False propaganda against Sri
Lanka in US newspapers
Chand Wije Texas, USA cwije7@yahoo.com
September 22, 2007
The Editor,
Cincinnati Enquirer
Cincinnati, Ohio
USA
“Naziism, apartheid alive in Sri Lanka- US editorial
[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 September 2007, 14:52 GMT]
Comparing the eviction of more than 500 Tamils from Colombo to Naziism
and apartheid, and "one part of a long genocidal streak,"
an editorial that appeared in Cincinnati Enquirer's Tuesday edition,
said that inaction on allowing US government's funding the Sri Lankan
military, will imply not just neutrality, but complicity.
Full text of the editorial that appeared in Cincinnati Enquirer follows:
If you think Naziism or apartheid are long gone, you would do well to
continue reading. Last month in Sri Lanka, 500 Tamils were forcibly
evicted by police from the capital city of Colombo. They, along with
300 others who were detained, either lived in the capital or had been
visiting for reasons including medical treatment. The police chief's
explanation: ethnic minority Tamils cannot stay in the capital "without
a valid reason."
(extracted from TamilNet website)
Dear Editor,
Tamil websites supporting the Tamil terrorist leader V. Prabakaran in
Sri Lanka (Tamilnet.com and Tamilcanadian.com) published on Sept 18,
2007 on their websites an essay claiming that it was an editorial originally
appeared on your newspaper. When I did research on this I have found
that it was not an “editorial” by an editor of your newspaper
but an essay written by a Tamil (Ahilan Sivaganesan, who lived in Cincinnati
for 20 years) which appeared on your editorial page. It is amazing how
this essay which appeared on your newspaper on September 18, 2007, appeared
on the two Tamil websites on the same day!
This essay has untruths and half-truths and as a reputed newspaper I
do not think you would have allowed its unedited appearance had you
known that the writer misled you. I am writing this note to set the
record straight or at least to let you and the readers know the other
side of the story. I am a Sinhala Buddhist native from Sri Lanka living
in the U.S.
The Tamil writer who identified himself as a “junior at Rice University,
Houston, Texas, USA” painted Sri Lanka as a country engaged in
genocide against Tamils living in this tropical island. He compares
Sri Lanka to Rwanda and Darfur. The US Congress discussed this “genocide”
issue sometime ago and a congressman asked “if the chief justice
of the supreme court of Sri Lanka is a Tamil, if the inspector general
of police in Sri Lanka is a Tamil and if the attorney general of Sri
Lanka is a Tamil, how can you say that the Sinhalese majority in Sri
Lanka is discriminating against the Tamil minority there?” He further
said that even in USA the black minority do not have that kind of recognition
that the Tamils in Sri Lanka enjoy. To add to this line of thinking,
there are 65 million Tamils in Tamil Nadu state in India which is the
homeland of Tamils. But they do not enjoy the rights that about 3 million
Tamils enjoy in Sri Lanka where they are about 10% of the population.
In the towns and cities all over Sri Lanka Tamils have higher levels
of income than the majority Sinhalese.
The Tamil writer’s purpose in writing untruths and half-truths
is to prevent the U.S. government helping the Sri Lankan government
to eradicate Tamil terrorism in Sri Lanka. U.S. government proscribed
this Tamil terrorist outfit (LTTE) of about 10,000 fighters as a world
terrorist organization. In fact LTTE is known as the most ruthless terrorist
organization in the world with links to the al-Qaeda network and to
other terrorist groups in Palestine, Eritrea, Iraq, Nepal, the Philippines,
Indonesia, Thailand, Burma and Afghanistan.
Yes, it is true that about 300 or so Tamils were removed from Colombo
motels and boarding houses when they could not give a valid reason why
they had to stay in Colombo indefinitely. They were given free transportation
to go back to their homes in the North. This was done as a security
operation and not like what Hitler did to the Jews. In Colombo, in the
heartland of Sinhalese two-thirds of the residents are Tamils and Muslims.
