features of genocide of the Tamils.

 I am a great admirer of India, not an enemy. I am deeply concerned about the duplicity of India, expressing concern at the slaughter of Tamils and at the same time assisting a murderous fascist politico-military dictatorship that has the temerity to call itself a Government. India does not need to get into bed (or into the gutter) with these State terrorists who are terrorising the Tamil people in the North and East and even in the Sinhalese South. This is the India of Mahatma Gandhi that we are talking about. It is the India of Jawaharlal Nehru, one of the many statesmen India has produced. This is the India of Indira Gandhi that brought the dictator JR Jayawardene to his knees.

I hold India more responsible than any other country for the continuing slaughter of the Tamils. Someday, India will have to apologise to the Tamils for what was done to them while India watched, and indeed assisited, a brutal murderous regime, just as Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister, had to do to the Australian aborigines for what was done to them 200 years ago. India has a case to answer. Sri Lanka is in India’s backyard. No country on earth will interfere with India’s backyard, nor will the UN. Therefore the responsibility squarely lies with India.

Tamil Nadu will not rest. Delhi will not hear the end of this until there is not just peace, but peace with justice for the Tamil people. Their struggle will go on. The Sri Lankan Government thinks it is all over. I would say that it is just the beginning – the fight for justice and freedom. We will take the battle from the battlefield to the economic fields and reduce Sri Lanka to a bankrupt failed state until this crazy attempt at a military so-called solution be abandoned and political negotiations start, not with Tamil quislings, but with the people who have been prepared to die for the entirely justifiable cause of the Tamil people.

I urge India, for the sake not just of the Tamil people, but for the sake of its own reputation and standing in the world, to take a firm stance and insist that the Government of Sri Lanka stops the current mass murder of Tamils at once and allows international observers and humanitarian relief to the Tamil areas.
 Brian Senewiratne                                          Brisbane, Australia

I was deported from Malaysia

I was invited to come to Canada and receive the award. My presentation was titled Peace with Justice in Sri Lanka Genocide of Sri Lankan Tamils. It's Causes & Solution .
It was held in the University of Toronto before a distinguished audience of academics, policy makers etc The hall was packed to capacity The flyer describing me was way over the top (as it usually is)...

The SL Govt coote Bandula Jayasekere, or to use his official title, His Excellency The Hon Bandula, etc, tried their best to block this but failed. Then they got their stooges e.g. Asoka Weerasinghe (patriot) to write scurrilous articles, published in the Mirror ?in Sri Lanka, to the Canadian Foreign Minister asking whether he had taken leave of his senses to allow me into the country.

Unable to block my entry, the next was harassment at Toronto airport ( a 4-hour search of everything, including downloading of every document including my letters to patients and going thru every scrap of paper (hundreds of pages of hand written notes, articles etc, and photocopying them all) It took about 4 hours and I was kept standing (that was after a 23-hour flight economy class which at 78 years is no small problem)

What riled the SL govt even more is action by a bunch (of goats) who are exploring putting my name up for a Nobel Prize for Peace. That is of course a nonsense project but with a one in a million chance, if it materializes, that would be a major blow for Sri Lanka. My very close association with Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu (I think I sent the photo with his arm round my shoulder) added to the concerns of the GoSL

What also of concern was that at the end of my Oration, the whole jolly audience of some 350, rose to their feet (I'll send the recording if/when I get it). This was recorded and sent to the Sri Lankan Ambassador and t the Govt in Colombo. Their blood pressures went thru the ceiling

I was scheduled to deliver the same award winning address in Malaysia (KL and Penang) and in Singapore, some 48 hours after it was delivered in Toronto.

Urgent action was needed. Someone ?Foreign Minister Bogollagama contacted the FM of Malaysia, who contacted the Minister of Home Affairs who contacted the CID who contacted Immigration asking them to prevent me entering the country stating I was a "Security risk"!!!!!

I said that if a 78-year old senile man was security risk for Malaysia, they should urgently review their Security set-up I smiled and asked that arrangements be made for me to get to Singapore. They said "tour ticket os from Penang. You cannot get to Penang because you cannot enter Malaysia, so you will have to buy yourself a ticket (which I did). I was then escorted to the plane by 6 police officers and an Immigration fellow.

