The outrageous harassment of Dr Brian Senewiratne- By Daniel David

I am drawing the attention of the international Tamil community to the outrageous harassment of Dr Brian Senewiratne by the Brisbane City Council (BCC). It  could result in Dr Senewiratne dropping out of the struggle of the Tamil people, and getting back to full-time Medicine. Should this happen, the loss to Tamil struggle for justice will be serious.
The problem is that the BCC has decided to acquire  Dr Senewiratne’s land and pay peanuts as compensation. As a ‘softening up’ process, he (75) and his wife (73) have been charged for clearing lantana (a noxious weed) – which, incidentally, the BCC ordered him to clear, and then charged him for clearing it in a manner unacceptable to Council! BCC filed a criminal charge, yes, believe it or not, a criminal charge, for allegedly damaging ‘precious vegetation’ (growing on his land, mind you). Lawyers appearing for the BCC advised Dr Senewiratne and his wife to lead “Guilty”, adding that BCC had $1.5 billion (of rate-payer’s money) to fight the case if he chose to do otherwise. Dr and Mrs Senewiratne rightly refused to plead‘Guilty’ and went ahead defending themselves. Their legal charges have now amounted to quarter of amillion dollars and this is likely to increase, since the BCC has said that if the judgement goes against them,they will appeal. The cost of defending a case in the Appeal Court is $35,000 a day. The costs so far have taken Dr and Mrs Senewiratne to the financial wall. It has wiped their bank balances and savings and are now eating into their superannuation.

The real agenda of the BCC has now surfaced. Last month Dr Senewiratne  had an acquisition notice for two thirds of his property, estimated at several million dollars for which a compensation offer of $430,000 has been made. Once the legal bills from the spurious “lantana’ charge are met, that will leave nothing.
As any decent person will agree, this is not just an injustice, but an outrageous act of frank robbery.  I am appealing to the expatriate Tamil community to lodge an immediate protest to the Mayor, and Deputy Mayor of the Brisbane City Council, the Premier of Queensland, and the Leader and Deputy Leader of theOpposition. Action is urgent since Dr Senewiratne is about to lose most of his property which will result in the Tamils losing his invaluable services.

My contact with Dr Senewiratne 
Dr Senewiratne has been my treating doctor for three decades. I am now on permanent dialysis for kidney failure complicating diabetes. I know exactly what has happened with his land since I have lived in this area for nearly 50 years.
I was one of Dr Senewiratne first patients when he  arrived in Brisbane, Australia in 1976 and have continued to be treated by him. He arrived in Brisbane with just $35, all he was allowed to take out of Sri Lanka. He was then a full-time Physician and Associate Professor in Medicine in the University of Queensland. His salary was a mere $19,000 a year, which, even at that time, was a paltry sum of money.Unable to afford the school-fees for his two children, he literally worked day and night (treatingpublic
patients and teaching medical students and young doctors from 7am to 5pm, and then seeing private patients from 6pm to midnight).
He has made a major contribution not only to patient care and the training of young doctors, but has addressed the significant problems in the health service in Queensland.  In recognition of the latter, he was nominated by The Queensland Whistleblower’s Action Group as  “The Whistleblower of the Year” in 1995, for exposing the chaos in the Public Hospitals in Brisbane.

His tireless activity in the area human rights abuse in Sri Lanka over the past 40 years is too well known to require elaboration. Last year (2006) he was publicly recognised and awarded plaques of appreciation by expatriate Tamils in New York, Toronto and Brisbane.


The land
Arriving with just $35, his wife and two children,  he managed to make ends meet by sheer hard work. Taking a bank loan in 1978, he bought 10 acres (4.7 HA) of land which was essentially a dump in which people had dumped old cars, car parts, refrigerators, and refuse. Buying a rider-mower, he physically cleaned up the place, and got a house built on the land.  The land adjoins a forest owned by the BCC, a large part of which was being quarried by BCC (Pine Mt Rd quarry). The explosions were so severe that to build a house on this land was a significant risk.
As the explosions eased off and with land prices in the area rocketing up, people started moving into the area. Some of them had ‘connections’ with BCC, and fancied having an unbuilt area adjacent to them.
  Devaluation 
Then started a systematic program to devalue the land so that when ‘acquisition-time’ came, the compensation payable would be negligible.
The first round in this despicable plan was fired in 1992 when Dr Senewiratne received a notice from BCC that a ‘vegetation protection order’ was being imposed on half his land. The hypocrisy beggars belief. Here is a Council so concerned about protecting the environment to impose a restriction on clearing vegetation on private property, but not concerned enough to stop quarrying a huge area in the middle of the adjacent land, the Whites Hill Forest Reserve, (which continues to this day!)
The ‘vegetation protection order’ was accompanied by a reassuring letter from the then Mayor saying, “It will not prevent you from developing this land”.
The next round was in 2000 when the ‘vegetation protection order’ was changed to an ‘environment protection order’. There was now a restriction of what could even be mowed.
The land which, up to that point, had been kept in a good condition with the undergrowth cleared, could not be mowed or cleared. The result was that lantana and other weeds took over.
Then came a series of notices from BCC that ‘noxious weeds’ including lantana, were growing on the land and that this was an offence. Would Dr Senewiratne clear the weeds or face prosecution.

Aside from weeds taking over the land, the uncleared vegetation constituted a serious fire hazard. A fire did occur on the land, burning a shed with hundreds of patients notes stored in it. Some of my early records which documented my diabetes and kidney damage dating back to 1976 were destroyed in the fire.  The fire would have also taken his house, had not the fire brigade arrived with the fire just meters away from the house. The Fire Officer declared that what existed was an unacceptable fire hazard and should another fire occur, and the wind was blowing from the North, nothing could be saved, especially since there was no accessible water.
Dr Senewiratne applied to BCC for permission to clear the undergrowth and lantana, as suggested by the Fire Service and ordered by BCC.  BCC responded with a permit to clear the lantana and a firebreak.

He went ahead and started clearing the lantana and undergrowth if only to prevent a major fire wiping out his house and those of his neighbours whose homes abut the whole length of the eastern side of his land.
A few hours into the clearing, a BCC officer arrived and declared that damage was being done to “sensitive native vegetation”, and would he stop the clearing immediately (which he did).

He was then issued with a ‘Compliance Notice’ which requested him to cut down 5 dead trees on the land, remove the cleared vegetation from a dry gully and  replant the cleared area with some 4,200 plants (specified by the Council and most of which had never existed on the property), water and look after them for 2 years and replace any dead plants. BCC said that the cost of the plants would be $4,200. However, when a local nursery was contacted, the cost was estimated at $50,000.


That aside, there was no water in the area and simply no way that the plants could be watered. During the Court Case, one of the Council officers giving evidence, said that Dr Senewiratne could have paid for  a water tanker to come in to water the plants! This was in a land of 10 acres with no roads.
Dr Senewiratne cut and removed the dead trees and cleared the gully (as ordered to), but did not do any planting, since it was an absurd request.

The next was a charge sheet. a criminal case, yes, a criminal case, filed by BCC for damaging vegetation and not replanting as requested. BCC’s so-called ‘experts’ say that what Dr Senewiratne should have done was to cut each Lantana twig and put a drop of poison on the cut stem within 15 seconds! They are talking about a 10 acre property! If that is not absurd, I do not know what is.

As I have said, the case, which is currently being heard, has literally taken Dr Senewiratne to the financial wall and an Appeal is certain if Council does not win
Some weeks ago, the final act was played out. A notice was sent from BCC that two thirds of the land was being acquired.   Acquired for what? For protection of the environment – but BCC continues to operate a huge quarry in the adjoining property.
The land adjoining Dr Senewiratne’s on the other side, has been fully developed with scores of houses. There is no way animals, (even if they were there – which they are not), could traverse his land since there is nowhere they can go, the adjoining land being, as I have said, a fully built up residential area. So the ‘wild-life’ protection canard of BCC is nonsense. So are the supposed ‘environmental concerns’. All of this is  sheer bluff and nonsense. The hidden agenda however, is very real.

Compensation
The compensation offered is laughable. BCC are about to acquire 2.7HA (27,000 square metres) of land. One building block of 500 square metres in this prime residential area currently costs about $350,000. A simple bit of arithmetic will indicate the potential value of the land. And what is BCC’s offer? A generous $430,000 for the lot! They say that they will get an “independent” valuer appointed by the Council (!) to value the land.  If that is not robbery, I don’t know what it is.

