rapa
06-19-2007, 10:24 AM
By Janaka Perera
The Associated Press on Friday reported that the Head of Sri Lanka's Catholic Church Bishop Oswald Gomis and the Ven. Dr. Bellanwila Wimalarathana had demanded that the government should accept ``total responsibility'' for worsening crisis. We do not know why the Ven Dr. Wimalarathana had to get involved in this protest. Perhaps he mistakenly assumed that it would help to prevent global `peaceniks' from branding Sinhala bhikkus as racists as it had happened since the outbreak of LTTE terrorism.
Although the majority of those abducted in and sometimes killed are Tamils no one has established clearly who or which group is behind these abductions. Why only accuse the government security forces or the police when there are several armed Tamil groups – the LTTE, Karuna Group and a breakaway faction of the Karuna group operating in Colombo and its suburbs? In addition are the underworld gangs that abduct people for ransom.
Many people are perhaps wondering why no `human rights' campaigners or their foreign backers or the church expressed such ``concern'' with exactly the same agitated tone over the massacre of Sinhalas during the Southern insurgency of 1988-89. We know that killings were committed by both sides, although the government's atrocities quickly surpassed those of the rebels. But neither a religious body here nor a foreign government openly insisted that the government should take full responsibility for the killings.
Of course if someone did so he/she would have been bumped off quickly and no foreign government would have condemned the then UNP regime, unlike the way the Rajapaksa administration is vilified today.
Let us now unravel this mystery or rather hypocrisy.
Before the arrival of the Indian Peace Keeping Forces, the Sri Lankan soldiers were internationally vilified as monsters in uniform and branded as killers of Tamils, while the LTTE atrocities virtually went unnoticed in the foreign media. Even if they were reported the crimes were seldom or never attributed to the Tigers. Attempts were made to give the impression that the bestial acts were committed by some mysterious `third parties' or rivals of the LTTE.
With the arrival of Indian troops things changed to some extent though not in Sri Lanka 's favour. The vociferous HR campaigners who castigated the Sri Lankan Army became virtually silent although many Tamil civilians died during the IPKF operations in the North. The only critics were the LTTE for its own objectives which included deceiving President Premadasa into supporting them against the IPKF.
As far as the Catholic Church (except for a few patriotic Sinhala clergymen) is concerned it has an agenda of its own. As we are fully aware in the North and East it is the church rather than Hindu priests that has been a vigorous supporter of Tiger separatism. So expressing serious concern over the killings of Sinhalas (most of whom are Buddhists) in the South does not serve church objectives in the same way it does when expressing concern over Tamil victims. The latter is always more important to the so-called international community and foreign Christian organizations than Sinhala Buddhists, who hardly have any voice abroad.
In fact even India's different communities the members of which periodically die in ethnic, caste and religious violence are virtual non-entities, compared to Sri Lankan Tamils. The latter have a much bigger global political clout than even Tamil Nadu Tamils. LTTE sympathizers have been so successful in their propaganda that some gullible Westerners think that the traditional Tamil homeland is in Sri Lanka and not in Tamil Nadu!
What better proof it than the AP's hackneyed paragraph at the bottom of virtually every news story on Sri Lanka: ``The Tamil Tigers began fighting in 1983 for a separate homeland in the north and east for the country's ethnic minority Tamils, citing decades of discrimination by successive Sinhalese-majority governments.''
Where on earth that a single nation has two homelands? Any foreigner has only to visit Sri Lanka's North East and Tamil Nadu to realize which of the two is the Tamils' real native land.
As far as Sri Lankan Muslims are concerned they at least have the backing of the Islamic world. But what is there to gain by being worried over the plight of Sinhalas – even if they die by the hundred daily in LTTE bomb blasts or attacks on so-called border villages? Where human rights are concerned they are no more important than the Iraqi civilians who get killed like dogs in Western-occupied Iraq.
During Sri Lanka's two Southern insurgencies, no NGO or foreign power urged the then governments to stop fighting the JVP, come to the negotiating table and conclude ceasefire agreements. There were no calls for foreign peace facilitators and ceasefire monitors. No one urged peace talks in Colombo, Thimpu, Geneva or elsewhere. Instead in 1971, India even sent warships and an Army (Gurkha) unit to help the Sirima Bandaranaike Government if the need arose.
So it was only a matter of time before the Sri Lankan State crushed the two Southern insurgencies. Few foreign governments (if any) or organizations raised a hue and cry over the horrifying human rights violations that occurred in the process, especially in 1988-89. Then it was mostly local rights groups and individuals that took up the issue. Among them was Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Contrast this with the endless allegations of human rights violations made against the State every time it uses military force against the LTTE from the very beginning of the separatist campaign.
Why this duplicity? The answer is that in contrast to the `insignificant' Sinhalas the Tamils are a convenient political tool for the dubious international `peace' makers to impose their will on a small nation like Sri Lanka. The covert military assistance and training that India gave the LTTE to become the world's most dreaded terrorist organization is the best example. Delhi had no other reason to intervene and prevent the Sri Lankan Army from giving a military solution to the LTTE terrorist problem at Vadamarachchi in 1987 when the Tigers were mere cubs.
However when Sri Lanka twice found military solutions to the Southern rebellions in the short term, the world was least concerned since the insurgents and their sympathizers were mainly Sinhalas who mattered little to the big powers. It is only when the rebels are Tamil Tigers that the call for military solutions perturb the global do-gooders.