While waiting for the flight (for 3 hours) I gave the bunch a lengthy talk on Human Rights abuse in Sri Lanka"!!!

At the end, when the flight was called, I went round to shake each one's hand. One of them, a policeman, grabbed my hand and would not let it go. Struggling to suppress tears which were welling up, he said "Doctor, all of us are deeply concerned at what we have been asked to do. Please don’t hold it against us or Malaysia."

I gave him a big hug and said "Of course I will not"

Not prepared to run the risk of a repeat performance in Singapore (where I knew Bogollagam was - having got there to persuade Malaysian Tamils to come to Sri Lanka to invest there!!), I decided to cancel the Singapore meeting and returned to Australia, where the harassment continued at Immigration here in my native Brisbane airport.

This will be raised in the Australian Parliament.

Regards and thanks for you effort which is much appreciated
Brian Senewiratne 
Brisbane
Australia

Sri Lanka: Time For International Public Protests

On September 10, 2008, the Sri Lankan Air Force dropped 16 bombs on Kilinochchi town, the administrative centre of the Tamil North, doing extensive damage to civilian property. A major massacre of civilians is to follow, as certainly as day follows night. The clear intention of the Sinhalese-dominated Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL), is to crush Tamil resistance, under the guise of "eliminating terrorism". If this means committing genocide of the Tamil people, a ruthless bunch that has the temerity to call itself a "Government", is more than prepared to do so.
Genocide has to be done with no witnesses. So the GOSL ordered the UN agencies and all humanitarian groups, to leave the Tamil North, saying that their safety could no longer be guaranteed.

 A gutless UN

On September 9, 2008, the GOSL ordered all aid agencies (including the UN agencies) to get out of the "northern war zone" and take their equipment with them. UN agencies have been delivering food and medical aid to nearly 160,000 Internally Displaced People (IDPs) ie refugees, in the Vanni (the Tamil area just south of the Jaffna Peninsula.

There are 13 aid groups in the region, providing emergency food aid, clean water and sanitation to some 200,000 people living in refugee camps and under trees in this area.

In an astounding act of irresponsibility, the UN and all agencies except ICRC (Red Cross), decided to cave into this State terrorism. The UN, more than any other body, must be held responsible.

On September 10, the UN issued a statement in New York that the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon expressed his “deep concern” over the grave human rights consequences for civilians. The Statement said:

“In light of the [Sri Lankan] Government’s request for the relocation of UN humanitarian staff in affected areas, he (Ban Ki-moon) reminds all concerned of their responsibility to take active steps to ensure the safety and freedom of movement of civilians, allowing humanitarian organisations to do their work in safety, as well as to reach persons affected by the fighting who need humanitarian assistance.”

It went on. "The Secretary-General reminds all concerned of their obligations under international humanitarian law, especially in regard to the principle of proportionality and the selection of targets,"

It was a violation of the Declaration of Human Rights, adopted and proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 10, 1948. Article 3 “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security”.

I am sure that a quarter of a million people in the area and a million concerned people outside Sri Lanka, not only shared the UN Secretary General’s “deep concern”, but have also lost what little faith they had in the UN.

As word got around, thousands of IDPs gathered (September 12) in front of the UNHCR (High Commission for Refugees) office in Kilinochchi, pleading with the UN and International NGOs (no-government organizations), not to leave.

The Executive Director of the Australian Council for International Development, Paul O’Callaghan, told Radio Australia:

"This situation is likely to become a bloodbath in the next several weeks."

"Apart from the direct military conflict, we would expect that many, many will die or be in extreme circumstances if humanitarian workers are not able to access this area."

"It was an extreme [humanitarian] situation even before the decision by the government to exclude foreign aid workers."

Despite the pleadings of the civilians and concern expressed by aid workers, UN agencies and international relief organizations, which included Oxfam, Save the Children, World Vision, Danish Refugee Council, Internal Organisation of Migration, and ZOA (an international NGO, operating in more than 10 countries worldwide, supporting (former) refugees, internally displaced persons (IDPs), returnees and others who are affected by conflict or natural disasters), started to pull out. To their eternal credit, Internation Committee of the Rde Cross (ICRC) decided to stay. The civilians were left in the hands of God (and the Red Cross).