Intention
Dr Senewiratne has for years told me that his intention was to sell this land when he reached 70, stopseeing patients and devote his entire energy to what he has wanted to do for the past 3 decades – to campaign for justice in Sri Lanka.  Brisbane City Council has seen to it that that is a pipe dream.
What we are looking at here is a serious injustice done to someone who has played, and continues to play, a major role in addressing the escalating violation of human rights in Sri Lanka.
If we do not act and  Dr Senewiratne has to get back to full-time Medicine (which he will have to do, if  only to pay the lawyers, the Tamil community will lose a very powerful and effective lobbyist.
This acquisition must be stopped or Dr.Senewiratne compensated on the current property values (not on the
intentionally devalued price).
The alternative is for BCC to give Dr Senewiratne a land of the same size in another part of Brisbane (BCC owns thousands of acres in this area), in what is generally known a ‘land-swap’. Simply to take his land and pay peanuts as compensation, is just not acceptable.
Aboriginal Australians can testify to the grabbing  of their land and the payment of peanuts as ‘compensation’. This has gone on for 200 years and  has brought Australia international discredit. It is outrageous that this despicable activity still goes on and is now affecting others, as is seen from what has happened to Dr Senewiratne. It is a land-grab -  nothing less than stealing. It should not occur in a country such as Australia, and if it does, it is up to Australians and the rest of the world to see that those responsible for this outrageous behaviour do not get away with it.

A Land swap
To be realistic, BCC will never pay Dr Senewiratne  what this land is really worth. As such, the  only alternative is for him to be given an equivalent piece of land in the area, in exchange. Having lived in the area for 50 years, I know full well that BCC owns hundreds of acres on land in the vicinity. Much of this is scrub with lantana and other weeds growing in the unkempt land. All of this cannot be contain “protected” vegetation and an attempt by BCC to claim that it does is simply not acceptable.

Action
If you would like to act, write to the Mayor, Cr Campbell Newman and the Deputy Mayor, Cr David Hinchcliffe, expressing your sense of outrage at this serious injustice.
Brisbane City Council does come under the Queensland Government. As such, it is appropriate to also write to the Premier of Queensland, Hon Peter Beattie, and  the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Hon Jeff Seeney and Hon Dr Bruce Flegg, all of whom know Dr Senewiratne, and who may well be unaware of this gross injustice done to him by BCC.

To write to the Media is most important. Some of the TV Channels have recently expressed serious concern at the injustices committed by BCC, and are prepared to give this sort of totally unacceptable behaviour by petty bureaucrats, the necessary publicity. Several of the journalists listed below know Dr Senewiratne as one of the few outspoken doctors on the state of the Health service. I doubt if any of them know what he is being subjected to by bureaucrats with a despicable agenda in the BCC. If they did, they will most surely act. I give below, their addresses
I hope you will contact as many of them as possible, and express your concern at what is going on and urge
that they act to prevent a serious injustice. An international protest could well make a difference to stop this outrage.
Daniel David
Brisbane
Australia                                                                                                                      30 June 2007


Here are the addresses
The Mayor and Deputy Mayor. Writing to them is essential.
Mayor.    Cr.Campbell Newman

 email    LORDMAYOR@brisbane.qld.gov.au
 Address  GPO Box 1434
     Brisbane
     Australia 4001
Deputy Mayor.  Cr  David Hinchcliffe
  email   central.ward@ecn.net.au


Address Shop 11, 31 Duncan Street,  Fortitude Valley,
               Australia 4006
The Premier and Opposition
Hon Peter Beattie MP
Premier of Queensland   ( who has known Dr Senewiratne for years)
Level 15 Executive Bldg,   100 George St, Brisbane, Australia 4000
                                  email   premiers@ministerial.qld.gov.au
Hon Jeff Seeney, MP  Leader of the Opposition, Queensland Parliament
                     Level 6, Parliamentary Annexe, Alice St, Brisbane, Australia 4000                      
                                         e-mail:   leader@opposition.qld.gov.au
Hon Dr Bruce Flegg, MP     Deputy Leader of the Queensland Opposition (who knows Dr                        
Senewiratne  very well).
                                      18 Brookfield Rd, Kenmore Australia 4069
                                           email:   moggill@parliament.qld.gov.au
 Media
Tracy Grimshaw –  Channel 9.  She hosts “A Current Affair”
         She is a much-respected journalist who has repeatedly asked to be informed of    
injustices such as is happening here.
               
           Channel 9,  Sir Samuel Griffith Drive, Mt Coot-tha, Australia 4066
                     email: aca@nine.com.au  
Ross Coulthart – Channel 9 Sunday program. He has known Dr Senewiratne for many years and
has hosted programs with him. He will be shocked to hear what is going on.
                     
                       POBox 27, Willoughby, New South Wales, Australia 2068
                            email: rcoulthart@nine.com.au
 Network's A Curr               ent Affair and is
David McEvoy – Channel 7. Director of Today Tonight  Current Affairs program            
                               Channel 7, Sir Samuel Griffith Drive, Mt Coot-tha, Australia 4066
                                                email:   DAVID_MCEVOY@btqpo.ccmail.compuserve.com
Cathy Border - Channel 10 (who knows Dr Senewiratne very well. He has often appeared  on her              
Channel re. issues on Public Hospitals.)
                               
                           Channel 10, Sir Samuel Griffith Drive, Mt Coot-tha, Australia 4066
                                                       email:  cborder@networkten.com.au
 
Kerry O’Brien  Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC TV), 7.30 Report
                         He is  a multi-award winning journalist
                            ABC,  GPO Box 9994,  Sydney Australia 2001

Concerning Rt Rev Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury & his Comments about Sri Lanka's 'surgical military action'

 "If the physical assault on our people in the North and East is not enough, we now have to put up with the support given to the brutal regime in Colombo from the Head of the Anglican Church, Archbishop Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury. He just ‘dropped in’ or, to use his words ‘making a passing visit”. Speaking with the Press, and describing what the GOSL is doing, this is what he said,

“It is undoubtedly inevitable that what you might call surgical military action against terrorism should take place”.

Did he actually say this? I had several emails to say that he did not, and that what he did say was twisted by the Media. These emails included one from a senior Tamil, yes Tamil, Anglican clergyman. What these and other apologists were not aware of was that I actually heard the Archbishop over the BBC Sinhala service.How do I know it was him? Well, I have attended a Service in Westminster Abbey and have heard him speak. I know his voice and his accent. There is no place for doubt nor a place to mount a cover-up operation.

I decided to let my blood pressure settle and also give the Archbishop time to apologise to the Tamil and Muslim people in the North and East. It is now 10 days. With no apology coming from the Archbishop, I decided to write him a letter. I felt that a Sinhalese, and an Anglican Christian, had to do this. I knew full well that a Hindu was unlikely to do so, and for a Tamil to do so would have been less effective.


The Archbishop says he ‘dropped in’ to see how the Church is coping. Well, he will not find his Church in the Dalada Maligawa which is where the Mahanayake of Asgiriya lives, or at Temple Trees which is where the President lives. He will not find his Church in amiable conversation with the likes of Douglas Devanada. He will find his battered Church, or what is left of it, in Kayts, Mannar and Jaffna, which he carefully avoided. This is hypocrisy. If it from the Head of the Anglican Church it makes no difference. It still is hypocrisy. 


What I am urging you to do is to write to the Archbishop and tell him what you think of his irresponsible, inflammatory and thoroughly unacceptable statement. My letter to him has his address which, in any case, you can get from the net.


There are one million expatriate Sri Lankan Tamils scattered all over the world. Even if 20% of them are Christians, it is still an awful lot of people. If a couple of thousand letters arrive on the Archbishop’s table, it will, or might, may a difference. This is what Amnesty International has taught us i.e that when thousands of letters arrive on even a tin-pot dictator’s desk, it can make him sit up and think. A couple of thousand protests arriving on the table of a person holding high office, but is completely ignorant, has no idea what he is talking about, and is giving tacit support to one of the most brutal regimes to rule Sri Lanka, might make a difference.


The Archbishop says that he has been called “The comic vicar of the nation”. I have no problem with that. If Britain wants a ‘comic vicar’, it is not my problem. However, to export him to make inflammatory statements which a brutal regime might use, indeed WILL use, to pursue its murderous assault on its people, is completely unacceptable.


I have just had an email from a shocked Tamil clergyman in Jaffna that a statement is expected from the Archbishop’s office in London and that once it comes out, Duleep de Chickera, the Colombo Bishop, will issue a statement. I don’t think these guys realise the damage done. A ‘Statement’ is not what is needed. What is needed is an unqualified apology to the Tamil and Muslim people in the North and East, and a clear denunciation of what the President and his Army are doing to our people.


