A reply to "Agotic duplicity and the Norwegian Ambassador"
The Island : 30 April 1999
A letter from AGOTIC to the Norwegian Ambassador to Sri Lanka as appearing in "The
Island" of 16.4.99 under the title "International pressure necessary to end
war" cannot go unchallenged so far as the entirety of its contents are concerned.
First, there is no "War" in Sri Lanka. War is essentially a conflict between
nations/countries. What we have here is an insurgency by an armed group against the state
of Sri Lanka. One trusts that though the Norwegian government and generally its people are
said to be antagonistic towards the Sri Lanka government and more than merely sympathetic
towards the LTTE as regards our north and east issue due to their being totally deceived
by worldwide LTTE and Tamil propaganda which admittedly has been more effective till
recently than the SL government’s he will note the above and what follows as well as
the many other statements and accounts that have appeared in the press and other journals
which factually refute the bogus propaganda of the LTTE and its lobby. He should have
sense enough not to be taken in by the plethora of false agitations of AGOTIC and other
Tamil lobbyists.
Agotic in that false letter to the Ambassador speaks of a near genocide situation in the
North and East of Sri Lanka. "Genocide" means the deliberate extermination of a
race, nation etc". (C.O.Dic). Its gravamen is the ‘deliberateness’ of the
act. Can any reasonable person contend that in its attempt to suppress this insurgency,
the government (presumably the charge is that, it is the Sri Lanka government that is
committing genocide) has planned and is executing a Genocidal Scheme? (capitals
mine.) Do some isolated acts of some misguided troops or their Commanders, or of some
groups or individuals against some Tamils in the N/E amount to "genocide". Can
AGOTIC etc furnish evidence of government plans of such a policy? Is the impossibility of
having such evidence, (because there never was or is such a Genocide Scheme) the reason
why AGOTIC conveniently and deceitfully chooses to come up with the term "near
genocide", leaving it the chance to say "we did not actually
say ‘genocide’ but..."! This is deceit and dishonesty of the most slimy and
reprehensible kind. Can anyone say for example that the infamous Mylai massacre in Vietnam
in 1968, or the equally infamous massacre by the British of Sikhs in Amritsar (1937) was
evidence of genocide by the American and British Govts. resp? According to AGOTIC they
must be necessory acts by govts. or governmental groups against what are perceived by the
ruling govt to be acts of riot, rebellion, insurgency etc and against a group who are
persisting in such mutinies, cannot however severe they be, genocide. Genocide must show a
continuing and planned scheme and policy of a deliberate but unnecessary elimination of a
particular groups. Can AGOTIC show that what is happening in our N/E is akin even
moderately to what happened to the Jews from 1932 to 1945 at the hands of the Nazi Govt.
in Germany or what is happening today in Kosovo? If the Norwegian Ambassodor wishes to
think so that’s his privilege but one feels he is too intelligent for that despite
the known pro-Tamil/LTTE biases of the Norwegian Govt.
I need to advert to one other aspect as regards this alleged "near genocide".
Which genocidist (if I may be permitted to use that word for the perpetrator/s of
Genocide) goes to the extent of feeding and supplying food and other wherewithal, looking
into the medical and health needs and generally into the many needs of day to day life
(salaries, power, communications etc. etc however imperfectly executed due to the security
conditions prevailing) off and to the very people it is allegedly exterminating on a
deliberate and planned scale? Did the Nazis do so to the Jews in the course of its
programs? Is Mylosovic doing so even now for the Muslim (Albanian) Kosovites in
Yugoslavia? AGOTIC’s duplicity should be self evident, Mr. Ambassador.
AGOTIC claims that the govt. "had not been keen to grab the offer of the Tigers to
negotiate" despite speaking of peace, etc. There is some irony here. AGOTIC
unwittingly highlights the wisdom shown by the govt. in its caution as regards the alleged
"offer of the Tigers to negotiate", "Grabbing" implies a penchant to
suddenly snatch at whatever is offered or is available for taking, before it ceases to be
available. It implies a great insufficiency of time to study the offer made before it
ceases
to be available, or is withdrawn. Which responsible govt. will snatch at offers of this
kind, specially from the LTTE whose previous offers have had a notorious history of double
cross and deceit. Which govt. will not properly study the offer first instead of grabbing
it pronto? No doubt the Tamil Lobby would have loved the govt. grabbing at the offer made
by the LTTE as referred to by AGOTIC? It would have enabled both sides to negotiate
without any pre-conditions as so generously conceded by the LTTE, provided of course that
a minor aspect humbly identified by the LTTE (not conditions mark you) be attended to
before such negotiations: that is that "peaceful" conditions for negotiation be
restored. The LTTE meaning merely that the military camps in the N & E be withdrawn,
that supplies of anything and everything (petrol, batterics, cement & what have you)
be restored without let or hindrance, etc., etc.! The Norwegian Ambassador must here be
apprised of the absolute political dishonesty of AGOTIC but no doubt he may, no, must be
already aware of it. It is this. AGOTIC charges the Govt. of reluctance to accept
LTTE’s offer to negotiate. It deliberately refrains from mentioning to him that the
Sri Lanka Govt. has offered to negotiate, has accepted offers by the LTTE to negotiate and
has negotiated with the LTTE three times before
(1985 at Thimpu, 1989 at Colombo, and 1994 at Jaffna) and each time the LTTE double
crossed the Govt. and broke off negotiations in the most treacherous and violent manner.
He being a Norwegian whose country was under the Nazi yoke during WW2 must appreciate that
the Govt. cannot attempt any more "Munichs" with another foe whose propensity to
renege on its commitments and undertakings are of a diabolically similar Hitlerian
character. LTTE Lobbies do not drink at the wells of political honesty, Mr. Ambassador for
Norway, but at the wells of political duplicity.
