Dr. Chula Rajapakse MNZM FRCP(UK)FRACP( Aust/NZ) Wellington New Zealand

The about 10% Tamil minority in Sri Lanka were the privileged minority of one hundred and fifty years of the Divide and Rule” British Colonial administration, while the about 75% Sinhalese majority were the oppressed and disadvantaged majority, as they posed  the greatest threat to the colonial administration.

Thus at independence, nearly 90%of Engineers  and Surveyors and 60% of doctors, and a vast majority of the civilian administration were from the 10% Tamil minority. The first Sri Lankan to act as head of state in post independence Sri Lanka was a Tamil, Justice  C Nagalingam , i1954 as acting Governor General. The first army commander in post independent Sri Lanka was a Tamil, Brigadier Anton Muthucumaru . The longest serving attorney general in SL was a Tamil, Siva Pasupathy. Till the time of the LTTE uprising in July 1983, that forced, many Tamils to flee SL as refugees to the west, lest their children would be forcefully conscripted into the LTTE ranks, the level of Tamil representation in all walks of Sri Lanka life was  way more than the 10-12% Sri Lankan Tamils represented of the islands population.  This is hardly the picture of Tamil discrimination they had by now started orchestrating in the west and to the world

When the British left  Sri Lanka in 1948, attempts were made to redress the disadvantages of the Sinhalese especially in education. This led to the inevitable loss of the privileged status of Tamils and the over representation of Tamils in all walks of Sri Lankan life, especially in the much sort after positions. This was seen as and deliberately presented by some Tamils as discrimination to both fellow Tamils and the western world, ready to   believe any claim of  ‘’discrimination of a minority” . This led to the call in 1976  by some Tamils the TULF n Vadukuddai Northern SL, for  a separate state of Elam consisting of 2/3rds of the coast line  and 1/3 of the land  of Sri Lanka , for this now 12% minority. This really reflected the privileged mind set, they still had.

They tried to draw support for this avaricious objective by claiming Elam to represent the Traditional Homeland of Tamils” . This picture of  A Collection of Buddhist Shrines Dating Back To 3^rd Century BC , still evident in the heart of Jaffna peninsula and other Buddhist archeological  monuments scattered through out Sri lanka   is witness to the fact that all of Sri Lanka was homeland to it’s Buddhist Sinhalese civilisation for 2500 years, as the Mahavamsa records. Tamis , Arabs & Malays were able to settle in various parts of SL , due to the kind & welcoming disposition inherent to Buddhism, acknowledged many times recently by no less a person than Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, head of the Roman catholic Church In SL

In 1983 this  separatist Elam movement became a brutal terrorist war against the rest of Sri Lanka, waged by the LTTE, ( Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam)., at one stage labelled the world’s most brutal by the FBI US, no less. They drew support in finance and propaganda for their bloody campaign from an Internationally based Tiger Diaspora, that had by then become well established in the west , especially in the UK, Canada and USA, cleverly exploiting their claim of  Minority Discrimination”, to hoodwink their unsuspecting host countries. Their hosts were ready believe these claims , without any evidence being supplied to support these claims, accepting it as the inevitable for a minority in a third world country.

The making of Sinhala, the mother tongue of the 75% majority in 1956, as the state language was one major complaint of the 12% Tamil minority. In most countries, much lesser percentage of the majority community would have been adequate to justify this. Not so for this minority used to 150 years of colonial privileges. The provisions of the Reasonable use of Tamil act that enshrined the right of every Tamil child to receive a free state education in the Tamil medium upto end of tertiary education, no different from a Sinhalese child, the right of every Tamil citizen to address the government for their wants in Tamil and receive a response in the same language, the provision for the courts in the Tamil majority districts to conduct their affairs in Tamil, and the right for any Tamil to compete for entry into the public service without any knowledge of Sinhalese provided they gained competence upto some level a few years later, did not satisfy the avaricious appetite of this once privileged group. Additionally this requirement to gain competence in Sinhalese , after joining  however was not a requirement in professional fields like in medicine  .   Now Both Sinhalese & Tamil are state languages on par with each other.

