Noor Nizam. Sri Lanka Peace Activist. Hamilton. Ontario .Canada

Hon. Peter Kent Conservative MP – Thornhill,

Dear Sir,
Please kindly find a news dateline posted by AFP ( Ottawa ), 4 hours ago (around 8 pm Thursday night), which states that you have made the following comment:-

“OTTAWA (AFP) ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬‚ The 37-year conflict raging in Sri Lanka was borne out of “repressive” governments in Colombo , Canadian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs said Thursday”.

Sir, your statement clearly indicates your lack of indepth knowledge and awareness of the ethnic and political history of Sri Lanka and the aspirations and inspirations of both the Tamil and Sinhala communities that has led this conflict to the levels of human misery that the world is watching today.

Blaming the successive governments which indeed had brokerage political representation of all communities, including the Tamils in every successful governments as the reason

for what the Tamil militants are today – LTTE, the world’s most ruthless terrorist outfit can again be seen as a misrepresentation of facts please. The reality/truth of the story is quite different please.

Your statement:-
“According to the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), over 200,000 civilians are caught in the fighting in the northeastern region of the island nation”.
further reiterate the fact, that your communication consultants or speech writers/script writers have not done their home work properly. The statistics given regarding the civilians caught in the fighting are much less as it is per today. The ICRC is quite not sure of the actual figures and there are contradictory statements given to the international press by the ICRC. ICRC reports filed by international jurnalists/media give the figures as 150,000 as well. The government of Sri Lanka says it is only 70,000. If these figures are of doubt, the contradictions need to be stated..

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ But the civil war or ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka is much to be blamed on foreign influences and initiatives rather than local aspirations, because there is enough evidence that the innocent Tamil youth has been lured into militancy by foreign forces in the region and specially from the West and Scandinavia . This is also a main cause for the Peace initiative to fail and the minority Tamil speaking Muslim community sidelined and the Muslim Factor in the equation of a honourable resolution not given consideration in the Peace process.

It is for Canada to be fair and just in their International Relations with Sri Lanka in order to bring an honourable and just settlement to the conflict and an end to the misery of those suffering in the conflict/war zones in the Wanni/Puthukudiyiruppu areas.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ May I also kindly ask you Sir, to give instructions to the NGO’s to whom your government allocated $ 3 million for humanitarian relief to act with utmost URGENCY to dispatch the vital needs of medicines, food (dry rations), water and the special items needed by infants and would-be-mothers/pregnant women who are in need of such items without any further delays. As happened during the tsunami, it may turn out that these NGO’s will bank (to earn interest) the emergency relief donations and end up writing reports, by which time the deserving and suffering vulnerable people may have even died.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ I also wish to take this opportunity to thank Hon. Stephen Harper the PM, Hon. David Sweet – MP, the Government of Canada and the people of Canada , for the deep humanitarian concerns they have expressed concerning the suffering people of the North Eastern war theater in Sri Lanka and for allocating/granting funds for humanitarian expenditure.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The Canadians should play a much bigger role in kick-starting the Peace negotiations and make it possible for the Tamil diaspora to be more pro-active in the facilitation and mediation process. Canada should support a “Peace Initiative Round Table” similar to the one done on Afghanistan in order to make it possible for the Tamil diaspora to begin fill the so-called representative vacum that the LTTE will leave, after being defeated in the War in the North, North Eastern and East of Sri Lanka. Failure to do so will lead to the creation of a new generation of Canadian Tamils who will become a generation of hatred and vengeance among themselves and against the Sinhalese people in the future.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Sincerely

Noor Nizam.
Sri Lanka Peace Activist.
Hamilton. Ontario