The Associated Press on Friday reported that the Head of Sri Lanka's Catholic Church Bishop Oswald Gomis and the Ven. Dr. Bellanwila Wimalarathana had demanded that the government should accept ``total responsibility'' for worsening crisis. We do not know why the Ven Dr. Wimalarathana had to get involved in this protest. Perhaps he mistakenly assumed that it would help to prevent global `peaceniks' from branding Sinhala bhikkus as racists as it had happened since the outbreak of LTTE terrorism.
Although the majority of those abducted in and sometimes killed are Tamils no one has established clearly who or which group is behind these abductions. Why only accuse the government security forces or the police when there are several armed Tamil groups – the LTTE, Karuna Group and a breakaway faction of the Karuna group operating in Colombo and its suburbs? In addition are the underworld gangs that abduct people for ransom.
Many people are perhaps wondering why no `human rights' campaigners or their foreign backers or the church expressed such ``concern'' with exactly the same agitated tone over the massacre of Sinhalas during the Southern insurgency of 1988-89. We know that killings were committed by both sides, although the government's atrocities quickly surpassed those of the rebels. But neither a religious body here nor a foreign government openly insisted that the government should take full responsibility for the killings.
Of course if someone did so he/she would have been bumped off quickly and no foreign government would have condemned the then UNP regime, unlike the way the Rajapaksa administration is vilified today.
Let us now unravel this mystery or rather hypocrisy.
Before the arrival of the Indian Peace Keeping Forces, the Sri Lankan soldiers were internationally vilified as monsters in uniform and branded as killers of Tamils, while the LTTE atrocities virtually went unnoticed in the foreign media. Even if they were reported the crimes were seldom or never attributed to the Tigers. Attempts were made to give the impression that the bestial acts were committed by some mysterious `third parties' or rivals of the LTTE.
With the arrival of Indian troops things changed to some extent though not in Sri Lanka 's favour. The vociferous HR campaigners who castigated the Sri Lankan Army became virtually silent although many Tamil civilians died during the IPKF operations in the North. The only critics were the LTTE for its own objectives which included deceiving President Premadasa into supporting them against the IPKF.
As far as the Catholic Church (except for a few patriotic Sinhala clergymen) is concerned it has an agenda of its own. As we are fully aware in the North and East it is the church rather than Hindu priests that has been a vigorous supporter of Tiger separatism. So expressing serious concern over the killings of Sinhalas (most of whom are Buddhists) in the South does not serve church objectives in the same way it does when expressing concern over Tamil victims. The latter is always more important to the so-called international community and foreign Christian organizations than Sinhala Buddhists, who hardly have any voice abroad.
In fact even India's different communities the members of which periodically die in ethnic, caste and religious violence are virtual non-entities, compared to Sri Lankan Tamils. The latter have a much bigger global political clout than even Tamil Nadu Tamils. LTTE sympathizers have been so successful in their propaganda that some gullible Westerners think that the traditional Tamil homeland is in Sri Lanka and not in Tamil Nadu!
What better proof it than the AP's hackneyed paragraph at the bottom of virtually every news story on Sri Lanka: ``The Tamil Tigers began fighting in 1983 for a separate homeland in the north and east for the country's ethnic minority Tamils, citing decades of discrimination by successive Sinhalese-majority governments.''
Where on earth that a single nation has two homelands? Any foreigner has only to visit Sri Lanka's North East and Tamil Nadu to realize which of the two is the Tamils' real native land.
As far as Sri Lankan Muslims are concerned they at least have the backing of the Islamic world. But what is there to gain by being worried over the plight of Sinhalas – even if they die by the hundred daily in LTTE bomb blasts or attacks on so-called border villages? Where human rights are concerned they are no more important than the Iraqi civilians who get killed like dogs in Western-occupied Iraq.
During Sri Lanka's two Southern insurgencies, no NGO or foreign power urged the then governments to stop fighting the JVP, come to the negotiating table and conclude ceasefire agreements. There were no calls for foreign peace facilitators and ceasefire monitors. No one urged peace talks in Colombo, Thimpu, Geneva or elsewhere. Instead in 1971, India even sent warships and an Army (Gurkha) unit to help the Sirima Bandaranaike Government if the need arose.
So it was only a matter of time before the Sri Lankan State crushed the two Southern insurgencies. Few foreign governments (if any) or organizations raised a hue and cry over the horrifying human rights violations that occurred in the process, especially in 1988-89. Then it was mostly local rights groups and individuals that took up the issue. Among them was Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Contrast this with the endless allegations of human rights violations made against the State every time it uses military force against the LTTE from the very beginning of the separatist campaign.
Why this duplicity? The answer is that in contrast to the `insignificant' Sinhalas the Tamils are a convenient political tool for the dubious international `peace' makers to impose their will on a small nation like Sri Lanka. The covert military assistance and training that India gave the LTTE to become the world's most dreaded terrorist organization is the best example. Delhi had no other reason to intervene and prevent the Sri Lankan Army from giving a military solution to the LTTE terrorist problem at Vadamarachchi in 1987 when the Tigers were mere cubs.
However when Sri Lanka twice found military solutions to the Southern rebellions in the short term, the world was least concerned since the insurgents and their sympathizers were mainly Sinhalas who mattered little to the big powers. It is only when the rebels are Tamil Tigers that the call for military solutions perturb the global do-gooders.