The indisputable impression is that where the Tamil struggle for justice is concerned, whether one wears a yellow robe or a white robe is of little importance. The sentiments expressed by the wearer are the same.


Will those who know what is happening to our people in the North and East, please take the trouble to send this person a letter of protest? It is the least that we can do for our people who live in this devastated area, facing indescribable problems.


There is no reason why the writer must be a Christian. He/she can be Hindus, Islamist, Buddhist or half-Buddhists such as myself, or those who believe in nothing. It is a protest about a thoroughly irresponsible and inflammatory ‘call to war’ by someone who does not know what the heck he is talking about and, despite his claims to the contrary, cares even less.


In my letter to him I have enclosed my letter to his Prime Minister which I wrote last year, my letter to him in June 2006, and the outstanding analysis of Brad Adams, the Asia Director of Human Rights Watch, which he sent the Pope when he heard that Rajapakse was going to Rome. I am not enclosing these here but will be glad to send them to anyone if they have problems in getting them. I will also be glad to send you the recording from the BBC broadcast if it disappears from the net.


A number of people have asked me to send the Archbishop my recent DVD on the suffering of the Tamil people. I have sent not one but all four! Will they be watched? Probably not. He is too busy praying or doing what Archbishops do. That was what I was told last year when I flew to London to apprise him of the serious human rights violations that were occurring. When I was told that he as too busy, I suggested that they appoint two Archbishops, one to pray, and the other to listen to the problems facing his flock.


There is one more thing the expat Tamils, especially the Church-going ones can do. This is to get my letter to their local Church and say, “This is what our Archbishop has done, and this is the response of a Sinhalese Christian. What are you going to do? If nothing, may I know why?”


We have no power to prevent the Archbishop from making irresponsible statements which puts the lives of thousands of innocent people on the line, but we have the power to protest. Protest we must, and will. I urge you to join me.


Brian Senewiratne                                                                             Australia

Open Letter to Rt Rev Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

BRIAN SENEWIRATNE
292 Pine Mt Rd
MA (Camb), MBBChir (Camb), MBBS Hons (Lond), Mt Gravatt
MD(Lond), FRCP(Lond), FRACP Australia 4122


Tel + 61 7 33496118
21 May 2007 Mobile + 61 419335334
Fax +61 7 33434306
email briansen@bigpond.net.au




Rt Rev Dr Rowan Williams,
Archbishop of Canterbury,
The Anglican Communion Office
St Andrew’s House
16 Tavistock Crescent
London W11 1AP


Your recent comments on Sri Lanka


Dear Archbishop,


I am a Sinhalese from the majority community, not a member of the brutalised Tamil community in Sri Lanka. I am an Anglican Christian whose father’s family were not only Christians but actually built Churches. I was educated in a British Christian missionary school, and later in Selwyn College, Cambridge - founded by Bishop Selwyn - where the emphasis is on theology, not medicine. In Sri Lanka, I have been invited to address the congregation in St Paul’s Church, Kandy, and in the University campus church in Peradeniya (Kandy). I write all this to stress my commitment to the Church.


I quit Sri Lanka some 30 years ago and who runs that country, whether it be Rajapakse or anyone else, is of no concern to me as long as it is run without bloodshed, chaos and the extensive violation of human rights of its people. My concerns are humanitarian – as should be yours.

I refer to your recent visit to that war-torn country. There have been doubts expressed as to whether you actually made the remarks attributed to you. Some of the Christian clergy in Sri Lanka (and other apologists) have claimed that the media deliberately misreported what you said and gave it a pro-government twist. That is arrant nonsense since I actually heard what you said, and have a recording of it. Those who doubt me can still get on to the BBC website, and hear that shocking interview. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sinhala/index.shtml?focuswin). I will be publishing my recording of what you said in the next DVD I release. The world must know where the Christian Establishment stands.


This is what you said,


“It is undoubtedly inevitable that what you might call surgical military action against terrorism should take place”.


Archbishop, are you implying that the Tamil and Muslim people in the North and East as ‘terrorists’, since they are the recipients of what you irresponsibly call “surgical military action”? Do you, as a human being, let alone a Church leader, think that this is “absolutely inevitable”, and do you really think it “should take place?” If you do, it is, to put it mildly, disgraceful.


You owe the Tamil and Muslim people in the North and East an unqualified apology. The are being brutalised by the Government of SriLanka and it's Armed forces. They do not need to be insulted too. They are sufficiently traumatised already. They are my people who happen to live in a different part of Sri Lanka, but are nonetheless also my people whom who have thought it fit to insult. I strongly object to this.


What your absolutely outrageous and inflammatory comments have done is to legitimise the brutality unleashed on the Tamil civilian population (many of them Christians), by the Sinhalese-dominated Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) and its barbaric Armed Forces.


US lawyer Karen Parker, who is not even a Sri Lankan but whose commitment to the Tamil struggle against tyranny and oppression I am well aware of, has already put you straight on what is, and what is not, terrorism. I cannot add to, or improve on, what she has said.


There are numerous articles on the net written by me, and DVDs also produced by me (which are being delivered to your office), to document the atrocities committed by the Sinhalese State, especially after Mahinda Rajapakse became President. These include the targetted bombing of the Sencholai orphanage with some 400 Tamil children, the bombing and shelling of Christian churches in the North, the destruction of Christian Churches in the South, the mass slaughter of thousands of Tamil civilians, many of them members of the Christian community, the bombing of thousands of Tamil homes, businesses, schools with students inside, hospitals with patients inside, markets, and entire fishing villages.

The World Food Program has just stated that there are more than 400,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) and conflict-affected people are now in need of emergency food and relief assistance in the conflict-affected areas in the north and east. In addition, more than 2,000 Hindu temples (Kovils) have been damaged or destroyed. This should be of concern to you in the “Interfaith role”, which is part of the mandate of the Archbishop of Canterbury.


This outrage on the Tamil civilians, their lives and their property, and concerns even about their very survival - is this what you flippantly describe as “inevitable”, “surgical military action”, which “should take place”. I regret having to say this, but you are getting into bed with one of the most brutal and murderous regimes ever to run Sri Lanka.


You make these irresponsible remarks at a time when the whole world has expressed serious concerns about the escalating human rights violations in Sri Lanka. These have been extensively documented by your own Nobel Laureate, Amnesty International, the US human rights group, Human Rights Watch, the UN Special Envoy Alan Rock, the International Commission of Jurists, and many other human rights groups.


You cannot be unaware that concerned parliamentarians in your own Parliament in Westminster have just formed a group, cutting across political boundaries, to see what they can do to achieve a just settlement to one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in South Asia. Why do you think the British Parliament has recently suspended some $3 million in debt-relief to the GOSL citing concerns about human rights abuses and the escalating military expenditure? I am glad that they do not think that what the GOSL is doing is “absolutely inevitable” and “surgical military action’” which “should take place”.


A press release states that prior to leaving London, you were briefed by a wide selection of people. Either they did not know what they were talking about, or were picked because of their support for what the Government of Sri Lanka is doing to its Tamil people. In either case, it is a bad reflection on Lambeth Palace.


What your irresponsible comments have done are to :-


1. Encourage even greater violation of human rights of the Tamil civilian population by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces.


2. Give invaluable support to Sinhalese ethno-religious chauvinists who are determined to make multi-ethnic, multireligious, multilingual and multicultural Sri Lanka into a Sinhala-Buddhist nation. Today, these extremist elements in Colombo are celebrating your comment – an indication of the damage that has been done by a flippant remark.


3. Strengthen the stance of President Rajapakse and his brothers to establish a fascist dictatorship and embark on a genocidal massacre of the Tamils in the North and East. The photograph of Rajapakse greeting you has been circulated all over the world, enhancing his flagging international image and decreasing yours.


4. Make Tamil civilians in the North and East, who are being brutalised by the current murderous regime, feel that their suffering is of no concern to you, and that what is being done to them is inevitable ‘surgical military action” which “should take place”..


Your highly damaging comments take no cognisance of the fact that


1. The Armed Forces have bombed, shelled or damaged scores of Christian Churches in the North and East.


2. Christian priests have been abducted and killed in the North and East.


3. Hundreds of terrified civilians, who had taken refuge in several Churches, have been killed by bombs, shells and grenades being dropped on these Churches. Those taking refuge were not what you glibly call “terrorists”.
.
4. Orphanages, refugee camps, entire villages, schools and hospitals in the Tamil areas have been bombed and shelled.