AGOTIC next says that "the Sinhala people are being brainwashed by this govt. that
this is a Sinhala Buddhist country..." etc. AGOTIC either does not follow what
repeatedly appears in the media of policy statements, speeches, opinions etc. made by the
President and Ministers of this govt. or is deliberately pretending ignorance of same, or
even worse, is deliberately stating the very opposite of what it knows to be the truth,
this last being another act of duplicity of the most slimy kind. This country has in fact
been inundated in the past and specially since this PA govt. took office with the slogan
that Sri Lanka is a "multicultural, multi-religious and particularly multiethnic
country". For AGOTIC or other Lobbyists to say that this govt. brainwashes the
Sinhalese with the opposite of such a proposition is clearly an attempt to deceive the
Ambassador and the world. It is a lie of more than Goebbelsian proportions, a distortion,
nay, a fabrication Mr. Ambassador. In fact both UNP
and PA govts. have been stressing and adnauseam their view of this country’s
"multi-ness" in everything, and specially of its ethnicity that the Sinhalese
are being remorselessly dispossessed of their own country. It is only left for both the PA
& UNP to declaim that the Sinhala Language is a ‘multi-language’, and
Buddhism a ‘multi-religion’! Ok, if the govt. and the minorities claim that with
a 25% population and a 15% non-Buddhist pop (both approx.) makes a country
"multi", the LTTE, AGOTIC & other Tamil Lobbyists should now agitate for the
UK, France, Norway, Canada and several other countries to call themselves
"multi" in the same sense and to recognise Tamil as one of their official
languages, give them local representation in particular areas (e.g. in South London and
Manchester) etc. And what about making similar LTTE-like demands in Malaysia, Fiji, W.
Indies etc.? Why not demand "Packages" from these countries too a la the
PA’s Package!
AGOTIC says that this govt. "has taken no action to educate the Sinhala people that
the Tamils" inter alia "are entitled to the same rights enjoyed by the Sinhala
people". The N/Ambassador must ask AGOTIC to enumerate the list of rights it says the
Tamils are today denied but the Sinhalese have. This is another brazen LIE. There is no
area in which the Sinhalese enjoy any right which the minorities too do not enjoy. Sri
Lanka is perhaps the only country that has made the language of a 12% minority an Official
Language throughout the whole country, Mr. Ambassador. Not even India with 45 million
Tamils, or Malaysia with a 40% Tamil element has done so. Are the Tamils denied voting
rights or employment rights in. govt. or in the private sector (a very large number of
these employees are Tamils) or rights to worship or have Kovils or rights to buy and own
property
anywhere or to have education in their own language and have their own schools (look at
the plethora of Tamil schools outside the N&E!) or to engage in business (many Tamils
are the business kingpins today!) or the right to live any where they please. One does not
say this in a spirit of resentment or envy but only to point out the falsity, the totally
lying nature of the AGOTIC President, Mr. Vijayasingam’s statement to the Norwegian
Envoy. There is great weakness just now regarding implementation of some of the language
and other provisions, admittedly. I believe the govt. is moving to improve this. Mr. V,
please list out the alleged RIGHTS your community is being denied today that the Sinhalese
enjoy. This would enable the Govt to take remedial measures and enable the envoy and the
public to come to know what these one-sided RIGHTS are.
Mr. V. implies that the govt. and the Opposition incited the recent "who came first
to SL" debate. Here too is dishonesty. First, who started the fuss overe simple truth
uttered by the President. It was I believe Mr. Kumar Ponnambalam, and other Tamil
Lobbyists took it up. What evidence does Mr. V have to allege that it was "the govt.
along with the present Opposition" who got people to write on this issue? To say that
the Tamils were not the original people of this country, as the President rightly
said, based on current historical evidence, is not to claim that the Sinhalese were the
original inhabitants. Yet for Tamils to take umbrage at that is to claim that the Tamils
were the first, which itself would the height of cheek because historically wrong. So
what’s the fuss that your Mr. P first and others later made on this. I agree it was
"ridiculous"!
As for Mr. V’s tangential aside implying a Tamil Homeland "in certain
areas" this gross obscenity has been debunked too much for me to debate it here. The
Tamils themselves know in their hearts that it is a spurious bogus claim of only recent
origin specifically moulded for Eelam objectives.
Mr V’s political dishonesty knows no bounds. He refers to the U.S. govt’s
reference to the SL govt. and govt. allied Tamils Groups flouting Human Rights practices
"much more badly" than the Tigers. How he came to this conclusion of a
comparative assessment by the govt. beats one. He refrains from citing the US govts.
declaration of the LTTE as a "terrorist" Organisation or to India’s banning
it!
The fact of extra-judicial killings by Servicemen in the areas of conflict is not denied.
But in anti-insurgent operations where man are liable to be ambushed by terrorist groups,
where men fight terrorists under constant stress and tension, this type of violence is
inevitable. It has happened all over the world-Vietnam, M/East, Kosovo, etc. Human nature
is such. It happened against the
Sinhala JVP where Sinhala soldiers were similarly killing Sinhalese. There it was a
‘class, non-ethnic’ insurgency, and Sinhala insurgents were tortured etc. Now it
is an ethnic. Tamil insurgency and similar things occur. The LTTE (Tamils) are doing the
same to Sinhalese and to their own, Mr. V!
Regarding Palaly, if military considerations demand expansion of the base, so be it. If
purely for colonisation it is wrong. Govt has since cancelled this project. There is no
country in the world that has been as fair by its minorities as we in Sri Lanka.