Rev.Desmond Tutu and his uncalled for diatribe against the Government of Sri Lanka

Now it is Rev.Desmond Tutu who makes a homily of his imagined fantasy, without verifying facts or addressing the President of Sri Lanka himself for an explanation, before making his unacceptable comment.
There is lot of violation of human rights going on in South Africa according to latest information, which seems to go unpunished. The immigrant workers in South Africa are being attacked and burnt alive, while Rev.Tutu calls for vengeance against Sri Lanka, without having checked from where , and through whom these accusations against Sri lanka have come.


If you are not aware of what his going on under your very nose in South Africa , Rev. Tutu, how can you expect any one to listen to your diatribes against the Government of Sri Lanka.
Rev. Desmond Tutu has got it all wrong. He certainly has not taken an objective view of a serious situation prevailing in Sri Lanka. He has merely gone on information fed to him by biased analysts. He obviously has no first hand information.
The government forces are at "war" against a well equipped terrorist groups with hundreds of brain washed young women and men trained as black tigers, whose mission is to blast them selves to assassinate a selected person, material or equipments, along with who ever happened to be on the spot. They plant claymore bombs on roads or inside buses to kill a large number of civilians, with the sole aim of provoking the Sinhala people to start a back lash against Tamils in the South, so that the Government could be blamed for ethnic riots.
The government forces are fighting the terrorists who make use of the innocent villagers, as human shields, to protect themselves from the armed forces. Despite these tactics of the terrorist the government forces are doing their best to avoid large scale damage to civilian population. It is normal that in a war situation norms of human rights are subject to be disturbed. It is an indirect cause of the war situation, but certainly not a deliberate attempt by the Security Forces.
The responsibility for kidnappings, murder or torture cannot be passed on to the Security Forces. They are committed by criminals, or by the terrorists themselves to put the blame on the government forces. At least some of the kidnappers have already been arrested by the Police, and investigations are being made.
The government of Sri Lanka cannot be accused of violation of human rights. On the other hand, the government of Sri Lanka should be felicitated for redeeming the civil population in the East from the grip of the terrorists. The "war" against terrorists is also to allow the Tamil population in the areas presently under the control of the terrorists to exercise their human rights and live in peace, free from fear and intimidation.
Therefore, the statement of Rev. Desmond Tutu is made without substantiated evidence against the government as a violator of human rights.
Sri Lanka on the other hand can give valuable lessons on what is human rights, and how can a government protect the human rights of its citizen, including those who become prisoners in areas controlled by the terrorists. Terrorists are not freedom fighters, Rev.Tutu. They are misguided individuals who have lost respect for human life, being blinded by fanatism, and paranoiac of being hunted by the Sinhala people.
Human rights has become a means to attack Sri Lanka, which despite fighting a battle against terrorism, is doing enormous work for the development of the country, and safeguard its people.

United Kingdom, France, and USA have no moral right to boycott 2008 Olympic Games in China.

China is today one of the fast developing economies in the world, having gone through many trials, and humiliation by the British; first by its shameless trade in opium that made millions of Chinese at all levels drug addicts. The Chinese army which was weakened by drug addiction, and equipped with outmoded arms , was no match to the well equipped British army, and was defeated in the opium wars. Thereafter, the British profited to further its humiliation of China by entering into unequal treaties with most favoured Nation clause.

China a self sufficient country traded in tea and silk, leaving a trade deficit to the British, which they shamelessly converted to a surplus by sale of opium. China was weakened and poor. We read in Pearl S Buck's, Good Earth, how the Chinese were living in utter poverty. When the production of tea and silk was low, China paid the foreign traders in silver. Shiploads of Chinese taken away to USA, worked as labourers building railway tracks and cities ,living in most inhuman conditions. Missionaries were brought into China to convert the Chinese to Christianity, thus pushing China from economic poverty, to a cultural poverty by forcing on them a foreign belief system.

It is this nation that was humiliated and pauperized by the West, that has risen to be a power block ready to compete with the West. China had no one to help her to be whatshe is today. Russia which helped it at the beginning to build its machinery and factories left without completing their work. The British occupied Hong Kong, bringing it under its administration.

