CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

Bruce Fein makes himself liable to criminal charges for deformation, libel, and slander

by Charles.S.Perera

I am a jurist myself and to see Bruce Fein a Washington Attorney making baseless allegation against responsible persons in Sri Lanka is astonishing. His being an Attorney does not permit him to make irresponsible statements based purely on hearsay evidence from his distant law office in Washington.

This is character assassination on misinformation to bring disrepute to persons, which is condemned in civilized society. Mr. Fein is acting like an uneducated village hag who carries false libellous information of persons from house to house through sheer hate and ill will. Mr. Fein in defending the terrorists who have killed many eminent persons of both Sinhala and Tamil Communities of my country, is writing to earn blood money, He does not seem even to understanding the correct meaning of the words he uses.

Genocide is a systematic murder for the extermination of a race or a culture The government of Sri Lanka represented by the persons he mentions is far from committing any act of genocide. Though Mr.Fein jumps to his irresponsible, and questionable conclusions, the more intelligent Washington Post readers, I am sure will not take him seriously, and read what he writes only for amusement. In that situation to invoke the US Justice Department to carry out a genocide investigation is more ridiculous than absurd.

United States of America though often interferes into the affaires of sovereign states, through its self claimed right to police the world, may not pay heed to a coyote of a citizen howling absurdities against the Government of Sri Lanka and its accredited persons. It needs no great intelligence to understand that the Sri Lanka officials he names, are engaged in a justifiable retaliatary military action to get rid of a menace to the people and the country, in the form of a group of terrorists, accepted by people more informed than Mr;Fein as the most ruthless group of terrorists in the world.

If Mr. Fein's principle attempt is to get the American State Depoartment to make investigations on Mr. Gotabhay Rajapkse to divest him of his American Citizenship, it may not have the accepted effect, if the investigators are free intelligent persons, which I am sure they are. Such investigators will find that Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapakse's role as an Official of the Government of Sri Lanka has brought him credit, making him acceptable as a honourable citizen of America. The American people will be more proud of him as a compatriot, than with a penny seeking, tale carrying, slander mongering, Attorney.

I would like to ask Mr. Fein whether he has done any thing creditable in his life that would make the American people be proud of him. Has Mr. Fein done any act of heroism, initiated any action to help the unprivileged, and the needy ? Has he been to any place in the world where there is human suffering and invested himself to find out how their suffering could be alleviated ? Mr. Fein seems to be in the habit of writing a good number of poison pen letters based on meagre, unverified information, enjoying his cosy comforts, but he seems to be one who dares not step out side to bring a little comfort to those suffering in ghettoes or backstreet in America, let alone in Sri Lanka.

But Gotabhaya Rajapakse who Mr. Fein tries to vilify, insult, defame and denigrate, is a far greater person than Mr. Fein would ever be. Mr.Bruce Fein may never reach the heights Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapakse has reached. He was a war hero, before he became a citizen of America. He was in the forefront of the battle against terrorism in Sri Lanka. He drove the terrorists from the Jaffna Peninsula ( if you know where it is) to the jungles of Kilinochchi. He risks his life every day, while Mr. Fein writes his libellous articles from his well secured comfortable home in Washington.

One other matter comes to my mind before I go back to read Mr.Feins slanderous garbage. Some time back the Government of Australia, offered a public apology to the Australian Aborigines for the past mistreatments. Has the American Government offered an apology to the American Indians – the Mohawk, Creeks, Navajos, Zunis, Apachis, Comanches , Blackfoots and so on ? If you are working to bringing violators of human rights before the American State Departments OSI, why accuse people for imagined genocides in a far away country like Sri Lanka instead of investigating the American Past , to find out whether or not there had been a genocide against the American Indians ?

As far as Sri Lanka is concerned there had never been a genocide, by the Sri Lankan Governments, now or before. On the contrary we have had a very good relationship with our people despite the communal differences. Your letter is incomprehensible with all those irrelevant information collected from here and there crammed into it .

Problem in Sri Lanka Mr. Fein is simple. I will try to give it shortly. We in Sri Lanka have three principle communities-Sinhala (-the majority about 80% of the population), Tamils (about 13% of the total population), and a much smaller percentage of Muslims. Sinhala have the Sinhala as their language and are mostly Buddhists by religion. Tamils have Tamil as their language and are mostly Hindus by Religion. Muslims use both Languages of the Sinhala and Tamils, and they are Islamists by religion.

Sinhala and Tamils have their very early beginnings in India. Though their language and religions differ, they have a close cultural affinity. Sinhala Buddhists offer prayers to Hindu Divinity, and Tamils accept Buddha among their pantheon of numerous gods. The Sinhala visit Hindu Kovils and The Tamils visit Buddhist Viharas. Only significant difference is in the language of the two communities. There are even intermarriages between the Sinhala and the Tamils.

