nah that's not true, this is a very particular war, everybody wants peace, just neither of them will back down....
Does anyone here support the Tamil Tigers?
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nah that's not true, this is a very particular war, everybody wants peace, just neither of them will back down....
It seems to me that its about winning and total capitulation rather than peace.
well they want to make sure it doesn't happen again. but without treating them fairly...
now where on earth could they have got that idea from?
by John Pilger http://stopwar.org.uk/content/view/1238/1/
The government of Sri Lankan government has learned a lesson from Israel:Gaza is the model
The Tamils of Sri Lanka: Distant Voices, Desperate Lives
By John Pilger...
It is only now, as the Tamils of Sri Lanka take to the streets of western cities, and the persecution of their compatriots reaches a crescendo, that we listen, though not intently enough to understand and act.
The Sri Lankan government has learned an old lesson from, I suspect, a modern master: Israel. In order to conduct a slaughter, you ensure the pornography is unseen, illicit at best. You ban foreigners and their cameras from Tamil towns like Mulliavaikal, which was bombarded recently by the Sri Lankan army, and you lie that the 75 people killed in the hospital were blown up quite wilfully by a Tamil suicide bomber. You then give reporters a ride into the jungle, providing what in the news business is called a dateline, which suggests an eyewitness account, and you encourage the gullible to disseminate only your version and its lies. Gaza is the model.
Terrorism by another name
From the same masterclass you learn to manipulate the definition of terrorism as a universal menace, thus ingratiating yourself with the “international community” (Washington) as a noble sovereign state blighted by an “insurgency” of mindless fanaticism. The truth and lessons of the past are irrelevant. And having succeeded in persuading the United States and Britain to proscribe your insurgents as terrorists, you affirm you are on the right side of history, regardless of the fact that your government has one of the world’s worst human rights records and practises terrorism by another name. Such is Sri Lanka.
This is not to suggest that those who resist attempts to obliterate them culturally if not actually are innocent in their methods. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have spilt their share of blood and perpetrated their own atrocities. But they are the product, not the cause, of an injustice and a war that long predate them. Neither is Sri Lanka’s civil strife as unfathomable as it is often presented: an ancient religious-ethnic rivalry between the Hindu Tamils and the Buddhist Sinhalese government.
Virtual slave labour
Sri Lanka as British-ruled Ceylon was subjected to a classic divide-and-rule. The British brought Tamils from India as virtual slave labour while building an educated Tamil middle class to run the colony. At independence in 1948, the new political elite, in its rush for power, cultivated ethnic support in a society whose real imperative should have been the eradication of poverty. Language became the spark. The election of a government pledging to replace English, the lingua franca, with Sinhalese was a declaration of war on the Tamils. The new law meant that Tamils almost disappeared from the civil service by 1970; and as “nationalism” seduced parties of both the left and right, discrimination and anti-Tamil riots followed.
The formation of a Tamil resistance, notably the LTTE, the Tamil Tigers, included a demand for a state in the north of the country. The response of the government was judicial killing, torture, disappearances, and more recently, the reported use of cluster bombs and chemical weapons. The Tigers responded with their own crimes, including suicide bombing and kidnapping. In 2002, a ceasefire was agreed, and was held until last year, when the government decided to finish off the Tigers. Tamil civilians were urged to flee to military-run “welfare camps”, which have become the symbol of an entire people under vicious detention, and worse, with nowhere to escape the army’s fury.
This is Gaza again, although the historical parallel is the British treatment of Boer women and children more than a century ago, who “died like flies”, as a witness wrote.
Foreign aid workers have been banned from Sri Lanka’s camps, except the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has described a catastrophe in the making. The United Nations says that 60 Tamils a day are being killed in the shelling of a government-declared “no-fire zone”.
In 2003, the Tigers proposed a devolved Interim Self-Governing Authority that included real possibilities for negotiation. Today, the government gives the impression it will use its imminent “victory” to “permanently solve” the “Tamil minority problem”, as many of its more rabid supporters threaten. The army commander says all of Sri Lanka “belongs” to the Sinhalese majority. The word “genocide” is used by Tamil expatriots, perhaps loosely; but the fear is true.
