After keeping the world in suspense Delhi voted for the West’s historic March 2012 UNHRC resolution only with a condition that SL consents to any action for the crimes. In normal circumstances action on an UNHRC resolution follows automatically to hold accountability proceedings against those responsible (will this include the South Block ‘in the loop’ trio?) for grave crimes (the massacres) In SL’s case massacring over 40 000 civilians in a couple of days and detaining and starving over 300 000 civilians in concentration camps are grave enough crimes under international law.
Delhi’s stance on the March 2012 UNHRC resolution apparently is to please the Tamil voters in TN compared to its stance during the May 2009 UNHRC sessions. In May 2009, Delhi did push through a resolution congratulating SL for the massacres (an extra-ordinary act!) to deny UNHRC justice to the victims. In March 2012 Delhi also caused comparable damage imposing an iconic condition that accountability proceedings against SL require SL’s consent. (a queer condition where a murderer’s consent is required to bring the accused to court to answer for the crime). In May 2009 Delhi rushed through that resolution after watching the gruesome SL crimes using life satellite pictures. When Channel 4 relayed the same brutal killings the humane world reacted with horror to move earnestly to bring the Rajapakses to account for the crimes. However Delhi continued to strive to downplay the tragedy to save the Rajapakses and their accomplices from facing the UNHRC. The South Block and venomous Rajpakses shared deep anti-Tamil prejudice to treat Eelam insurgency as ‘terrorism’ to be defeated at any cost. Delhi by these sinful acts encouraged the Rajapakses to continue SL’s barbaric genocide with impunity to ethnic cleanse all Tamils out of SL the soonest possible. This is proceeding fast and decisively. Delhi’s extra-ordinary friendship towards SL is not driven by altruism but the threat of SL unraveling the extent of the South Block’s ‘in the loop’ complicity in SL’s crimes.
Gothabhaya Rajapakse delivered to Delhi a comparable ‘in the loop’ complicity message recently stating ‘We consider those who talk about Eelam as terrorists.’ (Daily Mirror 20 April 2012) extending the codes that Delhi has to observe to keep SL’s friendship. The weakling PM Singh reacted within hours with a meek letter blaming India voting against SL on TN. Delhi’s conduct of Indo-SL relations since May 2009 gives grounds to suspect that Delhi dreaded Rajapakses’ ‘in the loop’ weapon most to take extra-ordinary pains to please the Rajapakses even avoiding the use of terms like Eelam, the massacres and SL genocide the Rajapakses dislike.
Sri Lanka the victor over the LTTE, with China serving as an ally unnerved Delhi that an emboldened Colombo puts Delhi on notice not to interfere in its ethnic problem especially its cleansing of the Tamils out of SL project; any interference will be an unfriendly act supporting the terrorists. Colombo is now dealing with Delhi from a position of strength (unheard of in the past). So what then is fate of Delhi’s loudly touted 13th Amendment plus project? Tamils fear that Delhi would act on Rajapakses’ dictat and dismiss the TN state for it’s pro-Eelam stance. More ominous is Gothabhaya’s threat that should the ex-CM or Delhi wanted ‘to establish Eelam, he/Delhi could do so in Tamil Nadu where (most) ..Tamil people live.’ SL has past precedents of India accepting a million up-country estate Tamils in 1949. Delhi/S M Krishna are seriously involved in delaying the implementation of the UNHRC resolution to allow Rajapakses time to complete the elimination of the Tamils in SL ending the Eelam problems for good. This suggests that SL’s reach to engage ‘Eelam’ or terrorism will in future cross borders into..(TN?) should this be required? Anil Athale a serious analyst pointed to risks to India’s soft underbelly in Delhi being too friendly with the Rajapakses.
