Racially oriented sinister plan to change demography

By Wickramabahu Karunaratna

(May 03, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Government has moved in the direction of a ceasefire. But Lanka is in a dire situation that begs for the attention of the workers of the world's focus. There is no time to lose. Urgent action is immediately necessary to avoid further destruction. All socialists world over should take this point seriously. The Lankan government backed by the Sinhala supremacist oppressors, has almost crushed the struggle of the Tamils in order to restructure the Lankan state as a Sinhala chauvinist regime. For as much as half a century, the Sinhala supremacist governments have repeatedly avoided granting the political rights of smaller nationalities within the state structure of the country. Instead, they pushed the Tamil minority to the wall through repeated pogroms and terror actions to repress non-violent struggles to win their rights. Eventually this caused the upsurge of a ferocious armed struggle.

Traditional dwellings

The government of Lanka manipulates the concept of terrorism to legitimize its repression of national rights and to muster support of global powers for this purpose. In 2008, the government unilaterally revoked the Ceasefire Agreement and moved away from the peace process brokered under the patronage of the Co-chairs of the donor-community. In the process of total annihilation of the struggle of the Tamils for their democratic rights, the government banned the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and declared war against Tamil radicalism. The media access to the conflict zone was effectively blocked. Humanitarian organizations as well were asked to evacuate their offices. Some of the international staff was expelled from the country. At the peak of the siege, the state ordered the government health staff too to vacate hospitals. All these measures were taken while carrying on a massive military onslaught via land, sea and air, targeting the traditional dwellings of the Tamil people in the Northern Province of Lanka.

People were uprooted from their dwellings and made the internally displaced to swell in number. Their houses were shelled and bombed, cultivations and other property were devastated and the entire environmental topography was demolished beyond repair. At the culmination of this military onslaught, the state urged the people to move into a government-designated 'no-fire zone' in a small patch of land in an area where basic amenities were so scarce for such a massive population. Later, the government repeatedly shelled and carpet bombed parts of the' no-fire zone' too in the guise of hunting terrorists. Then they advanced into the 'no-fire zone' naming the operation as a ‘hostage rescue mission’, yet killing and maiming thousands of civilians. There were allegations that the government used chemical weapons as well.

Restricted mobility

This warfare is totally against accepted norms of war andinternational law. The Lankan government denies these charges stating that the allegations are mere propaganda of the Tamil Tigers. Independent verification was impossible since free media and humanitarian organizations sans the ICRC were blocked entry into the conflict zone. The government has detained thousands of internally displaced civilians in heavily guarded concentration-styled camps in an environment of severely restricted mobility. They call these places ‘welfare centres’. Even the UN agency staff members that have moved out of the ' no-fire zone' are held in these camps in the guise of screening terrorists. Several months back, the government submitted a proposal to embassies in Colombo seeking financial assistance to set up semi-permanent camps for 200,000 civilians for three years. The government, in the past during operations in the east, retained an area named Sampur in the Eastern Province without allowing residents to resettle. Now the discussions are underway to set up a coal power plant in the lands of those residents without compensating them. Thus, there is a racially-oriented ploy to change the demography behind the devastation of the traditional lands of Tamils while holding them for a long period in concentration camps.

Local and international trade union movements and the Left community should not allow the Lankan government, to manipulate the so-called fight against terrorism to win support of the UN and other authorities, and to continue with chauvinist state terrorism on the minority Tamil community.

The Left and trade unions should compel the government to stop the war immediately and to begin a peace process aimed at a sustainable solution to the dragging national problem of the country. In the course of such action the right ofthe people to their traditional villages should be defended. Compensation should be paid for damages done to their lives and property and help must be given to reconstruct their lives. There should be immediate access of the media and humanitarian organizations into areas where the internally displaced and war affected people live.

-Sri Lanka Guardian