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