In Sri Lanka the Tamil Problem is the Sinhalese "Solution"

Sri Lanka is the the death zone for journalists. More than a dozen journalists are abducted by the government forces and killed in the past year. The latest one to die in such a manner was Lasantha Wickrematunge. An equal number of journalists are abducted and kept in government run jails. The latest one to locked in a cell was Nadesapillai Vithyatharan, editor of the prominent Tamil daily "Uthayan."

After a busy murdering and abduction spree the government of Sri Lanka seems to have conveyed the message to those remaining journalists "Write about us at your own peril." Anyone following the Sri Lankan media will agree that the journalists there are "listening" to the government. All the media are just publishing the government propaganda. Those disgusted to do so have fled the country.

However, there are still some journalists in this tear drop shaped island trying a shot at journalism. A guy called Jayatissa Perera was one such journalist. He took a chance to write this article.

"Governments expect us to be good citizens. A good citizen is not necessarily a good man. To be a good citizen one does not have to do anything but follow the politicians. Under Hitler, Stalin and to her dictators everybody was a good citizen. If not be would have been sent to a gas chamber or to Siberia. A good citizen’s life may be anti-social but the life of a good man is never anti-social." He wrote in the article titled "A good citizen is not necessarily a good man!."

Isn't that anti government? Won't he be killed by the armed forces for writing about the government? One might wonder. Yes it is dangerous to write the above and get away with it without being punished by the government. So Mr. Perera wrote the following as the next paragraph.

"He will not be against another man for political, racial or religions reasons. If a terrorist like Prabhakaran were to form a government the good citizen would have to carry a grenade, a gun and a cyanide capsule to die in defending terrorism. So a good citizen is not necessarily a good man."

There we go. He was talking about terrorists. Not the government itself.

In Sri Lanka, most of the journalists avoid the "terrorist" prefix to LTTE or its leader Prabhakaran. This might be out of their journalism ethics and or might be out of their moral respect to their fellow Tamil citizens. No Tamil will accept that LTTE is a terrorist organization. They unanimously claim that the LTTE are their saviors. This opinion was demonstrated world wide by Tamil expartriates.

Even the government did not call LTTE a terrorist organization continuously. They have banned and then de-banned and then banned the LTTE according to their political agenda.

But if writing LTTE as "terrorists" earns respect (OK may be not respect because the government gives no respect to media at least it wont kill you) from the otherwise media hostile government then it is OK to do so, Mr. Perera might have thought. This is not the time to think about his Tamil fellow citizens and their feelings.

It is interesting that the Tamils in Sri Lanka has pretty much lost all their possessions in the same manner.

Tamils lost their share in the University admission because the Sinhalese wanted to go to University. They were chased away from their land because the Sinhalese didn't have enough for themself. The Tamils were refused basic human rights such as the right to speak their native language because the Sinhalese cannot understand Tamil. At one point half a million Tamils were stripped from their Sri Lankan citizenship and made stateless because the Sinhalese wanted a majority in the parliament. The list goes on and on.

When I was a kid, whenever my elder brother was grounded and his bicycle taken away, he would simply snatch my bike and ride away.

What is worse, I cannot tell this to my parents.

Sinhalese in Sri Lanka are like our elder brothers. They are the absolute majority with 74% of the Sri Lankan population. They have the power to take away whatever they want. Whenever they want they snatch away Tamil's possessions.

Sadly Tamil's last possessions are being snatched away in large numbers now - Their lives. Some 250,000 Tamils in the Vanni area of Sri Lanka are facing total annihilation by the government forces.

What is worse? There will be no one to tell this story to the rest of the world because the media is already "neutralized" by the government.