I’ve been wondering who this Professor Francis Boyle character is that they keep quoting on TamilNet. For reference, I access TamilNet (banned here) by visiting vtunnel.com. It’s hopeless for news, but it at least gives you a sense of what nonsense the LTTE side is calling for. Recently an anonymous ‘Colombo commentator’ called for the US to practice gunboat diplomacy, as in invade to save the LTTE. Okay. But one constant on TamilNet is the Illinois professor Boyle. I looked him up and turns out that he calls for, among other things, Hawaiian independence from the United States.
To quote:
“…now the United States government, after one hundred years, has finally and officially conceded, as a matter of United States law, that Native Hawaiian people have the right to restore the Independent Nation State that you had in 1893 when the United States government came and destroyed it…
“”As a litigator before the International Court of Justice, I would be able to take this law to the World Court, and say, ‘The United States government has now officially conceded that it illegally invaded and occupied the Kingdom of Hawai`i, and for this reason the native people of Hawai`i would be entitled to a restoration of their independent status as a sovereign nation state.'”
“I could not predict how long this would take, what would be the consequences, how many states will recognize you, but I take it that the plight of the Hawaiian people is generally well known in the world, and there’s a great deal sympathy …it might be that you would be able to obtain recognition quickly. And especially if you pursue this process in accordance with principals of peaceful, non-violent struggle…
“…an Independent Sovereign Nation State is one way a people who are threatened with extermination by means of genocide can attempt to protect themselves… What is the best way to protect the existence of your people, as a people? …to proclaim your own State, and then ultimately seek international recognition and finally UN membership…”
“…it’s your future and that of your children and your children’s children that is at stake.”
Indeed. Whereas now a child born in Hawaii is the President Of The United States. Weird how that works out. Sometimes if people live and work together they end up having a better life for all their children.
Right now Tamils are getting bombed and held in camps they can’t leave under terrible conditions. This is made all the more terrible because the LTTE has herded them into the warzone and created these scenes for propaganda purposes. The GoSL, however, is following the decapitation strategy leveraged at great costs against the JVP in the late 70s. Which, at terrible cost, prevented a Khmer Rouge style insurrection in the country which would have been unspeakably horrid.
At the same time, most Sri Lankans are willing to bear these terrible sacrifices to free our land of an unspeakably horrid future where the LTTE uses those in its territory as cannon and camera fodder and destabilizes the democracy of Sri Lanka (and India) through assassinations and terrorism.
That’s a sum, but the long is that we have to work to give Tamils and all Sri Lankans full civil rights within our Constitution, within our existing democracy. Separation may seem like a pat solution to internationals like Boyle, who at least also calls for separation in his own country. Here, however, we have to live together, especially since over 50% of Tamils live in the south.
For our children’s future, we need to work this out within a just and equitable Sri Lanka. Does it look likely, not really, but did a black, Hawaiian President ever look likely in the United States? With hope all things are possible, and Sri Lanka deserves a chance to work this out within our democracy without secession won through terrorism. I don’t think it’s likely, but I also don’t know the future and I have some faith in myself and my country. I do hope that we’ll have a Tamil or Muslim or ‘minority’ President someday, and I think it’s more likely if the LTTE isn’t around to kill off all the prospects.
This guy probably is hoping the Tamil Diaspora can be conned into giving him a large sum of cash to take this issue before the international courts.
“I could not predict how long this would take, what would be the consequences”
This would probably be his escape clause for not being able to achieve anything concrete.
Tamils Against Genocide is already giving this lawyer Bruce Fein a shitload of money to prepare model indictments in the US. I wonder why they don’t spend money on lobbying this government, delivering relief to the Tamils here and generally rebuilding lives for the people that live here.
Indi/David Blacker
Do you think that the Govt’s strategy at this point is correct? I wonder if a ceasefire would not be better. It would make the LTTE the bad guys, for not surrendering and releasing the civilians, surely?
I think we need to be doing a better job of convincing the diaspora – that should be the Govt’s overall objective, as if they don’t do that, this problem will not go away.
JJ,
A War is not something like American idol that conduct front of an audience, even though some are desperate to be a judge.
I’m pretty sure convincing diaspora is not the goal here. It’s amazing how different the internal politics are from the external. At the end of the day these people simply don’t live here, vote, pay taxes, invest or even pay that much attention.
I think the point is getting rid of the LTTE and getting at least some of the destabilizing terrorism out of our country. The next point is uniting and rebuilding Sri Lanka. We’ll probably mess it up, but we at least have a better shot if the LTTE isn’t choosing or killing Presidents all the time. Among other things.
Well said Indi.
If anyone is well versed with the Constitution, I am curious as to whether a minority president is technically possible in SL…
Practical issues regarding convincing the voter base aside, isn’t there some provision in the Constitution about being a Buddhist or having to protect Buddhism or something to that effect? I really don’t have the details so I would appreciate a clarification.
“At the same time, most Sri Lankans are willing to bear these terrible sacrifices to free our land of an unspeakably horrid future where the LTTE uses those in its territory as cannon and camera fodder and destabilizes the democracy of Sri Lanka (and India) through assassinations and terrorism.”
Do you really think your average Sinhalese villager is struggling with that sort of weighty moral crisis when they support Mahinda? You’ve become prone to melodramatic statements like this lately. People in the northeast are dying. Non-tamil people in the southwest are inconvenienced. It’s offensive how you keep trying to associate yourself with real loss.
