Nimal #2 (9 Apr. 2007)

What to do? Once the violent project ceases to be many will be irrelevant and redundant (jobless). Both sides will have to keep it going by fanning flames of discontent and racist jibes. Dejure or defacto. Failed state or failed this, that and the other, as long the project is on the road, there will be professional noise makers on both sides. They will be the stars of the show, peanut monkeys of the project. To do what? filibuster and stop questioing. Not allow others to think and make up their minds.

[This post was modified by the Editor]

Dr C P Thiagarajah (11 Apr. 2007)

I wish to comment on the story "Sri Lanka: Endless War" by Simon Robinson, TIME, April 5, 2007 as the author is not taking seriously the suffering of the Tamils citizens in Tamil's homelands at the hands of a Sinhala regime. The government is looking after the Sinhalese areas only and kill many poor Tamils in the N&E who cannot afford to migrate to Sinhala areas and live in borrowed/paid for safety. Wealthy Tamils in settled in Colombo have to pay millions as ransom to government security forces or their touts to live protected. These expatriates from Tamil Eelam are living dead. They have lost all zest in life and they have lost their self-respect. They praise the Sinhala rulers and pay obedience to them by their submission, speech, writing and all mannerism. They are yes men only. If they try to be too open and smart they will be bumped of like Tamil parliamentarian Mr Raviraj and many others.

Why did the author not mention the disproportionate firepower used by the Sri-Lankan forces against its Tamil citizens. Why disturb the life and livelihood of the entire Tamil population if they want to kill the Tigers. This is real pogrom and genocide. If security forces have lost the power and courage to go into the Tamil villages to apprehend the Tigers it shows that the Tamil too are anti-government or supporting the Tigers. The democratic way to deal with the situation is to grant self-rule to the Tamils. It is the pragmatic solution. Destroying all the Tamil villages is scorched earth policy. It is Machiavellian in character. Amnesty International had been very strong on this genocidal approach and Ms Karen Parker the international human rights lawyer/worker is very worried of the IC's silence.

Journalist like Simon Robinson must be forthright in describing the real situation in Sri-Lanka rather than writing stories that will not bring any benefit to the downtrodden Tamils. He should take instruction from senior journalist like Mr Gilligan of the UK Evening Standard on investigative journalism. Please read his article titled "Corruption, theft and Waste --the tsunami a year on" in the Evening Standard of 28 November 2005. Journalist must influence a society by their news and reporting and not merely write stories.

Nimal (13 Apr. 2007)

As Karen parker noted, http://www.sangam.org/2007/04/DeJure_State.php?uid=2322 , “There is no question when a statement is made about Darfur: what’s at stake, who the perpetrators are, who the victims are,” BUT not so with the situation on the island of Lanka. Those who speak about it are deliberately or otherwise vague.

Simon Robinson, of TIME, it seems is being DELIBERATELY vague in not making it clear (as Dr CP T notes) the atrocities of the GoSL and its armed forces and paramilitaries. Simon R writes of atrocities but imbeds it in such a way as to make the reader believe it is due to the LTTE.

In fact Simon R seems to desperately want the reader to take the GoSL side against the LTTE. Below are some examples of his ‘journalistic’ trickery:

SR: “Among those most hungry for war are the leaders of the L.T.T.E., a group born out of the belief that Sri Lanka's Sinhalese Buddhist majority will never treat the country's mostly Hindu Tamil minority as equals or give them the autonomy they long for.”

SR’s message: It is the LTTE that are hungry for war under the BELIEF that the Sinhalese Buddhist majority will never treat the country's mostly Hindu Tamil minority as equals.

The use of the word “belief” is tended to suggest that it could be mistaken, (as beliefs are sometimes liable to be); this together with the claim that it is the LTTE that are hungry for war makes it seem that the LTTE is paranoid and irrational, and that the GoSL are the good guys.

SR: “The violence is not chaotic, as in parts of Africa, but controlled and sadistic. It's as if the entire nation is suffering a slow-burning but destructive psychosis. "There's been a brutalization of society," says Saravanamuttu. "For centuries we have gone through these occasional paroxysms of violence, but over the last three decades we have increasingly relied on violence as the chief form of dispute settlement.”

This is immediately preceded by the sentence “The L.T.T.E., too, continues to kidnap potential young fighters.” Thus craftily implying that the destructive psychosis, non-chaotic but controlled and sadistic violence which is causing the entire nation is suffering is due to the LTTE.

And Saravanamuttu.is a Tamil name used to show that even Tamils are concerned about the ‘LTTE violence’!

Incidentally it is interesting that by trying to paint the LTTE as intentionally sadistic etc in contrast to the Africans, SR is implying that the African’s are a chaotic and mindless lot – perhaps SR is also revealing his racism here.

SR: “Even the normally peaceful agitate for war. A hard-line Sinhalese nationalist party of Buddhist monks is now part of the ruling coalition.”

The implication here is that even the “hard-line Sinhalese nationalist party of Buddhist monks” are “normally peaceful” and it is the LTTE that has made them “agitate for war”. Note that earlier SR spoke of the LTTE being hungry for war, so this is brought out again here to reinforce that for the reader. Of course SR has deliberately and dishonestly turned things upside down about who the agitators of violence and war are (and have been).

I wonder if SR sleeps well; but a lack of conscience will not interfere with sleep.