Efforts to rid SL of the Tamils have historical roots. SL was ruled by the Tamil Kingdoms for many many centuries. There were Tamil Kingdoms in SL until the arrival of colonial powers in the 15th century. The Portuguese ruled the Jaffna Kingdom under a separate treaty. Other SL kingdoms in SL during the colonial rule also remained administratively as separate entities and/or were part of the Madras Presidency not a united entity. Right through history SL was not a national entity with a distinct linguistic identity; Sinhalas and Tamils occupied different parts of Ceylon, Sinhala/Tamil history is a narrative of Tamil conquests and occupation and Sinhala resistance to it. Eelam Tamils as a people identified themselves most closely with their brethren, the TN Tamils living across the Straits that despite the Sinhala efforts to disrupt these ties (cutting the railway link, imposing restrictions on Eelam Tamils making regular pilgrimages for Hindu festivals and cultural events) but the ties with TN Tamils remain strong. Thus the close emotional interaction between TN and Eelam peoples contrasts the animosity that afflicts Sinhala-Tamil relations. The identity left behind by the British for independent Ceylon was for communities to inhabit their traditional homelands, speak their own languages, practice their own religion amongst others. The language of contact for political, administrative and commercial matters was English though this was at the elite level.
The term Eelam itself originated as early as 1921 long before Prabhaharan and Ceylon’s (SL) 1947 independence indicating that there were historical underlying identity tensions between Sinhalese and Tamils. Sinhala leaders exhibited genocidal tendencies right from the beginning of recorded history. Within one year of independence the identity tensions surfaced; SL committed the first act of political genocide – the up country Tamils were dis-enfranchised. Eelam Tamils alarmed over this sought for over 3 decades for constitutional safeguards to save their identity opting for a federal constitution not outright separation as the Pakistanis wisely extracted. To destroy the Eelam Tamil identity SL launched a broad based genocide on the Tamils; initially violence against the non-violent satyagraha struggle for federalism; regular pogroms with killings, destroying Tamils ‘livelihood, destruction of Tamil property, Sinhala only to deny job opportunities and brutal armed oppression. Eelam Tamils were essentially peaceful and until 1978 when only two policemen were killed in ethnic related incidents though thousands of Eelam Tamils perished in the early Sinhala pogroms.
When the youth realized that after 3 decades of pacific resistance to oppressive Sinhala rule was taking the Tamils the down the road of doom and gloom the youth opted for an armed resistance to Sinhala genocide. The cruelty of the Sinhala genocide not only earned mass Eelam Tamil support but above all the support of India and TN. These gave sufficient strength to the Eelam resistance to rid the state sponsored Sinhala settlements in the North and East and run a de facto state for nearly three decades. International players had no inhibitions in cultivating dealings with it. Success after success of the miniscule Eelam Tamil’s armed resistance in the battle front aroused the envy of sectarian South Block who covertly conducted a vicious campaign to demonise Tamil resistance in the eyes of the world as a ruthless terrorist (not a resistance to genocide) movement. SL closed off free access to information on the ground that when the UPA returned to power in 2004 the South Block exploited the Rajiv’s assassination to hijack the sound humane policies of Indra and Rajiv supporting the Tamils. Once the LTTE were eliminated in May 2009 SL invented a new bogey labeling all supporters of the Tamil cause as separatists terrorists. The 87 years old ex TN CM became a ‘terrorist’ overnight for expressing pro Eelam sentiments. SL still studiously labels any Tamil resistance to the SL genocide as terrorists.
Likewise after May 2009 the diaspora according to the Rajapakses and the South Block are terrorists not fighters to save their identity and homeland from Sinhala occupation. SL and South Block quoted the sovereignty considerations against Delhi acting to redress Tamil grievances. The key issue for the Eelam Tamils is to save their lives. During the colonial times the Tamil lives were secure under the police commanded by the British (not the Rajapakses). Thereafter the armed Eelam resistance provided safety for Tamil lives under its de facto rule. SL apologists cry hoarse that 50 per cent of the Tamils are living in peace in the South today – a total myth that most “Friends of the Rajapakses’ from India who after ingesting the pleasures during SL’s conducted tours accept, though they were kept away from interacting freely with the victims of the Rajapakse genocide. Some of these visitors have established track records as propaganda agents of Gothabhaya.
