| by Pearl Thevanayagam
(March 06,2013, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) It is show time once more for human rights NGOs and the government to show cause for their performances since the Nandikadal debacle in May 2009 which saw Tamil Tigers annihilated for all intents and purposes.
It is also the ending of the financial year for NGOs to account for their budgets largely funded by the US, UK and EU for championing human rights.
Academics hired by these benevolent countries are hotfooting it to the UN and squeaking their tuppence worth during the country's review by the UN watchdog. Some who were left out of the picture for not doing enough in the way public relations and feeling the pinch of forfeiting their limelight are pontificating on what might have saved face for the government.
What matters most of all in these crucial times is the redress the surviving Tamil civilians deserve after all the mayhem brought on during the final throes of the war which ravaged and rendered many Tamils homeless and without livelihood in their own homeland.
UK has much to answer for since it was revealed recenly in the British media they actively supported the war by way of selling arms and ammunition to the Sri Lankan government which annihilated ethnic Tamils in the name of wiping out terrorism and there is not an iota of doubt here.
That Tamil refugees have the capability of swinging votes during elections is not lost on parliamentarians. The votes of Tamil refugees in London Borough are a necessiity and thorns on the back of election candidates.
While the West continues to pursue its own selfish interests in war ravaged countries, the likes of Ms Navi Pillai are being pilloried by the Rajapaksa government as a witch-hunter while Sri Lankan media both state and independent which suppports it are dilating the truth of the war.
So what now for the review which is taking place at the UN sessions?
Can Dayan Jayatilleka's analysis and his remedy for exonerating the government from war crimes mitigate the horrendous injustice meted out on innocent civilians?
Can Mahinda Samarasinghe undo the government's direct complicity in war crimes?
Last year, Dayan's pet favourite and the President's one time mother-figure who gave him lodgings in Paris, Tamara Kunanayakam, is nowhere on the scene at the UN sessions since she bad-mouthed Navi Pillai who is a much seasoned and respected UN official. Our own External Affairs Minister Prof. G.L.Peiris who has all the panache and diplomatic ties with VIP figures is also sidelined by the President. The frequent flyer earing minister is twiddling his thumbs when his tenure will end with the Rajapaksas.
On a more serious note, how long must Tamils wait for justice? Will it be another Chagossian fate when UK corroborated with the US in rendering them homeless and stateles overnight for appropriating Diego Garcia to base its nuclear warheads in the Indian ocean in 1971?
But praise the Lord we are in a global village where communication is instant in nano-seconds and let us hope against hope countries vote at the UN assembly to mete out justice for ethnic Tamils who are set on claiming lands lost and claiming their rightful place in their motherland. Is this too much to ask?
Tamils are patient but not too patient.
(The writer has been a journalist for 23 years and worked at Weekend, The Daily News, Sunday Leader and Weekend Express in Sri Lanka as sub-editor, news reporter and news editor. She was Colombo Correspondent for Times of India and has contributed to Wall Street Journal; Washington Bureau, where she was on work experience from The Graduate School of Journalism, UC Berkeley, California. Currently residing in UK she is also co-founder of EJN (Exiled Journalists Network) UK in 2005 the membership of which is 200 from 40 countries. She can be reached at pearltheva@hotmail.com)
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