Courtesy: SPUR
(March 21, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) The UN Commissioner for Human Rights Ms Navanetham Pillay in one of her recent statements which is quoted below attempts to give oxygen to LTTE by bringing the long forgotten “discrimination issue”again. Quote “I hope the Government will take this opportunity to tackle the core problems that have fuelled this conflict, including discrimination and impunity,” she said Unquote.
Much is written about the discriminated victimized minority Tamils of Sri-Lanka. It is time some vital statistics are exposed. The truth is that Tamils are the most privileged minority in the World. Ever since, Sinhalese and Tamil were made two main official languages and students sat for their University entrance exams in their mother tongue. Whereas the Sinhalese examiners marked their students according to merit their Tamil counterparts gave their students maximum marks so that they had a clear advantage over their Sinhalese students when it came to places in the faculties of Medicine, Engineering, and Law etc. As a result, the ratio of Sinhalese to Tamil students in Universities did not reflect that of the General population. Also, when it comes to practicals at A Level, Sinhalese students were given faulty apparatus to do their practicals eventually resulted in more failures among the Sinhalese students. All high posts in most institutions were held by Tamils thanks to this British divide and rule policy. They established missionary schools in the North thereby giving them an edge over the public school educated Sinhalese down south. Those holding high office in government services – Income Tax, Health Dept, Education Dept, Public Service Dept, even the Estate Industry recruited Tamils far outnumbering majority Sinhalese – A clear case of apartheid against the majority. However, since the discrimination was on the majority Sinhalese and that the Tamils could not prove discrimination, then Tamil discrimination slogan became Tamil aspirations and then twisted into grievances now.
Tamil Migration
The riots of ’83 started as a result of a massacre of the SL Army by the Tamil Tiger Terrorists, was a great opportunity for Tamils to invade Western countries claiming refugee status. A SL doctor – educated in Colombo and graduating from the Colombo Medical Faculty and also captaining the SL badminton team, fell at the feet of NZ parliamentarians tearfully saying “My people are being slaughtered in Sri-Lanka, please help them”. Thousands of Tamils were given immediate refugee status in NZ. This went on in Europe, Canada, Australia, US & UK. The irony of this is that moment these refugees claiming that their lives are in danger in Sri Lanka and obtained visa, many of them took the next available flights to Sri Lanka. These so called refugees enlisted on arrival in their new adopted countries by Tamils living in those countries and were made to “donate” (a new word for extortion), a percentage of their income to the LTTE. These funds exceed millions of dollars from all parts of the world and have been used to purchase most sophisticated military weaponry, now unearthed in the Vanni by the courageous forces. Funds are also used to influence various media, politicians and bankrupt deranged people like a former Sri Lankan doctor in Brisbane and an associate professor from La Trobe Uni. These frustrated persons would have been adequately rewarded with dollars by LTTE for his outrageous vitriolic anti-Sinhalese outbursts. The BBC TV in a documentary showed murdered “Tamil” civilians in a village attacked by “SL Army”. The so called “Tamil” civilians were in fact crying and wailing in Sinhalese!! The LTTE had given the BBC one of their own videos of their massacre of a Sri-Lankan village and the BBC had no hesitation in unleashing this on unsuspecting viewers. There is no media in the world that is not infiltrated by the LTTE.
Tamils Overseas
One of the main sources of income for the LTTE is from their large fleet of drugs and arms smuggling ships – as exposed by Peter Chalk a research fellow in the US. Some of them have established contact with extremists in Tamil Nadu and are known to travel there to make donations – to keep the pressure on the Indian Central Govt. The unfortunate killing of journalist Lashantha Wickramatunga was given worldwide publicity and it was convenient to blame the SL Govt. The killing of Lakshman Kadiragamar received no such publicity. The massive spontaneous parades in the Jaffna Peninsula by thousands of Tamils celebrating the fall of Kilinochchi and the imminent fall of the self proclaimed “sole representative of the Tamils” – was not given any publicity in the international media. At the time of writing this, news is at hand that the forces have captured Mullaitivu and the “brave” tigers have abandoned first Kilinochchi and now Mullaitavu and hiding behind the hapless Tamil civilians using them as human shield.
This is a humble appeal to all peace loving Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims, Burgher and Malays to unite now to rebuild our beloved motherland and restore it back to her glory days. This is an appeal to all politicians to stop their petty politicking and rally around President Mahinda Rajapakse and Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa who have shown great leadership to enable our courageous forces to achieve what some politicians uttered as the impossible. Let us recognize the sacrifices by the brave men and women in the forces and dig deep to support the wounded and assist the families of those who paid the ultimate price. Let us also think of the Tamil and Sinhalese and Muslims displaced by the LTTE and the work involved in the re settling them, getting their children back to school and most of all learning to live without fear from the monstrous LTTE. Let the world which ignored the suffering of a small nation now come to rebuild and recover from 25 years long nightmare.
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