Stop the killing
India could play a critical part. The south Indian state of Tamil Nadu has a Tamil-speaking population with centuries of ties with the Tamils of Sri Lanka. In the current Indian election campaign, anger over the siege of Tamils in Sri Lanka has brought hundreds of thousands to rallies. Having initially helped to arm the Tigers, Indian governments sent “peacekeeping” troops to disarm them. Delhi now appears to be allowing the Sinhalese supremacists in Colombo to “stabilise” its troubled neighbour. In a responsible regional role, India could stop the killing and begin to broker a solution.
The great moral citadels in London and Washington offer merely silent approval of the violence and tragedy. No appeals are heard in the United Nations from them. David Miliband has called for a “ceasefire”, as he tends to do in places where British “interests” are served, such as the 14 impoverished countries racked by armed conflict where the British government licenses arms shipments. In 2005, British arms exports to Sri Lanka rose by 60 per cent. The distant voices from there should be heard, urgently.
Some articles regarding Black July and why the Tamils see this as a genocide against their minority community on the island, which began with the race riots of 1983
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_July
http://www.genocide.org.uk/genocide/
http://www.tamilsagainstgenocide.org/Default.aspx
“Smoke from hundreds of shops, offices, warehouses and homes blew idly over Colombo yesterday. Any business, any house belonging to or occupied by a Tamil has been attacked by gangs of goondas and the resulting destruction looks like London after a heavy night’s attention from the Luftwaffe. The sharp smell of destruction fills the nostrils and the roads beneath the feet crunch with broken glass. Cars and lorries lie at ungainly angles across the footways. In Pettah, the old commercial heart of the city, row after row of sari boutiques, electronic dealers, rice sellers, car parts stores, lie shattered and scarred… government officials yesterday estimated that 20,000 businesses had been attacked in the city.” – The Guardian 28 July 1983
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_July
http://www.genocide.org.uk/genocide/
http://www.tamilsagainstgenocide.org/Default.aspx
“Smoke from hundreds of shops, offices, warehouses and homes blew idly over Colombo yesterday. Any business, any house belonging to or occupied by a Tamil has been attacked by gangs of goondas and the resulting destruction looks like London after a heavy night’s attention from the Luftwaffe. The sharp smell of destruction fills the nostrils and the roads beneath the feet crunch with broken glass. Cars and lorries lie at ungainly angles across the footways. In Pettah, the old commercial heart of the city, row after row of sari boutiques, electronic dealers, rice sellers, car parts stores, lie shattered and scarred… government officials yesterday estimated that 20,000 businesses had been attacked in the city.” – The Guardian 28 July 1983
camouflage
gaslit at scale.
So, the war is over.*
Now what?
*or is it?
Now what?
*or is it?
They've got thousands of Tamils locked away in camps who are malnourished and without medicine. That has to be the first priority.
But the Sri Lankan government is a government who have consistently shelled safe-zones and hospitals (war crime), who have denied the Tamil population medical support and aid and who have prevented journalists from reporting, 50,000 are still trapped.
In a country where civilians are made to disappear and a majority population felt it was okay to burn out 20,000 businesses in riots in 1983.
The world should be massively concerned for the Tamil people of Sri Lanka.
camouflage
gaslit at scale.
Sounds like the kinda folk we'd have been selling weapons to.
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
Yes, in fact it not only far predates the foundation of LTTE - it brought it about as a response
wave upon wave of repression of, and discrimination against Tamils virtually ever since independence
camouflage
gaslit at scale.
I think the kick-off was making Ceylonese the official language of government, which at a stroke threw the english speaking Tamil minority out on their ear as far as employability goes.
Sadly, Ceylonese is only spoken in Sri Lanka, so they kinda shot themselves in the foot with that one. they'd have been better of pursuing a massive education program of the Ceylonese majority.
Sadly, Ceylonese is only spoken in Sri Lanka, so they kinda shot themselves in the foot with that one. they'd have been better of pursuing a massive education program of the Ceylonese majority.
Is it better to get to one side winning, or to have an endless ongoing conflict involving both sides killing each other forever?
The LTTE did some nasty evil stuff, but now people see them (or their poor "people" who they have chosen to involve like all losing outfits tend to - hide among your own civilians. Better one lot absolutely crush the oher eliminate the war, or both carry on sniping bombing etc for next 50 years?
Giles..
The LTTE did some nasty evil stuff, but now people see them (or their poor "people" who they have chosen to involve like all losing outfits tend to - hide among your own civilians. Better one lot absolutely crush the oher eliminate the war, or both carry on sniping bombing etc for next 50 years?
