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Author Topic: World Tamil Movement added to terror list
It's Me D
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posted 16 June 2008 12:22 PM      Profile for It's Me D     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
From CTV:
Gov't adds Tamil group to terror organization list

quote:
Canada has added the World Tamil Movement to its list of terrorist groups, the federal public safety minister announced Monday.

The organization is accused of facilitating or participating in a terrorist activity. Government officials say the group is a front organization for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Canada, otherwise known as the Tamil Tigers.


This follows on events in April; From CBC:

Police seize Tamil-owned buildings in Toronto, Montreal

quote:
The RCMP has clamped down on a Tamil organization operating in two provinces that authorities allege is funneling money to a terrorist group in Sri Lanka.

On the weekend, police seized two buildings belonging to the World Tamil Movement in Montreal and Toronto, and froze the organization’s bank accounts, placing the assets under federal trusteeship.



From: Parrsboro, NS | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged
It's Me D
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posted 16 June 2008 12:28 PM      Profile for It's Me D     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
One of the comments on the CBC story, from a self-described "proud canadian" reads,

quote:
It's about time that the RCMP did something about the Tamil Tigers, we all have read the stories of them using gangster like tactics to raise money here in Canada. Providing them with access to money here in Canada is not the solution to the Sri Lankan civil war. Cutting off the flow of cash will force them to the negotiating table.

This might be sound rationale but what about the cash flow to the other side? After all the LTTE have repeatedly expressed their willingness to negotiate; it is the regime that seeks military victory without compromise (does this remind any of you a regime closer to home?). What exactly is going to force the Sri Lankan regime to the negotiating table?

Maybe the same strategy would work! Perhaps Harper should start here:

quote:
In 2005-2006, Canadian Official Development Assistance to Sri Lanka totalled $21.45 million.

[ 16 June 2008: Message edited by: It's Me D ]


From: Parrsboro, NS | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
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posted 16 June 2008 08:33 PM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
They were at the negotiating table and there was even an agreement a couple of years ago...then the Tamil Tigers decided that they would all have to apply for unemployment insurance if they no longer had a war to fight, so they started a new wave of suicide bombings against civilian targets.
From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
brookmere
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posted 16 June 2008 10:40 PM      Profile for brookmere     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
After all the LTTE have repeatedly expressed their willingness to negotiate; it is the regime that seeks military victory without compromise (does this remind any of you a regime closer to home?)

You mean Lincoln during the US Civil War? Well in that respect, but not many others.

From: BC (sort of) | Registered: Jun 2005  |  IP: Logged
Mercy
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posted 17 June 2008 05:04 AM      Profile for Mercy     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:
They were at the negotiating table and there was even an agreement a couple of years ago...then the Tamil Tigers decided that they would all have to apply for unemployment insurance if they no longer had a war to fight, so they started a new wave of suicide bombings against civilian targets.
Given that LTTE foot soldiers routinely give up their lives for their cause I think it's a bit completely inaccurate to conclude that they're in it for the paycheck.

I think both sides are wary of the peace process but, for reasons that seem to have a lot more to do with punishing the domestic Tamil community for voting wrong, the Harper government has decided to pick a side.


From: Ontario, Canada | Registered: Feb 2007  |  IP: Logged
It's Me D
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posted 17 June 2008 05:37 AM      Profile for It's Me D     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
brookmere: That's interesting, I didn't think there was anyone in NA who was unaware of the mantra that "We Don't Negotiate with Terrorists."
From: Parrsboro, NS | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged
It's Me D
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posted 17 June 2008 05:41 AM      Profile for It's Me D     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
I think both sides are wary of the peace process but, for reasons that seem to have a lot more to do with punishing the domestic Tamil community for voting wrong, the Harper government has decided to pick a side.

I hadn't thought of this, it is interesting, do you know much about the political orientation of the Tamil community in Canada? Are they, like some other Asian immigrant communities, linked to the LPC historically? And if so why did the Liberals never try to help end the violence in Sri Lanka?

I had thought of this mostly through the angle of Harper wanting to please his US masters (the same reason we brought the Tamil's here in the first place).


From: Parrsboro, NS | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
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posted 17 June 2008 06:19 AM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
It's hard to have any sympathy for either side in Sri Lanka - they both seem utterly inhumane and thuggish.

But, I think that we should definitely crack down on fundraising for terrorist groups in Canada. I would have also supported outlawing the Irish Republican Army in Canada when that conflict was still on - and i would have jailed anyone who was soliciting money for the IRA - or better yet extradited them to the UK to stand trial.