There is sufficient evidence in the public domain thanks to the international media vouching to the reign of terror conditions for the Eelam Tamils even today. How could these visitors miss reports about the white van visits and disappearances, regular mid night calls at Tamil homes by police or armed men, checks of identity papers, street check points that prop up at any time of the day followed by victims disappearing for good. SL’s own LLRC report has acknowledged the terror of the White van abductions operated out of the Defense establishment. That the North is the most militarized region in the world makes a mockery of the claim of these ‘Friends of the Rajapakses’ (hello Nachchiappan) that peace or normalcy has returned to SL.
Indians who really know their history accept that before independence present day India geographically was part of a single sub-continent. It had to split into India and Pakistan states when mature and honest leaders realized that the identity ingredients to survive as a united nation were missing. The divisive identities created horrendous levels of animosities, partition, violence, inter-communal killings, massive displacement and tragic relocation of people. However the dharmic Mahatma tutored leadership realized the futility of chasing after a contrived unity to agree to partition. Unlike the Rajapakses and his friends in UPA Delhi, this Mahatma thinking is forgotten by the present UPA leaders who for cheap political gains resist solutions to avoid massacres and the evils of genocide oppression. Geographic contiguity does not automatically create a united national entity.
The Delhi mandarins of today are not humanists of the Gandhis, the Nehrus, Indras and Shastris calibre. Rajiv in 1987 signed the Indo-SL Accord (alias the 13th Amendment) supporting SL’s subjugation of the Eelam Tamils without safeguards for Tamil lives, their homes and homelands and identity. The anti-Tamil axis that operated out of Delhi has a S M Krishna and the South Block apologists repeating the dud ‘united SL’ mantra and remain mute when the horrenduous anti-Tamil inhumanity raged on for years and even avoided like plague any expression of sympathy for the barbaric massacres of the Tamils at its doorstep. Delhi does not shy away as normal humans do from the Rajapakses the world renowned murderers.
It is worth mentioning that the North and East readily operated as an integrated Eelam entity in their homeland (that SL is now hurriedly dismantling) enjoying de facto statehood for nearly three decades 1983 to 2009. Except for the sparse use of English there were no other worthy ties between the North and the South as SL regimes nurtured perennial conflict within the geographical space that originally was Ceylon. The sin qua non for the two communities to live together in peace in SL is destroyed forever.
The anti-Tamil prejudice in most evident when Delhi allowed a lowly diplomat to label all Tamils (TN Tamils included) terrorists and cheekily demanded that Delhi investigate some of the Indian parliamentarians from Tamil Nadu for speaking for Tamil Eelam’ (Prasad Kariayawasam on March 16). Gothbhaya Rajapakse goes further to target the ex and aged CM of TN a terrorist. ‘We consider those who talk about Eelam as terrorists’. How brutally the Rajapakses handle (d) Tamil separatist/ terrorists is well known internationally; terrifying.
Since independence in 1947 SL state terrorism demographically rid South SL of the Eelam Tamils in thousands. India supplied the boats to carry them as refugees North following the 1983 pogroms. Tamil could not flee North by land in the so-called ‘land of Buddha’ without being killed. The genocide was so horrendous that over a million Eelam Tamils also fled overseas and now as the diaspora campaign vigorously against the brutal SL genocide. Over 50 per cent of the Tamils (estimated at 2.5 million) were demographically reduced by eviction and massacres enlarging the political and economic base of the Sinhalese – SL’s success story. It is strange unlike the civil international community Delhi that is fully aware of such an inhuman tragedy for the Eelam Tamils in SL still pleads that the Tamils to continue to bear the cruelty of SL genocide tormentors but spare their good friend Rajalakse. Delhi plea is for a SL’s geographic unity not a unity of its people. Geographic contiguity alone does not assure a nation’s survival. SL regimes destroyed people’s unity chasing after a territorial unity to alter SL’s demographic balance disadvantaging and subjugating the Tamils, which is immoral. Delhi vehemently supports this immorality.
