"Never again" proven to be mere words, Sri Lanka is the latest.

by Tamiya | July 17, 2009 at 02:43 pm

168 views | 7 Recommendations | 2 comments

When genocides happened in Rwanda, Kosovo and Darfur, the world vowed to say "Never Again". In the 2008 UN Genocide prevention convention, Sri Lanka was listed as one of the eight top Red Alert countries to commit genocide.

Regardless, when the Tamil diaspora was pleading help to stop the massive killings of Tamils in the name of "fighting terrorism", the world did not act firm enough to stop killings of 20,000 Tamils within few days. Still, the world is beating around the bushes to react to the massive detention of Tamils, and subjecting them to death by pure ignorance by the Sri Lankan government.

Supposedly, the war was to "liberate" Tamils from LTTE. However, the war victory celebration was purely enjoyed by the Sinhalese, while the Tamils were scared to even go by their day to day lives in any part Sri Lanka.

The scale of the humanitarian tragedy in Sri Lanka is hard to fathom for us diaspora Tamils looking on from so many miles away. With the military offensive now over and the Tamils behind barbed wires, we would like to ask just one question: Is the world happy with the outcome?

Despite this grim scenario for Tamils, Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority celebrated the war's end with fireworks and parties as if they'd just won a cricket championship -- hardly a sign that accommodation and reconciliation toward Tamils is in the offing.

There are many reason why the Tamils diaspora hoped until the last massacre the world would react fast enough to stop the massacre of Tamils in Sri Lanka; Being Naive tops the list of the reasons.

There are many reasons why the world could not or did not react fast enough to stop the massacre of Tamils and continuing to turn a blind eye on the open pro-longed detention of over 250,000 Tamils; Many have already perished in these camps due to lack of meal and medicine; and many others have endured torture and rape. The reason that tops the list for inaction of the world is China.

China is building a harbor in Hambantota, a harbor town in the southern tip of Sri Lanka, and the Indo-China Ocean War has begun in Sri Lanka pawning minority Tamils in Sri Lanka.

Among China's latest moves is the billion dollar port its engineers are building in Sri Lanka, an island country just off India's southern coast. The Chinese insist the Hambantota port is a purely commercial move, and by all appearances, it is. But some in India see ominous designs behind the project, while others in countries surrounding India like the idea. A 2004 Pentagon report called Beijing's effort to expand its presence in the region China's "string of pearls."

No one wants war, and relations between the two nations are now at their closest since a brief 1962 border war in which China quickly routed Indian forces. Last year, trade between India and China grew to US$37 billion (euro24.8 billion) and their two armies conducted their first-ever joint military exercise.

Still, the Indians worry about China's growing influence."Each pearl in the string is a link in a chain of the Chinese maritime presence," India's navy chief, Adm. Sureesh Mehta, said in a speech in January, expressing concern that naval forces operating out of ports established by the Chinese could "take control over the world energy jugular."

"It is a pincer movement," said Rahul Bedi, a South Asia analyst with London-based Jane's Defence Weekly. "That, together with the slap India got in 1962, keeps them awake at night."

B. Raman, a hawkish, retired Indian intelligence official, expressed the fears of some Indians over the Chinese-built ports, saying he believes they'll be used as naval bases to control the area.

"We cannot take them at face value. We cannot assume their intentions are benign," said Raman.

Fearing the presence of China in Sri Lanka, India has presented itself a strong ally to Sri Lanka help "eradicate terrorism" in Sri Lanka. By doing so to crush the aspirations of Tamils in Sri Lanka, India has forgotten the Tamils in South India. Sooner or later, ignoring the mass of Tamils in India will have consequences.

The future of Tamils in Sri Lanka is at high stake. There is no real solution or goodwill has shown to Tamils so far. Many Tamils living outside of the camps were harassed and teased of the demise of LTTE. Sinhalese hooliganism is widespread in the buoyancy of victory. By winning the LTTE with the help of China and India, the Sinhalese have actually lost their own freedom and rights too in Sri Lanka. However, it is too late now to go back; With the Chinese government one don't retract from a deal after enjoying the benefits.

Sri Lanka has become a battle ground for geopolitical advantages of regional super powers. Mahinda Rajapaksa is imagining to play China and India to get the help he needs to stay in government as long as he can. However, he is forgetting that he is the pawn in the hands of China and India right now.

