Thriving on the sufferings of the Tamils

| by S L Gunasekara

( January 19, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) In the heyday of the LTTE, the TNA had it good. While the Tamils whom they claimed to represent suffered indescribable hardships, torments and agonies by reason of being under the jackboot of the Tigers with their little children being regularly kidnapped and their hard earned money extorted from them by the LTTE, the TNA which was supposed to represent them raised not a whimper of protest, but on the contrary, functioned as obedient servants and respectful acolytes of the Tigers, acknowledged them as being the sole representatives of the Tamils and obeyed their every whim and command. As a result of the patronage they received from the Tigers, not only did the members of the TNA secure seats in Parliament together with which they received relatively handsome salaries, a veritable cornucopia of perquisites all paid for by the long suffering public of the Republic of Sri Lanka which they disowned and sought to dismember, and were able to tour the capitals and flesh pots of the western world at the expense of others without spending a cent of their own money. All this was done by them purportedly to serve the Tamils – but even a mentally retarded child would realize that that could not be so because they never spoke a word against those tormenters of the Tamils who were kidnapping their children and extorting their money from them, either in Parliament or in those foreign climes. The only persons whom they attacked, supposedly in order to serve the Tamils, were those who were making every effort at unimaginable sacrifice, to liberate the oppressed Tamils from the oppression and thrall of the LTTE, namely the Government of Sri Lanka of whatever colouration, and its armed forces.

TNA

When the Tigers were vanquished, however, these monumental frauds of the TNA made every endevour to disassociate themselves from the Tigers but sought to ride `piggy back’ on to the remnants of the Tiger supporters in foreign climes such as that infamous clown who desecrated the cassock and accouterments of the Roman Catholic priesthood called S J Emmanuel and others of his ilk because they controlled foreign funds, and the greedy mouths of the TNA watered for those foreign funds. Getting something for nothing was their credo. The comforts which the members of the TNA enjoyed came originally from the Tigers, but with the decease of the Tigers they had to latch on to somebody else, and that somebody else was the rump of the `Tiger Acolytes’ in the so called Tamil Diaspora which, having lived off the hard earned monies of their compatriots which they extorted from them and/or cajoled them into parting with on the spurious ground that they served the Tamils, lived and continue to live on the hard work and labour of their fellow compatriots abroad.

Today we find that India having sought to justify

 in some way or other the burglars of Tamil Nadu

 who robbed and continue to rob the Tamils of

Jaffna Peninsula of their fish and their means of

livelihood, have now proposed to the Government

 of Sri Lanka that each country should forego its

rights to the exclusive economic exploitation of

 their respective territorial waters by permitting

fishing by the fishermen of each other in those

 zones.

Thus, today, when the Tamil people whom they dishonestly claim to represent are suffering at the hands of the Tamil fishermen of Tamil Nadu who were and continue to be supported to the hilt by the clowns of Tamil Nadu, namely their politicians like the flatulent Jayalalitha and to a lesser extent by the power hungry and pusillanimous government of Manmohan Singh, the TNA has not ventured to speak a word about the burglary/robbery/theft of the food of the Tamil people of the North by those fishermen of Tamilnadu who rob them of the fish in our territorial waters that they could otherwise have caught for their own sustenance. On the contrary, members of the TNA have repeatedly enjoyed the hospitality of the Indians and hope to continue doing so without ever speaking a word against them and in support of the Tamils of Sri Lanka on any matter of importance..

IPKF

The situation is not unlike the days when the Indian Army of Occupation in Sri Lanka euphemistically called the Indian Peace Keeping Force tormented the Tamils of Sri Lanka by murdering and harassing them in many ways. The murders of patients in their beds, the doctors attending on them, nurses, attendants, ambulance drivers and so on in the precincts of the Jaffna Teaching Hospital by the IPKF will live long in the memory of our people – though not of the TNA to whom that tragedy was just a `non-event’. The members of the TNA [who then posed as members of the TULF and other racist parties/organizations] who saw in the Indians a "meal ticket" maintained a deafening silence on such outrages. They neither made representations against the Indians at Geneva nor elsewhere. They received their `thirty pieces of silver’ because not having spoken a word against the Indians they have continued to receive and enjoy the hospitality of India as and when they wished. That is something they will not forego merely for the sake of those whom they claim to represent despite the immense suffering imposed on those Tamils civilians by the Indians.

Today we find that India having sought to justify in some way or other the burglars of Tamil Nadu who robbed and continue to rob the Tamils of Jaffna Peninsula of their fish and their means of livelihood, have now proposed to the Government of Sri Lanka that each country should forego its rights to the exclusive economic exploitation of their respective territorial waters by permitting fishing by the fishermen of each other in those zones. The fact that such a proposal if implemented would benefit the South Indian burglars, by legalizing the burglary being committed by their fishermen and increase the sufferings of the Tamils of Sri Lanka is a matter to which not only India but tragically the TNA which fraudulently and equally shamelessly claims to represent the Tamils of the North are oblivious. It was left to the Minister of Fisheries Rajitha Senaratne (albeit a person for whom I have no regard whatever) to have the courage and fortitude to reject that ridiculous and self serving proposal out of hand.

Crisis

That Sri Lanka is in a crisis is a clear understatement. Various powerful nations of the world including India which has for years sought oppressed and continue to seek to oppress ‘us’ meaning not merely the Government but the entire people of the country which includes Tamils, Sinhalese, Muslims and members of all other ethnic groups which comprise our nation, spare no efforts to undermine our progress. Yet, it is tragic that even in this hour of the Country’s need, our different political parties including the TNA are incapable of or have no wish or desire to, or simply do not make common cause with one another to face those foreign foes, presumably because they wish to make capital of this crisis.

Be thar as it may, let us all, and in particular the Tamils recognize, realize and appreciate the fact that while they and to a lesser extent the rest of the country suffers by reason of Indian attempts to justify and support the burglary, robbery and theft of the food of the citizens of Sri Lanka and particularly of those of the North, the leaders of TNA are now enjoying the hospitality of South Africa for they are said to have attended a `grand ball’ and are having ‘a ball of time’ there at the expense of some others – it being more than most unlikely that any of them paid for their own travel and subsistence.