Rajapakse’s endearing wishes to his new immediate family

(January 18, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardain) Rajapakse in his endearing Thai Pongal message was not referring to those of the immediate family running the affairs of the Sri Lankan State and its government but to those hundreds of thousands of Tamils literally running away from them. Hardly have they in their hunger digested his previous message to the world: “I am now ready to reveal to you the proud news of the most honourable victory in the annals of military heroism that runs through many centuries of our history,” purporting that the war between the Government and the LTTE was a war between the Sinhalese and the Tamil people, under the facade of a war against terror, clearly evident to even the most naive of them, he now in an exercise of supreme hypocrisy, treachery, deception and complete turnaround, calls them “my own brothers and sisters”.

Rajapakse has never been trusted nor ever believed by the Tamil people and he has always lived up to it: “On this special day of hope, I am glad to assure all Hindus of Sri Lanka that the time for the liberation of their brothers and sisters in faith, who are also my own brothers and sisters as citizens of Sri Lanka is near at hand, as we strive to restore freedom and democracy in full measure to the North of our country”, he says. It is callously cynical that Tamil Hindus, the vast majority of whom have been denied the opportunity of resuming their occupation of farming, be wished on the festival marking the dawn of their harvesting season.

In addressing the Hindus in Sri Lanka he makes overtures to the Tamil Hindus in the Vanni areas calling them also his own brothers and sisters of whom nearly 350,000 are displaced with no roofs over their heads, no sanitation, no water and no food, facing the possibility of an onslaught of cholera. At the very moment he was referring to this extended family there had been ten successive aerial raids on them in Mullaitivu, Chundikulam, Chalai, Visvamadu and Tharmapuram and Vaddakachchi within a matter of a few hours. On a daily basis at least 50 persons: the aged, women, children and the disabled are killed, maimed or further disabled in addition to the trauma and the malnutrition that the children have been enduring for months. During the 13 days from 01 January 2009 alone, leading up to the time of Rajapakse’s message, 28 civilians had been killed and 185 wounded. Through repeated bombardments, Rajapakse’s forces with their genocidal intent, have also ensured that the hospitals were destroyed and made dysfunctional with patients having to be rushed to makeshift hospitals functioning in schools and under trees with no blood available.

Talking of democracy, freedom and pluralism, it is no coincidence that the highest number of Tamil parliamentarians, Christian and Hindu priests were killed during Rajapakse’s regime as were the numbers abducted and disappearing. 21 Journalists both Sinhalese and Tamil were killed. He talks of freedom but from what: Racism, discrimination, inequality, constant fear of pogroms, arbitrary arrests, torture, military harassments, the terrorism of the Sri Lankan State over-all? The Tamil people want real freedom to live with self respect and dignity. “The wounds of war”, wrote Lasantha Wickrematunga, “will scar them for ever”, leaving “an even more bitter and hateful diaspora”. Before Rajapase restores democracy and freedom in the north and the east there is an immediate need to put his own house in the south in order as would the attacks on the Maharajah television station in Colombo and the murder of Lasantha Wickrematunga of the Sunday Leader would show.

It is an indictment on even the right thinking Sinhalese people including the genuine Buddhist and Christian clergy in the south that they have not even shown a shadow of protest or public discussion to say the least on the atrocities inflicyed on the innocent civilians in the Vanni, in sharp contrast to the articulated protests by the people in Israel including Rabbis and the Jewish Diasporas in the west against the killings of the Palestinian people in the Gaza.

At the private (not state) funeral of Lasantha Wickrematunga, Mr. Jurgen Weerth, the German Ambassador in Sri lanka in his eulogy, eventually to learn of Sri Lankan democracy the hard way, in all sincerity said: "Today is a day when one remains speechless. Maybe we should have spoken before this. Today it is too late. Today is a day when humanity has lost a major voice of truth. But he will live in his work." If for these words, Ambassador Weerth should have been reprimanded by the Sri Lankan government and be afforded a personal taste of the true flavour of Sri Lankan democracy, and also for a fiercely independent Sinhalese journalist to have predicted his own killing having become so clearly obvious in a fascist state, then just imagine the possibilities of Rajapakse’s “own Tamil brothers and sisters” in the north and east of Sri Lanka ever “enjoying” democracy and freedom.

Having lived and brought up within the Sri Lankan enclave of economic and political repression and fascism, abetted by India, it is impossible even to imagine that the current and new generations of Sri Lankans, both Sinhalese and Tamils will ever have the taste of true democracy as things are. - Sri Lanka Guardian