Sri Lanka’s response

Rajiva Wijesinha, the head of the Sri Lankan so-called ‘Peace Secretariat”, and Secretary, of (what jokingly the GOSL calls) the “Human Rights Ministry”, responded as one would expect from a true Sinhala patriot:

“Since there have been hardly any civilian casualties during the recent offensives in Sri Lanka…….“It is to be hoped that he (Ban Ki-Moon) will study the Sri Lankan situation carefully in the future. Perhaps, with knowledge there will come wisdom...”

What? ” ‘hardly any casualties”? Where has he been all these months? Perhaps too often out of the country. While ignorance is bliss, contrived ignorance is patriotism. If that is so, a patriot he surely is.

The next statement “with knowledge there will be wisdom” is much more serious. This is a down right insult, an insult to the UN Secretary General.

Consider this. Here is an unknown character from some tin-pot dictatorship, that has just been thrown out of the UN Human Rights Council for violating human rights, insulting the UN Secretary General. It is mind-boggling. President Rajapakse has two options –

to back his man or sack him. .

On September 20, 2008, Sri Lanka's Ministry of ‘Defence’ instructed the Sri Lanka Army not to allow humanitarian convoys to the Internally Displaced Persons in the Kilinochchi district (Vanni) with food provided under the United Nations World Food Programme. Presumably this is "punishment" for the people of this district for not "obeying" its instruction to leave the area.

The de facto State of Tamil Eelam

Many have asked me, “What are the Tamil Tigers doing about this?” My answer is, “Never mind the Tigers, what are you doing about it?

There are a million expatriate Tamils scattered all over the world. What are they doing about this serious situation?

What is being destroyed is the de facto State of Tamil Eelam, built by Tamils in the North, with significant help from the expatriate Tamils, both financial and physical. It is this that the GOSL is now about to destroy and reduce to dust..

Those who are unaware of the functioning of this State, should read Professor Kristian Stokke, Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo who spent an year studying the set-up.. It was published in the Third World Quarterly in 2006, and reproduced in full in Nadesan Satyendra’s outstanding website, tamilnation.

Titled, “Building the Tamil Eelam State. Emerging State institutions and forms of governance in LTTE controlled areas in Sri Lanka”, it details the functioning of the Tamil Eelam State. It is this outstanding achievement by the Tamils that the GOSL and its murderous Armed Forces are destroying. They are destoying what they have not built – the infrastructure in the de facto State of Tamil Eelam,

The functioning of the State of Tamil Eelam stands in striking contrast to the dysfunction of the chaotic, corrupt, and despotic, Sinhala State in the South where 4 brothers control 75% of the budget of the country, where nothing can be done without a bribe, where hooligans and thugs are now part of governance, where the Police are reportedly the most corrupt in the world, where law and order have broken down, the media merely act as a mouthpiece for the government (or are silenced), where even the independence of the judiciary has been lost, where ‘disappearances’, arrests and detention without charge or trial occur on a daily basis, and one man, President Rajapakse, and his brothers (two of them American citizens), do what they like. As does another American, Sarath Fonseka, the Army General. Their day of reckoning on a charge of Genocide, might come.

The determination to smash the Tamil areas is nothing but State terrorism and vandalism. We, in the international community, do not have the power to prevent this, but we do have the power to protest, and this we must.

Not a scrap of this State terrorism appears in the international media. As a result, the international community is completely unaware of what the Sri Lankan ‘government’ is doing to its own people, of all ethnic groups, especially the Tamils in the North and East. It is up to us in the international community, to see that what goes on behind the closed and censored doors of Sri Lanka is bought to the attention of the international community (IC).

By “the international community” I do not mean foreign governments. Most Governments have very well informed Embassies in Colombo and know full well what is going on in the Tamil North and East. There is simply no point in telling them what they know, even better than we do.