There have been a lot of stories about how if you are a Tamil-Canadian and you own a business - these thugs from the pro-tamil Tiger organizations will regularly pay you a visit and tell you that either you hand over tens of thousands of dollars to the "cause" or else your business will get fire-bombed.


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 17 June 2008 06:30 AM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Stockholm: It's hard to have any sympathy for either side in Sri Lanka - they both seem utterly inhumane and thuggish.

What an arrogant remark. I've heard the expression, "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out," but it's usually from apologists for imperialism and war, not from participants in an alternative discussion board like babble.


From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
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posted 17 June 2008 07:05 AM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I never said "kill 'em all". i just said that I find it hard to sympathize with either side in a conflict that features such total savagery by both sides and where there seem to be no larger issues involved - it's just either Tamil=good/Sinhalese=bad or else Tamil=bad/Sinhalese=good.

It's like asking me to pick sides between Bosnian Muslims, Serbs and Croats in Bosnia. How can there be any good guys and bad guys when its just people hating each other for no other reason that speaking a different language or having a different religion.


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 17 June 2008 07:10 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Poor Stockholm! The world is such a complicated place!

Why can't everything just be in black and white?


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 17 June 2008 07:14 AM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
An important thing for babblers in understanding such a conflict is to go beyond Yanqui-inspired anxieties about who are the "good guys" and who are the "bad guys". I understand that simplistic templates save one such difficult efforts but that's what babble is about, no?

Going beyond the pablum and mental chewing gum of the so-called main stream media?


From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
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posted 17 June 2008 07:16 AM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
So, who are you rooting for in Sri Lanka? What about in Kashmir?
From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 17 June 2008 07:19 AM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I'd like to see Portugal do well in Euro 2008. I like their Christmassy red and green uniforms.
From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
It's Me D
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posted 17 June 2008 07:55 AM      Profile for It's Me D     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
It's hard to have any sympathy for either side in Sri Lanka

quote:
It's like asking me to pick sides

If you are being asked to do anything Stockholm it is have sympathy for the Sri Lankan people and show an interest in ending the civil war.

Though you claim to have no sympathy for the LTTE or the Sri Lankan regime and have devoted a few posts to equating the Tamil's with "thugs" you have yet to condemn our government's rabid support for the Sri Lankan regime and its crimes against humanity.

Or do you agree with the imperialists that the way to end the Sri Lankan civil war is to support the Sri Lankan regime in their final solution to the Tamil problem?

[ 17 June 2008: Message edited by: It's Me D ]


From: Parrsboro, NS | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
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posted 17 June 2008 08:00 AM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I don't see the conflict in Sri Lanka as being "imperialist' vs. "anti-imperialist". If anything the current democratically elected government of Sri Lanka is a coalition of leftwing parties including Communists.

There was a good peace agreement a couple of years ago, but the Tamils starting a new wave of suicide bombings and now the country is embroiled in a new civil war.


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 17 June 2008 08:16 AM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The country was also engulfed by a tsunami in 2004 in which roughly 40,000 died and 500,000 people were displaced. This doesn't include the 20,000 or so who are unaccounted for in the areas controlled by the LTTE. The regime's (mis)handling of the aftermath of that disaster is probably a lingering problem for the minority Tamils as well.
From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
It's Me D
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posted 17 June 2008 08:29 AM      Profile for It's Me D     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
For further information on the title story

Particularly the following,

quote:
"Although the government said it had taken the step to support the Tamil community in Canada, the Canadian Tamil Congress denounced the move," the news report added.

Spokesman David Poopalapillai said Ottawa should be pressuring the Sri Lankan government to curb its human rights abuses and military campaign rather than singling out the Tamil Tigers. "This is not the way to promote peace in Sri Lanka," the report said quoting Poopalapillai.



And Stockholm to clarify I was not calling the Sri Lankan regime imperialists (racist warmongering puppets yes, imperialists no); the imperialists I referred to are their supporters in the Canadian and US governments.


From: Parrsboro, NS | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
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posted 17 June 2008 08:29 AM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Is there any reason to believe that the LTTE did a better job of dealing with the tsunami in the areas that they controlled?
From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 17 June 2008 08:53 AM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The Tamil areas certainly suffered the bulk of the damages and loss of life ...

quote:
The Tamil areas of the Northeast sustained approximately two-thirds of the total casualties and over 60% of the destruction on the island. This has created a serious humanitarian crisis for a people who have suffered immensely during the last two decades of war that had already destroyed the entire infrastructure and economy of the region. The little that our people were able to gather for their livelihood during the ceasefire has now been devastated by Mother Nature’s fury.

