"All Tamils are terrorists and all terrorists Tamils"

From Mail Box

(October 03, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The one off census of the Tamil people, who have come into residence in the western province during the past five years, currently taking place, is being done on the presumption that all terrorists are Tamils and all Tamils are terrorists. As claimed by the defence ministry, this is being done for the ostensible reason to make life safe for the Tamil “migrants” as they are now called, when in actual fact these migrants need to be protected from the fascist Sri Lankan state. According to blown up estimates, nearly 100,000 persons will be caught up in this ordeal to stand in queues for hours on end with all their documents to prove that they are in the western province for a plausible reason acceptable to the police, which in Sri Lanka, are the cutting edge of its fascism.

These are people waiting, in the interim, in the process of being further “liberated” by President Rajapakse. Already about 37,000 Tamil men, women and children have been registered in this manner. We are also informed by government circles that those who went through the process really enjoyed it and they are the happier for it. Now, Tamils are not only terrorists, they are also made out to be masochists.

In the western province, with Colombo as its principal city, there are persons of all nationalities and religions, that one could find in Sri Lanka, but it is presumed that if any person or group should indulge in any terrorist activity, then such persons have to be Tamils. Based on the premise of Sri Lankan government’s covert propaganda maligning that all Tamils are terrorists, by some curious lopsided logic, it is also deduced that all terrorists in the western province are Tamils and Tamils alone would indulge in terrorist activities. We are not going to discuss here the vast number of underworld cells, sections of army deserters, common criminals who would undertake a “demolition job” for a song, and also those abductors with their white vans in waiting, those who make some Tamil people do the disappearing act, those who wantonly attack journalists and a whole host of others. In contrast to this registration of temporary residents, it must however, be stated that for fear of their residences being located and their being targeted in state sponsored attacks, more than 200,000 Tamil voters, permanently resident in the Colombo electoral districts have been voluntarily “disenfranchising” themselves by not registering as voters if this is anything to go by to judge the oldest democracy in Asia as claimed.

In this racist state, when the overriding consideration in such exercises is racism, with the Tamil people stereotyped and singled out for vilification and victimisation, the government’s capacity for any rational and/or objective approach to such issues including those concerning state terrorism, goes out of the window. Even some Sinhala chauvinist “internationalists” have opposed this move, not because of any consideration of justice or humanitarianism, but purely because it could make the LTTE more popular.

This move amongst numerous other measures systematically directed against the Tamil people, once again belies the absurd notion of the apologists for a unitary state in Sri Lanka, quick to point out that such a political system affords the opportunity for the Tamil people to freely move about in Sri Lanka making the case for separation and self determination all the more strong.

Who are these Tamil people who are said to be at large in Colombo and its peripheries? While we are told on one hand that most of these people are those who have left the de facto state of Tamil Eelam, on the other, it is said, that the LTTE prevent any body from leaving their territory. Further, if the east has been liberated from the LTTE then why should the Tamils flee the east and why should those in government controlled parts in the north move towards Colombo? In actual fact, most of these people both from the north and the east are fleeing military atrocities of killings, unlawful arrests, abductions, disappearances, torture, and above all hunger and privation with the prime agricultural lands having come under the high security zones and fishers not being able to go out to sea.

In Jaffna, with the closure of the trunk route with essential food stuffs rare to come by, there are days when the shelves in shops go completely empty. Most of these people, as also those from the east, depend on foreign remittances to eke out their bare living and therefore it is easier for them to be in Colombo to receive and exist on foreign remittances from their relatives in the Tamil Diasporas. The majority of them are looking for ways to migrate to get away from the racist state.

Once again, we are saying to the international community, whoever they are, to help to "let our people go" before they are completely decimated and consumed by the imminent genocide of unprecedented proportions. - Sri Lanka Guardian