India as a composite of linguistic entities/peoples remains intact under its federal constitution with India observing the sanctity of the linguistive entities. But strangely that same India today amorously courts the Rajapakses and encourages the destruction of the linguistic Tamil identity in SL and erase the Eelam Tamil homelands- a historic tragedy. Once the Sinhala regimes openly label communities fighting to maintain their cultural identity as Gothabhaya Rajapakses does as terrorists and wages a vicious war to eliminate them the regime fight for ‘unity’ becomes a phoney one. The R2P provisions adopted in the UNHRC is to safeguard against the excesses of the Rajapakses tendencies.
The international community should rightfully now invoke the R2P provisions to protect Eelam Tamils from the brutality of the continuing Rajapakses genocide though the much maligned terrorism of the Tamil resistance who were the legitimate protectors of the Tamils is totally destroyed Delhi contributing to it. Political trends suggest that the UPA the Rajapakse benefactor is about to end given the assembly election results in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, TN, Mumbai, even Delhi.
Modern day UPA Delhi for the 16 March UNHRC 2012 sessions had avatar Lord SM Krishna’s (a South Block ‘Friends of Rajapakse’) making divine pronouncements lauding the Rajapakses genocide on grounds of India’s geo-politics and most outrageously ‘that Delhi ..(has given) up its Nehruvian style foreign polices based on ethics and self-righteousness to ..’ save SL’s unity and the Rajapakses friendship. The Delhi mandarins of today opted to forget the great humanist heritage of a Gandhi, Nehru, Indra in dealing with universal identity tensions.
India gratuitously gifted away India’s noble role to the international community the West in particular and all those who voted for the March 2012 UNHRC resolution. The Delhi geo-politics playing with an emerging China threat in the region and Tamil separatism gaining a foothold in India are hallucinations of the South Block. Responsible leaders should discourage the ‘crying wolf’ gamble of its South Block advisors becoming a dangerous tempting game’. Such fanciful threats are bound to target and hurt TN Tamils.
Nations far away from Colombo/Delhi horrified on viewing the same images of the Tamils suffering brutality speak out at the injustice and brought the recent UNHRC March 2012 resolution. But Delhi under the influence of the complicit South Block ‘Friend of R….’ apparently has awoken from its Kumbakarna slumber, confused, unable to ‘see any evil, hear any evil and not speak about such an evil and yet voted for the resolution against SL. Delhi’s amendment to the UNHRC resolution causes real harm to India’s regional power standing with Rajapakses bringing alarming new security threats that pacifists Gandhian/Nehruvian/Indra kept at bay. The Rajapakses’ aggressive assertiveness is equally harmful to India’s regional standing.
Delhi’s predicament in not being able to act morally internationally is the product of the Sonia’s ‘in the loop ‘South Block’ trio’s collusion in the SL genocide. Though Delhi voted with the international community for the UNHRC resolution the pathetically weak PM Manmohan Singh had to cave in over the ‘in the loop’ complicity leak to write an apologetic letter instead of falling at Rajapkses feet seeking mercy.
The armed Eelam fighters were demonized as terrorists; were accused of using Tamil civilian as human shields to cause the heavy casualties. Analysts point to the unreliability of the SL figures on the civilian and combatant casualties. Significant combatant casualties were reported under Sinhala casualties. Cross-checking of the data provided in Wikepaedia and (GPN 1972-010) GENOCIDEPREVENTIONNOW point to other glaring discrepancies in the numbers killed to who assert ‘The government has been suppressing this information from coming out’. The human shield thesis peddled alongside the zero civilian casualties unfairly blamed the Tamil resistance for causing the heavy casualties firing at civilians attempting to flee the battle zone. That the casualties were caused by SL is now exposed. Rajapakse’s boast about DPUs in the immediate aftermath on May 19 2009 reveals how pre-arranged SL DPUs fired into government lines to invite retaliatory barrages to cause the heavy civilian casualties crowded in the ‘no fire zone’. Defense initially claimed that only the armed Tamil resistance fighters were present in the ‘no fire zone’ but Rajapakse boast contradicts this when he praised his well armed DPUs present in the ‘no fire zone’ contributing to SL’s victory over the Tamil fighters. An independent investigation under the UNHRC will bring out the truth on the role the SL DPUs played in the massacres in the no fire zone. The DPUs reported directly to the Defense secretary Gothabhaya Rajapakse.
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