THE UNHRC – THE LAST REFUGE FOR EELAM TAMILS! SRI LANKA‘s CHOGM MEMBERSHIP?
The much awaited UNHRC September 2011 sessions began recently with the Eelam Tamils expectantly looking forward to some tangible progress in addressing the excesses of the genocide trauma that the Rajapakses inflicted on them. Unlike in the Colombo/Delhi pressured May 2009 sessions the UNHRC membership today has overwhelming evidence of the Rajapakse genocide crimes, thanks to Wikileaks (more and more incriminating leaks are surfacing), the UN ‘expert panel’ report , the epic Channel 4 ‘Killing Fields’ and the Headlines Today documentaries and a re-nourished and balanced world-wide media coverage. These deeply stir the conscience of the world with the civil and humane international community totally isolating the SL genocide regime and in unison clamouring to bring the offenders before the ICC to face justice. Today the mandated UNHRC is better placed to contribute towards delivering justice to the victims despite the strenuous obstructions by some member nations with poor human rights records and others with suspect geo-political agenda that are inimical to the noble role entrusted to the UNHRC.
Tangible UNHRC action on the Rajapakse crimes is imperative not merely to save the hapless Eelam Tamils, the victims from total extinction; the wider humanity will be the greater beneficiary. UNHRC action would check brutal regimes driven by lust for power trampling on human rights with impunity to suppress dissent. The Rajapakses sovereignty lament wasn’t a consideration preventing international intervention in numerous human rights cases (arbitrary arrests, extended internment, indiscriminate killings of political demonstrators to suppress legitimate dissent) that occurred. The Mubaraks, the Gaddafis, the Assads invited intervention over the human rights crimes they committed. Strangely there are members like Delhi that SL openly blackmails into condoning/congratulating SL for its massacres big (Mullivaykal slaughtering over 40 000 civilians) and small. Enough procedural and time space is being created for the Rajapakses to escape justice. The Delhi Sonia junta’s support for SL smears the historic dharmic tradition of Mahatma’s India with the Manmohan Singhs, S M Krishnas, the Meera Kumaris amongst others unashamedly cozying with the Rajapakse murderers.
Readers are familiar with the cruel Rudolf Hoss’s gas chamber killings and Henrich Himmler’s deaths by firing squads to ethnic cleanse the world of Jews. SL’s Rajapakse is revisiting these Hitler’s crimes in successfully ethnic cleansing using brute state terrorism enticing the Tamils into a narrow ‘no fire zone’ for slaughter and raining heavy artillery and aerial fire on the hapless victims there. The brains that authored these crimes were the Menons/Narayanans. Yet these Sonia junta adjuncts by their stilled silence effectively collaborate in the Rajapakses’ lie that SL troops only ‘carried a gun in one hand and the human rights charter in the other’ and did not cause a single civilian death in M’kal! The Menons and Narayanans also lent the RAW over flights to pinpoint these civilians for the Rajapakses attacks.
The euphoric SL soldiers in the field took trophy pictures of their crimes not realising that they were to appear in the ‘Killing Fields’ video. Rajapakse’s trophy boasts is that he had his DPU (Deep Penetration Units) partly manned by Indian personnel speaking a variant of Tamil in the ‘no fire zone’. This adds a new dimension to SL’s crimes covered by the Killing Fields. Channel 4 analysts may now forensically examine this boast to establish the extent to which the DPUs providing the co-ordinates for attack were also directly involved in the killings in the no fire zone. That the Rajapakses also used UAV’s (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) found rounding up and shooting groups of civilians in that zone debunks the allegation that the civilian deaths were caused only by LTTE , the only armed group present in the zone killing the human shield civilians for trying to escape. Rajapakses boast that they had armed DPU men in the zone make them suspects in staging the human shield killings and blaming it on the LTTE. The DPUs and UAVs provided film clips for the SL video ‘Lies agreed to’ to rebut the Channel 4 “Killing Fields’ documentary. Channel 4 may now subject these DPU and UAV clips for analysis.
These M’kal massacres were as much or more cruel than the Nazi massacres. Will the UN/ UNHRC instrumentalities created in the aftermath of the war to end the evil of Nazi state terrorism, ethnic cleansing and genocide allow them to re-emerge by being manipulated by the Rajapakses and its partners in crime in Delhi neutralising the only effective instruments in place to end ethnic cleansing, genocide and other human rights abuses of Rajapakses and others.
