CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

‘Ethnic Cleansing’

by Nalin de Silva Courtesy The Island 13-06-2007

The government has done a blunder, accepted responsibility, expressed regret and brought back those who were apparently evicted forcefully from lodges in Colombo. However, this incident has led to exposing bodies in the Parliament and claims of ethnic cleansing by the LTTE and its supporters both here and abroad. The UNP and its leader who is in the habit of addressing foreign governments in the hope that they (the foreigners) and not the Sri Lankan voters would bring him to power has tried to gain political mileage over the so-called ethnic cleansing. The human rights of those who were evicted are being discussed and the NGO lobby (circus) is having a field day at the Lipton circus.

Nobody in his or her sane mind would approve the eviction of the lodgers on that fateful night. However, the fact remains that there are LTTE cadres in Colombo, not necessarily in the lodges, as they can afford to live in expensive five star hotels and it is these terrorists who have to be "hunted" by the armed forces. Without bringing these terrorists before the judiciary the limited operations against the LTTE cannot be completed successfully.

Most of those who cry foul at this unfortunate incident are not the saints they pretend to be. The human rights violations by these people have not been examined properly and it is the duty of the government to set up the necessary infrastructure to look into these cases at lease now. If the UNP government was concerned with the human rights to a degree of at least one percent of that is exhibited by the present government then the JVP would not have been defeated in the eighties and early nineties.

The then UNP government never said even sorry for what that had taken place under their regime, and they only take pride of annihilating the JVP cadres. Some of the present day champions of human rights from the Marxist parties including the NSSP which had people such as Vasudeva Nanayakkara, Vickrembahu Karunaratne and Siritunga Jayasuriya among its leaders went on to borrow arms from the capitalist UNP government to use against the JVP. At that time those who got killed were mainly Sinhala youth and it cannot be said that all who were killed were JVP cadres.

Of course, I am not saying that those who are of the opinion Sinhala "terrorists" have no human rights but the Tamils whether terrorists or not have human rights have no right to picket at the Lipton circus against human rights violations, as they have to do something with the funds that they obtain. However, their double standards have to be exposed.

The Supreme Court gave a ruling against the eviction of the lodgers. However, nobody has pointed out that the judges concerned were Sinhalas. If the decision was in favour of the government there would have been an uproar in the Parliament as well as elsewhere that a Sinhala Supreme Court had justified the eviction of the innocent Tamils. Whatever the minority communities may say the minorities have more rights and privileges in Sri Lanka than in UK, the US, Australia or any other western country where the Muslim ladies find it difficult to wear their "veils" as they would violate the human rights of the white Christian males of listening to the ladies.

The human rights as we have pointed out on number of occasions are relative and not God given, (one would say that even the God is relative as Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus enjoy the luxury of praying to their own God) and the western human rights are there to protect the western Christian culture more than anything else. In any event the Supreme Court in Sri Lanka has to be commended for their ruling, especially in comparison to the Privy Council in England that gave a decision against the Muslim ladies.

The western press had gone to town with the cry of ethnic cleansing over the eviction of some three hundred (may be five hundred but not more than that) Tamil lodgers. It is clear that the editors and the other journalists in these English language newspapers do not know their English. If eviction of three hundred Tamils out of about 125, 000 in the Colombo city limits is ethnic cleansing then the editors would have to invent new words to describe what the English and others have been doing over centuries.

In fact in the Colombo city limits it is said that population wise the Sinhalas come third after the Tamils and the Muslims. This reminds me another myth that has been created and propagated throughout the world. It is said that the minorities are second class citizens in Sri Lanka. However, the mayor of Colombo is a Muslim and it is not the first time that a non Sinhala Buddhist has become the Mayor. Tamils, Muslims have been Mayors of Colombo and the Sinhalas have had no inhibition in electing members from other communities. So much for the ethnic cleansing the LTTE and its supporters have been claiming.

If there is any ethnic cleansing in Sri Lanka it is in the Northern Province and nowhere else. It is the LTTE that chased out the Sinhalas and the Muslims that lived in the Jaffna peninsula. No Sinhala student is sent to the University of Jaffna though there are Tamil students in the Universities in and around Colombo.

It is clear that the interested parties were waiting for an opportunity and the government has played into their hands. This type of incidents should be avoided if the government is interested in defeating the LTTE.

Disclaimer
All views and opinions presented in this article are solely those of the surfer and do not necessarily represent those of LankaWeb.com.

BACK TO LATEST NEWS

DISCLAIMER