Those who need to be apprised of the situation are the people, the ordinary decent people in the world, who would baulk at this criminal activity by a so-called ‘elected Government’, in a “Democratic Socialist Republic”, as Sri Lanka likes to call itself.

The War

What is going on is not just a war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), but a war against the Tamil people, to crush them into accepting Sri Lanka as a Sinhala-Buddhist nation. Multiethnic, multilingual, multireligious, multicultural Sri Lanka is being made, by military might, courtesy of foreign governments, into a monoethnic, monolingual, monoreligious, monocultural State.

A succession of Sinhalese-dominated Governments have faced a problem in the creation of this Sinhala-Buddhist nation. What can be done with the Tamils, some 18% of the population, most of whom are not Buddhists?

The options available to the GOSL are:-

1.To drive Tamils out of the country. One million already have been, but there are more

2.To make them into ‘non-people’ eg by denying them effective political representation. That is being done,

3 To replace them with Sinhalese from the South - "sinhalisation" of the Tamil areas. That is being done (and has been for more than 50 years, now at an accelerated pace

4 To kill them i.e. commit "Genocide". That is now in progress.

Genocide

Genocide is defined in the UN 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, which are what are needed to constitute genocide. The intention of a succession of Sinhalese-dominated governments, is abundantly clear - to wipe out the Tamils. This started with the massacre of some 3,000 Tamils in Colombo and the Sinhalese South in 1983, and has continued, currently at an alarming rate.

There are many ways to commit genocide, you can:

* Murder them – shoot, bomb, shell or just massacre them.

* Starve them.

* Withhold essential medicines and let them die.

* Prevent of survival activity eg fishing and agriculture.

* Destroy markets, homes, hospitals, schools and businesses.

Once the intention is there, the ways to commit genocide are endless.

All of these the GOSL has done. It is therefore guilty of genocide. All those who are responsible from the President, who is also the Minister of Defence and the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, and those down the "line of command" who are responsible, have to be charged, sooner or later. Charged with Genocide. The evidence is already overwhelming, and more, much more, is coming...

Suicide bombers

The Tamil Tigers do not need to ‘make’ suicide bombers out of young Tamils– the Sri Lankan Government and its Armed Forces do it for them. Here is the Booker Prize winner, Indian author and activist, Arundhati Roy :in “The Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire. (The italics are mine):-

“Young Palestinians (Tamils) who cannot contain their anger turn themselves into human bombs and haunt Israel’s (Sri Lanka’s) streets, blowing themselves up, killing ordinary people.”

“Suicide bombing is an act of individual despair, not a revolutionary tactic”

“The world is called upon to condemn suicide bombers, but can we ignore the long road they have journeyed on before they arrived at their destination?”

A Separate Tamil State, Eelam

The Tamils in the North and East do not need to ask for a separate State, Eelam. The brutality of the Sinhala regime unleashed on the people of this area, has done it for them. The strongest case for Eelam, is what is going on right now. The Sinhala regime has left the Tamils with no other option. It is ironic that the greater the attempted destruction of Tamil Eelam, the greater will be the need for it. Sinhala extremism is the father of Tamil Eelam.

It is also ironic that the greater the ‘victory’ won by the GOSL, the weaker it will be. The more the Tamils are crushed, the greater will be the resistance. It is an outcome that a very stupid Government and even more stupid people who elect these fools, are too stupid to see. They will, in time, when they find that it is a pyrrhic ‘victory’. A regime drunk with (military) power, is simply unable to see the ‘big picture’.

I have always believed that an evil regime, given enough rope will hang itself, given enough time will destroy itself. This is not a postulate but a historical fact. Those who do not know history, are destined to repeat it.

Two wars

As I have said in the Information dvds on Sri Lanka which I recorded and released to counter the disinformation campaign of the GOSL, there are two wars going on in Sri Lanka. One is the war between the Sinhala-dominated Sri Lankan "Government" against the Tamil people to crush them into submission – to accept Sri Lanka as a Sinhala-Buddhist nation.

The other is a less known "war" between the USA – India – China for the control of the Indian Ocean. The Indian Ocean is not the largest ocean on this planet but is, by far, the busiest. Countries around the Indian Ocean produce 40% of the world’s oil. 70% of the world’s oil shipments and 50% the world’s container cargo, go across this Ocean.