World inaction on the Rajapakses encouraged ‘..The notorious Gaddafi… to test out the successful Rajapakses model in Libya but the enlightened nations acted swiftly to save the victims. Relegating sovereignty the conscience of humanity (international community) acted against Milosevic, (a Rajapakses type brutal practitioners of genocide) to bring him before the ICC to account for his crimes. Will the deceits of the Rajapakses and their partners in crime’ (the Delhi Sonia junta) succeed in plotting an escape route for the Rajapakses to avoid accounting for their genocide crimes? Hitler’s genocide led to the birth of Israel. But the Rajapakses’ Delhi patrons argue vehemently against the birth of Tamil Eelam. Disregarding sovereignty Turkey intervened to save the Turks in neighbouring Cyprus from extinction creating Turkish Cyprus; likewise Australia intervened and delivered independence for East Timorese saving them from the cruel trans-migration/ethnic cleansing policies under an oppressive military occupation. The East Timorese lost only about 300 in massacres but Eelam Tamils lost 40 000 in one location/attack (M’kal) alone. Yet the Delhi Sonia junta ‘saw no such evil, not heard of any such evil and will not speak against any such an evil’ in SL.
The core element in the Eelam trauma is the prejudiced anti-Tamil Sinhala SL genocide mindset that outclasses the brutality of the anti-Jew Nazi mindset. The Tamils in 1947 had a 30 percent political representation; anathema to the Sinhala genocide mindset (now successfully reduced to 10 percent or less). Within a year (1948) of independence SL disenfranchised and deported (the first displaced victims) about a million up country Tamils to Tamil Nadu (India). Delhi shed no tears for the fate of these Tamils ever. JR Jayewardene restored these Tamils’ franchise only partially years later and that too by arrangement only to improve his electoral chances. There was no redress from the miserable sub human living conditions for these Tamils. The lament of the victims is; “By the time India wakes up there will be no Tamils in (ethnic cleansed) Sri Lanka (North included) except the descendents of the Sinhalese soldiers…Let us not forget the plantation Indian workers who have been sold out by the same Delhi. They live in ghettos (like the Jews under Nazis), cannot leave their area, under-paid and live and die in 10×10 feet sheds called lines …worse still..they are..almost slaves.” This is classic SL genocide keeping the Tamils in continued deprivation; thanks to the indifference of the Delhi South Block sectarians.
Likewise the Sinhala SL reduced the industrious and reasonably prosperous Eelam Tamils to homeless destitution and terrorizing them with regular state engineered mob and police violence first in the South and now more in the North. Then the Eelam Tamils living in the South were forced to repeatedly flee North (their safe haven) to save their lives; those remaining lived in a semi-servile state in the much boasted South SL. Tarzie Vittachi’s “Emergency 1958” recounts graphically this tragedy. The displacement (or ethnic cleansing) continued with the state instigated 1956 pogrom first to the North. Many Tamils remember vividly the three days long harrowing cargo ship journey as refugee Tamils from the South. They endured this, time and again. The Rajapakses’ boast that everyone irrespective of ethnicity is safe in any part of SL is a historic falsehood. The world renowned 1983 state engineered pogrom created an exodus of close to one million Tamils overseas; thus bringing the total ethnic Tamils cleansed out of SL to over 2 million Tamils at no cost to SL;. The only cost to SL was the creation of the irreversible deep Eelam-Sinhala divide, the Eelam insurgency, three decades of civil conflict and an entrenched commitment to Eelam amongst Tamils.
Once ethnic cleansing for export reached saturation levels SL’s ethnic cleansing/genocide to reduce further the numerical strength of the Tamils turned to more cruel forms. Sinhala SL genocide resorted to starving, indiscriminate bombings and heavy artillery attacks on civilians from its numerous bases in the North, a military occupation with ‘high security zones’ dispossessing Tamil farmers of lands and depriving their livelihood to settle in Sinhalas instead. Tamil fishermen’s livelihood was likewise taken away encouraging Sinhala fishermen to poach in Tamil waters under the SL navy protection. These very Sinhala fishermen menacingly attack TN Indian fishermen with SL navy protection regularly. Though these are clear acts of aggression the mighty Indian navy abdicated its role to protect them, its own nationals. Such atrocities were unheard of during the de facto LTTE rule in the North. It was not that the Delhi Sonia junta was unaware of these attacks; though SL controlled news leaks on such atrocities domestically and internationally,
Likewise Delhi Sonia junta was fully aware that life for most Eelam Tamils in the South in pre-1983 itself was under a climate of fear, the conditions of the Eelam Tamils had turned deplorable following the defeat of the Eelam resistance in May 2009. The ‘reign of terror’ for the Tamils is an important ingredient of the Rajapakses genocide Chintanaya to make the lives of the Eelam Tamils in the North unsafe and unbearable enough to drive them South and suffer the hovel living conditions there. This Chintanaya was to produce a demographic Eelam Tamil dispersion erasing the historical reality of Eelam Tamil homelands. To entrust reconciliation with the most detested Tamils, to the Rajapakses with a cruel ethnic ceansing mindset is eqivalent to keeping the Eelam Tamils in eternal servitude.
