A word of caution about Tamil translators
Posted on August 25th, 2010
Asoka Weerasinghe Kings Grove Crescent . Gloucester . Ontario .ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Canada
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ 25 August 2010
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The Editor (Letters)
THE OTTAWA CITIZEN
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Sir:
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Here is a true story that Martin Collacott and Peter Showler should make note of. ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ I would be concerned and be cautiousƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ of the Tamil translators who are helping the 492 illegal Tamil migrants who surfaced on the shores of British Columbia.
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In the mid-80s when the Tamils were harass and charging the Sri Lanka High Commissioner Bull Weeratunga saying that he was “torturer” as he was a Commander of the Army in Jaffna during the late 70s when theTamil Tigers started killing the Sinhalese and chasing themƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ out ofƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ the Jaffna peninsula.
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An Ottawa TV station flew in Pararajasekaram (Baby Para) from Paris as a witnessƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ of these chargers.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ At a press conference chaired by the Tamil Roman Catholic priest Philip Ratnapala ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ which was at 10:00 one Monday morningƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ at the Holiday Inn on Queen Street which I attended, I walked out ofƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ the room in disgust after about 40 minutes as I felt that the translators were manipulating the Tamil story so that the news reporters really heard the story that the Tamil organization was concocting for them to hear to prove their charge against High Commissioner Bull Weeratunga.
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On the Wednesday I met a reporter from the Canadian Press at his requestƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ for lunch at a Japanese Restaurant on Kent Street in Ottawa to discuss the Bull Weeratunga affair, ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ During the conversation I asked him, ” Did youƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ guys ever figure out why the translator translatedƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ a two sentence question by a reporter which was answered by BabyƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ParaƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ in three or four Tamil sentences, with about 20 to 25 EnglishƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ sentences in the translation for your ears?
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Here is the response that I got from the Canadian Press reporter. “Funny you mentioned that, after the Press conference in Ottawa, Baby Para had a press conference in Toronto that evening..ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ We sent our most senior reporter to cover this press conference.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ We got a call from our reporter from Toronto saying that let’s forget this press conference as I found out that the Tamil translator did not speak a single word of Tamil.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ If necessary, I can mention the name of the reporter that I had lunch with to check the veracity ofƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ this story.
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Let’s be vigilant of theseƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ scam artists who are jumping the queue to get into Canada as refugees, and of courseƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ as to what has been translated by the translators.
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Asoka Weerasinghe
August 25th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
Thanks Asoka. Good story.
August 27th, 2010 at 6:20 am
Is it our friends again? Tamils will never say we had enough from Sinhalese. What do we do? Nothing. They can go to Canada !!