After three  decades, the brutal terrorism of the Tigers came to an end on 19^th of May, 2009, when all of the LTTE Terrorists were laid to rest on the banks of Nandikadal Lagoon in Mullaitivu. This victory was  thanks to the transformation of what was once ceremonial security forces to a truly professional service, conforming to the highest standards, as was widely acknowledged .

However, the internationally based Tiger Diaspora, that supported   the Tigers with finance and propaganda  throughout,  were left entirely unscathed  as was their Billion dollar war chest amassed through Distortion (misinformation to justify tiger terror so enable collections in the west), Extortion , ( forcibly compelling Tamils whom the diaspora helped to achieve refugee status in the west to contribute large portions of their social service handouts and forcibly taxing”  by then well established Tamil businesses in the west) and Drug  & Human Trafficking (Tiger Diaspora groups have been exposed  of being guilty of this many times).  With this burgeoning war chest no longer required for arms purchases, they had plenty of resources to procure cash trapped TV stations like Channel 4  UK to produce infamous films like Sri Lanka Killing Fields”, to discredit SL and their war achievements. A New York times critic described this as a collection of video strips, un authored and unlocated  held together by a partial commentary that led the viewer to attribute all the ills shown, to be acts of the SL Security forces. Much of these strips have since been shown to be Tamil Tigers, clad in the uniforms of captured soldiers committing atrocities on these victims  

This new phase of discrediting the war efforts after  the annihilation of the Tiger fighters in SL in May 2009, was clearly a well planned move that was executed   within days of the fall of the Tigers in Sri Lanka, by this well  resourced , powerful and devious  Tiger Diaspora, to discredit  the Security Forces, by claiming that their victory had been achieved at the expense of gross human rights violations alleging an  unacceptable  loss of Tamil civilian lives of any  thing between 40,000 -100,000  in the last few weeks of the war. They claimed this to be the result of indiscriminate & even directed fire at fleeing civilians. Though all the evidence was that nothing was further from the truth, & that the civilian toll was of the order of 7000,  , they persisted in orchestrating these Tiger Diaspora allegations  internationally with Joseph Goebbelian zeal, as they had done with all their false propaganda through the earlier three decades, till these were believed in the west .

The assessment of the UN representative based in Colombo at the end of the war Sir John Holmes was that the Tamil civilian casualties were about 7000 at most. This  number was confirmed a few months later by a census carried out by the Tamil  University Teachers, as the probable number Tamil civilian casualties. Wiki leakes  leaked information   also revealed that defence attaches in both the UK and US embassies at that time had confirmed these numbers in their dispatches to their various countries and had also mentioned that but for the care taken by the SL security forces to minimise Tamil civilian casualties, the war would have been over well before and with less SL security forces casualties. Besides, it made no sense for the SL forces to attack civilians and then a few weeks later for these same civilians, nearly 300,000 of them to flee straight into the arms of the security forces to escape from the Tigers who had held them as hostages to use as human shields against the advancing SL forces. These were all confirmed by these civilians once in the safe haven of the camps arranged by the SL forces. Even more these civilians were resettled in their homes within a few months after the war , once the SL forces had risked their lives to demine these areas , heavily mined by the retreating Tigers.

All of these were confirmed by documents tabled in the British House of Lords in 2017 by Lord Naseby , who after a long battle accessed some of these original dispatches from  the UK  H/Commission in Colombo. Additionally the Paranagama Presidential Commission tasked with investigating allegations of missing ersons, cleared  SL forces of been complicit of systematic or direct killing of civilians .  Additionally these findings were endorsed by a panel of several internationally well known panel of legal experts on war crimes, headed by Sir Desmond de Silva QC from UK