The West not withstanding the utter humiliation it caused to China, despite its population of more than one billion people, denied it a seat in the UNO, recognising the American puppet regime of Taiwan, as representative of the Chinese people and the mainland China. It was only in 1972, that it was accepted as a full member of the UNO and elected to a seat in the Security Council

This is a reminder that the Western political tactics have not changed from what they were in the past. Recognising a portion carved out of Serbia, and making Kosovo an independent state is similar to the humiliations the ancestors of Western countries enforced upon the poor countries in the past. Or accusing Sri Lanka of violation of human rights and calling the government to negotiate with the terrorists, while at the same time asking Pakistan not to negotiate with the terrorist, is typical of the old Western practices..

Nevertheless, China- thanks to the Communist revolution, was eventually proclaimed a Republic. Left to its own, with its undaunted determination, even making iron in back yard kilns, China developed its machines and technology. The Chinese people lived a simple life and every one of them putting in maximum effort, made China what it is today, different from what it was, not poor any more and not addicted taking opium.

The West lost no occasion to draw the carpet under the developing China. The student uprising in Tiananmen in 1989 was capitalised by the West to create dissention in the country, but despite the Western efforts, the government of China was able to bring the manifestations under control. If the uprising was not curbed and the West was allowed to pour more oil into the troubled waters, situation in China would not have been what it is today. It is good that China is keeping a close watch at changes and not giving in to calls for more freedom, lest there would be a repetition of what went on in USSR, before its break up.

The West has a duty to stand by China now, at least to mitigate the humiliation caused by their fore fathers, and to welcome China as it is, settling political differences in cordial dialogue, not resorting to aggressive political thuggery.

China does not need the Western accolade, but on the other hand the West has a moral duty to bow before China as a great nation, for its fulgurous ascension to the present height. The so called violation of human rights in Tibet is nothing in comparison to what the British and its allies had inflicted on China, with its illegal commerce, and coerced treaties.

If the West is comprised of cultivated, democratic, and honest Nations , they should participate in Olympic Games in China, at least to make it forget the humiliation caused to it in the past.

Tibet is an excuse for the West to interfere into internal affairs of China and to break it up and stop its further development. Tibet has been modernised by China, and if left to it self, China will settle the present problem with Tibet, in its own way, at its own time.. Human rights is not something invented by the West, on the other hand there is much evidence to accuse the West of violation of human rights through out its history..

China, Tibet, and Olympic Games

Human Rights is the new modus operandi of the West to create dissension and perhaps Kosovos, in developing countries. It extends from Sri Lanka to China, North Korea to Burma, Iraq to Afghanistan, Palestine to Iran.

The West, like a hungry vulture waiting to swoop on a dying animal to eat out its bowels, awaits an occasion, to pounces on a country, screaming the now famous cry of “violation of human rights”. These vultures come with different insignia, the Media Forums, Human Rights Watch , the UN, Amnesty International and so forth. They are in Sri Lanka when the government is on the way to eliminate terrorism. They are in Burma, when it is trying to cut itself away from the interference of the Western vultures, and find a way to develop on its own. They are now in Tibet just when China is about to celebrate the 2008 Olympic Games.

The West thinks that they are clean, and above being accused of human rights violations. They are the new saints preaching to the world about human rights, when their own history still smells of the blood of the innocent people they had spilled, be it in America, China, Japan, India , Peru and else where in the world.

France calls for a boycott of the Olympic Games in China for human rights violations in Tibet. But France has also a bloodied past and denial of independence to some of the Islands they had occupied. In Nouvelle Calédonie or Kanak the voice of the freedom fighters of the FNKS was silenced. The leader of the movement Jean Marie Jibaou was mysteriously assassinated.

The British who may also call to boycott the Olympic Games in China, carried out a war to keep the Falkland Island to themselves, and claims a part of the peninsula of Gibraltar as belonging to them.

The massacre of hundreds of innocent civilians men, women and children by the British Army under the command of General Dyer, for which act he was felicitated by the British Governor of Panjab Sir Michael O’dwyer will remain in history to mark the inhuman British rule in India.

It is not necessary to speak of the American CIA sponsored riots against Salvador Allande in Chili, or the failed Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba.

It is this West that gives lessons on human rights now. They cannot keep away politics from any thing that is going on in the world. In a debate in the France 2 of the French TV,on human rights in China and boycotting the Olympic Games, Romain Mesnil the President of the Syndicate of French Athletes said that for the athletes Olympic Games- is an important occasion to participate, and compete with world class champions and get to know them, politics is outside sports and would like to leave it for politicians.