100 years ago, the US Admiral Alfred Maher rightly said, “Whoever controls the Indian Ocean, dominates Asia” .The control of this strategic Ocean is the ‘big game’.

Instead of the “USA” one could put “USA-EU-Israel”, instead of “China” one could put “China-Japan-Korea”. What India offers and gives (by way of the supply of war-material to the GOSL), Pakistan will offer more. (and vice versa). Iran has now got into the act. It is the disastrous effects of these international geopolitical games for vested international gains, that we see in Sri Lanka. The human cost - the deaths of thousands of Tamil civilians (some 75,000 to date), is of little or no interest to those who supply the weapons to the Sinhala government to kill its own people.

India has its own (double) game – to make love to the GOSL, lest it gets too close to China (it already is) and Pakistan.. At the same time, to pretend to support the Sri Lankan Tamils to keep Tamilnadu, with some 50 million Indian Tamils, happy. (The current Indian government is in power, courtesy of TamilNadu). So we have the Indian Government ‘expressing concern’ at the violation of human rights of the Tamil people and simultaneously supplying the GOSL with the necessary military assistance to violate those human rights about which India has hypocritically expressed “grave concern”.

It is a despicable game played by the so-called ‘regional power’. Power also carries responsibility. If this is not delivered, then it is an abuse of power – which the Indian Government is guilty of where a major conflict is raging on its doorstep, with some 75,000 dead, a million refugees, 130,000 of them in Tamilnadu, and a gross violation of human rights, acknowledged by the international community on May 21 2008. There is no denying India’s responsibility since it it is the country that can stop this outrageous situation immediately. It has clearly no intention of doing so, for reasons that do not bring credit to a country that produced the likes of Mahatma Gandhi.

The necessary action

The only “Court of Appeal” we have left, is an Appeal to the international community. To use the media to achieve this is impossible. The international media are simply not interested. Was there a single sentence in any of the main-stream media in any country, when the GOSL bombed 400 orphans in the Sencholai orphanage? No. There was not a word, nor will there be. To expect otherwise is to distance oneself from reality.

If the media are not within our reach, which is certainly the situation, the only way we can draw attention to the escalating human rights violations in Sri Lanka, now with features of Genocide of the Tamil people, is by getting on to the streets. If a million Sri Lankan Tamils across the world, took to the streets, it will make a difference.

I recently addressed a meeting of expatriate Tamils in Toronto on the Pongu Tamil event (2008). 75,000 people turned up. I appreciate that a meeting of such large numbers is only possible in a place like Canada there are some 300,000 Tamils. But I simply refuse to believe that much smaller numbers in protests across the world will make no difference. What I am appealing for is a show of ‘International People Power’ – about the only thing that will stop the murderous agenda of President Mahinda Rajapakse and his Sinhala-Buddhist extremists and his ruthless Sinhala (99%) Armed Forces from smashing the Tamilks in the North and East of Sri Lanka.

Economic sanctions is a possibility, but only a remote possibility because of the international games I have just described. What military aid the USA, Canada, EU and others refuse to supply, China will be only too willing to supply to safeguard its “String of Pearls” (the oil and trade route from the Middle East to China). Sri Lanka, is one of the “pearls’. That is why the Chinese have offered to build a harbour in Hambantota in the Sinhala South, and do any number of other ‘projects’.. China could not give a damn if the battle tanks it supplies are used to smash the Tamil areas. Israel could not give a damn if the Kfir jets it supplies (powered by American General Electric engines), are used to bomb the Tamil people.

The GOSL is flat broke. Here is a summary released in July 2008 by Dr Harsha de Silva, an economist (a Sinhalese), in Colombo:

Government Revenue Rs 750 billion
Repayment of Loans and Interest Rs 580 billion
Balance Rs 170 billion
Allocation for ‘Defence’ Rs 170 billion
Balance 0
Options to pay public sector workers (excluding Armed Forces and Police)and other welfare payments are:
* Print money. The Central Bank, with his hand-picked Governor, is part of the government, and does what it is told - to hell with monetary policy or responsibility.
* Borrow more (internally or externally) at commercial rates
*Tax the hell out of people – already struggling with an escalating cost of living

Half the serious budget deficit, much of it because of a massive allocation for ‘defence’ (US$1.5 billion this year), to defend the country from its own citizens, is financed by loans and grants from foreign countries. It is this that enables the GOSL to continue this unnecessary war.