Giles..
The LTTE was a reaction to the pogroms of 1983 which saw 20,000 tamil homes and businesses razed to the ground, independent reports see this as a (government) organized attack and made the Tamil people refugees in their own land. Combine this with the racist and exclusionary laws aimed at Tamils and you can see why the tigers grew into the force they did. The pogroms are the reason this community felt their only solution was to have their own independent state within that island so they could live without fear of future repression.
Is it better that one side has won the war. In my opinion its only better if the country starts to move towards equality, and if the repression stops, this can be the only acceptable outcome from this war. However the Sinhalese government is a racist, nationalist government who have shown they are willing to flout international law in order to carry out their mandate and who have refused food and medicine to citizens of their own country. Only now, when there is no resistance will they negotiate a political settlement.
Focussing on the actions of the LTTE is completely missing the point. There is every reason to be concerned for the Tamil people currently locked up in those camps. The Tamils see the last 60 years as a wave of persecution and with a little bit of self-education on the subject, its easy to see why.
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
Glad it's finally over. But if the gov doesn't start treating the Tamils better, it'll probably start up again before long.
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
The Sinhalese majority have never been well disposed to the Tamils, there is little suggestion that their antipathy is likely to change. I have heard nothing from official Sri Lankan sources which suggests to me that there is change afoot.
How many Tamils are in senior government positions?
Don't bother holding your breath.
Surprisingly, they are saying encouraging things at least. We'll see if any action follows from it. But I'm not holding my breath.
http://www.priu.gov.lk/news_update/Current_Affairs/ca200905/20090519terrorism_defeated.htm
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Not sure i'd call this particularly encouraging - esp in the light of continued economic attacks across all communities:
edit: nor this - treat a people like defeated army and you're only going to make sure that army springs up once more, even more so when the social conditiosn that led to the orignal army forming are unlikely to change:
Rajapakse said:
edit: nor this - treat a people like defeated army and you're only going to make sure that army springs up once more, even more so when the social conditiosn that led to the orignal army forming are unlikely to change:
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
Words and deeds. Given the events of the last 50 odd years, I won't be holding my breath.
dennisr
the acceptable face
“They are not just celebrating a military victory over the LTTE,” Siritunga said in a statement, “But a communalist victory over the Tamil nation. It is a humiliation of all Tamil-speaking people, including in the Hill Country, in the South and in the East.
“No Tamils are enjoying this so-called victory except the three Judases who have sided with the Rajapakse government – Thondeman of the Ceylon Workers’ Council based in the tea plantation area, Karuna (the ex-Tiger leader, now a minister) and Douglas Devananda (the Tamil politician expected to become the stooge Chief Minister of the northern ‘province’ of Sri Lanka).
“My name is being mouthed by ministers on the TV and shouted by frenzied people in the streets. I am being labelled as a “traitor”, as “unpatriotic” and even as a “coward” who should be killed. All this because we speak out against this chauvinistic, autocratic government.
“We fear for the lives of the people in the camps – many of whom will die without food, water and medical attention. Young people will be accused of LTTE sympathies and be ‘disappeared’ by the regime…In this way the Rajapakse government seeks to ‘solve’ the national question. We have been challenging him to say what his political ‘solution’ is and he stays silent. We will pursue our demand for equal rights for all Tamil-speaking people to the end.
“We will not be silenced by death threats and insults. The Sinhalese workers and poor people who are celebrating today, imagine that peace means prosperity and a better life for them. They will not only be expected to suffer more deprivation to pay for the government’s war debts and for the capitalists’ crisis, but the emergency powers of the government will be used against any who try to organise strikes and other actions.
United Socialist Party/CWI leader on death list
http://www.socialistworld.net/eng/2009/05/2301.html
Doctors assisting in the safe zone to be tried for assisting Tamil Tigers
A group of doctors who worked in Sri Lanka's rebel-held war zone are being held on suspicion of collaborating with Tamil rebels, the government says.
The doctors could be in detention for a year or more before being tried.
With journalists banned from the conflict zone, they became an important source of news about the fighting during the final bloody months of war.
There has been no word from the doctors, whose work was praised by the US and UN, since they were detained.
During the final phase of the war, the group of doctors treated wounded and ill patients admitted to the makeshift health posts in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)-held zone encircled by government forces.