Yet Delhi’s genocide apologists, including the big names (like Manmohan Singh, S M Krishna, Menons) simplistically join the Rajapakses chorus that normalcy and peace have returned to the Tamils in SL with the ‘ending of the longest running civil war’ thus trivializing the ferocity of continuing ethnic cleansing of Eelam Tamils in North SL. India’s Headlines Today’s field studies report exposes these as agenda driven blatant lies. The explanation for Delhi’s approach to SL genocide is the fear that SL Gothabhaya will implicate Delhi for its ‘in the loop’ partnership of ‘the most dangerous regime ..that us(es) torture, murder and rape, abductions, summary executions, forced colonizations under the pretext of extending military bases in Tamil areas even in the absence of war (or the phoney ‘terrorism). (that) makes Sinhala SL an island of hell,’. The crude logic of Singh’s (a blundering Bushite) mantra is that ‘there are no good and bad terrorist’ and ‘that anyone who opposes ..ethnic cleansing and genocide and human rights violations are jihardi type ‘terrorists’ who had to be exterminated. Accordingly in Singh’s Rajapakse logic Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Red Cross and many other humanitarian organisations and personalities like Obama, avid Miliband, Hillary Clinton and many other western leaders and advocates of R2P are terrorist sympathizers/supporters. How sad that Delhi has leaders of such weak moral caliber. The Delhi Sonia junta has no choice but to toe closely the Rajapakses line over the SL genocide.
Another Keralite Mafia member, the UN Nambiar supposedly working for UN a world guardian body deputed by Ban to prevent a M’kal massacre using the UN R2P provisions played a dubious role in Gothabhaya’s ‘in the loop’ along with fellow clansmen M’kal Narayanan and Menon. The UN’s own ‘expert panel report’ vaguely mentioned about ‘..the United Nations political organs and bodies that failed to take action that might have protected civilians’. The Nambiar episode led to the cold blooded massacre of the white flag waving leaders. Nambiar’s play acting behind the curtains’ in the UN offices with Sinhala SL officials meeting with Ban raises basic questions about the propriety of Nambiar continuing in that key position in the UN. Hence Eelam Tamils’ lament that only an ICC has the authority to uncover the specifics on Nambiar ‘ignoring the cries of the dying at the crucial hours.’ This Nambiar had a serious conflict of interest problem; not prejudice his brother Satish Nambiar’s career as a military consultant for SL. The intense diplomatic activity involving the US, Norway and EU members in the critical days to avoid the bloodbath that lamentably failed is totally attributable to the antics of the Keralite Mafia. Nambiar/Narayanan and company who pressured SL to speed up the attacks in Mullivaykkal to meet the compulsions of Indian electoral politics and causing the massacre. Over 320 000 so-called ‘liberated’ civilians herded to ‘languish’ in the Menik Farm torture camps’ ; the brain child of the Keralite Mafia, was to prevent news leaks of the massacres to save Narayanan/Menon/Sonia should a Gothabhaya facing the ICC spills out the beans.
The Sinhala SL alarmed over the massacre leaks amusingly started calling the ‘War on Terror’ as a ‘Humanitarian Operation’. Dismissing this line the ‘expert panel report’ dispels doubts that the Eelam victims were failed by the UN an international body mandated to protect the Eelam Tamils. While Turkey acted to save their kins in Cyprus the Sonia Delhi junta betrayed the Tamils reversing the good intentioned Indraji’s support for Eelam Tamils. Thus the Eelam Tamils only look up as their saviors only ‘the international community .. showing the will and intent to act to save Eelam Tamils from extinction’ using the UN agencies.
The ‘expert panel’ report also earns the deep gratitude of the Eelam Tamils, so do the Wikileaks revelations, the Channel 4 ‘Killing Fields’ and the Headlines Today documentaries and a world-wide media giving a more balanced coverage. The Tamil diaspora continues to canvass Delhi away from its stance of opposing the international community’s SL war crimes initiatives. ‘Successful war crimes outcome will act to deter SL continuing with its genocide especially its massacres. Going by SL’s genocide record, for the Eelam Tamils safety for their lives is the uppermost concern for which the effective safeguard is justice for the victims in the UN war crimes tribunals. Whether there is an effective devolution in place or not , be it Rajiv’s 13 Amendment+ or a federal system given the Sinhala genocide, Eelam Tamils additionally need the continued protection of the international community using the UN instrumentalities. Any political solution needs to be underwritten with guaranteed safeguards that the international agencies offer for the safety of their lives. Eelam Tamils do not have the strength or will to withstand the recurrence of any more Mullivaykkal massacres.
International isolation serves notice on genocide SL that it has earned a pariah status, that this should be made more and more evident to SL. Led by the British and Canadian PMs a broad based boycott is a must. The Greens in Australia urge SL’s suspension from the CHOGM beginning with the next meeting in Perth. Fiji suffered four coups since 1987 prompting international sanctions each time and suspension from the CHOGM twice. Likewise Pakistan was expelled, for calling a state of emergency in 2007 India taking the initiative in both cases. They are not as grave crimes compared to the SL genocide especially its massacres. Members of the CHOGM have to demonstrate their moral disapproval of the inhuman Sri Lankan genocide practices by expelling SL for its genocide crimes.