Inflation currently 29% - is the highest in Asia. To complain about it or question the outrageous allocation for ‘defence’, is treason, traitors who should be lock up Neither charge nor trial are necessary, in the Democratic Socialist Republic, fast becoming a Fascist Dictatorship.

Most misled people

A revolt in the Sinhala South, caused by the escalating dost of living, is coming – but may not be soon enough to save the Tamils from annihilation or the country from bankruptcy...

To target the Sinhalese, the most misled people in Sri Lanka, and tell them that they are being taken for a ride, is urgent.

To block the supply of money to that irresponsible regime in Colombo, is urgent. This is why it is crucial to block the EU GSP+ facility for Sri Lanka (duty concession for goods from Sri Lanka to EU countries, which is dependent on their human rights record). This is coming up for renewal in October 2008, with a decision by the EU in December 2008). This simply must be blocked. The fact that Sri Lanka has, on May 21, 2008, been thrown out of the UN Human Rights Council for its abysmal record on human rights violations, and the fact that the situation has got worse, much worse, since then, should help. If the GSP + facility is removed, it might put the necessary economic pressure on the Government to abandon this murderous attempt at a military ‘solution’ and force a return to the negotiating table.

Worldwide protests is a possibility. I urge the expatriate Tamils (now more than a million), and those who support the struggle of the Tamil people to live with equality, dignity, and safety, in the country of their birth, for that is what this ‘war’ is all about, to come out in their thousands in a series of mass protests launched across the world, to stop the murderous regime in Sri Lanka from destroying the Tamil areas.

I urge the “Sleeping Tamils’, as I call them, to wake up, and ‘get involved’. This can be as simple a job as apprising their non-Sri Lankan friends, of the atrocities being committed by the GOSL. It is for this purpose that I have released a series of dvds on the rapidly deteriorating in Sri Lanka. All you need is to get a copy and show it to your neighbours, church groups etc.. Get them to contact their MP, Congressman or Senator and ask what their Government is doing to stop this outrageous situation. Get them to contact their media and ask why none of this has been aired. This is far more effective than individual Tamils (or others concerned with this serious situation) trying to lobby these people. I have been down this road many times over the past 25 years and know what I am talking about.

What prevents action?

Fear. With the exception of the Tamil militants (a relatively recent entity), the Tamils have been, and still are, a frightened people. Fearlessness is not one of their virtues. This has been so since the dawn of Independence (1948), and well before that. I asked my Tamil wife why this should be so. ”Because the Tamils are excellent Government servants. Tell them to jump, and they will ask “How high, Sir?” When in British colonial times, they ended letters with “Your Obedient Servant”, they actually meant it –literally. You Sinhalese wrote the same thing but meant not a word of it. To question authority is not in Tamil genes. That is why they were so sought after by the colonial British. As a Sinhalese you will find this difficult to comprehend”. Yes, I find it “difficult to comprehend”.

In fact, I have had this difficulty all the way back to 1948, .when as a 16 year old boy I watched with amazement what the Tamils would tolerate under the repressive Sinhala regime that had taken over the country from the repression of the colonial British.

I watched with dismay, the futile Gandhi-style non-violent protests by Tamil ‘leaders’ from 1956, being broken up by Government-sponsored Sinhalese hoodlums with monotonous regularity. Non-violent protests do not work against a ruthless regime as anyone in Idi Amin’s Uganda, among many others, will testify. As Mao Zeding rightls said in one of his early quotes, Power flows through the barrel of a gun,, and later, War is a continuation of Politics.