Two of them were senior local health directors and the United States has said they "helped save many lives" while the UN called them "heroic".
But the BBC's Charles Haviland in Colombo says that the government was infuriated by the doctors' media interviews from the zone, in which they said some of the shelling there had come from the government side and had killed civilians.
In an interview with BBC World TV, Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohita Bogollagama accused the doctors of "spreading falsehoods". He said that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had full access to them.
Mr Bogollagama said the issue was whether the pair had been looking after civilians or whether they had been used by the rebels "for other purposes".
"What is the heroic act the doctors have done in terms of supporting the Tamil Tigers agenda?" he asked.
'Conspiracy'
In the final stages of the war the doctors made no comment on the allegations from the government that they were supporting the rebels.
Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe told the BBC they are being detained at the Criminal Investigation Department on "reasonable suspicion of collaboration with the LTTE".
"I don't know what the investigations would reveal but maybe they were even part of that whole conspiracy to put forward this notion that government forces were shelling and targeting hospitals and indiscriminately targeting civilians as a result of the shelling," he said.
The government says not a single civilian died as a result of its final offensive, despite international allegations to the contrary.
The minister says the doctors must be produced in court every month while investigations proceed pending possible charges.
He said the investigation could last up to a year, but there might be extensions to that.
A group of doctors who worked in Sri Lanka's rebel-held war zone are being held on suspicion of collaborating with Tamil rebels, the government says.
The doctors could be in detention for a year or more before being tried.
With journalists banned from the conflict zone, they became an important source of news about the fighting during the final bloody months of war.
There has been no word from the doctors, whose work was praised by the US and UN, since they were detained.
During the final phase of the war, the group of doctors treated wounded and ill patients admitted to the makeshift health posts in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)-held zone encircled by government forces.
Two of them were senior local health directors and the United States has said they "helped save many lives" while the UN called them "heroic".
But the BBC's Charles Haviland in Colombo says that the government was infuriated by the doctors' media interviews from the zone, in which they said some of the shelling there had come from the government side and had killed civilians.
In an interview with BBC World TV, Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohita Bogollagama accused the doctors of "spreading falsehoods". He said that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had full access to them.
Mr Bogollagama said the issue was whether the pair had been looking after civilians or whether they had been used by the rebels "for other purposes".
"What is the heroic act the doctors have done in terms of supporting the Tamil Tigers agenda?" he asked.
'Conspiracy'
In the final stages of the war the doctors made no comment on the allegations from the government that they were supporting the rebels.
Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe told the BBC they are being detained at the Criminal Investigation Department on "reasonable suspicion of collaboration with the LTTE".
"I don't know what the investigations would reveal but maybe they were even part of that whole conspiracy to put forward this notion that government forces were shelling and targeting hospitals and indiscriminately targeting civilians as a result of the shelling," he said.
The government says not a single civilian died as a result of its final offensive, despite international allegations to the contrary.
The minister says the doctors must be produced in court every month while investigations proceed pending possible charges.
He said the investigation could last up to a year, but there might be extensions to that.
MIA Speaks Out
http://www.ananova.com/entertainment/story/sm_3349451.html
Singer Hits Out At 'Concentration Camps'
Singer MIA has called on the EU to help hundreds of thousands of Tamils she says were put in "concentration camps" following the defeat by the Sri Lankan army.
The star, who lives in the UK but is of Tamil origin, has given her support on Twitter to Jan Jananayagam, an independent British candidate in the current European elections.
Ms Jananayagam has been been lobbying the British government to help stop the war in Sri Lanka.
The Tamil Tiger rebels were defeated last month after a conflict lasting about 30 years.
MIA, who used to live in Sri Lanka and experienced the war, told Sky News: "Three hundred thousand people have been put into concentration camps and they (the authorities)have taken all the rights away from these people.
"They have no food and access to the media and aid. No freedom of speech or freedom of press."
She said the European council has been "undecided on the issue" and she said Britain and other international governments should step in and help.
MIA, real name Mathangi Arulpragasam, said Ms Jananayagam was "the first person that I've seen in politics who can actually raise questions and be about the people."
She added: "Nothing's getting done about the people. In Sri Lanka, we've seen thousands of people getting killed in front of eyes on television and on the internet.
"If it happened anywhere else, we would be so much more active."