5. Tamil civilians, by the hundred, in the North and East have been arbitrarily executed without charge or trial. Hundreds of others have ‘disappeared’, some of whose bodies, with evidence of extensive torture, have been recovered


6. Tamil members of Parliament have been executed. I refer in particular, to Joseph Pararajasingham MP for Batticaloa who was gunned down in Church in front of the Bishop of Trincomalee and Batticaloa on Christmas Day 2005.


7. Tamil media people been harassed, arrested, detained without charge or trial, and some even murdered by Government Forces and Tamil paramilitaries working with them. Printing presses have been destroyed and equipment for printing blocked from reaching the Tamil area.


8. Even Sinhalese journalists, peace activists, and members of civic society, who have questioned what is going on, have been locked up without charge or trial, and some have ‘disappeared’.


9. Churches and Christian clergy in the Sinhalese South have been destroyed by Sinhalese hoodlums. In at least some of these incidents, Buddhist clergy have been involved. “Sri Lankan Christians” , a group of concerned Christians from a variety of ethnic traditions and diverse denominations, have extensive documentation on their website www.srilankanchristians.com.

Reading the Bible


On 16 April 2007, you talked for 45 minutes in Toronto, on the importance of reading the Bible. Could you quote me the Chapter and Verse in the Bible which supports “surgical military action” under the circumstances that exist in Sri Lanka or, for that matter, any circumstance?


I would draw your attention to St Paul’s letter to the Colossians 3 V.12


“Therefore as Gods chosen people, holy and dearly beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion”.


Archbishop, did you “clothe yourself with compassion”, for the Tamils who are also God’s people, when you made those inflammatory comments? Or are the Tamils the ‘people of another God’, and who do not deserve compassion?


I take you to the Old Testament, and one of the Psalms of David, written at a time when men in authority were twisting justice. I quote the New International version of the Bible:-


Psalm 58 v 1-2 “Do you rulers indeed speak justly? Do you judge uprightly among men? No, in your heart you devise injustice, and your hands meet out violence on the earth.”


Psalm 58 v 6 “Break the teeth in their mouths, O God, ……..”.
58 v 7 “Let them vanish like water that flows away……..”


Contrary to what the Bible recommends, you chose to support Sri Lanka’s unjust rulers rather than the unjustly ruled. What you did by condoning State violence, masquerading as “defending the nation from terrorism”, is to support a ruthless regime that has not set any limits on the suffering of the Tamil people. This is how fascist dictatorships are established.


Archbishop, there is no great merit in reading the Bible, as you recommend, if you do not practise what you read.


Prayer


You have repeatedly said that you hope and pray for the people of Sri Lanka. Of what good is prayer if you give your tacit approval to the GOSL and its Armed Forces in their military assault on the inhabitants of the North and East? It would have been better to pray less and do more to achieve peace, and this you cannot do by talking of, “surgical military action” and that it “should take place”. I hope that your prayers are not based on this type of thinking.
.
Avoiding the North-East


You did not go to Jaffna, Mannar in the North West or the East. Sir, this is where the major violation of human rights is occurring, where serious and repeated massacres are taking place, where thousands are being made refugees, and where people are 'disappearing' every day. Did you even inquire about the massacres of the Tamil civilians and the bombing of entire Tamil villages in the Islands off Jaffna. Kfir jets dropped bombs on these people on January 2.2007 slaughtering men, women and children, as they celebrated the New Year? The entire population of these areas are Christians, your God’s children.


Did you ask Rajapakse what his so-called “Security Forces” were doing in Jaffna? There is no need to ‘secure” Jaffna. The Tamil are not going to run away with Jaffna. It has nothing to do with ‘Security’ but much to do with bullying, harassing and terrifying the Tamil people to force them to accept Sri Lanka as a Sinhala-Buddhist nation. Are you concerned? If you are, why did you not ask the President when he entertained you in his home?


In this happy gathering in the President’s home, I noted that standing a few feet from you was Douglas Devananda, the Leader of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party, currently a Cabinet Minister in Rajapakse’s Government. Archbishop, just to translate, “Eelam” stands for a Separate Tamil State.


Your meeting with him would have been a golden opportunity to have asked him about the numerous ‘disappearances’ in Jaffna. You could have asked him to explain the Government’s Human Rights Commission Report that since Dec 2005, the Commission recorded 707 people ‘missing’ in Jaffna. Witnesses allege that the Security Forces and Minister Devanada’s own Party members were involved in the vast majority of cases. In just the past 3 months, 55 people have been abducted during curfew hours, when only the ‘Security Forces’ and their paramilitary ‘helpers’ are on the streets in Jaffna. I am sure Minister Devananda would have been able to explain these very worrying facts, and much more that goes on behind the closed or censored doors of Jaffna.


Archbishop, did you ask President Rajapakse or Minister Devananda who comes from the North, about the ethics of blocking the A9 Highway, the only land access to the Jaffna Peninsula, by the Armed Forces on 11 August 2006? There are some 600,000 Tamil civilians, 150,000 of them children, in the Peninsula facing starvation. Did you point out that this violates Article 55 and 56 of the 4th Geneva Convention which states that:


“An occupying power (eg the Sri Lankan Army), has the duty of ensuring adequate food and medical supplies and protecting public health in the area under occupation (Jaffna)”.


What are you going to do about the continuing starvation of these people, some of them Christian, others non-Christian, but, if you believe the Bible which you recommend be read, are all “God’s Children”?


Did you ask why it was necessary for some of the best agricultural lands in Jaffna to be declared “High Security Zones” inaccessible to civilians? I put it to you, Archbishop, that this has nothing to do with Security but has much to do with mass starvation and genocidal intent by the GOSL. Is this part of “surgical military action” which you say ”should take place”?


Did you ask about the total ban on fishing reintroduced off the Jaffna Peninsula by the Sri Lankan Navy? It was imposed on 11 August 2006 to cover the entire North and East coast, partially relaxed in the face of protests by humanitarian organisations and, unbelievably reintroduced as a total ban off the Jaffna Peninsula on 20 February 2007 by the Sri Lankan military. 7,375 people in LTTE controlled areas and 65,000 people in GOSL controlled areas, face severe economic difficulties. Whether they live in the Tamil Tiger controlled areas or Government-controlled areas, they are human beings facing starvation Does this concern you? Is it not further evidence of genocidal intent?


Did you ask about the crisis in education in Jaffna and why some 10,200 children have dropped out of Jaffna schools in 2006 The Jaffna Secretariat Education Department would have told you all about it if you had asked. They would also have provided the reasons :-


• Fear of abduction by Armed Forces and their presence of Army near schools.
• Schools being bombed or being in Rajapakse’s extended ‘High Security’ zone
• Lack of transport with curfews being imposed at the whim and fancy of the Armed Forces.
• Economic reasons – the ban on fishing and agriculture making it necessary for children to work to keep family alive.
• The lack of accommodation because homes have been bombed and shelled, and the simple lack of food.


Does any of this worry the Anglican Church authorities in Colombo or in London? Or is it all part of “surgical military action”?


Your visit to Kurunegala


You held a service in the Anglican Church in Kurunegala. You might be interested to know that the former Bishop of this Church, the late Bishop Lakshman Wickremesinghe, one of the finest Christians, indeed human beings, that Sri Lanka has produced, said that the Sinhalese people had to apologise for what has been done to the Tamil people. I suggest you read his last Pastoral Address circulated a few months before his untimely death. I will be happy to send it to you.


Bishop Lakshman, who, like me, is a Sinhalese, was my role model. He must surely be turning in his grave to see you conduct a service in his beloved Church and then go on to make the sort of comments that you did. I am so glad that he is not on this planet, the trauma would surely have killed him, as did the 1983 massacre of Tamils in Colombo. He visited a refugee camp in Colombo and went ‘missing’. He was later found quietly crying in a room. That was the compassion of Bishop Lakshman, something which is seriously lacking today. When God made Bishop Lakshman, he must have thrown away the mould.


Meeting the Buddhist clergy


You saw the Mahanayake Thero of the Asgiriya Chapter (one of the leading Buddhist Monks). Did you ask him which Buddhist stanza asks the followers of one of the greatest teachers of peace the world has known, to block the roads in Colombo demanding a return to war, break up peace rallies and supervise the burning of Christian Churches in the South? (I have a list of the scores of churches destroyed). My mother was a devout Buddhist.


