ASOKA WEERASINGHE

Kings Grove Crescent . Ottawa . Ontario . K1J 6G1

Hon. Helena Jaczek , Liberal MP for Markham-Stouffville, Ontario
Hon, Paul Chiang, Liberal MP for Markham -Unionville,Ontario
Cc. Hon. Mona Fortier, Liberal MP for Ottawa-Vanier
Members of Canadian Parliament
Ottawa, On.

30 July 2024

Dear Honourable Members of Parliament, Jaczek, Chiang and Fortier:

Re:  Liberal Party’s Muddled Sri Lankan Pro-Tamil Tiger Policies since July 1983:                             A Critical Study Essay for your Edification

It was October 16, 1970, when I landed at the old Ottawa airport around 4 o’clock in the evening. The sky was filled with droning army helicopters as if it was a scene  from a Permian sky filled with humongous dragonflies from almost 300 million years ago.  Wasn’t sure of this welcoming scene and that I was such a visible-minority VIP. It was confusing.

 I was arriving from London, England, to take up the job as  Head of Thematic Research Section of the newly formed Design and Display Division of Canada’s Museums Corporation, to work in creating 15 brand new exhibition Halls at the Victoria Memorial Museum , on Argyle Street in Ottawa.  That included the Dinosaur Hall (Life Through the Ages) and Children of the Raven of the West Coast Haida culture, my two favourite Halls.

The following morning I read and heard that the army helicopter-sky was in response to the  invoking of the War Measures Act to nip in the bud of the FLQ separatist terrorist movement in the Province of Quebec. Every Street corner in Ottawa  had a soldier in army fatigues and Jackboots, carrying a Kalashnikov rifle, on the ready to shoot with a finger on the trigger.

Please Note, we Canadians,  who act like a country of  Goody-two shoes, admonishing the Sri Lankan Governments for going after the Tamil Tiger terrorists who perfected the assassinating suicide body-pack and took down two heads of Governments, Rajiv Gandhi of India and President Premadasa of Sri Lanka, invoked the draconian War Measures Act to deal with FLQ terrorists who had an armoury of a grand total of 33 firearms, and 21 other offensive weapons Including 3 smoke grenades, 9 hand- knives and 1 sabre. Sri Lanka’s ceremonial army had to deal with thousands of India’s Indira Gandhi’s Army trained Tamil Tiger terrorists with an armoury of thousands of M-16s,  AK-47s, rocket launches, land mines, hand grenades, SAMs and  millions of live rifle bullets.

That is how smug yours and my Canada is.  A down-right Lilly-white Western Bully Parliament, who had the penchant to sing its deriding hymn for the benefit of Sri Lanka that was under pressure of Tamil Tiger terrorism …”We are Holier than Thou!”

Here is my response to one of your Smart-Alec’s  who was the MP for Markham-White Church-Stouffville – BILL ATTEWELL, (from Common Debates on TAMILS, in the Hansard of December 12, 1991, page 6203).

Mr. Speaker, there is still an urgent need to halt the killing of Tamils in Sri Lanka…..

The Amnesty International Report stated: Many people have been arbitrarily rounded up, and sometimes killed, on the basis of anonymous accusations of subversive  involvement”.

….We must organize a United Nations sponsored commission to investigate the killing and to bring an end to the violence and tragic abuse of human rights….

Also the Tamils in the northern province, especially the Jaffna District, are in dire need of food and medical supplies. People are starving to death.  Mr. Speaker, we must offer our assistance.”

Dear Helena, Paul and Mona, I resented that statement by your Colleague MP BILL ATTEWELL.  This guy XILL ATXXWELL to me was ILL and not WELL in his head.,

His arrogant-bombast shows that he was a Know Nothing” MP about the TAMILS in Sri Lanka, who were the Privileged minority  (12.6%) compared to the Wronged majority (74% Sinhalese.) for 131-years of British Colonial rule.

Read my response of 33-years ago which seems  more valid today with the Canadian-charge of Tamil-genocide of today than in 1991, under your leader  Prime Minister Justine Trudeau who uses his Bull-horn to tell the world with his charge that when the whole intelligent- world including the UN says that Tamil Genocide never happened.

Believe me, it will help you in your learning curve about the Tamil separatist movement in Sri Lanka, who you Liberals let them collect $2 million dollars a month  for 13 long Chretian-Martin Liberal years to stuff the Tamil warchest to buy sophisticated war weapons to kill my innocent Sinhalese people (I am a Sinhalese and a Buddhist).

_____________________________

HERE’S MY RESPONSE

2066 Kings Grove Crescent
Gloucester, Ontario
K1J 6G1

1 January 1992

Mr. William Attewell, MP
(Markham-Whitechurch-Stouffville)
House of Commons
Ottawa
K1N 0A6

Dear Mr. Attewell:

It was with astonishment that we watched you on television on 12th December expressing a righteous, passionate plea for Sri Lankan Tamils and deriding the Government of Sri Lanka for its alleged human rights violations.