Seems the Sri Lankan government used the opportunity provided by the disaster to centralize control and assassinate people like Kausyaln:

quote:
When the current additional disaster struck, the LTTE did not delay – with whatever resources it had – men and material – it put a mechanism together at the District level working with government officials, the TRO, UN agencies, INGOs, NGOs, and Members of Parliament based on the very efficient, tried and tested coping systems that had evolved during the 25-year war to deal with similar humanitarian crises, and monitoring the process rigorously. This mechanism was rooted in the local affected community, and gave them ownership to the relief and reconstruction process and was based on the recognition of the link between relief, reconstruction and sustainable growth.

The Government response to the LTTE’s initiative was to take advantage of the situation by militarizing and re-centralizing its control, showing callous disregard to the concept of Conflict Sensitivity. Further, the Paramilitary activities that targeted prominent unarmed LTTE political cadres were increased. Mr. Kausyaln, the head of the LTTE’s Eastern political wing and the Tsunami Eastern Province coordinator’s assassination in an army-controlled areas, is but one of many such incidents.


2005 Norwegian Peace Initiative.


From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
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posted 17 June 2008 10:09 AM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
That's the perspective from a website entitled "Tamil Nation" - so i take what they have to say with a boulder of salt.
From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
RosaL
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posted 17 June 2008 10:33 AM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by N.Beltov:

Going beyond the pablum and mental chewing gum of the so-called main stream media?


all the way to the pablum and mental chewing gum of the liberal-left (with some notable exceptions ).


From: the underclass | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
Ghislaine
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posted 17 June 2008 10:45 AM      Profile for Ghislaine     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
A quote from an article in The Star today:

quote:
Yesterday's announcement brought quiet joy and relief to many of the GTA's Tamil population, although few dared celebrate, said Lenin Benedict, secretary of the Canadian Democratic Tamil Cultural Association.

The organization promotes pluralism in Ontario's Tamil community and a peaceful resolution to the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka.

"Everybody is happy inside, but most people will not come out, frankly, out of fear (of retribution)," he said, noting people's concerns for family members here and abroad, or for their businesses.

It can be difficult to convince victims of the racket to come forward, he said.



From: L'Î-P-É | Registered: Feb 2008  |  IP: Logged
It's Me D
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posted 17 June 2008 10:46 AM      Profile for It's Me D     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
That's the perspective from a website entitled "Tamil Nation" - so i take what they have to say with a boulder of salt.

Yes the Tamils are the last people you should ask about how Tamil areas of Sri Lanka were affected by the Tsunami


From: Parrsboro, NS | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged
Ghislaine
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posted 17 June 2008 10:56 AM      Profile for Ghislaine     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by It's Me D:

Yes the Tamils are the last people you should ask about how Tamil areas of Sri Lanka were affected by the Tsunami



Read my post above yours - indicating that normal Tamils - not the ones interested in terrorist activities - are afraid to speak out against WTM and are glad it is banned.


From: L'Î-P-É | Registered: Feb 2008  |  IP: Logged
It's Me D
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posted 17 June 2008 11:16 AM      Profile for It's Me D     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Read my post above yours - indicating that normal Tamils - not the ones interested in terrorist activities - are afraid to speak out against WTM and are glad it is banned.

No you read my post above yours The one that quotes the Canadian Tamil Congress as stating,

quote:
"Although the government said it had taken the step to support the Tamil community in Canada, the Canadian Tamil Congress denounced the move," the news report added.

Spokesman David Poopalapillai said Ottawa should be pressuring the Sri Lankan government to curb its human rights abuses and military campaign rather than singling out the Tamil Tigers. "This is not the way to promote peace in Sri Lanka," the report said quoting Poopalapillai.


But I'd rather not be the white guy responsible for picking which organization represents "normal Tamils." You are free to compare the 8 year record of nation-wide activities of the CTC to the two month old CDTCA, here is the CDTCA website.