Muslims have their own religion Islamism and use both Tamil and Sinhala. Language wise the Muslims are closer to the Tamils. They live in villages close to Tamil or Sinhala villages and have a close relationship with both Sinhala and Tamil Communities. There is no intermarriage between the Muslims and the Sinhala or Tamils, but that does not stop Muslims keeping Sinhala or Tamil mistresses.

From time to time there had been tensions between the communities, and riots on three or four occasions There were massacres on both sides but never took the proportion of a genocide.

The problems that reached riot proportion, were the result of the Tamil Politicians, who asked for same rights enjoyed by the Sinhala majority. The ordinary Tamils cared less for equal rights, but they were brought into it through their sentimental attachment to the utterances of their politicians.

The Sinhala being the majority Community, were the majority at elections and formed governments, with consenting Tamils and Muslim political parties.. It was in 1956 that a government made Sinhala the Official language. The Tamils opposed this and that was the beginning of the politics of conflict.. The governments tried to reduce the effect of the legislation by making Tamil the second language.

In addition to that, there were only two Universities at the beginning and all students who passed the University entrance could not be admitted to the Universities, and the government passed legislation for admission of students according to a percentage system, that affected the Tamil Students.

This caused additional problems vis à vis employment. There were lot of students left without employment. This mostly affected the students from Jaffna who had to seek employment in the South, where the employment opportunities were greater. It was in this situation that a group of Tamil youth took to arms asking for a separate Tamil State. Perhaps they believed in having a separate State for Tamils, problems of education and employment could be more easily solved.

The notion of a separate Eelam State, made a heady sentimentality and the Tamils who had been compelled to leave the country during riots, and other ambitious Tamil politicians jumped into raise the idea of a Tamil Eelam to a giddy height.

The youths who took to arms became terrorists, murdering moderate Tamils, and intellectuals, and all their opponents. Money poured into the terrorist, from the Tamil diaspora, with which they bought arms and modern armaments, and trained kidnapped young women as human bombs.

The government forces which were not well armed, and lacked equipment to meet the superior armed power of the terrorists became the targets of the terrorists, killing them in large numbers. In this situation, the terrorists not being ready to come for a peace settlement, the government was forced to eliminate them though military action. The government forces had to be revitalised, equipped and trained. This enormous work was undertaken by the President of Sri Lanka Mhainda Rajapakse, with Gotabhaya Rajapakse and the Commander of the Army Sarth Fonseka.

Mr. Fein now has the basic information. The rest that Mr. Fein pretends to know are the feedings given to him by the Tamils, who have developed an anti Sinhala mentality. Therefore before Mr. Fein mixes up the real issues in Sri Lanka, with Bosnia, Hitler's Mein kamf , the Jews, Serbia, Karadzic, Mahavansa, the Buddhist priests, and so on and so forth, he should try to understand the situation by listening to both sides - the Tamils and the Sinhala..

Successive governments made all possible efforts to settle the terrorist problem through negotiations, but the terrorist throughout stood firm on their position of the demand for the establishment of a separate Tamil Eelam State. It was finally the Present President who inherited the problem aggravated by the signing of a CFA by a previous government, had to settle it. He failed in all his attempts to meet the terrorist leadership for negotiations..

It was then that he called his brother Gotabhaya Rajapakse, who is an experienced retired army officer, from America to coordinate the armed forces, and plan military strategies with the Commander of the Army Sarath Fonseka - an able military strategists who was seriously wounded by a suicide bomber, to eliminate terrorism for good. The armed forces had no political interference, and was given a free hand to plan, and execute their military plans. Basil Rajapakse is a political leader and he looks after the interest of the civilian factor in the war torn areas.

The government forces led by the Commanders of the Armed Forces, Commander of the Army Sarath Fonseka, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse carried out a successful military campaign against the terrorists and the terrorist only. It was not at all against the Tamil people. Let alone a genocide, it was not even military action against the Tamil people.

In fact the strategy was to destroy, weaken and eliminate the terrorist, without putting the Tamil civilians in the areas controlled by the terrorists, in danger. Basil Rajapakse looked after the possible social welfare of the Tamil people caught in the areas controlled by the terrorist, by providing food, medicine and other necessities, and even education facilities.

Where is then the so called genocide. As everyone knows the greatest danger to humanity today is the wide spread terrorism. The Sri Lanka being a country affected by terrorism, in the throws of it, having suffered through it for over quarter of a century is successfully eliminating the horror of terrorism. Mr. Fein accusing the Government of Sri Lanka and its most audacious military leaders, and government officials, is aiding and abetting terrorism in Sri Lanka.

Mr. Bruce Fein should understand that the use of denigrative terms in describing eminent persons of my country, making false accusations based on unverified facts make him liable for legal action for deformation, libel, and slander

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