Honourable professionals indulge in mischievous misinformation

Tamil Canadian Legal Professionals Association writes to the Governor General of Canada

By Satchi Sithanandan and Jacinta Cruz

(March 08,Los Angeles , Sri Lanka Guardian) A classic case of mischief and misinformation is a letter sent to Her Excellency Michaelle Jean, Governor General of Canada by an organization called Tamil Canadian Legal Professionals Association whose leading officials are Mrs D Gunarajah (President), Messrs S Navaratnam and R Maharajah Vice President and Secretary respectively. Each of them is a barrister and solicitor.

Their letter is dated March 3, 2009 and refers as they claim to the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka. There is indeed a humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka and this is averred and affirmed herewith. Their main claims are as follows:

Referring to large numbers of people who were force-marched from their towns and farming villages in the region of Wanni which the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were controlling as an illegal de factor state, these Canadian professionals state that they “are emotionally disturbed because thousands of our families and friends are among the multitude who are caught in the conflict zone and convulsing in the throes of famine, death and destruction.”

They submit that “the unfolding scenario in the North of Sri Lanka has the frightening features of an impending carnage’” and has blamed the international community as having opted to remain mute.

According to them, the bare facts are centred on their claim that the “advancing security forces, bombing and shelling” and as a result, three hundred thousand Tamil civilians have been dislodged from their homes and habitats. They also state that these people have been “squeezed into tiny strip of land in Wanni, bereft of basic necessities including food, shelter and medicine.”

This contention is utterly flawed and defective. When the security forces advanced they encountered ghost towns and farm villages apart from empty bunkers of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) with signs that they were hurriedly evacuated. It was the LTTE and the aids that they used to dislodge the civilians from their homes and habitats and force them to what they had planned as the point of final resistance to force a ceasefire using the civilians as human shields.

The LTTE are past masters at this kind of tactics and in the one of such kind October 1995 hundreds perished in the forced-march from Jaffna peninsula to the mainland region of Wanni.

They have also talked about deaths in their hundreds day by day and indulged in reporting a kind of shelling and use of rockets and cluster bombs as having been stated by a James Ross, Legal and Policy Director at Human Rights Watch. It appears that these Canadian professionals belonging to an honourable profession have overlooked that this claim was later denied and the United Nations apologized to the Government of Sri Lanka for such an outrageous claim.

There is hardly any doubt that this appeal to the Honourable Canadian Governor General was collated from material from LTTE propaganda.

They also make a mountainous effort of inevitable problems that occur in a war situation especially at a time when Asia’s longest lasting terror encounter is nearing an end, driving the final nail to what has been claimed as the most brutal terrorist organization in the world. A tragic but a unique factor about the LTTE is that it had virtually wiped out all the moderate political leaders and professionals of the Tamil community and by sheer terrorism demanded to be the sole voice of the Tamils.

The Sri Lankan Armed Forces have in no way caused the people of Wanni to be caught up in this horrendous circumstance. Is this beyond the understanding of these honourable persons of the legal profession practicing in the Canadian courts?

Are they not aware that taking hostages is a crime in international law and have they not by making such an appeal to the Governor General of Canada not only overlooking a terrible crime that is being committed by the LTTE but are also vehemently supportive by directing their accusation not against the perpetrators of this vile and vicious crime but against the very forces that are attempting to liberate the Tamil hostage captives from a terrorist group who are holding them to ransom?

They also talk about the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps and where they claim that those who “fled the Wanni war theatre” are kept. Under the circumstances of the war situation such camps cannot never be 5-star hotels and much, much will be desired as it would be anywhere in the world in varying degrees. Furthermore, there is also the danger of suicide bombers being sent to create panic, death and destruction by the LTTE under the guise of escapees.

There is also the additional possibility of the LTTE cadres escaping as civilians from the Hostage City now that their hope of ceasefire is all but dead and regrouping elsewhere. Is this what these learned Canadian professionals want? There is also the possibility, nay certainty, that these escapees may even seek refuge in Canada as a last resort.

There is only one solution to the current crisis and these professionals should have demanded from the LTTE to let the civilians of Wanni go. The argument that it is the people who want to stay with them is as thick as the soup made out of a single dried feather of a humming bird. Their appeal to the Honourable Governor General of Canada is most significant for its total lack of reference to one party that is the cause of the current nightmare of the Tamils especially of Wanni and that is the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
ENDS

-Sri Lanka Guardian