The resourceful Sinhala SL entrapped Delhi’s ‘in the loop’ trio into Delhi losing all the leverage it enjoyed in SL in the past. To save the trio an embarrassed Delhi had to join an unholy ‘axis’ to styme the West’s SL war crimes initiatives. Hence, even a year after the end of the Eelam Tamil resistance, Sinhala SL genocide crimes continue. UNHR/human rights groups’ initiatives seeking justice for the genocide victims remain frustrated by the geo-politics of these ‘axis’ nations. SL’s success in stalling UN war crimes initiatives encourages a genocide culture more devastating than the threat of Jihardi terrorism.
The success of the international community in the Yugoslav wars crimes case were trend setting. It ended a brutal genocide, delivered genuine relief to the victims and peace in the region. This didn’t eventuate in the SL genocide case.
Most Eelam Tamils are a displaced people; no homes, no self sustaining economic pursuits and oppressed under a brutal army occupation. Most affected are the Narayanan-Gothabhaya (N-G) IDPs; farmers surviving on the hand outs funded by the guilt conscious Delhi. Sinhala SL’s claim (believed by Delhi) that only 70 000 of the 300 000 N-G IDPs still remain in the notorious internment camps is an outrageous mis-representation of the situation in the ground. Only a fraction of the 230 000 are back in their own homes mostly west of the highway. The rest languish in temporary shelters or with poor relatives in Jaffna. The homes of the 230 000 N-G IDPs are in the Mullativu/Kilinochchi farmlands deliberately devastated in Rajapakses’ scotched earth war. SL engineers re-settlement delays to allow Sinhala SL to put in place new military structures to protect the Sinhala farmers who are to be settled in the homes of the N-G IDPs. This is classic ethnic cleansing (a war crime) of Tamil Eelam into a Sinhala SL.
The irony is that Delhi’s re-construction projects meant to benefit of the original Eelam Tamils unwittingly fund this ethnic cleansing effectively evicting the Tamils from their homelands. When the Portuguese, Dutch and the British occupied Tamil Eelam, it was as a separate entity under separate treaties. Ethnic cleansing of the Tamils is the essence of Sinhala SL’s ethnic policy. Lalith Athulathmudali’s (a Gothibhaya proto-type) declared “only way to root out terrorism was to remove the concept of ‘traditional homelands’ ” This was long before LTTE was a force to reckon with.Delhi’s focus on the N-G IDPs shifts attention away from surviving the ethnic cleansing or genocide ‘reign of terror’ that Eelam Tamils still endure. Survival being the core issue the panaceas being canvassed (re-settlement of the N-G IDPs, reconciliation, equitable sharing of the fruits of development) only serves as the façade for Sinhala SL to totally ethnic cleanse the Tamil homelands and replaced with a ‘Sinhala land’.
The answer to ‘how much of the 30 per cent Tamils in Ceylon at independence still live in SL’ is measure of the success Sinhala SL ethnic cleansing. The British orphaned the Tamils to the foster care of the likes of Rajapakses or Sinhala SL with a vision of a united Lanka as a ‘Sinhala land’ cleansed of Basil Rajapakse’s ‘para demalas’. A former SL President D B Wijetunge’s “minorities ..are creepers clinging to the Sinhala tree” required that Tamils be exorcised; which ideology drives SL’s ethnic cleansing massively displacing the Tamils from Tamil homelands.
Sinhala SL’s ethnic cleansing began thus; in the first three decades using state instigated mobs, police and armed forces to regularly kill hundreds, cruelly displaced/dispossessed tens of thousands from their homes/assets throughout SL. The 1 plus million diaspora in UK, Canada and Australia vouch to the murderous character of Sinhala SL’s ethnic cleansing. One year after independence the Citisenship Act 1948 disenfranchised and evicted .9 million estate Tamils to TN/India; about .4 million (according to a 2004 Harvard study) were killed and 1.2 million forced to flee overseas as refugees.
The more murderous Rajapakse (2004..) ethnic cleansing physically eliminated the Tamils in much larger numbers; tens of thousands massacred by the armed forces in the Kilinochchi and Mullativu offensives. The Rajapakses starved over 300 000 into surrendering in May 2009 before herding them into concentration camps for indefinite internment. A triumphant Sinhala SL relayed to an appreciative Sinhala public vivid TV images of these bone starved victims herded into camps. These images are candid evidence of Sinhala SL using starvation as a weapon of war, a war crime. President Jayawardene’s prophetic words “..Really if I starve the Tamils out, the Sinhala people will be happy” reflects the mindset of Sinhala SL and the brutality of Rajapakses’ ethnic cleansing and genocide.
The Rajapakse war crimes stirred the conscience of the world; the exception, an unholy axis comprising China (of Tiananmen and Tibet fame) Israel, Dharmic India under secular Delhi rulers (!) Islamic Iran, and Pakistan (both sponsors of Jihardi terrorism) all of whom collaborated in the SL genocide. This axis voted in May 2009 UNHRC meeting to further their geo-political interests killing the spirit of the mission for which the UNHR institutions were set up thereby neutralizing the capacity of the UN to act to deter genocide a serious enough war crime. SL’s earlier human rights record cost its UNHRC membership just a year before, a testimony to how erratic and unprincipled were the voting by axis members in UNHRC. In contrast the West (notably UK and US) occupy a high moral ground on SL war crimes issue in the UNHRC.
The hapless Eelam Tamils facing survival threats and now without the protection of the mandated UNHR still look up to India/TN for support to survive. A growing dharmic section amongst the newer breed of policy makers in Delhi have awoken to the damage that Delhi’s active role in destroying the LTTE leverage caused removing the three decades long protection the Eelam Tamil resistance provided and how the new found Sinhala triumphalism without the LTTE deterrence encourages in SL an assertiveness to opt for a wider regional role for China at India’s expense. China earned a firm foothold (Hambantota and Katchchativu) in SL that once militarized brings the China threat to India’s soft underbelly. Were the sectarians in the Delhi trio colluding with SL/China to sabotage TN’s prime Sethu project? Is Sinhala SL intensely militarizing Tamil Eelam facing the entire TN coastline expecting an attack on SL by the ‘over-appeasing’ Delhi in reaction to SL’s abrasive words and actions endangering Indian security? This outcome eventuating becomes real when the China threat grows more ominous. Timely redemption from this predicament requires Delhi to de-militarise the North SL. This will reduce the China threat to India’s soft under belly and also bring normality into Eelam Tamils’ lives.
vssubramaniam
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