Ominous signs of the sinister future that awaits the Tamils

(April 07, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The immediate and the long term future of the Tamil nation are far more sinister than what meet the eye. The government controlled internment camps in Vavuniya are a reminder of the refugee camps set for Tamil people affected by the state sponsored pogroms in the past, only for these pogroms to be repeated and they becoming refugees again. The internment camps although are nowhere near the refugee camps but have been developed into virtual concentration camps designed for the final solution to the Tamil question. If those in the camps are Tamils liberated then the question is why are they segregated by gender and enclosed by razor wire fences subjected to all kinds of abuses and humiliation.

Every Tamil is deemed to be a terrorist or a potential terrorist by virtue of their mere birth. We are told that forty five percent of the Tamils live in the south of Sri Lanka and they live happily except for the fact that they have also to stand in queues periodically, to say the least, to register themselves, an ordeal that a Sinhalese person is not subjected to. Living in intellectual ghettos with their freedom constrained by the movement of the white vans, they owe their existence to the generosity of the terrorist racist state. It would be recalled that the defence secretary Gothabaya Rajapakse stated recently that Tamil terrorism would not raise its head for another ten generations. In other words if all Tamils are terrorists then there will be no Tamil political dissent even constitutionally especially in the complete absence of any semblance of democracy or free media for another ten generations, if that is what is envisaged, then this is to be achieved through the complete decimation of the Tamil people. They will then indeed be silenced forever. There are many ways of doing this. Gothabaya also stated that once the cancer of terrorism is removed there is then the “radium treatment”. This treatment will be more painful and protracted to the terminally ill Tamils, before the plug is finally pulled off their life support, than the elimination of their leadership.

Recently at a meeting of all Tamil mercenaries including those from the so called Provincial Council of the east and other persons of straw convened by President Rajapakse to get Tamil reassurance for his programme of genocide, the raw mayor of Batticaloa uninhibited by the political trappings and protocol raised the question of Tamil women in these internment camps being sterilised, only to be silenced by a minister who instead of undertaking to inquire into such a serious allegation made by no less than the Mayor of the “liberated” section of the Tamils, stated that there was nothing like that. It was done just like that. We have also received reports that pregnant mothers were being forced to abort and infants were being allowed to die with no proper medication and /or milk foods. So much for the future of the generation of unborn terrorists who the Sri Lankan government will ensure would continue to never see the light of day.

What about the “Tamil terrorists” injured by the hundreds per day by military bombings? On an independent assessment made with the blessings of President Rajapakse during the last week of March 2009, it was revealed that there were more than 6500 patients, injured by military bombings transported to the Mannar and Vavuniya hospitals where the numbers of patients are far in excess of the beds available by at least one hundred percent with the Trincomalee hospital left for the exclusive use of the government security forces who are fighting a “foreign” enemy, the Tamils. The ministry of health had proposed starting cluster hospitals to serve these main hospitals, but the proposal had been shot down by the defense ministry, as a security threat. No informal or private conversation with the refugees is possible in these camps, with security personnel in civilian clothes deployed as IDPs amongst the refugees. This prevents innocent refugees from even talking of their day to day needs, to any authority.

The question is: how long will these liberated Tamils be kept within the razor wires? According to government claims they came (or did they stray?) into these camps in search of freedom. The human rights minister Mahinda Samarasinghe who was privy to the fizzling out of the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) appointed to oversee the working of the farcical Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the cold blooded murders of the 18 Tamil youth workers and the 5 students in Trincomalee made a startling revelation at a media conference in September 2008 regarding the plight of the IDPs. He stated, unashamedly, that the Tamils were also Sri Lankan citizens and therefore it was the responsibility of the Sri Lankan government to look after their welfare. The more often they refer to the Tamils in such annoying terms and as “our own brothers and sisters” the greater the hypocrisy they betray. We know already that they love the Tamils to death.

The civilians including infants now being killed and maimed are said to be all terrorists killed in pitched battles in the sea and on land because the matter of the loan from the IMF is pending further discussion.

There is much talk amongst the international community about post conflict resolution, political solution etc. They need not hold their breath. Egged on by India in their treachery towards the Tamils, as the present time being most opportune, Rajapakse will call more of the farcical meetings of the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) when the Tamils have been completely broken and are at their weakest with nearly 250,000 dying, starving and sick with no medical attention and 50,000 incarcerated in the military camps in Vavuniya with most of the men tortured as terrorists and used as servants and the women subjected to all manner of abuses. In Jaffna, the cultural capital of the Tamils, for every civilian there are 10 military personnel breathing over their shoulders and intellectuals abducted in the white vans. The so-called Tamil leaders with whom the government will discuss any “devolution” that they seek to be rushed through as an eye wash will be those men of straw whom Rajapakse has anointed as leaders of the Tamil people warring with each other. That is exactly what Rajapakse wants. It takes only a few minutes to study the antecedents and credentials of these “‘leaders” to determine the calibre of their leadership.

R. Sampanthan the leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) the only elected political party truly representative of Tamil political aspirations in Parliament has declined the offer to participate in these hasty discussions to be bamboozled and railroaded, mainly on the ground that while the Tamils are being killed and maimed in their hundreds per day on the one hand and their political future be discussed with the killers on the other, would be an injustice to the Tamils whom they represent. The Tamil people in the first instance must be alive and not even half dead or for that matter half alive for their political future to be discussed and determined. The international community would be deceiving themselves if they were to believe that any political settlement meaningful to the Tamils anywhere near would be devised under the circumstances.

(The writer, editor of Eelam Nation, daily online news paper)

-Sri Lanka Guardian