Did you ask the Mahanayake Thero about Champika Ranawake, the Parliamentary representative of the Buddhist monk’s political party, the Jathika Hela Urumaya. Ranawake, the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources in President Rajapakse’s Government, advocates extra-judicial measures to deal with human rights groups, journalists and others who criticised the State’s militaristic aims? Pardon the language but these are his words, “Those bastards are traitors. We can’t do anything because of wild donkey freedom in this country. If those cannot be handled with existing laws, we know how to do it. If we can’t suppress those bastards with the law, we need to use any other ways and means.” to the (Sinhalese) Raavaya newspaper on February 18, 2007.


Did you raise this with the Mahanayake Thero or with President Rajapakse, and ask if anyone in the Buddhist hierarchy or the Government has condemned the Minister’s words and demanded a retraction?


If some of the the so-called Buddhist leaders and thousands of their followers, and a succession of ‘Buddhist’ political leaders (many of them converts from Christianity to politically expedient ‘Buddhism’, and others such as Rajapakse who claim to be devout Buddhists), were true Buddhists, the Tamils would not be asking for a Separate State, far less fighting for one. Archbishop, this is a complex problem which you simply cannot ‘pick up on the run’, or, as you put it to Reuters, “a passing visit”. You have to spend some time studying it and until you do, it is totally irresponsible to make the confused and inflammatory comments you have made.


Confused thinking


Your degree of confusion, manifest in conflicting statements made by you, beggars belief. To have the Head of 77 million people in a confused state is obviously a matter of concern. At the press conference on 9 May, 2007 in Colombo you said you were “aware that this is a time of great trial and suffering for the people of Sri Lanka.” You then went on to justify the Sri Lankan military assault which is the cause of the “great trial and suffering” as “inevitable” and that ”surgical military action should take place”. Archbishop, you cannot have it both ways.


You told the journalists that the Government’s military solution “increasingly appears to be no solution”. Then you go on to talk of the inevitability of military action and that this “should take place”. Archbishop, where exactly do you stand or do you not know? You cannot stand with a foot in each camp, or, should I say, backing opposing strategies.


You say “that that (the ‘surgical military action’) will lead ……. to an opening of communication, a re-establishment of the possibilities for civil society to develop”. Archbishop, what line of logic are you pursuing? How can “surgical military action” open up communication? How can uncivil behaviour by a Government enable civil society to develop? Are you aware that leading members of civil society who organised rallies for Peace and campaigned against war, are being threatened and even held in custody without charge or trial by the fascist regime which entertained you? Archbishop, you seem to be saying a lot of words without thinking about what they mean. It is a flow of words which sound impressive but is, in fact, complete nonsense. It is not only nonsense but dangerous nonsense.


You say that you were visiting Sri Lanka to learn something about the situation. I suggest you spend some time watching the DVD that I have just released on the complex Sri Lanka ethnic conflict. I will have a copy delivered to your office. It might make you better informed and hopefully more cautious in talking about things about which you have no idea. The information you have, seems to have been literally picked up on the run from people with an agenda which has nothing to do with peace in Sri Lanka. In disinformation and frank lying, Sri Lanka is one of the world leaders. Regrettably, this includes some of the Church leaders with whom you say you work closely.


You say that you want to see how the Church (in Sri Lanka) is responding. Which church? The one in the Sinhalese South or the one in the Tamil North and East? The ones in the Tamil area are being decimated, along with its worshipers. The one in the South could not care less. I had to deliver an address in a Church in Melbourne on this very same subject. A summary of what I said was that the Christian Church in the Sinhalese South was more Sinhalese than Christian. Would you like to see my address and the justification for my statement?


A reflexive violent response


In a press release before leaving England for Sri Lanka, you said, “Sri Lanka is a place in which conflict and violence has become a reflexive response to political difficulty” .That is, to put it mildly, gross ignorance. The most cursory glance at Sri Lanka’s political history would have made you aware that Tamil political leaders had sat cross-legged in Gandhi style, non-violent protests for 21 years (from 1956 -1977) and had these non-violent protests crushed by Government-sponsored Sinhalese hoodlums, supported by the Police (95% Sinhalese) and later, the Army (99% Sinhalese).


The resort by the Tamil youths to an armed struggle was because of a failure of the non-violent process and negotiations with a succession of Sinhalese Governments to achieve anything. It was not violence as a ‘reflexive response’ as you claim it was. This is staggering ignorance and, coming as it does from someone who has the support structures that you have to get the necessary information, very disturbing.


My visit to London to apprise you of the situation in Sri Lanka


You may claim that you have not been aware of much of what I have alluded to. That is why I wrote to you in June 2006 (copy of letter attached). It was to apprise you of these atrocities that I put my medical practice on hold, took the 26hr flight from Brisbane to London to see the Head of my Church, you, the Archbishop of Canterbury. I was told that you were too busy! Here was an ex-parishioner of Westminster Abbey who had done a 52hr trip, asking for just 15mins to talk to his Church Leader and being told that he was too busy. Was that really too much to ask? If that is the score, then there should be two Archbishops – one to pray (and do whatever else Archbishops do), and the other to listen to the supplications of his people.


The Roman Catholic response


I was concerned that the Pope decided to meet President Rajapakse on 20 April 2007. A Roman Catholic friend explained that the Vatican State had no option when the request came from a Head of State. I know it is a question you cannot answer, but if the request came from another Head of State, Robert Mugabe, would the Pope see him and touch his blood-stained hands? I doubt it.


Whatever my reservations, when the Pope did see (Buddhist) Mahinda Rajapakse and his (Roman Catholic) wife, who had presumably come to get the Pope’s blessings on the military assault on the Tamil people, the Vatican got it right. Pope Benedict XVI received in audience the President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka for all of 20 minutes! He was then shown the door to the office of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Cardinal Secretary of State, who presides over the Vatican Secretariat of State, the Holy See.


Conveying the concerns of the Pope, Cardinal Bertone reiterated to Rajapaksa, the need to respect human rights and resume the path of dialogue and negotiation as the "only way to put an end to the violence."


The Holy See Press Office released a communiqué immediately after the meeting:

"In the course of the talks - and in the light of the current situation in Sri Lanka - the need was reiterated to respect human rights and resume the path of dialogue and negotiation as the only way to put an end to the violence that is bloodying the island. The Catholic Church, which offers a significant contribution to the life of the country, will intensify her delicate task of forming consciences with the sole ambition of favoring the common good, reconciliation and peace”.

There was none of this inflammatory nonsense of “undoubtedly inevitable” ….”surgical military action” ……which “should take place”, or even the word “terrorism” mentioned.

Archbishop Rowan Williams, that is how it is done, and should be done, if the Church and its Head are to retain any credibility and respect. What happened in Rome was before you arrived in Sri Lanka. It should have been a shining example of responsible behaviour for a Church leader, in a situation where there is a crisis in human rights.

Just consider what a major effect there would have been on the barbaric regime in Sri Lanka if the Head of the Catholic Church and the Head of the Anglican Church said the same thing, instead of one advocating reconciliation and peace, and the other acquiescing a military assault.


There are several reasons for the defence. The Vatican is better informed, and listens to the concerns expressed by its clergy and flock, something which your Church should be doing. At least where Sri Lanka is concerned, the Vatican seems to be prepared to take a principled stance, rather than one determined by political expediency.


Political expediency is precisely what you did in October 2006 when you visited China and failed to confront the authorities on their abysmally poor record in religious freedoms. You cannot be unaware that China has jailed scores of Catholic priests and Tibetan Buddhist minks and nuns because of their loyalty to the Pope and to the Dalai Lama. You have now gone down the same path of political expediency in Sri Lanka.


I strongly advise that you read the outstanding analysis of the Sri Lankan situation submitted to the Pope by Brad Adams, The Asia Director of Human Rights Watch, when he heard that Rajapakse was going to Rome. Tragically, this crucial document, written on 16 April 2007, was available before you left for Sri Lanka and should have been read by someone who claimed to be “ …conscious that this is a time of great trial and suffering for the people of Sri Lanka," as you told Reuters Television in Colombo.


I suggest that even at this late stage you look at Brad Williams’ letter to the Pope, and write to President Rajapakse to tell him that your attention has been drawn to a letter from the Director of a internationally acclaimed human rights organisation, and that you wish to express your serious concerns about what the Rajapakse’s Government is doing to the Tamil people. That is, of course, if you have ‘concerns’.


