Shenali D Waduge

Desperate times calls for desperate measures. Departing US envoy obviously wants to depart with a bang & she decided to summon the Office of Missing Persons Head to her office & asked him to get cracking about a grave site in Kokkuthudai, Kokilai area of Mullaitivu District. While it’s a piece of cake to galvanize the media quartet, drum the war crimes” genocide” and spice up a bit of drama, facts are pretty hard to turn to fiction. But, we must give credit for trying. Readers have 2 choices, they can believe the bogus narrative. This no doubt would be the coterie of people who seek to politically & economically gain by telling lies. The more sensible approach is to look at the facts, analyse and make a more rational & sensible conclusion. Let us take the 2^nd option.

In June 2023 in order to facilitate drinking water for people in the Kokilai area, female skeletons were discovered when digging to put the pipeline. For people who had been biting their nails to show some kind of evidence to justify genocide” it was like winning the lottery. So naturally, their spin doctors got to work.

Let’s move to the facts. There were 16 skeletons. The female skeletons were clothed in LTTE uniforms. Cyanide capsules hung over their necks & dog tags as well. The cyanide capsule was a trademark LTTE feature with specific orders for LTTE to consume before capture. It was a form of suicide taught during training. Anyone in doubt, may like to pay a visit to Adele B living in UK & obtain from her how she trained little children to kill as well as commit suicide by biting the cyanide capsule before capture.

This is where the story gets disappointing for those praying for the skeletons to be from 2009. Sorry to disappoint but as per the dog tag of one of the skeletons, the number 1333 belonging to one Madiwadni from the LTTE’s Weli Oya Force who was operating from one of the 4 camps in Kokkuthudai under leadership of LTTE’s Balraj & Swarnam. She had died during hostilities between the LTTE & Sri Lanka Army in 1995. LTTE had released a list of 150 LTTE dead in which her name was included. Oh dear! Well that about nails the coffin! However, to save face, to keep the charade going & to ensure more funds are solicited from overseas the drama has to be kept going & thus the envoy summoning the OMP head.

Disappointing as it may to those drumming war crimes & genocide allegations, the skeletons are from a period between 1994-1996 & definitely not 2009. Oh well, kudos for trying.

Its about time those who made up the stories of 40,000 killed” substantiate their allegations with evidence. With no names of the supposed to be killed, with no skeletons of those supposed to have been killed in 2009, with no mass graves that dumped those supposed to have been killed 40,000 people – can someone tell us on what grounds Sri Lanka’s Armed Forces are being accused of war crimes & genocide? Its about time those making the allegations tender their apologies to the national army for tarnishing their good name.

Why are those who call the Sri Lanka Armed Forces war criminals not using war crimes & genocide against the LTTE. Doesn’t the killing of 600 policemen constitute genocide? These dead have IDs, they have names & there is proof unlike the 40,000 supposed to be killed with some figures even going up to 200,000. This shows the level of exaggeration.

Its 2024, 15 years has passed since May 2009 & we are still waiting for the graves, the names & the skeletons. So when some skeletons emerge in 2023 to put a water pipe, it must have been eureka moment for the lying machine & no doubt the US envoy should feel embarrassed too for trying to make a last minute effort to gain publicity before departure. However, the skeletons are of LTTE and not Tamil civilians and the dead were those buried in 1996 and not 2009.

When you tell a lie, you have to follow it up with another lie & then another & another, eventually you end up living a lie & unable to identify fact from fiction. Alas, this is the issue facing all those who began the 40,000 killed story and passed the baton and now they have to keep passing the baton & continuing the lies. The beauty of this is that with each year their lies become exposed & people begin to see through the lies.

Let us wait patiently. Nevertheless, we cannot have the image of our armed forces unfairly ridiculed internationally & called all sorts of humiliating names & even denied visa to travel without any evidence of any crime. This is bullying at its best. It is time this vile international bullying stop.

When even the US satellite images failed to come up with mass graves except 3 which were also LTTE grave sites, where are those freaking graves & skeletons to prove 40,000 were killed?

Shenali D Waduge