Sri Lankan Govt slanders Tamil Refugees because they don't want them to reach Australia
by Gordon Weiss
SRI Lankan government warnings that half the Tamils seeking asylum in Australia have links to terrorists are dangerous, mendacious and self-serving.
The Tamil Tigers were the most ruthless, tactically efficient, destructive, and committed terrorist organisation in the world. Between 1990 and 2000, Tiger operatives using suicidal tactics killed thousands of innocent Sri Lankans. Their presence was an abomination, and a by-word for violence and fear among ordinary citizens.
Despite Sri Lankan government claims that it decisively defeated the Tamil Tigers in May 2009, they continue to suggest that the Tigers remain a danger. Yet analysis of the defeat of the Tigers, their methods, those in the Tamil diaspora that supported them, and the massive securitisation of the Sri Lankan state, contradicts that view. To internationalise violence by, for example, hijacking aircraft, would be pure folly to any narrow nationalist cause in 2010. For Tamil Sri Lankans who once supported the Tigers, there is no "military option" left to support. The Tamil Tiger is extinct.
The Tigers were a response to perceived state repression. This is true of all national liberation groups, many of which, like the Tigers, undercut sympathy for their cause by killing innocent people. In 1956, contrary to the constitution left by the British and agreed to by Sri Lanka's leaders, the Sinhala Only Act was passed. As incendiary in operation as its title suggests, this law compelled, for example, Tamils to seek judicial redress in the Sinhala language instead of English or Tamil. Things have never been the same since. In 1983, an orchestrated mob pogrom killed some 2000-3000 Tamils across the island. Within a year, the Tamil Tigers had mushroomed from a rabble of 50 men into an army of thousands who sought revenge.
In Australia, both the Tamil and Sinhalese communities include extremist elements. Both have organisations that have promoted radical politics and intolerant solutions to the ethnic divide that bedevils Sri Lanka. For example, Sinhalese-language programs on SBS are said (by Australian Sinhalese) to promote an extreme nationalist view of Sri Lanka that by definition excludes Sri Lankan Tamil claims to the island as also their home. This kind of nationalist narrative, nurtured from generation to generation in a new country (that often leaves emigre communities quite out of step with developments in their own countries) is true of all radical groups who now have deep roots in Australia, be they Kurds, Burmese, Palestinians, Armenians, or Croats.
Hundreds of thousands of Australians have direct memories of the murder of their family and friends in foreign lands. Rarely do they use this soil for the explicit manufacture of terrorism. But within these communities, identity and historical grievance remains a matter of the deepest pain, even as these Australians remain law-abiding citizens, grateful for the equitable justice this country has provided. Occasionally, such as with the Australian-Serb Dragan Vasiljkovic, who returned home during Yugoslavia's wars and allegedly killed and terrorised Croats, one will carry those memories to an extreme. But these are aberrations.
One must then ask why, with the fanciful claim that as many as half of all Tamil boatpeople have "links" to the Tigers, does the government of Sri Lanka seek to trigger alarm bells in our ears? What interest do they have in claims of links between al-Qa'ida and the Tamil Tigers? Why, as reported in recent days, do they incite Australians worried about illegal immigration with the suggestion that boatpeople are "taking advantage" of our asylum laws? And why do they play on Australia's poor understanding of this distant war by reducing the causes of their conflict to just the emergence and destruction of the Tamil Tigers?
The answer lies in another little understood creature that is far from extinct. From an easygoing island paradise in 1948, Sri Lanka has been transformed into one of the most militarised societies in Asia. Its government is dominated by racist ideologues who promote the notion of the Sinhalese as a "chosen people" (the words of their first prime minister). Government death squads have snatched thousands of people from the streets over the years.
The country's highest court has explicitly rejected the role of international human rights instruments in Sri Lanka's affairs. And the government continues to deny that it killed civilians during the recent war, that there were battlefield executions, that it bombed hospitals, or that there is anything wrong with the sham democratic machinery of the state. The repressive creature of extreme nationalism is alive and well in Sri Lanka.
The UNHCR reported recently that there was a vast improvement in Sri Lanka, and hence it has raised the bar for refugee status for a large number of people. But this is so after any war. The refugee agency also noted that large numbers of Tamils still have grounds to fear persecution. By way of an example, the government of Sri Lanka has yet to make good on the three key points of an agreement it made with the UN Secretary-General in May 2009.
It still holds tens of thousands of civilians in internment camps. It shows no sign of instituting a political process to redress the half-century-old grievances of the Tamils, and thus remove the causes for any future conflict. And it shows no sign of seriously investigating allegations that both sides committed war crimes.
It broke every guarantee that it gave Ban Ki-moon not to use heavy weapons in civilian areas. Its interests lie in repression, not confession, and it has no interest in potential witnesses reaching these shores.
(Gordon Weiss was UN spokesperson in Sri Lanka during the war. He is the author of forthcoming The Cage; The Fight for Sri Lanka and the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers, Pan Macmillan.THis article appeared in "The Australian")
6 Comments
Mr Gordon Weiss is absolutely 100 % correct now he doen't have to worry about his job or sri lanka
During the interview in Radio Australia the S.l Ambassador couldn't show any proof to his statement poor guy was struggling to tell his side of the story but didn't go well.
