Suicide Bomb attack on a Religious procession by LTTE

By Ranjith Soysa

(March 11, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Society for Peace, Unity and Human Rights for Sri Lanka condemns the brutal massacre carried out by the suicide bomber of the LTTE. Time and again the LTTE have proved that they are no respecters of religions. To carry out such a dastardly act at such a holy occasion shows up the LTTE for what they really are: a brutal, barbaric and bloodthirsty organisation.

By selecting a Muslim festival to carry out such an attack on civilians, the LTTE have again shown their contempt for the Islamic religious activities.. On previous occasions, the LTTE attacked mosques while the faithful were at prayer, and this time, they selected the celebration of the Prophet Mohammed’s Birthday, one of the most holy days on the Islamic calendar, to carry out this brutal attack.

Media like the BBC are questioning how the LTTE can carry out such suicide attacks if they are cornered in Puthukudiyiruppu. It is the cadres who were sent to the south during the infamous ceasefire for this very purpose who carry out these attacks. Then the plan was to cow the south into submission, now these attacks are intended to provoke a backlash against those Tamils who have chosen to live in peace and safety away from the bloodthirsty LTTE. The LTTE are hoping to gain the goodwill of the international community through fabrications that the Sinhala people are bent on genocide. Instead, the LTTE are shown up as those who commit genocide – even against their “own” people and minority Muslims.

The international community and the international media should recognise the LTTE for what they are, not your friendly freedom fighter, but a brutal terrorist organisation interested only in turning Sri Lanka into a killing field – even if they do not achieve their Eelam. The Tamil people do not need the LTTE to fight for their freedom for they are free. They live and work, carry on their businesses and their day-to-day lives among the rest of the Sri Lankan community in the south.

For the past twenty-five years, it has been the ordinaryTamils in the North who have not had that freedom. They have been forced to give up their right to freedom in order that the LTTE may thrive. Even the food supplies provided by the Government of Sri Lanka have been stolen from them by the LTTE who hand out a pittance to the civilians keeping a lion’s share for themselves. Their children, boys and girls alike, have not been safe from the LTTE. Today, they have been forced to become a human shield to safeguard that very LTTE that preyed on them all these years.

We call upon the international community, the UN and human rights organisations like the HRW and other organisations like AI, to urge the LTTE to stop the carnage they wreak on civilians, free the Tamil civilians they are holding hostage, lay down their arms and surrender to the Sri Lankan security forces immediately. -Sri Lanka Guardian