This is the problem with the Western countries and the media. They cannot differentiate politics from sport. Problem with Tibet is an internal matter of China. The west should interfere into it differently, not to score political points. The Political leaders of China may even invite Dalai Lama to discuss the issue if they are left alone to do so. But the Western Governments and their media have already made it an issue to condemn China, and thus distanced any possibility of China and Dalai Lama getting together to solve their problems.

Problem in Sri Lanka is the Racial Hatred of the Minority Communities against the Majority Community.

"The world is fast changing, but Sri Lanka is rapidly decaying. The changing world is accepting and accommodating the minorities as part of their nation’s society and embracing them as people in an accommodative way. Sri Lanka which is a tiny drop in the world map is still talking about prejudicial politics to alienate and marginalize the minorities"


This is how the Sri Lanka Guardian begins its editorial of the 6 March,2008. It is a strange editorial because it speaks of a different Sri Lanka seen through the eyes of the writer. In reality Sri Lanka is different from what he tries to portray. In a fast changing world Sri Lanka which had been stagnating for 60 years after independence is trying to find its place. If one looks though coloured glasses one will see every thing in the same colour- the colour of the glasses. The reality will be hidden behind the even colour through which one sees the world.

It is true that in most of the countries in the world the minorities have been absorbed in to the larger majority. But to be accepted and accommodated as a part of their nation’s society and embracing them as people in an accommodative way, the minorities have also contributed by making an effort to change their minority back ground , by learning the language of the majority, accepting the culture of the majority and by taking an oath of being respectful and loyal to the country of adoption.

In Sri Lanka this has not happened. The minority instead of accepting and respecting the majority and being respectful and loyal to the country of their birth , is doing everything prejudicial and destructive to the majority. The minorities want to be a group apart from the majority, and that is the cause of the problem of Sri Lanka, and the disfunction of it as an inclusive society.

What has gone wrong with Sri Lanka is unflinching hatred of the minorities towards the majority. For the minorities in Sri Lanka the problem is with the majority, forgetting that they also have a role to play for not being alienated by the majority. How easy it is to praise other countries and criticise our own country for a problem created by prejudiced minorities.

The writer of these scathing remarks, has forgotten it is more respectful to leave the religion out of political discussions. Many minority Tamil writers do not stay with their criticism of the majority for their political rivalry, but goes on to criticise and belittle every cultural and historical aspect of the majority, when they write of the plight of Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka is not decaying in a fast changing world. The President Mahinda Rajapakse since his taking over the high office has done a lot to raise the image of Sri Lanka from what it had been for a few decades. The International Community has suddenly become aware of a small nation a tiny drop in the world map is making a mighty effort to overcome the debilitating situation it had been put into by a handful of ruthless terrorists , and making its mark in the fast developing world.

An army which was a decade or two ago, a mere decoration of a developing country humiliated and indiscriminately attacked by a terrorist group, whose armed forces were developed through purchase of modern equipment from the contribution of a minority diaspora full of hate towards the majority, is today not second to any army in the world. This modernised army of Sri Lanka Government, has made the mythical well equipped terrorist forces a dilapidated tin army running away hiding their tails between their legs to hide in their holes, from which they will soon be hunted out.

That is what the modernised army of Sri Lanka- the little drop in the world map, has done. No body, neither the minority diaspora, nor the minority sympathisers of the Terrorists believed that it could happen, and now that it is really happening the minority pro terrorists are raising their voices about a Sri Lanka majority that is alienating and marginalising the minorities. How can the Sri Lanka majority under these circumstances, “ accept and accommodate the minorities as part of their nation’s society and embrace them as people in an accommodative way.” In what ways have the minorities helped the majority to cleanse the country of the terrorists, to make it a place for every one- the majority as well as the minorities, to live peacefully despite the minorities hatred towards the majority.

The writer of the editorial, sees Somawanse’s and Weerawanse’s as religious bigots surviving on defunct words. What has religious bigotry got to do with the alienation of the minority from the majority. Who is really running away from transforming the different societies, to an inclusive society in Sri Lanka?
After sixty years of independence, despite a 30 years of a terrorist “war”, Sri Lanka is at last seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and progressing in many ways possible despite the high stakes against terrorist war that no body ( except perhaps a few of the minorities) wants.

It is not correct to make general remarks such as that “ Sri Lanka has become the hotbed to produce degenerated lots of politicians who lacks the political will or charisma to transform the country into an inclusive society. These politicians thrive on the progressive decay and contribute further to compound it to bring the country to an anarchic state.” The Ministers seem to be doing a good job of work despite the immense difficulties they obviously encounter.