Ambassador said most of the boat people are LTTE and this is the reason Tamils are leaving the country for safe haven Still Witch hunt is going on in sri lanka for an example even in colombo all the Tamils has to register their name in thier area police stations
Are they criminal no?
jut because they are TAMIL
Couple of years in SL and this novice has become an expert about SL affairs to SELL his forthcoming book. Blake did the same and Neil Buhne will do the same. SL gov should chuck these fellows out as soon as they interfere with the internal affairs of the country. Just imagine a Sri lankan diplomat saying this sort of thing agaist the west with regard to Alkaida, wouldnt last few hrs and will get persona non grata.
Have we here the first UN Witness for the Investigations that is to
begin with?
He will agree that the 9/11
terrorist set-up has nothing to do with the SL
political problem.
I agree with everything Gordon Weiss said.
Sri Lankan leaders are simpletons who naively promote racism in a blatantly open manner. They should have adopted ‘gently gently’ methods adopted by Gordon’s native land where over 60,000 Euro visa over-stayers move around freely but a few Tamil speaking boat people (and Afghans) are subjected to untold suffering in prison like camps. Of course, Sinhala language has not yet advanced enough to make devious statements like the English language is.
However, the recent statements from both Liberal and Labor state the obvious –‘We don’t want Tamils in Australia’.
Gordon, if you want me to respect your impartiality, you also have to explain why security authorities are singling out people of Muslim faith as most likely terrorists in Australia and why aborigine people have not progressed much even after 200 years and why Australia is equipping itself with the most advanced military hardware.
Most of what you say applies to most other countries in the world whether it is USA or China. US have adopted draconian laws to control its population. Sure enough, US while not killing its own takes pleasure in killing thousands in other countries and have militarised the Globe.
Most Sri Lankan Tamil speaking people like almost all other migrants, want to come to Australia for better their lives and why not. If these people are escaping persecution, as Gordon says, then we all know their first destination would be culturally acceptable Tamil Nadu.
The rich expatriates who supported LTTE were educated in Sri Lanka. 60% of the Tamil speaking people live in mainly Sinhala areas and practice their religion without fear. If you drive down south of Sri Lanka, you will find the similar suffering you noticed in North.
To a few Sinhalese and the Sri Lankan governments the Tamils on the whole are terrorists except those who dance to their tunes.
The cursed war brought upon by the successive governments has finally come to an end but the Tamils are still suffering and are continually persecuted to this very minute.
Thousands of Tamils are living in the open, no roof above their heads to overcome the vagaries of the weather gods, visited and haunted by the Sri Lankan armed forces who continuously monitor their every movement.
The paramount aim and impotrance aspect to the present rulers is that they have to construct military camps, force Buddhism which anyway is not a religion but a mere philosophy down the throats of the hapless folk and colonise the areas with Sinhalese peasants. Most of they so called Buddhists, the paragons of virtue worship Hindu deities.
Then only last week, they want all the Tamils residing in Colombo to register themselves with their respective police stations, why ?.
Whilst living in Colombo from November 2006 till may 2008, during the latter part of my stay I had to register myself at the local police station and as I was known to the DIG of the area through third party connections, I had no issues in getting this done but I was living in Colombo on a valid visa with an Australian passport, I had to go through this because of having being born a Tamil, is this not persecution ?.
Tamils with foreign passports just cannot travel to the north without the permission of the Ministry of Defence, again another why ?.
The Tamils especially the youth are continuing to be hounded, arrested and tortured more than 12,000 are incarcerated without any charges being brought forth against them and they been in gaol for a long period of time. Why ?.
The recent findings, pictures of Prabhakaran on their mobile phones, are these youth so stupid to do such a thing, another ruse by the STF of the Sri Lankan police who became international celebrities by the shooting and killing of the five boys in Trincomalee for which no-one has been charged or brought before the courts and the killers of the seventeen aid workers belonging to a french NGO. Why ?.
Now that the government is under the microscope for it's human right violations, every Tamil is a LTTE cadre, they are afraid that if any evidence is brought forward to a trip to the Hague will be a reality.
The continued and the continuation of the persecution of the Tamil people only confirms beyond belief and doubt that the Tamil community in Sri Lanka are an endangered race and desperately needs protection from the murdering government and a few members of the Sinhalese Klu Klux clan. a j.
The questions posed by Mr Tony Jones are interesting.
He asks
Why he had to register with the local police when he was living in SL from 2006 to 2008 with an Australian passport?
Why the people like him has to get permission to travel to the North?
Why the people in Wellawatta have to register with the police?
I guess people, who have at least a little knowledge of the LTTE terror over the last 30 years know why.
Then he says thousands of victims of the Terrorism are still living in the open.
If the privileged and lucky people like Tony, who are wealthy and live in luxury ,dig deep, can't they provide descent shelter to these unfortunate people?
Remember how the Foreigners built thousands of good houses for the Tsunami victims in the South?
Then he says the Buddhism is a philosophy and the Government is forcing it down the throats of Tamil people.
How can you force a "Philosophy " down people's throats?
Then he says Buddhists regardless, worship Hindu deities.? Isn't that marvellous?
Which other religion in the world would tolerate that kind of freedom ?
Even the deputy leader of the LTTE who I am sure was admired by Mr Jones at one stage, became a reformed individual who has become a savior of the poor and helpless victims by just observing the serenity of a Buddha statue..
Tamils in Srilanka are definitely not endangered now, unlike the Tamils ( and Sinhalese ) who have become citizens of Foreign lands whose children have lost touch with the culture and language in just one generation.
In the current peaceful environment the Terrorism affected people in the North and East will achieve prosperity over time.
With the Tourism , Agriculture Businesses and other developments taking place at great speed in the North and the East at present, the future prosperity of these people are guaranteed, unless people like Mr Jones and his pro Tiger Faction put the "spanner in the works".