Perhaps it had not occurred to you that you were speaking of an island- country whose over 2,500 year old culture is steeped in the tenets of non-violence, and of a people who respect not only humans but all forms of life.  Many of them refuse to adopt lucrative employment in aquaculture, poultry farming or rearing of animals for meat, preferring poverty to the sacrifice of their religious belief of not harming any form of life.

You may wonder how violence and brutality can survive among such people.  Could it be the circumstances in which they are placed?  It is for concerned international voices like yours to understand these circumstances prior to making public statements on Sri Lanka’s ethnic issue.

Over the past decade the Government and people of Sri Lanka have been grappling with violence, terror, and sabotage by Tamil terrorist groups fighting for a separate State Eelam.  Wars have never been squeaky clean confrontations to satisfy the human rights lobby, consequently human rights concerns are bound to arise.

It was unfortunate that you singled out the Tamils in your plea when two other ethnic communities in Sri Lanka, the Sinhalese and Muslims are equally, if not more so, affected by Tamil terrorism in the North and the East of the island.   A letter from Project  Peace” (copy enclosed) to the Whig-Standard of 25 October 1991, chronicles some atrocities by the Tamil terrorists directed towards the Muslim community.

The issue of human rights in Sri Lanka cannot be considered in isolation.  Factors such as political, economic and social imperatives have to be taken into account.

Furthermore, the vulnerability of Sri Lanka to external pressures, such as South Indian politics must also be given weight in the assessment of the human rights record. It is too simplistic in terms of international politics is to attack a soft target based on an Amnesty International Report.

We agree that AI has a critical role in the world in raising the world’s  consciousness about human rights abuses,but we should be aware of its shortcomings.  We think that it is unfair, as AI does, to focus almost entirely on the abuses by governments.  So called liberation” organizations of today, such as the Tigers” in Sri Lanka and the 

Shining Path” in Peru, commits ghastly human rights violations that AI barely talks about.  Condemnation of the government and whimpering about the ‘Tiger” leads to an understandable suspicion in Sri Lanka that AI is somehow biased..   It also angers us that Sri Lanka” is often whipped up by AI as a fundraising ploy.

In Sri Lanka, for the most part, the cause of human rights has fallen into the hands of the wrong people.  They parade it as a pseudo-religion, or as a cult of modern knights in shining armour, or, more often than not, as a cover for a shady political group.

Some Sri Lankan NGOs indeed use the cloak of ‘human rights protectors’ to gain respectability and funding from well-meaning donors abroad. Some have even set up Human rights fronts as a ploy to plug partisan politics.  Of course, not all human rights Activists fall into these categories as there are some genuine workers who have the intellectual honesty to assess situations and give guidance,  It is for you to sift through this maze of human rights lobbyists so that you will not be used by the wrong group to their advantage,  Unfortunately, Sir, you seem to have been taken in by some partisan lobbyists.

The West is very good at condemning others for transgressions of one kind or the other, but is certainly not squeaky clean itself.  

The treatment of natives during the confrontation at Oka, Quebec, and the treatment in Canada of natives generally, is hardly something that Canadians can boast about.   

At Oka, and  during the October Crisis of 1970, extraordinary measures had to be taken to meet an extraordinary situation.  That’s the point. 

 In Sri Lanka a democratically elected government is attempting to cope as best it can with violence and brutality by anti-democratic opponents.   We  pontificate from peaceful Canada –but how dare we?!  Human Rights are not necessarily the first order of business when confronted with Kalashnikovs.

Although Sri Lankan society has been taken to its foundations  by the terrorism of Tamil separatists and the nihilism of Sinhalese JVP extremists, it  is doing its best to preserve the deep-seated traditions of an orderly society and an  independent judiciary.   The report you read from Amnesty International will say nothing about such things.

If AI’s report has not provided you with the facts about the many democratic mechanisms that have been put in place by the Sri Lankan Government to deal with the alleged disappearances”, abuse of fundamental rights”, excesses by security personnel when fighting Tamil terrorism to instill law an order”, human rights violations’, 

etc., then your political analysts should have briefed you well for you to make a fair comment about SriLanka in the Canadian parliament.  These democratic measurers are:

• The Independent Commission of Inquiry to investigate reported cases of involuntary removal of persons.   This 5-member Commission is headed by a  retired Supreme Court judge; 

• A Human Rights Task Force chaired by a retired senior judge to maintain a comprehensive register of detainees, to ensure humane treatment, and the safe custody of persons at the point of release to establish the identity of persons reported to be missing;

• A Presidential Task Force to monitor alleged human rights violations and expedite investigations;

•  A Special Commission on Excesses headed by a retired judge of the Supreme Court to deal with the alleged excesses committed by security personnel during the act of duty;

• The Jayalath Commission on persons taken into custody on suspicion of subversive activity, and for the release of those against whom there is no evidence of such activity, and

•  Acceptance by the Sri Lanka Cabinet, in December 1991, of 28 out of

 32 recommendations made by AI in its recent report.  This is a landmark decision that surely tells us that the Sri Lanka government is making a serious effort to improve its human rights record despite the horrific pressures from the Tigers”.   Have you heard from the Tigers”?