A hypothetical question
Archbishop Williams, can I ask you a hypothetical question but one with practical implications. If Jesus Christ reappeared and visited Sri Lanka, where do you think He would go? I think He would head for the refugee camps in the North and East with more than 400,000 displaced people, to Mannar in the North West where His people have had many a slaughter, and the Islands off Jaffna which have had even more. He would probably have stayed there till all His people were safe, and able to live with equality, dignity and safety in a place they have a right to be in. That is Jesus Christ, my Lord and my God, That is what I believe, and that is my brand of Christianity.


The practical dimension


The practical dimension of this belief is why I decided to stand with my brutalised Sri Lankan Tamil people, and why I am seriously upset by your irresponsible and inflammatory remarks.


That is why in 1948, as 16 year old schoolboy, I organised a public protest in my school when my (Indian) Tamil people were made ‘non-people’. I was only applying what I had been taught in the “Religious Studies” class in the British Christian mission school I was educated. That is why, a quarter of a century later, in 1972, as the Senior Lecturer in Medicine and Physician in the Kandy hospital, I picked up these brutalise people who were dying on the streets of Kandy, having been hounded out of their miserable ‘coolie lines’ by Sinhalese hoodlums from my Government.


That is why in 1972, I challenged the congregation from the pulpit of the largest Anglican Church in Kandy, to take a stance on an unimaginable injustice done to people whose only crime was that they were born poor and into an uncaring environment. I told them that to come to Church, sing hymns and recite meaningless stanzas which they did not practice, was not what Christianity was all about.


If you do not know the story of this blot on Sri Lankan history, these (‘Indian’) Plantation Tamils are pathetically poor people, descendents of a million Tamils brought by the British in the 1850s, from poverty-stricken (British) India, to do slave labor on British tea estates. They were off-loaded in Mannar, and forced by the (Christian) colonial master, to walk some 300 km, to the 6,000 ft mountains in central Ceylon, a third of them dying on the way from fatigue, malnutrition and malaria. They were then put into miserable “coolie lines” in the British tea plantations, where they were treated like slaves,


They are the people, my Indian Tamil people, who kept, and still keep, Sri Lanka afloat, but who were disenfranchised and de-citizenised in 1948 by my government, while the Governor General from your country looked on. Where was the Anglican Church when this political barbarism was occurring?


Do you see that praying, which you say is what you are doing for the people of Sri Lanka, is not sufficient. The Church has to act, which I doubt it has in any constructive way in Sri Lanka, in the past half century since Independence from Britain, and probably before.


“Interfaith role”


What is alarming is that you seem to be linking hands with the racist Buddhist clergy who have done, and continue to do, so much damage to Sri Lanka and are making it impossible for any Government since 1956 to deliver peace with justice. As I have said, my mother was a devout Buddhist and worshiped in the very temple in Kandy which you visited.


The game plan - Getting it ‘terribly wrong’


Dr Sam Muthuveloe of Hope Outreach in your country, in a letter to his friend Canon Julian Reirdorp of Richmond Parish, Surrey, UK says, “… our Archbishop in Canterbury has got something terribly wrong”. I disagree with Dr Muthuveloe. I’d say that “there are none as blind as those who do not want to see.”


Archbishop, I have no idea what your game plan is. Whatever it is, it is highly damaging.


It is possible that it is a continuing attempt to perpetuate the brutal repression of the Tamil people which Britain has done for at least the past three decades by supplying weapons to the repressive Sinhala regime in Colombo.


It is possible that you are trying to deliver on the “interfaith role” part of your position as Archbishop, and trying to link hands with the Buddhist clergy, however abysmal their political and human rights record is, and has been.


It appears to me, and I suspect to the majority of the Tamil people both in and outside Sri Lanka (and I stress I am not a Tamil), that from the Tamil perspective, it matters little whether one wears a yellow robe or a white robe, the sentiments expressed by the wearer are the same.


Moral leadership


In what I can only describe as an amazing claim, you told a Reporter from London’s Daily Mail, that society was missing the point in expecting the Church to be in the business of moral leadership. If to provide moral leadership is not the business of the Church, what is? I think this inability to provide moral leadership has been amply manifested by your inflammatory comments in Sri Lanka.


Comic vicar


In an extraordinary interview with Alan Rusbridge, Editor of the Guardian , you said you had been called the “comic vicar to the nation”. The incredulous Rusbridge asked the question twice. “What vicar?’ You replied, “The comic vicar” .Ruxbridge re-checked, “The comic vicar?”


If Britain has a ‘comic vicar to the nation”, that is her problem. However, it is reasonable to ask the British nation to keep its ‘comic vicar’ rather than encourage travel all over the world to inflict damage which could cost hundreds of lives of defenceless people, because of rash and irresponsible comments which can be, indeed have been, picked up and acted on by despots and despotic regimes.


Where I stand


I am the Patron of the Campaign for Truth and Justice founded in London last year. I enclose my letter to your Prime Minister Tony Blair, which was supported by a petition signed by some 3,000 people in your capital, and handed over to 10 Downing Street. I suggest that you read it. It sets out where I stand and why. It also summarises Britain’s responsibility in creating and perpetuating this mess.


At a personal level, as a Christian I am too committed to my faith to allow the irresponsible and inflammatory comments of the leader of my Church to get between me and my God. What you have succeeded in doing is to distance me from the Christian establishment. You, Archbishop Rowan Williams, are the Spiritual Leader of some 77 million Anglican Christians in the world. You can review that figure downward to ‘77 million minus one’. Actually, two, since another Christian, the US Human rights lawyer, Karen Parker, writes, “So this is what the Church of England stands for? Remind me never to go there”. Be assured that many more will join us.


An apology and a retraction


As I have said, an unqualified apology to the Tamil and Muslim people in the North and East is not an option but is mandatory, if you are to retain any credibility and, what is more important, if the Christian Church is not to suffer serious damage.


You can undo at least some of the damage that you have done by contacting the BBC Sinhala service, retracting what you have said, and asking that it be widely disseminated. You can do the same with the Church in Sri Lanka, some of whose members are now trying to mount an exercise in ‘cover-upism’ rather than tender an apology on your behalf.


The fall-out


There will undoubtedly be a fall-out from your comments, as the brutal regime in Colombo, now with the tacit approval of the Head of the Christian Church, goes on an accelerated genocidal campaign to deliver the “undoubtedly inevitable” ….”surgical military action” ……which “should take place” . As the resultant bombs and rockets fall on a helpless people, they might modify what the dying Christ said, “Father forgive him, but he knew, or should have known, what he was doing”.


I shed a tear for my Tamil and Muslim people who are mere KFir jet fodder to a ruthless regime backed by international players, which now includes my Anglican Church, whose agenda has nothing to do with peace or justice in Sri Lanka.


Yours faithfully.


Brian Senewiratne

President Rajapakse sends an emissary to Australia

On 8 January 2007, Palitha Kohona, arrived in Australia from Sri Lanka on a ‘mission’ – to ask the Australian Government to ban funds going to the LTTE. He was interviewed by a well-known Australian newspaper. You may still find it on the net,Put ban on Tigers support:SriLanka. I was sent the article by expatriate Tamils in Australia. My first reaction was to put the article where it belongs - the waste bin. However, I thought I might respond, for reasons which I will set out.. 

Kohona also saw Senator Senator Steve Hutchins, the (Labor) Federal Senator for New South Wales. He is also the Chairman of the Australia-Sri Lanka Friendship Society. Hutchins went on to make a speach in Parliament, and delivered a frontal attack on the Tamil struggle. I will deal with this disgraceful and highly partisan address later. I also happen to know the Leader of Senator Hutchins’ Party, Kevin Rudd, who, with a little luck, will be Australia’s next Prime Minister. I will send him a copy of my response to Senator Hutchins.
   

The reason for my response to the Kohona interview is that it can form the basis of responses in your own country to nonsense presented to your respective Governments by the likes of Kohona who are  the new international salesmen, commissioned to sell Rajapakse’s failed policies. The international media, and politicians, who publish and make adverse comments on the Tamil struggle base their one-sided comments on what people like Kohona tell them. 

Palitha Kohona, is the Special Advisor to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, and the Secretary General of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP). He has just been promoted as Secretary to the Foreign Ministry! 

1. The newspaper report says that Kohona urged the Australian Government to enact domestic laws making it an offence to raise money for the Tamil Tigers.  It is not Dr.Kohona’s business to advise the Australian Government to enact laws, domestic or otherwise, any more than it is the business of the Australian government (or the US government, or for that matter, any Government) to advise the Sri Lankan Government  what laws it should enact.