Tamils have a grim future in Sri Lanka unless the world reacts fast enough to derive a stable future for them. Then again, the world is too tangled up in its own issues, and the last thing many want to do is to anger China by standing up for few hundred thousands of Tamils.

Tamil people deserve to be heard by the international community as the pendulum of oppression has clearly moved against them. We hope the world won't wait until the Museum of Human Rights curates a history of the persecution of Tamils to tell the their story.

Unless the Tamil diaspora learns to play the politics quite well in the countries they migrated to, Tamils in Sri Lanka can not even dream a peaceful life.

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vssubramaniam

at 00:09 on July 18th, 2009

Sri Lankan case is a classic ‘how to’ guide book on committing the worst human rights crimes and still escape criminality. The agony of the Tamils is unlikely to end as long as long as India effectively Delhi (Tamil Nadu excluded) is complicit in the genocide in SL. Initially covert but now is overt India uses various pretences to justify its complicity. Delhi killed off all the hard work on SL’s human rights crimes by UNHRC and other mandated Human rights groups at the May Council meeting.

The record of UNHRC and related Hunan Rights groups is impeccable. Its field work supported statements/reports produced successful prosecutions of the world’s most renowned human rights abusers/criminals. In SL’s case, the Human Rights groups report ‘unacceptably high’ civilian deaths. Though war crimes Delhi (Raman) a partner in SL’s crime quibbles over the civilian numbers killed in SL’s ‘no fire zone’ and the interning and ill-treating of civilians as prisoners of war. To divert culpability Delhi accuses the West especially the personnel of the UN and mandated Human Rights groups of using the ‘Eelam issue to embarrass the SL government and put its senior officers in the dock by disseminating unauthenticated high figures of civilian casualties’ not mentioning the savage SL’s attacks on civilians. Intense bombardment in the narrow India blessed ‘no-fire zone’, SL troops throwing grenades into bunkers where unarmed civilians were sheltering, and bulldozing civilians ‘into mass graves along with the dead’. Though leaks of graphic details of these crimes are effectively plugged the ‘human shield’ Tamils now liberated into the Vanni camps are sure to provide dispositions later to the dis-comfort of the offenders. TV images of the long marches to the camps of emaciated civilians vouch to SL's savage use of starvation as a weapon of war on unarmed civilians. After starving for days in live saving bunkers in the ‘no fire zone’ the interns are starved behind barbed wire camps. These acts fall within the war crime category. A well informed analyst cynically observed that SL crimes received praise in that Council meeting which also ordered an investigation into Gaza atrocities though SL’s crimes were easily 10 times worse; the difference; there were no cameras in the SL case for the world see.

The 'no fire zone' and the concentration camps were the brain children of Narayanan/Menon duo. These were for the massacres to occur in utmost secrecy without independent witnesses to frustrate potential SL war crimes proceedings. Tamil civilians in the war front trustingly moved into the India blessed 'no fire zones'not realizing tThey were actually well planned 'massacres zones'. Lurid pictures of the SL massacres are in the public domain worldwide, thanks to the internet. The Sunday Times Gothabhaya Rajapakse interview incriminates the Indian trio’s (Foreign Secretary, National Security Advisor and Defense Secretary) step by step liaising with the SL counterparts on the timing /details of the (May 16 to 19) massacres, including that RAW be involved in the capture and massacre of the Ltté leadership and the number of civilians casualties politically acceptable to Delhi. RAW's over flights gave precise co-ordinates of the targets and ground conditions for the massacres. Hence India had to act in the May UNHRC meeting prudently as it did. India viewed the West's SL war crimes initiatives in the UNHRC as a threat. The Tamils viewed that the west was acting perfectly morally exposing SL's inhuman crimes against unarmed civilians. An unabashed Delhi continuing to frustrate UNHRC’s pains to establish the criminality of the SL genocide will p[rolong the agony of the Tamils. Sri Lanka lost its membership in the UNHRC as an HR abuser almost exactly a year ago. SL’s success in the UNHRC this May is the result of India’s robust lobbying for SL for which the Tamils in their tens of thousands became sacrificial lambs. .

vssubramaniam

SINGAPORE

JamalDavid (not verified)

at 14:56 on July 20th, 2009

The world must etc...? Well, the world doesn't care about your sob stories. No one does. The coolies have been used and discarded, and the old masters aren't there to back you up.