The height of hyporisy

By S. L. Gunasekara

(August 24, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian)The defeat of the Tiger Terrorists heralded the dawn of a new era for the long suffering People of Sri Lanka; a new era when Tamil parents could live without fear that their children, their siblings and themselves would be kidnapped or abducted to be used as slaves of, or cannon fodder by, the Tiger Terrorists; an era when Tamil civilians, particularly in the North could live free of having their hard earned money extorted from them by the Tiger Terrorists in the guise of taxation; an era when, Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims could go about their normal avocations in other parts of the Country without fear of being blown apart by bombs exploded by Tiger Terrorists in buses, trains, shops and crowded city centres; an era when unarmed soldiers going on or returning from leave are safe from being murdered and mutilated by Tiger Terrorists exploding Claymore Mines; an era when Sinhalese and Muslims civilians could worship in their temples and mosques, cultivate their fields, and sleep in their homes without fear of being slaughtered by Tiger Terrorists; an era when the North and East are, once more, productive economic units where farmers could farm, fisherman could fish and traders could trade; and an era when sacrifices of lives and limbs by patriotic youth in our security forces for their Motherland ceased to be a regular occurrence.

Naturally there was joy and rejoicing [pejoratively termed "triumphalism" by the hypocritical West] among our People in much the same way as their was joy and rejoicing ["triumphalism"] among the British and the Americans on "VE Day" and "VJ Day", the sufferings of humanity in the form of millions of deaths [not 20,000] and mutilations of German and Japanese Civilians and the wholesale destruction of their property notwithstanding.

However, the West [which is alleged to be engaged in a "war against terror"] does not share the joy of the People of Sri Lanka about their victory over terrorism. They sulk because we "WOGS" ["Worthy Oriental Gentlemen"], have done what they could not do with all the state of the art weaponry at their disposal, and defied their patently stupid `orders’ couched in the form of `requests’ to declare an obviously suicidal `ceasefire’, even though such `orders’ were supported by threats of economic terrorism.

The last thing they wish to see is an independent Sri Lanka standing on her own feet. None of them spare even a thought for the countless lives and limbs saved and the limitless human suffering averted by the destruction of the Tiger Terrorists.

Thus do these hypocrites beyond compare, keep on castigating us about the 20,000 Tamil civilians whom they allege were killed by our forces in the last stages of the conflict by the use of heavy weapons; and the conditions of the IDP camps in and around Vavuniya.

What is infinitely worse is that some of our power hungry politicians who care not one whit for the sufferings of any human of any race, creed or caste but care only to grab, by fair means or foul, what they perceive to be the golden fleece of power, have hitched their wagons to these foul Western hypocrites and echo and keep echoing the rubbish that they spout. These decrepit politicians even rave and rant about not being allowed entry into the IDP camps in and around Vavuniya, when none of them cared to visit the camps of Sinhalese IDPs [then called `Refugees’] who were compelled to flee their hearths and homes because of genocidal attacks by Tiger Terrorists; they raised not a whimper about the parlous condition of those camps; nor did they lift a finger to alleviate those conditions: their idols/masters of the West cared not one whit for those Sinhalese IDPs and thus, neither did they !!!

Coming back to the Lords and Masters of these Politicians, they do not appear to appreciate the simple fact that if, as they so airily allege, our forces used `heavy weapons’ on the thin sliver of land that was all the Tiger Terrorists ultimately had, they could not have taken as long as they did to finally defeat the Tiger Terrorists and reclaim that sliver of land; nor could they have suffered so many casualties in the process. The time taken and the number of casualties suffered by our Forces constitute irrefutable proof of the fact that the final victory was achieved not by a barrage of artillery fire and/or bombing but by an infantry operation designed to avoid civilian casualties. The figure of 20,000 civilian deaths is one the Western Hypocrites and their `Native Compradors’ have obviously plucked out of thin air.

Yet, even assuming, purely for the sake of argument, that our Forces did use heavy artillery and aerial bombing to end the conflict and that they did cause 20,000 civilian deaths in the process, can our Forces be justly accused of any wrong-doing ??? The `Safe Zone’ was designed for civilians and civilians alone: it was never meant or intended to be a sanctuary for Tiger Terrorists. It is beyond dispute that the Tiger Terrorists crept into that Zone and attacked our Forces from there, while holding some civilians hostage as `Human Shields’. Once the Tiger Terrorists had crept in, the `Safe Zone’ ceased to be one, and became, to all intents and purposes, a legitimate target. It could hardly be said that if a gang of terrorists uses some civilians as human shields, operations against them must cease forthwith, so as to save those civilians – for, since taking civilians hostage and using them as `human shields’ is no difficult matter, if such an alleged `principle’ is accepted, it must follow that any group of terrorists would be free to exist indefinitely and commit more and more acts of terrorism provided they could take enough `Human Shields’ !!! Would even the Hypocritical West accept such a `principle’ and act accordingly if they cornered Prabhakaran’s junior counterpart Osama Bin Laden and he hid behind some `human shields’ ???

-Sri Lanka Guardian