  2. The report says that Dr.Kohona’s visit coincided with “fresh terrorist attacks in his country”.  Indeed it did.  On the very day that the report was published, a Peace Rally in Colombo led by a large number of Sinhalese peace activists, Members of Parliament (across the entire political spectrum), and leading members of civic society who had arranged a much-needed public meeting, was disrupted, even before it started, by more than 100 thugs led by a Deputy Minister Mervin Silva in President Rajapakse’s government.  Three journalists, including a BBC reporter were attacked.  I think Dr.Kohona should address the terrorism unleashed by his Government, not only on the Tamils in the North and East, but on my people, the Sinhalese, in the Sri Lankan South , who are struggling to stop this war. Incidentally, Mervin Silva is the obliging man who stepped down to enable Rajapakse to nominate of his brothers to Parliament. I am old that it now brings up to 39, the members of the Rajapakse family in various parts of the Government. This is even more impressive than what my cousin, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga did when she said the politics was ‘our family business’. Thank God I left the country, not that I would have allowed myself to be sucked into this dust-bin.

We are talking of a so-called ‘Democracy’- the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. If this is  Democracy, what then would be a Fascism? Perhaps you might ask Dr Konona, and get back to me.

3. Your report states that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are fighting for an independent homeland in the North and East of Sri Lanka.  Yes, indeed they are.  Your reporter seems to be ignorant of the fact that there has been serious discrimination against the Tamil ‘minority’ since 1956 in language, education and employment and determined efforts by the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) to relocate Sinhalese to the Tamil homelands in the North and East to make the Tamils a minority even in the areas where they are a majority.

The demand for an independent Tamil homeland in the North and East was taken by the Tamil people who overwhelmingly voted for a separate Tamil State in the General Elections of 1977, after their political leaders had failed in peaceful Gandhi-style negotiations from 1956 –1977, to get even a Federal Tamil State.  What the LTTE did was to take up arms to force the GOSL to take the Tamil demands seriously. Until then, Tamil demands were just a joke for a succession of Sinhalese-dominated Governments. Allthis is painfully explained in the three (and from tomorrow, four) DVDs I have just released. Can some patriotic Sri Lankan send these DVDs to Kohona?

4. The report says that “the Tigers found their inspiration and funding from overseas”. The Tigers do not need inspiration from overseas.  They, and the Tamil people, do not need “inspiration”; the reality of discrimination against them over a long period of time, and more recently the bombing and shelling of the Tamil North and now, the East, making more than 300,000 Tamil civilians refugees, is “inspiration” enough.
     

5. Dr.Kohona estimates that one sixth of the estimated US$ 10-30 million raised internationally for the Tigers comes from Australia.  There are large numbers of Tamils in this country who still have families in the North and East. These civilians are being subjected to the most brutal assault by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces.  The only people, and I stress only people, who have put up even a semblance of resistance to this assault by the GOSL, have been the Tamil Tigers.

A group that has played a key role in coming to the humanitarian assistance of over half a million civilians in the Tamil North and East has been the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO).  The GOSL has opted out of the care of people living in his area.  Whether they live or die seems to be of no concern to Dr.Kohona’s government.

6. The report quotes Dr.Kohona as saying, ”Australia is one of their (LTTE) biggest sources of their funding and of course these funds do not go to any charitable or other purpose.  They are used for procuring weapons on the international black market”. 

There are two points here.     

             1) A large amount of the funds and assistance sent by Australians is to the TRO, a recognized NGO in Sri Lanka which, in fact, received an award from the former President Chandrika Kumaratunga for its humanitarian work in the North and East.                

             2) As for the “black market” – the Tamil Tigers procure weapons in the ‘black market’, while the GOSL procures far more sophisticated and lethal weapons in the ‘white market’. Is that a problem? 
  

  7.  Dr.Kohona said he wanted to “convey very firmly” that the GOSL was committed to achieve peace through negotiations.  This ‘commitment’ by the GOSL is currently being displayed by the ruthless bombardment of the East targeting Tamil-speaking civilians, by the Armed Forces of Kohona’s Government, bombs being even dropped on refugee camps.  That is why Mr.Kohona’s government has prevented international observers from getting to the area.  There is too much to hide, and is being hidden. I have shown just a minute part of this in the DVDs I have released. It is now up to the expatriate Tamil community to copy and distribute these DVDs to those from whom Kohona’s Government is struggling to conceal this humanitarian disaster.

The Army Commander, Sarath Fonseka, has clearly stated only a few weeks ago (New Year’s eve, to be specific), that his intention is to militarily crush Tamil resistance, and Gotabaya Rajapakse wants three years to crush the LTTE.  If Dr.Kohona thinks that this is “achieving peace through negotiations”, he is talking a different language.  The GOSL canard has nothing to do with peace, but a lot to do with obtaining foreign aid to prop up a crumbling State.

8.   Dr.Kohona says that he was in no doubt that Australia was taking the problem of terrorism seriously.  I am afraid he is wrong.  Australia (and the rest of the developed world) is not taking the problem of terrorism, of State terrorism in Sri Lanka, seriously.  Indeed, they are becoming part of the problem by militarily equipping a ruthless regime that is bent on a military solution to a political problem.  I have shown the type of weapons being unleased on the Tamil civilian population in the East (the North is to follow) by Kohona’s Government.
               

Sri Lanka has no external enemies.  Yet, it has one of the largest armies, indeed on a per capita basis, probably the largest army in South Asia.  This is the army that is being militarily equipped by the US, UK, Israel, and Pakistan, to name just a few, to enable the GOSL to crush its own citizens – the civilian Tamil population. Some 50,000 of its troops (99% Sinhalese) are stationed in the Jaffna Peninsula (99% Tamil).  This is an Army of Occupation whose entire agenda is to terrorise the Tamil population.               

Let me give you some figures which Dr.Kohona would rather not give you.  The Defence expenditure of this near-bankrupt country has escalated by some 45% this year. This is, mind you, with a Ceasefire holding, as claimed by President Rajapakse, no less!  The Defence budget is much higher than the combined budget for health and education. These are facts that the International community should be made aware of.

Rajapakse’s Finance Minister has just said that the massive increase in the ‘Defence’ Budget is not to but arms but to pay the Armed Forces, some 175,000. Australia, with all its overseas commitments, has just 91,000 in the Armed Forces. Sri Lanka, a miserably poor country with no eternal enemies and no overseas commitments, has nearly double the Armed Forces.

The Sinhalese do not know, or want to know, that Sri Lanka rules a quarter of the country through the barrel of a gun. As I have said before, we are speaking of a country which has the temerity to call itself the Democratic Socialist Republic.

Questions must be asked as to who is defending whom.  To claim that the Armed Forces are defending Jaffna is absurd. Jaffna does not need to be defended – the Tamils are not going to run away with Jaffna. To claim that Jaffna is being defended from the Tamil Tigers is equally absurd.  The Armed Forces currently number 160,000 fighting some 2,000 Tamil Tigers, if that.  The Army has the most sophisticated weapons which include a massive military Air Force, multi-barrel rocket launchers and every destructive weapon, except nuclear weapons, at its command.  To claim that such a regime is under threat from a couple of thousand militants is nonsense. 
             

This has nothing to do with ‘Defence’. The Sri Lankan Forces are an Army of Occupation in the Tamil areas. They are there to bully, harass and intimidate the Tamil people into submission, to accept multi-ethnic, multi-religios, multi-lingual, multi-cultural Sri Lanka, as a Sinhala-Buddhist nation. They are the main perpetrators of the extensive violation of human rights of the civilian population and this will continue as long as they are where they are.

  9. Here is some information which Dr Konona would hope you would not have seen. I will do the home-work for you.

Sri Lanka buys arms from a number of countries. Let me deal with just one, Pakistan – not, by any means, the largest supplier.    On 8 June 2006, the world-renown Jane’s Defence Weekly published information exclusively obtained by this award-winning international journal. Sri Lanka had asked Pakistan to facilitate the purchase of defence equipment worth around US $60 million, and had asked that their requests be given the ‘utmost priority’ amid,  believe it or not, a ceasefire!.

The Journal went on to list the Sri Lankan Army’s shopping list (mind you, just from Pakistan). It included  ten Baktar Shikan anti-tank guided missile weapon systems, 300 standard/tandem warheads and two training simulators; respectively worth US $1.5 million, US$4.5 million and US$120,000. The combined value of the military equipment was some US $ 20 million, with the Air Force requirements being a further US$ 38.1 million.

