AHRC, your bile on the National
Post
Open Letter to the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) 998 Canton Road
Kowloon Honkong, S.A.R
Asoka Weerasinghe Kings
Grove Crescent . Gloucester . Ontario . K1J 6G1 . Canada
October 8, 2008
Open Letter to the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)
998 Canton Road
Kowloon
Honkong, S.A.R
Dear Staff of AHRC:
Can the fool(s) among you who wrote that the Canadian “National
Post is a ‘racist’ newspaper and thus, should be taken with
a pinch of salt? Average Canadian knows this fact and thus, ethnic communities
avoid any connection with them. They live in a world of ‘white
supremacy’ attitude and deserve no attention”, please stand
up and be identified as I want to crown you with the Human Rights Dunce
Cap.
What you spewed was a crock of Arctic cod’s guano! I consider
myself as an “average Canadian” with eight years of post-secondary
education and having a knack of being able to be judge and jury on Sri
Lanka’s separatist war. Being originally from Sri Lanka with a
“brown” skin, I suppose I could be categorized as a “non-white
ethnic”. And I read the National Post and The Ottawa Citizen daily,
and sometimes the Ottawa Sun, and the Globe and Mail. I relish the National
Post Editorial Board’s stance on Sri Lankan affairs, and take it
with spoonfuls of Canadian Maple Syrup, rather than with a “pinch
of salt” as you all have advocated. I resent you wanting to inject
into this “Average Canadian’s” skull your pseudo-Human
Rights spin of your mind-set on the National Post. I refuse to abdicate
my rights to make my preferred choices, and AHRC should not be so damn
patronizing.
I suppose Stewart Bell’s reports on the Tamil-Canadian Diaspora
and their outrageous methodology to collect millions of dollars for
the Tamil Tiger war chest, and the way that he sees the ruthless Tamil
Tiger terrorists hemorrhaging Sri Lanka must be burning holes in your
under-wear exposing the sudden erupting bum- rashes of anger. You all
obviously cannot take it, can you now?
To quote what the Army Commander Lt.General Fonseka said, “I strongly
believe that this country belongs to the Sinhalese, but there are minority
communities and we treat them like our people”, is no crime. That
is what the journalists do. They interview people and they quote them.
So you wanting me to take what the National Post say “ with a pinch
of salt”, undermines my intelligence.
But here is the rub, AHRC! After the riots in July 1983, the streets
of Ottawa were awash with boisterous Tamil demonstrations, shouting
slogans and throwing their arms left, right and center, which the Canadians
looked with trepidation as they were not used to such raucous Jaffna-type
demonstrations. And one demonstration in particular is so vivid in my
mind. This was Third World Street Theatre minus the percussion beats
of ‘Thunai-lakadi-thantha-lakadi’ of the Jaffna tom-toms,
where on a flatbed truck was a chicken-wired prison cell with a Tamil
inside in shackles guarded by four Sinhalese impersonators, wearing
ketchup soaked T-shirts and machetes in their hands and signs and placards
pasted all over displaying huge letters saying “Mother India Please
Help Us”.
That is when I realized that these Tamils do have a place to run to
- the arms of their Mother India. But we, Sinhalese, had difficulty
to make a similar appeal during our demonstrations, to a “Mother..?.”
whoever it would have been, to help us from the marauding Tamil Tigers
who were creeping in the indigo-dark and massacring our innocent Sinhalese
peasants sleeping in adobe huts who only wanted to wake up in the morning
and walk to their fields with mammotees propped on their shoulders to
till the soil to make a living, or get into their catamarans and sail
the treacherous ocean to catch a fish or two for sustenance and sell
the rest for a living. This is where Commander Lt.General Fonseka’s
statement had validity, had relevancy, and had currency. This is why
I wrote this poem seven years later –
Dungaalpitiya Fisherfolk
(19 September 1990)
Seeing the fisherfolk all Sinhalese
chopped to death by Northern separatists,
the seaspray heaved up to me
pungent with a taste of blood
like a blood coated night song
sung into the pale grey sobs of daylight.
Listening to the widowed
chest-thumping lamentations,
my anger becomes visceral
and is siphoned through the nostrils
like a puffing fire belching dragon.
Before I bury the assimilated,
puzzle of hearts and limbs,
and fingers and toes,
I want to make a fire wreath
with Phoenician songs
to resurrect their snuffed spirits
to be echoed across the jungles of Jaffna,
as I want to win this war one day
I want to win this war.
(from Tears For My Roots)
Was it an illusory “Mother India” that the Tamils were calling
out for help? Of course not. Sure enough, the Mother India’s daughter
Indira Gandhi came to help them, and took away hundreds of bare-footed
Tamil guerillas who couldn’t even shoot a rifle straight missing
their targets by inches, and trained them in terrorist warfare in several
camps in Parangimali, Kanjipuram, Anna Nagar and in the foothills of
the Himalayas. After their graduation as full blown terrorists they
were sent back to Sri Lanka by Mother India in military fatigues and
jackboots, cradling AK47s, G3s and rocket launchers, and garlands of
live bullets around their necks to kill the innocent Sinhalese civilians
for the want of a mono-ethnic, racist Tamil State, Eelam. And the Sinhalese
had nowhere to run to and seek help, as the bosom of ‘Mother Lanka”
was their only home and there was no where else away from its shores.
That was indeed what Lt.General Fonseka was reflecting on. And I have
no reason to quibble about it, nor had reason to admonish him. So stop
spewing your bile on this amazing Sri Lankan hero who is guiding his
armed forces to save the sovereign territory for those who wish to live
there peacefully, and liberate the Tamil people under the fascist Prabhakaran’s
clutches. So, AHRC, just cut out your sordid spin.
It was just yesterday (October 7) that the New Delhi government assured
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi that it was concerned at the
plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka (their people) and was doing all it could
to resolve this issue. “If this atrocity against Lankan Tamils
does not stop, we will have to find answers to the question”, Karunanidhi
said. He couldn’t care two Madras masala vadeys about the atrocities
against the innocent Sinhalese by their Tamil brethren. That is where
Lt. Gen. Fonseka’s statement had relevancy and currency. AHRC,
you may have not liked it, but then that is how the cookie crumbles!
On February 15, 2008, I wrote to your Chairperson, John Joseph Clancey
and copied it to Basil Fernando for his attention on the subject - Sri
Lanka and Human Rights violation - which you all were carping about.
In it I said,
“Do you know what? If the premise of your Board of Directors is
that “there is a fool born every minute of the day”, then
count me out, as I won’t be dragged into your campaign which shows
every conceivable bias in favour of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE) aka “Tamil Tigers”. Your belligerent campaign against
the Sri Lankan Government is almost making me suspicious that AHRC is
a paid pseudo-humanitarian lobbyist pandering to the separatist Eelam
cause. And the Tamil Tigers got billions of dollars to buy the support
of the influential that matters and they have done it before. And I
want you all to come clean and convince me that you all are not inflicted
by ‘show me the money’ syndrome.” Well… what is
it? Cough out the truth AHRC!
By the way, I have been told that both you honchos, John Joseph Clancey
and Basil Fernando, are former Roman Catholic priests. Ah, Ha! No wonder.
That says a lot to me.
And let me repeat, stop trying to be a bunch of ‘Dunce capped”
Paragons of Virtue with your pseudo-Human Rights advocacy and keep out
your bile spilling on Canada’s excellent national newspaper, the
National Post. And for you information, this ‘non-white ethnic,
average Canadian’ will continue reading the National Post.
Sincerely,
Asoka Weerasinghe
Ottawa, Canada
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