No Surrender to Fear
Posted on April 17th, 2013
Asoka Weerasinghe Kings Grove Crescent . Gloucester . Ontario . K1J 6G1 Canada
17 April 2013
The Editor
THE OTTAWA CITIZEN
Sir:
You editorial ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”No Surrender to FearƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢ was spot on.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ But defeating terrorism has its down side.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚
The self-appointed Human Rights Police like Amnesty International and Human RightsWatch will be lurking around the corner to haul thoseƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ who defeat terrorism in front of International War Crimes Courts.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ This is exactly what is happening to Sri Lanka.
For defeating the Tamil Tiger terrorists, the most ruthless in the world single handed, who were trained by India in 32 military camps in South India and at the foothills of the Himalayas, who haemorrhaged that island for 27 years, andƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ killed two heads of state, Rajiv Gandhi of Indian and President Premadasa of Sri Lanka among over 100,000 innocent civilians are now being harangued at every International Forum forƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ human rights violations during the last five months of the war whichƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ eliminated the Tamil Tigers.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Such is the world order today when the might thinks they are right, which also includes Stephen HarperƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s Canada.
When Sri LankaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s Minister of Highways and Road Development, JohnƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Fernandopulle who was assassinated with 12 others on April 6, 2008, when the Tamil Tigers exploded a claymore mine when he was about to flag off Sri LankaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s marathon at Gampaha there wasnƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢t a world wide denouncing of terrorism as we see of the terrorist attack at theƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Boston marathon.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Among the dead wasƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ the national and South Asian Gold medalist marathoner, K.A. Karunarathne.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ That incident may have taken a three inch space in your paper as an international news item.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ But today the Boston marathon terrorist attack has taken almost three pages in the Ottawa Citizen.
Such is the media value of a terrorist attack on our neighbour , and that of a remote island Sri Lanka.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ I wish to share thisƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ observationƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ with all your readers.
Asoka Weerasinghe
April 17th, 2013 at 2:31 pm
Asoka, do the Canadian papers publish any of your letters concerning Sri Lanka? In the western country I spend a lot of time, they very rarely publish such letters, and again only after significantly altering them. These sorts of things got me disillusioned about freedom of expression in the West.
April 19th, 2013 at 5:03 pm
asoka weerasinghe Says:
Voice 123, yes, I have. Had at least 200, if not a few more published in Canadian papers since August 11, 1983 in The Ottawa Citizen. The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, Ottawa Sun, Embassy (Ottawa), The Windsor Star (Windsor, Ontario), The Province (Vancouver, B.C.), The Evening Telegram (St.John’s, Newfoundland), The Whig-Standard (Kingston, Ontario), The Gazette (Montreal), Lanka News (Toronto), Surrey/Delta Reader (B.C.), Star India (Toronto), McLean’s (Toronto), and National Post (Toronto). It is also interesting to note that interested Canadians have lobbied the Editor of Letters at The Ottawa Citizen to publish my letters as they want to know the flip side of the Eelam issue. I suppose I have been some what lucky.
April 20th, 2013 at 12:34 am
Excellent work. I suggest you guys team up with expatriates in Australia and blitz the Australian papers. I am told that have had letters published but my observation, particularly the Melbourne Age is they mostly publish pro Tamil separatist or anti- GOSL letters and articles. If any Aussie so much as questions the genuineness of assylum seekers, people like Rhiannon Lee of the Greens Party start howling about “racism”, “genocide in Sri Lanka” etc and that emotional hype is enough to intimidate/silence any Australians interested in hearing both sides of the story.