Unable to handle the weapons purchased (!), Sri Lanka had appealed to Pakistan to provide swift technical assistance for its T-55 main battle tanks and C-130 transport aircraft.

Unable to even service what had been bought, the GOSL wrote, ‘Since a number of MBTs [main battle tanks] and C-130s are in need of urgent technical repairs it is earnestly requested that this be given utmost priority and a suitable technical repair team be arranged to carry out immediate inspection…”   

Just a week ago, 3 January 2007, a Pakistani newspaper which should know what is going on in that country, reported that Pakistan will sell military equipment and arms worth over US $ 100 million to Sri Lanka.  

Here is a 3^rd World country, supplying weapons to another 3^rd World country on the verge of economic collapse, the money coming from tax-payers who can barely afford to live, and, the IC, ever willing to lend Sri Lanka any amount of money to ensure that Sri Lanka will sink deeper and deeper into debt and obligation.

I am releasing this information to the international community, if only to let Dr Kohona and his master, President Mahinda Rajapakse, know that people outside their Democratic Socialist Republic are well aware of what is going on. Sending people such as Dr Kohona to justify the unjustifiable, to keep uninformed people uninformed, will not work. It might be possible for Dr. Kohona’s Government to bluff some of the people some of the time, or even all of the people some of the time, but is unlikely to be able to bluff all of the people all of the time, as is obvious from some of the Peace rallies by theSinhala people in the Sri Lankan South. Attempting to unleash Sinhala hoodlum violence, even headed by a Deputy Minister in the Government, or by yellow-robed hoodlums with not-so-cleanly-shaven heads, will also not work
.

10. You refer to the Australian Federal Police raiding the homes of Tamils in Sydney and Melbourne a year ago. The Police did more. They confiscated the passports of people who are Australian citizens. That may be acceptable in a Police State but is it acceptable in a democracy which Australia says it is?  If these people, almost all of them professional people of high standing in the community, have committed some offence, they must be charged in a proper court of law, but they cannot have their passports confiscated by the Police or any other authority. If that is done, then a democracy degenerates to a totalitarian state. If we in Australia are living in a totalitarian state, where the confiscation of passports and such like, is permissible, then we should be made aware of it.

I have just returned from the US where this same despicable game is being played. Basically it is to instill fear. This is what existed in Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Idi Amin’s Uganda, and several other despotic regimes. 

11. I might briefly comment on Dr.Kohona, whose activities in Sri Lanka are not unfamiliar to me. On 25 April 2006,a female suicide bomber blew herself up in the grounds of the Army Headquarters (!) in Colombo, throwing herself in front of the Army Commander Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka. He was injured but survived.

 Within hours, the Sri Lankan Armed Forces launched an air and artillery attack on Trincomalee on the opposite side of the island, some 150 km away. Tamil villages were indiscriminately bombed and shelled in an attack that continued for two full days. 

Dr,Kohona, having admitted that the Sri Lankan Forces acted against Tamil villagers went on to justify it by claiming that it was “a fair reply” to the bomb blast in Colombo earlier in the day. May I point out that if one dons a uniform, be it a Tamil Tiger uniform or a Sri Lankan Army uniform, and takes on the right to kill or injure people, to be killed or injured is part of the ‘game’. That is an ‘occupational hazard’. What is unacceptable is that this should then be taken out on civilians.

Dr.Kohona is, amazingly, a lawyer, as is his President. Perhaps he should familiarise himself (and his President), with the 1949 Geneva Convention, in particular the 4^th Convention which deals with civilians under enemy control, and the 1977 Additional Protocols, in particular the 2^nd which deals with non-international conflicts. It might also be instructive if he familiarises himself with the International Criminal Court since that is where his Government would be heading if the expatriate Tamils and others concerned about what is going on in Sri Lanka, get their act together. Attacks by Sri Lankan Government Forces on civilians and their property is a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Article 2(c) and 2(e).  International humanitarian law does not permit warring parties to attack civilian targets and civilian lives. Dr.Kohona’s “retaliatory action”, his “fair reply”, on civilian targets in Trincomalee-Batticaloa on 25/4/06 and currently in full swing in the Batticaloa District, is a contravention international law, in addition to being a flagrant violation of the Cease Fire-Agreement which the government says is still in place. 

Refugee camp in Muthur

The distinction between military and civilian targets, and the requirement to avoid military operations that cause disproportionate harm to civilians, are fundamental principles embodied in Article 48 and 51 in the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Convention.
  

Deliberate damage to civilian and civic property without military justification is forbidden under Article 52 of the Additional Protocol to the Geneva Convention. The GOSL has signed all these international conventions. 

Whether the GOSL admits it or not, Jaffna is under an Occupying Force. Under Article 55 and 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, an occupying power has the duty of ensuring adequate food and medical supplies and protecting public health in the area under occupation. The closure of the only road access to the Jaffna Peninsula by the GOSL on 11 August 2006, and the consequent deprivation of food and medicines to half a million civilians in Jaffna, does have legal implications.

Some of the casualties of Dr. Kohona’s “fair reply”, were shown in an article I published after this outrage. The International Community can judge whether this is a ‘fair reply’ as Dr Kohona says it is.

Dr.Kohona’s visit is part of the extensive international campaign mounted by the GOSL to portray what is going on in Sri Lanka as a  “ war against terrorism”.  The greatest beneficiary from the “9/11” attack on the US has been the GOSL. I have dealt with this in numerous articles, all of which are on the net.   

What has been going on in Sri Lanka for the past three decades is a liberation struggle of the Tamil “minority” to free itself from the Sinhalese-dominated regime in Colombo.  If multi-ethnic, multilingual, multicultural, multireligous Sri Lanka is to be a Sinhala-Buddhist Nation  (even incorporated in the Constitution since 1972), then there is no alternative to the establishment of a separate Tamil State. It is as simple as that.

What is going on today, in the East of Sri Lanka is essentially a genocidal campaign to wipe the Tamils from this once Tamil-speaking area, and replace them with Sinhalese from the South.  This process is already far advanced.  Earlier this month, some 80 families (Sinhalese) of ex-servicemen were taken under armed guard and settled in Trincomalee which had been “cleared” of Tamil and Muslim families by the Armed Forces. More, many more, are on their way.

I have not referred to some 300,000 Tamil and Muslim refugees created by Dr.Kohona’s government bombing and shelling the East in just the past few months.  What we are looking at is a humanitarian crisis and this is what the Australian and other governments, and your Paper and the International media, should be focusing on.
Brian Senewiratne                                                                             Australia

Ode to a Humble Hero of Sri Lanka: Dr Brian Senewiratne

An Ode to Dr Brian Senewiratne


Dear Dr Senewiratne
We hail you
As the voice of reason of the Sinhalese
May your tribe increase
And become the driving force
To bring real unity to the island of Sri Lanka
May your kinsmen heed your call
To bring Peace and Prosperity
Security and Safety
Equity and Equality
To all the people of the island
Sinhalese Tamil Muslim and Burgher
In your quest for Justice and Fairness
May not your critics stop you
For alas!
They do not understand the wisdom of your words
They may rant and rave
And call you names
For all they want is supremacy
Not equality
We laud you for your courage
And for your futuristic vision
You’re not a traitor
For you love your people too much
And they must know
It’s the racists and the religious extremists
Who send Sri Lanka
To the age of savagery and destruction
If people see
That all you want
Is for the Pearl of the Indian Ocean
To regain its luster and beauty
And that freedom for the Tamil speaking
People of the NorthEast
To determine their own destiny
Does not mean doom for the Sinhalese
But rather the advent
Of a bright new horizon
Of hope and glory
Of progress and dynamism
For they would be free
Free from the shackles
Of enmity and intolerance
Of those who spread hate
And those who cannot lead
What’s required
Are statesmen
Of the highest caliber
And of spiritual wisdom
Who are willing and able
Without procrastination
To accept the offer
Of peace and friendship
By Leader Velupillai Pirapaharan
Based on equality of status
And self determination
For both the Tamil speaking people
And the Sinhalese people
Muslim Christian Hindu and Buddhist
Free at last the people would be
Free to pursue their dreams in peace
Free to realize their full potential
Free truly to determine their destiny
And reap the rewards of freedom for all
With dignity and mutual respect
And you Sir shall become
The true emancipator of the people
And be honored as a hero
For your daring and foresight

Usha Sriskandarajah, Canada, 23 May 2006