 You in your plea also said that – the Tamils in the Northern Province especially in the Jaffna District are in dire need of food and medical supplies.  And people are starving to death.”

This comment of yours is typical of Canada’s hypocritical-piety.

Do you not recall that food and medicines were blocked from going into the detoxification center at Oka, in an effort to force the Mohawk Warriors to surrender in the Summer of 1990?  It is a perfectly legitimate technique” said Justice Minister Kim Campbell.  How easily the political leaders of Canada, who endlessly mouth the great quotations of democracy and human rights, can forget all that stuff in the face of a serious test.  Let us not forget that Sri Lanka is facing a civil war where a group of Tamil terrorists, trained, fed, paid, and armed by India are challenging the right to govern by an elected parliament.

Your political analysts failed you again with respect to food.  The Sri Lankan Government has been very conscious of this responsibility and, with the help of the ICRC, has been transporting around 8,000 to 10,000 tons of essential foods and medicines monthly by sea in chartered ships to the Jaffna peninsula and the Eastern Province.  There are also 726 welfare centres to deal with the situation.

These factual information items prove positive that, as I told you earlier, You are a Know Nothing Canadial MP on Sri Lanka.  And you have no legitimate right to pontificate about Sri Lanka in Our Canadian parliament.

Since October,  following the onset of the north-east monsoon, the Commissioner-General of Essential Services chartered six ships to ferry food and other essentials to the war stricken areas.   

You may be interested to know that since October 20, 1991, 14,707 metric tonnes of food have been sent to Jaffna peninsula.  This supply includes 4,750 mt of rice, 7,485 mt of flour, 990 mt of sugar, 1,352 mt of pulses, 105 mt of milk foods, and 25 mt of assorted items. Besides these foods 4,300 mt of fertilizer and 39 mt of kerosene have also been sent.

This certainly questions your arrogant bombast  in Our Canadian Parliament, the veracity of your passionate plea, Also the Tamils in the northern province, especially the Jaffna district, are in dire need of food and medical supplies.  People are starving to death.  Mr. Speaker, we must offer our assistance”.  Mr. Attewell, all that doesn’t say much for the truth-seeking- smartness of you Canadian parliamentarians who are sucking up to the Tamils to plead for their votes!

I have difficulty trusting your honesty when you said, Mr.Speaker, we must offer our assistance.”  If that is indeed your conscious plea, then let us as honest Canadians be courageous enough to understand the cosmic laws of Cause and Effect”, as it applies to Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict.

Although the Cause” of the ethnic conflict is multi-dimensional, poverty, hunger and lack of employment opportunities surface dominantly in the social and political conflicts on this island nation.

If your intention is to assert your plea in the Canadian Parliament, then it would be an act of humane advocacy for you to recognize and uphold Food as a Human Right” and help Sri Lanka with aid for its development to fight poverty and hunger and provide employment to the unemployed.  These Factors have been identified as part of the reason for the ethnic conflict.

Where countries have affirmed their commitment to democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, their ”development:” in countries like Sri Lanka should not be tied to human rights.  As Minister Babara McDougall said, :”aid cannot be turned on and off like a light switch”. This would be a regressive, clumsy way to punish unfairly a country which is trying hard to function as a true democracy.

Democratic Sri Lanka is fighting a conventional war against foreign-trained Tamil terrorists who support the power of the bullet over the ballot to claim their racist,  mono-ethnic, separate Tamil State Eelam.

Canadian know, or ought to know, how difficult the job of government is in a multi-ethnic democracy.  We have the advantage of relative peace in Canada, and responsible neighbours who do not fuel armed conflict.  It is surely irresponsible to pontificate about conflicts in faraway places like Sri Lanka which is 8,524 miles away from us, jeopardising desperately needed developmental programmes and darkening reputations, without knowing all the facts. Would you not agree  with me how wrong you were – a Knowing Nothing about Sri Lanka, Canadian politician who had the audacity to pontificate about that democratic island nation!

Yours sincerely,

 Sgd. Asoka Weerasinghe (Mr.)

cc. Hon.John Fraser, M.P., P.C., Speaker, House of Commons, Canada

     Mr. Walter McLean, M.P.,Chairman Human Rights Committee, House

        of Commons, Canada

     Ms. Beryl Gaffney, M.P.,Liberal Party  Human Rights Critic

     Mr. Sven Robinsion, M.P., NDP, Human Rights Critic

     Hon. Monique Landry, M.P.,Minister for International Development

     H.E. Ranasinghe Premadasa, President of SriLanka