There are hundreds of thousands of Tamils living in Colombo. Because
of this, the terrorists use motels and hotels in Colombo as ideal spots
for their terrorist operations. With such terrorist cells in the heart
of the capital city they recently killed (1) Tamil Foreign minister
Kadiragamar (2) a top army general Kulatunga (3) tried to assassinate
army commander Fonseka and (4) tried to assassinate defense secretary
Rajapaksa. In the past these cyanide pill-carrying suicide bombers killed
a Sri Lankan president, tried to kill another Sri Lankan president and
killed two presidential candidates.
They killed all Tamil leaders who did not support them and two such
leaders (Devananda and Anandasanagaree) are now living in the south
under government protection. When there was an election they went to
Tamil areas to cast their vote in an armored tank! Tamil terrorists
wowed to kill them. The reason for this elimination of rivals is for
them to claim that they are the sole representatives of Tamils. LTTE
has failed in this strategy and its demand for a separate country in
Sri Lanka has now disappeared. They are called Tamil tigers and they
have now become paper tigers or pussy cats.
In 1987 when the Sri Lankan army was about to capture their leader,
the Indian government which initially trained these terrorists in camps
in South India and equipped them with surface-to-air missiles, forced
the Sri Lankan government to stop it. Indian prime minister paid his
wages of sin when these terrorists killed him in 1991.
The new Sri Lankan president who came to power in November 2005 tried
his best to get the terrorists to stop killing and come to negotiations.
Instead, they continued to kill and finally when they prevented the
supply of irrigation water to farmers in government-controlled areas,
the new president took action to militarily crush the terrorists. He
and the majority of people in the country which includes all three ethnic
groups (Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims) agree that a political solution
is not possible unless and until terrorism is eradicated. They are now
being militarily cornered to underground bunkers and the government
in 2007 has decided not to do the same mistake it did in 1987 in not
capturing Prabakaran due to Indian intervention.
With imminent military defeat, the terrorists and their supporters such
the writer to your newspaper, are engaged in a ferocious and nasty international
campaign of projecting terrorists as an innocent crowd and that the
government as a violator of human rights. The government has a cabinet
consisting of Tamil and Muslim members and the writer is telling you
that Tamil ministers are killing Tamils! The government on the other
hand asks these human rights watchers if government is actually violating
human rights why is that the Tamils living in the terrorist-held areas
escape and come in the thousands to live in government-controlled areas
and in the south where they find peace in living with the Sinhalese
people.
The army has become a liberating force for the Tamils in the areas under
the terrorist control, where children are taken by force to fight the
“liberation” war. The liberators run an out fit worse than
the Pol Pot in Cambodia. When the army re-captures terrorist-held areas,
people who are “displaced” are undergoing hardships and in
a war zone one cannot expect all to be Mother Theresas. But to say that
the government approves or condones unnecessary hardships or harm to
innocent Tamils is a terrorist strategy and not the truth. Tamils and
Sinhalese lived in harmony in this Island for 2500 years, until a group
of Tamils living in Colombo, influenced by similar demands in South
India for a separate country carved out of India (like Pakistan) since
1918, demanded first time in 1919 a separate country in the tiny island.
Unlike in the case of Pakistan in India, the colonial rulers of Sri
Lanka rejected this demand repeatedly. With the end of colonialism,
the majority Sinhalese people (70%) expected the removal of systematic
discrimination that they underwent for 450 years of colonial rule, and
Tamil leaders in Colombo did not want to give up the powers and privileges
that they were bestowed by the colonial master under the famous divide-and-rule
policy.
Some Sinhala politicians acted unwisely or overreacted to this new situation
and it created avoidable and unnecessary injury to some Tamils who lived
in the south with the Sinhalese people. All these are now erased and
separatism-bend Tamil politicians now find that they cannot cite any
discrimination or grievance against them!
I hope this letter will help prevent your newspaper falling into a trap
that the unjust and unreasonable Tamil terrorist world propaganda machine
is laying out reaching otherwise innocent newspapers one at a time.
If you wish to know details about world-wide Tamil terrorist activities
please go to www.spur.asn.au
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Chand Wije
Texas, USA
cwije7@yahoo.com
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