Sri Lanka is neither progressively deteriorating, nor is there any signs of the country being taken towards anarchy. Our country is far too small, “a tiny drop in the world map”, to experiment with new political methods. If the minorities give up their notion of being side tracked by the majority, and stop their racial hatred towards the majority both the majority and the minorities could live in harmony.

This excerpt from the Guardian Editorial, “ Tamil terrorism is the manifestation of the unwilling majority Sinhalese rule to accommodate the minorities with open heart and dignity. Unfortunately, the Sinhala mindset is yet to change significantly to accommodate the minorities magnanimously with due respect and provision of power sharing to manage themselves within the island nation of Sri Lanka.”- is just a fiction of the writer’s imagination.

The majority in Sri Lanka have been magnanimous, that is one of the reasons, that there is no racial tension in the South. The minorities live very happily among the majority. There is no country in the world where the majority and the minorities live together in a mixed environment without racial clashes, as it is in the south of Sri Lanka.

This idea of an ethnic problem is new. The only areas that one could point out as an ethnic problem areas, are the language and the University admission at a percentage rate according to the population. But those are matters that could easily be settled.

Unlike in other countries like France or England the minorities in Sri Lanka are quite free to do what they want. The minorities in Sri Lank have their own schools, or they can go to any school they want to. There is no restriction about even what they wear.

In France Muslims girls were not allowed to enter schools with the chadors. There are no separate schools for French people of Arab , Chinese, Vietnamese, or African origin. In Sri Lanka the minorities could correspond with the government departments or institutions in their mother tongue. In France there is one official language, but they are assisted by providing forms in different languages to correspond with the Government departments.

In France as well as in other Western Countries, there are no political parties called the Chinese, Arab, or African United Liberal Front. They become members of the existing political parties of the country. That is how , today, Barack Obama is seeking Nomination from the Democratic Party for the Presidential election.

This could happen in Sri Lanka if the Minorities give up their communal parties and join the two or three main Political Parties such as the UNP , the SLFP or the JVP. These parties have no communal label. If that were to happen it would not be a surprise if Sri Lanka would one day have a President from one of the minority communities.

JHU and JVP are not extremists, they are not against the minorities. The extremists in Sri Lanka are unfortunately in the minority communities. The day the minorities put their thumbs down not to be recognised communally but as Sri Lankans, and give thumbs down to political parties carrying communal labels, and join the main political parties, it “….will be the day Sri Lanka will emerge as a nation that could survive in the fast progressing global village.”

The Guardian Editorial is well written, and it would be a great boon, if the editor would write editorials without racial hatred , to bring the communities together to build a harmonious Sri Lankan Nation of all our people, rather than to keep them divided, and apart from one another.

JUST THOUGHTS

JUST THOUGHTS

Strange the mind is empty. I have many projects but just now there is a complete blank and I feel disassociated from all that I had in mind to do. I worked on a letter to the Lanka web. I have posted it. I read the news items in the internet. I was alone as Annie had gone to Bois de Vincenne. I prepared my lunch and had it watching an uninteresting film in the TV.

Getting ready to Go !

Just two days more for me to take the plane to Sri Lanka. I am a little upset about the baggage. I am not sure how much they weigh. Any way Annie says she will accompany me therefore even if there is excess baggage I will be able to send them back with her. That is some consolation.

I had my son on the telephone. He is busy doing a film with a friend. There are about 10 persons working on the project. He seems to be very happy . He says that doing the cinema is like taking a drug. He comes home late in the evening and sleeps like a baby he says. His friend Pierre is left alone in the apart, and he is bored. Lalith says that he comes in the evening and does his studies and therefore does not want me to call him tomorrow.

I have to go and see Mimi-that is Annie's mother before I leave. I will go at about four this afternoon. I feel a little sleepy as I did not sleep well last night. I had a large crab that is the third since yesterday, that is a lot of crabs ! I will not eat all those stuff once in Sri Lanka. I will return to be a vegetatian.

My mind otherwise is practically empty. No worries. Lalith manages on his own and we can support him financially a little. Annie has lot of friends and she will be happy to be on her own watching the films she likes to see and visiting her friends. She will not miss me.

I was at my mother-in -laws. She was happy to see me. She had invited me for a lunch last Sunday and heavy snow caused the cancellation of it. Alain was at home. They were preparing to have dinner and I was invited to a sumptuous dinner. Annie did not come as she was too tired. We had a usual chat over dinner and it b eing late I left after fond good byes. It was extremely cold.