This finally dawned on the Tamils, and in 1972, came the Tamil militant youths. They put a spine in the backs of spineless people. For the first time, the very first time in the recent history of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka, the Tamils (or rather, the Tamil youths) stood up and challenged the right of the Sinhala Government to do what it was doing. For the first time, the Sinhala government had to look at the Tamils and their problems. Until then, the Tamils were just a joke.

As I have said in numerous addresses over the past three decades, it was the Tamil militants who forced the GOSL to the negotiating table. Had it not been for them, the Tamils would have been under the table, picking up the crumbs thrown at them by the Sinhala masters sitting at the table.

The expatriate Tamil community was happy to support the Tamil militant struggle from a distance, and that too if they were pushed to do so, but not do anything to put themselves at risk.

They failed to act when the brutal Sinhala regime in Colombo, used (or abused) its powers (and exploited the critical geographical position of Sri Lanka astride the Indian Ocean), and ‘made love’ to foreign powers to ban the Liberation struggle of the Tamil people’ as ‘nothing but terrorism’ This got a marked boost post-9/11.

Expatriate Tamil were criminalized. The word “Tamil” became synonymous with “Tamil terrorists”. The expatriate Tamil community was not prepared to challenge this – this same old problem of not being prepared to challenge ‘authority’. Rather than stand up and challenge this nonsense, they dug bunkers and got into them. The few brave souls who stood up were demonised, arrested as ‘terrorists’, intimidated, harassed and silenced. Some are in jail, or heading for jail, on some absurd charges.

As the monstrously brutal regime in Colombo began to really get going to crush Tamil resistance, the expatriate Tamils got even deeper into their bunker. It is ironic that today, as Kfir jets circle the Tamil North, bombing the hell out of Tamil people and crushing everything that can be crushed, the Tamil people in the area are getting out of their bunkers to challenge the GOSL, while the expatriate Tamils, facing no such danger, are climbing deeper into their bunkers!

The best example of this occurred just yesterday. I will not give you the details, just the gist. A very powerful group of expatriate Tamils in a very powerful country, arranged a meeting, “to discuss the draconian laws and repression of the Tamil people, misrepresentation of the struggle for freedom, criminalizing the Tamils under anti-terror laws in Sri Lanka and abroad, criminalizing the Tamil diaspora under anti-terrorist laws in UK, Canada and European countries.” I was invited to speak

Then came a second email. Would I include "brutal oppression of freedom struggle by the state legislation". I said “No problem”.

I cancelled my patients (which I could financially ill afford to do), and booked my passage. I was about to confirm my flight when I had an email (just 24 hours ago), “We are all worried about the future of Tamils. I have been asked to put on hold all activities. Please delay your booking” I cancelled my flight. I asked for clarification. “I have been asked” by whom? On what grounds? Please reply – urgent. I have had no reply.

Consider this. Here is a Sinhalese, who has nothing to gain from getting involved in this struggle, who has put his medical practice on hold, and is about to travel 23 hours (economy class, I might add), to take whatever risks there are (and with Sinhalese hoodlums around, there are risks), to address an important meeting in a major country at a time when the Tamil people are facing their biggest crisis ever. And what do his Tamil hosts do? Cancel the meeting.

Am I annoyed? No. Am I disappointed? No. Then what are my feelings? A sense of satisfaction that my assessment of the expatriate Tamils is correct. And that intimidation by a bunch of racist hoodlums, both in Sri Lanka, and abroad, works. The ‘spine’ put into Tamil backs by the Tamil militants, has all but collapsed..

That is why, after more than half a century, the Tamils are still struggling for a place (the traditional areas of habitation of the Tamil people), where they can live with equality, dignity, safety and safety, which is what this struggle has been all about

Protest now

It is time for the expatriate Tamil community and those, such as myself, non-Tamils, who support the cause of the Tamil people, to get on to the streets all over the world, and protest. Not in some obscure park, but out in the streets, in busy shopping malls, and the like. Objective? To be seen, so that people will ask, “What is it all about?” Then tell them. For the sake of a brutalized people, I urge you to put your cowardice aside., and protest. Protest now, tomorrow might be too late for the Tamils of the North and East of Sri Lanka. Protest now, or watch the Genocide of the Tamil people. The choice is yours.