MIA went on: "There's still no genuine representative for the Tamil people that has stepped forward. That's why Ms Jananayagam's really important because it's about getting to hear those stories about the Tamil people which we're not.
"We're still getting stories from the Sri Lankan governent fed to us. We're not celebrating, we're not in the streets setting off firecrackers and having a great time and celebrating the end of a war.
"We still don't have answers about these people that are stuck in the barbed wire fences. They're dying of diseases. Some 60% of the population in these camps are wounded and have no medical attention."
She said Europe was divided and "we need a representative in there" to help with the civil rights of the Tamil people.
http://www.ananova.com/entertainment/story/sm_3349451.html
Singer Hits Out At 'Concentration Camps'
Singer MIA has called on the EU to help hundreds of thousands of Tamils she says were put in "concentration camps" following the defeat by the Sri Lankan army.
The star, who lives in the UK but is of Tamil origin, has given her support on Twitter to Jan Jananayagam, an independent British candidate in the current European elections.
Ms Jananayagam has been been lobbying the British government to help stop the war in Sri Lanka.
The Tamil Tiger rebels were defeated last month after a conflict lasting about 30 years.
MIA, who used to live in Sri Lanka and experienced the war, told Sky News: "Three hundred thousand people have been put into concentration camps and they (the authorities)have taken all the rights away from these people.
"They have no food and access to the media and aid. No freedom of speech or freedom of press."
She said the European council has been "undecided on the issue" and she said Britain and other international governments should step in and help.
MIA, real name Mathangi Arulpragasam, said Ms Jananayagam was "the first person that I've seen in politics who can actually raise questions and be about the people."
She added: "Nothing's getting done about the people. In Sri Lanka, we've seen thousands of people getting killed in front of eyes on television and on the internet.
"If it happened anywhere else, we would be so much more active."
MIA went on: "There's still no genuine representative for the Tamil people that has stepped forward. That's why Ms Jananayagam's really important because it's about getting to hear those stories about the Tamil people which we're not.
"We're still getting stories from the Sri Lankan governent fed to us. We're not celebrating, we're not in the streets setting off firecrackers and having a great time and celebrating the end of a war.
"We still don't have answers about these people that are stuck in the barbed wire fences. They're dying of diseases. Some 60% of the population in these camps are wounded and have no medical attention."
She said Europe was divided and "we need a representative in there" to help with the civil rights of the Tamil people.
An Attack on Workers
Rajapakse made clear the government would not tolerate opposition. “When development is undertaken there are many obstacles due to ideological differences and attitudes of vision. These lead to delay,” he said. “Ideology, political principles, issues of vision should be for the country.... It is not the [political] struggle that should go forward, but the country.”
These remarks are not directed primarily at the official opposition parties, which, in the wake of the LTTE’s defeat, have all hailed the victory of the army and the government. The comments were to put workers on notice, not to demand their rights, not to expect any improvement in their living standards and not to oppose the government’s “nation-building” plans.
Rajapakse said the government would not bow to populist pressure. “It is necessary to remember that carrying out higher education, providing electricity, doing urban development and many other matters on the basis of populist political decisions does a grave injury to the country,” he said.
Rajapakse made clear the government would not tolerate opposition. “When development is undertaken there are many obstacles due to ideological differences and attitudes of vision. These lead to delay,” he said. “Ideology, political principles, issues of vision should be for the country.... It is not the [political] struggle that should go forward, but the country.”
These remarks are not directed primarily at the official opposition parties, which, in the wake of the LTTE’s defeat, have all hailed the victory of the army and the government. The comments were to put workers on notice, not to demand their rights, not to expect any improvement in their living standards and not to oppose the government’s “nation-building” plans.
Rajapakse said the government would not bow to populist pressure. “It is necessary to remember that carrying out higher education, providing electricity, doing urban development and many other matters on the basis of populist political decisions does a grave injury to the country,” he said.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
As I recall, back before this whole thing got going, the Tamils of the north were treated very badly by the Sinhalese majority, to the point that when open hostilities got under way, there was an issue as to whether or not India would come to the aid of the Tamils, given the large Tamil population in Tamil Nadu, etc.
After years of back and forth, tit for tat atrocities etc, the whole thing becomes clouded, but at the beginning, the Tamils gave the appearance of people with their backs to the wall.
Idris2002
Stay Alive in '25
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