On a related note I wonder if CDTCA head
Sam Rajendran is the same Sam Rajendran who was the pastor of the Vanni Mullaitheevu Church, bombed by the Sri Lankan Air Force the same month the CDCTA launched:

quote:
"In the meantime, the SLAF jets launched aerial attack on a Catholic church in Mullaitheevu today, leaving a teenager killed and eight others, including two girls injured."

source

Personally I would find it hard damn hard to support a government which felt this sort of atrocity was acceptable.

[ 17 June 2008: Message edited by: It's Me D ]

[ 17 June 2008: Message edited by: It's Me D ]


From: Parrsboro, NS | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
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posted 17 June 2008 12:00 PM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Back in the late 90s a friend attended a wedding in Toronto where the bride was a Serbian-Canadian and all the guests were prevailed upon to donate money to the Bosnian Serbs under Karadcic.

What a good cause - where do I sign up to give money to the war criminals of Srebenijca!


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
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posted 17 June 2008 01:18 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
It's nice to know that you'ver found a way to break the dilemma expressed above when you wrote:
quote:
It's like asking me to pick sides between Bosnian Muslims, Serbs and Croats in Bosnia.
It was simple enough: just trust the CIA.

From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 20 October 2008 11:01 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
The roots of the conflict lie in a long history of state oppression of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, which eventually led some Tamil youth to take up arms against the government.

When the British government granted formal independence to Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon) in 1948, it handed power to politicians drawn mainly from the upper classes of the majority Sinhala ethnic group. These politicians used racism as a tool to divide the working class. They also used it as a weapon in their struggles with each other: different Sinhalese politicians would compete to show that they were the strongest defenders of the Sinhalese people. This resulted in the adoption of racist policies and the stirring up of antagonism against the Tamil minority.

One of the newly independent state's first acts was to deprive Tamil plantation workers of citizenship rights. These workers were descended from people brought to Sri Lanka from India by the British in the nineteenth century to work on coffee and tea plantations. Despite the fact that their families had lived in Sri Lanka for several generations, a million people were denied Sri Lankan citizenship, being defined as "Indians".

The citizenship law did not directly affect the main group of Tamils, whose ancestors had lived in the north and east of the island of Sri Lanka for thousands of years. But it was soon followed by new laws adversely affecting all Tamils. Sinhalese was declared the sole official language of Sri Lanka, a move which made speakers of the Tamil language second-class citizens. Knowledge of Sinhalese was made a prerequisite for employment in the public service, thereby excluding most Tamils from government jobs. Discrimination against Tamils was also applied in education.

For many years Tamils opposed these discriminatory laws by peaceful means, including demonstrations, sit-ins and participation in elections. But peaceful protests were met with violent repression, carried out by the police and army as well as racist Sinhalese mobs incited to violence by politicians and Buddhist monks. There was a series of pogroms against Tamils, culminating in the murder of an estimated 3000 people in the government-instigated riots of July 1983.

LTTE theoretician Anton Balasingham argued that: "The anti-Tamil riots that periodically erupted in the island should not be viewed as spontaneous outbursts of inter-communal violence between the two communities. All major racial conflagrations that erupted violently against the Tamil people were inspired and masterminded by the Sinhala regimes as a part of a genocidal program. Violent anti-Tamil riots exploded on the island in 1956, 1958, 1961,1974, 1977,1979, 1981 and in July 1983. In these racial holocausts thousands of Tamils, including women and children, were massacred in the most gruesome manner, billions of rupees worth of Tamil property was destroyed and hundreds of thousands made refugees. The state's armed forces colluded with the Sinhalese hooligans and vandals in their violent rampage of arson, rape and mass murder."

The growing repression led to the growth of Tamil nationalist sentiment. In 1977 the Tamil United Liberation Front won 17 seats in the Sri Lankan parliament on a platform of self-determination for Tamils.

LTTE forms

The repression of peaceful protest led many Tamil youth to turn to violent methods. The LTTE was formed in 1972 and carried out its first major armed action in 1978. After the 1983 pogrom, the LTTE gained increased support from the Tamil community and dramatically stepped up its war against the Sri Lankan army.

Government forces were unable to defeat the LTTE, despite brutal repression including numerous massacres of Tamil civilians. In 1987 India sent a "peacekeeping force" to Sri Lanka, with the ostensible aim of protecting the Tamils from the violence of the Sri Lankan army. However the Indian government did not want to see the creation of an independent Tamil state, and the Indian army soon began repressing the LTTE. The Indians tried to use some other Tamil armed groups as a counterweight to the LTTE, leading to conflict among the Tamil militants.