 The Tigers derived their story of 40,000 casulaties or more initially  from  Gordon Weiss claiming from unnamed sources who later retracted it under questioning . He was  an UN employee based in Colombo in May 2009, who was after boosting sales of his book. The major boost for the claim came from the Darusman commission Report. This commission  having only interviewed the Tigers and Not SL sources, suggested this number as a credible allegation” but refused to reveal the source of this information for thirty years. So much for it’s credibility   This commission was appointed by the then UNSG to report to him on accountability provisions in SL, without the authority of the UN or UNSC and against the specific wishes of two of its members, Russia and China and hence not a UN report. However , this did not deter the Tiger Diaspora from orchestrating this as a  UN report to add muscle to their allegation. This label  UN Report”has since stuck

It did not take long for them to go a notch higher making these   evidence  of Tamil Genocide , even more appealing to the unsuspecting liberal western minds.  This allegation of Tamil Genocide has been craftily orchestrated since , even luring unsuspecting and misinformed  western  liberal parliamentarians to make this call, on their behalf,. This we saw most recently in May’20 with the Mayor  Columbine from Canada and NSW state parliamentarian Mr Hugh McDermott  from Australia, to coincide with the 11^th anniversary of the fall of the Tigers.

If this is to be countered the first requirement would be  making this information on the truths behind the Tamil Genocide Claim , widely known in the west,  especially, Canada, UK and US , amongst it’s media  and politicians , state and federal.  These would  then need to be orchestrated repeatedly, at every opportunity and creating opportunities, just like the Tiger Diaspora has done with misinformation.. These message would need to be repeated using modern media of email and others . Messages  should be short  where the bold titles conveys the main message, and repeated frequently. Eye balling the title is what most would do and that should convey the main message  The aim would be to achieve  a default position in the minds of these recipients  and institutions  that Tamil Genocide has no factual basis” and that it was post independence loss of privileges enjoyed  under British colonial rule, was what was presented as discrimination”.

The next requirement is to highlight the motivation  among  a large section of the Diaspora, to continue to paint a negative picture  of Sri Lanka and a risk to their safety in SL if they were sent back to SL, even if there is none , as their continuing to enjoy western privileges  as refugees , depends on this.

On the other hand these should be coupled with information on life of Tamils in Sri Lanka now , showing the freedoms and opportunities they enjoy back in SL. A truly tri lingual Sri. Lanka would help the cause immensely. The Covid crisis has exposed the potential for TV & E teaching  & learning  and could be utilised to achieve this and so win –  win for all.

The third requirement   should be to focus  spot light  on  The Tiger Diaspora, the funders of terror in Sri Lanka  for over thirty years that saw the loss of over 300,000 lives , , now sitting snug in the comfort of their western homes. The call should be for a commission of inquiry, initially perhaps a Presidential Inquiry in Sri Lanka with a view to ultimately having them brought before courts, even international courts. This should provide something to keep them occupied, and away from orchestrating unsubstantiated calls of Tamil Genocide. There should also be an investigation to see if legal avenues could be used to curb the ongoing baseless allegations of Genocide, as a violation of the basic human rights of the accused , not to be subjected such ongoing baseless accusations

This three pronged approach should be coordinated and driven from Sri Lanka, utilising expatriates on the ground for advice , ideas and  to execution . The expatriates should use their clout with the vote to get the message across to their rulers , as the Tiger Diaspora has done so effectively.

Almost certainly, these should be driven by a dedicated  devision in the Foreign Ministry in the Government in SL , prepared for the long hall of a few decades. That was how long the battle with the sword  took to win and this battle with the pen would be more devious and could be even more prolonged . It is certainly more challenging than the battles on the field ,&  against a very wily opponent.

There should be a realisation in Colombo that, left unchecked or countered half-heartedly, the Tiger Diaspora has the capacity to undermine the SL administration’s  best developmental efforts, for a long time to come, using mislead western governments, and UN agencies, to aid them in this ,as we have seen since 2009.  

 However, these efforts, should not detract  from ongoing efforts at Integration rather than segregation as the answer to SL’ ethnic issues. Being truly trilingual and encouraging a fusion culture, perhaps fusion dances of the two cultures Barata Natyam and Kandyan Dancing ,  as we have in NZ who always sing the National anthem in two languages  English & Maori  are some thoughts.  

Thank You