In 1988, Ranasinghe Premadasa was elected as president of Sri Lanka. He was no friend of Tamils, having been prime minister during the 1983 pogrom. Nevertheless, he opposed the continued presence of Indian troops, and started talks with the LTTE. He even secretly gave the LTTE some arms to fight the Indian troops. But he remained opposed to self-determination for the Tamils, and once the Indian army had withdrawn, fighting broke out once again between the Sri Lankan army and the LTTE.

There have been a number of attempts to reach a peaceful settlement to the war.

Chandrika Kumaratunga was elected prime minister in 1994 after campaigning on a peace platform. However, Kumaratunga was never serious about peace, but merely wanted time to rebuild the Sri Lankan army for a new war.

In February 2002 a ceasefire agreement was signed between the LTTE and the United National Party (UNP) government of Ranil Wickremesinghe. This was the longest-lasting attempt to bring peace. But once again the government not only failed to offer the Tamil people a just solution that could guarantee a lasting peace; it failed even to fully implement the provisions of the ceasefire agreement -- for example, those provisions requiring the Sri Lankan army to evacuate public buildings it had occcupied in Tamil areas, and to disarm pro-government paramilitary groups. These paramilitary groups continued to exist and to carry out, in collusion with the Sri Lankan army, acts of violence and intimidation against LTTE supporters.

The UNP government, which claimed to want peace but failed to deliver it, was replaced in 2004 by a more openly chauvinist government, a coalition of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SFLP) with the JVP (Peoples Liberation Front). Later the JVP left the ruling coalition, but an even more extreme Sinhalese chauvinist party, the Jatika Hela Urumaya, which is led by Buddhist monks, joined the government.

Following the election of the SLFP, violence escalated into full-scale war. LTTE-controlled areas have been subjected to aerial and artillery bombardment by the Sri Lankan armed forces, as well as blockades preventing food supplies and other necessities from entering these areas. Tamil civilians have been murdered by government troops and pro-government militias, and Tamil youth have been conscripted into these militias against their will.

There have been a series of massacres by the armed forces. For example, on June 17, 2006, in the fishing village of Pesalai, Sri Lankan navy troops threw grenades into a church where Tamil refugees were sheltering. On August 4, in the town of Muttur, 17 aid workers (most of them Tamils) employed by the French charity Action Contre le Faim (Action Against Hunger) were murdered in cold blood by the army. On August 14, in Mullaitivu, an orphanage was bombed by the Sri Lankan airforce, killing more than 50 children.

Fifteen-thousand people fled from the town of Vaharai in eastern Sri Lanka following heavy shelling by the Sri Lankan army on January 18, 2007. According to the Tamilnet website, the shelling was intensified in the evening despite an urgent message sent to the International Committee of the Red Cross from Vaharai hospital authorities saying that the area around the hospital, where many displaced people had sought refuge, was under attack.

In March 2007, Batticaloa district parliamantarian S. Jeyanandamoorthy claimed that 40,000 people had been displaced from the Paduvankarai area of eastern Sri Lanka in a period of 48 hours, due to heavy artillery and rocket fire from the Sri Lankan army.

Repression against Tamils has intensified, not only in the traditional Tamil areas of the north and east, but also in Sri Lanka's capital Colombo. Many Tamils have fled to Colombo, both to escape the fighting in the north and east and for economic reasons. But the renewed war has led to increased harassment of Tamils in Colombo. Police have carried out sweeps through Colombo’s suburbs, questioning Tamils about their reasons for being in the capital. Military checkpoints have been established at key junctions throughout the city.

On June 7, 2007, 500 Tamils were forcefully expelled from lodges in Colombo, and sent on buses to the north and east. A further 300 were detained in a police station awaiting transport.

Human rights and peace groups and Tamil and left parties held a demonstration to protest against the expulsions on June 8, 2007. The Supreme Court ordered a halt to the expulsions. Nevertheless, the expulsions provided yet another example of the government's racist attitude towards the Tamils.

Indian journalist Narayan Swamy commented that the expulsions carried out by the Sinhala-chauvinist state paradoxically prove the existence of, and the need for, a Tamil homeland: "For too long it has been claimed by Sri Lanka's ruling elite that there cannot be a concept of `Tamil homeland’ because more Tamils now live outside of the war zone that is the northeastern province, which was once overwhelmingly Tamil ... the Sri Lanka police's high-handed action seemed to prove that the `Tamil homeland’ does exist and it does constitute precisely that region the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) wants to secede."


Source

From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged

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