I believe the average Sinhala villager is moral and does care. Many Sinhala villages have boys and girls in the armed forces, many who come home in boxes. Many in the Sinhala south have contributed to the relief effort, including a Avurudu convoy that went from Tangalle along the coast and up. What’s offensive is calling the Sinhalese racist or somehow stupid. It is certainly not offensive to care and try to do something about it.
For the past two months I’ve given most of my time and almost all of my disposable income towards my fellow Sri Lankans in the North. The people I see beside me are Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim, white, brown, mixed. If you want to lecture me about some racially privileged loss please donate to, say, Sarvodaya first. Then come back and lecture me about being insincere all you want.
The loss in the North is certainly not Tamil or non-Tamil to me or most people I know. It’s Sri Lankan. I live on this island and I feel it keenly, I suspect most people do.
Of course a minority can be President. The state has a duty to protect Buddhism, but there’s no requirement for the President be Buddhist. It’s open to any citizen. The Constitution is available online.
I believe there’s a bit in the presidential oath about swearing to “give Buddhism the foremost place”. This could be difficult if the potential candidate is a practicing member of a mono-aesthic religion such as Islam or Christianity. It means he/she has to make a personal compromise.
why does the “The State” have a duty to protect Buddhism? What about that which is practiced in Sri-Lanka is so invaluable and so fragile that it foolishly needs the palsied arms of a wasted almost-corpse to protect it from cultural cross-winds which blow in from elsewhere? If it cannot compete, it is finished. This is the logic of a market economy–the global one which SL will have to join as an open member, sans tariff, trade duty and excise; and this is necessary in all respects, not just tangible commodities but also ideas.
And indi, if you wish to know why those idiots gave Bruce Fein the money they probably extorted out of their co-ethnics with emotional blackmailing, you’d best look at the history of pressure groups, lobbying firms and the population of K street in Washington D.C. The only ethnic lobby which has acheived true power, that which affects the admittance and dismissals of members from both houses of Congress, is AIPAC. There is no short-cut to AIPAC but there are thousands of people who promise the access to “make it all happen.”
Bruce Fein is one of those people. That might be considered pissing money into a gale. But so is taking a puny bribe to a Mahinda henchmen in exchange for a 5 minute audience. The Chinese gave him a billion to get their foot in the door. It will take that and more to have an effect on the head of the snake. In the US, you don’t have to bribe Obama. You simply have to find Sen./Congressman’s So-And-So’s old friend from university or business and wait for the lobbying/legislative action to take it’s course.
I’m not religious, but I can understand that it’s necessary to society. But religion should be a personal conviction ONLY. The state as such, law and the constitution should be entirely secular in any country. To be otherwise seems insanely old fashioned and naive. State law and religion should not be combined because they cannot be and are fundamentally different and exist for different reasons. If a state is not secular then it will not function for everyone in the same way. See how far religion interfering with state law has gotten the USA…
There is no good reason at all for the state to protect Buddhism. In fact, I think Buddhism in Sri Lanka needs to be protected FROM the state. We need a secular constitution. Period.
Having said that, I don’t think the rather vague reference to Buddhism in our current charter makes us the theocracy that some people would have the world believe. And I’m a little wary of certain religious fundamentalists who preach loudly for a secular state in Sri Lanka, but not elsewhere.
Secularism will take a while to get to. Look at the US, a black man may have become president but it will be years until a non-Christian can become president. Religion seems to play a significant part in the US political psyche, going off the focus it garnered during the campaign and afterwards. When I took my citizenship oath I had to do it before ‘god,’ so much for secularism.
Electra,
Yes, our balance of religious freedoms and n0n-religious freedoms have produced a standard of life and an abundance of opportunity for social mobility unparalleled in human history. So yes, it has gotten us somewhere. Just not where you seem to imply we’ve gone.
Every Sri Lankan [Tamil, Muslim and Sinhala] should read this and pass it on to others…………….
TNA HIGHLIGHTS
Sinhalese influx into North Lanka
Dear Members of the TNA,
I was livid to read what P.K. Balachandra had reported of your concerns about the ???Sinhalese influx into North Lanka ???. Let???s get this crystal clear to all you shadows of the late Velupillai Prabhakaran, NORTH LANKA IS NOT A NO-MAN???S LAND FOR US SINHALESE.. It is our land as much as yours.
What is indeed your problem TNA? What is it in your genes that you feel that you have the right to seek territorial purity for Tamils in the North and yet you think that you men with three finger stripes of ash across the foreheads have the Hindu Trinity rights to invade the South and claim 41 percent of the population of the capital Colombo and own 75 percent of the prime real estate of its suburb Wellawatte, and yet, keep out the Sinhalese from the North who have every God given right to own and occupy real estate there, especially in Jaffna and live and work there and to be happy ever after like you Tamils living happily ever after in the South and the Hills.
You TNA Tamils have the gold to flood Sea Street in the Pettah with business sign boards hanging from the roofs promoting your ??????iah??? clan in Tamil calligraphy??? the Selliahs, Thambaiahs, Nalliahs, Suppaiahs and Rasaiahs, but have immense difficulty to accept the signs of the Silva Bakery, Perera Grocery Stores and the Sumana Kopi Kade in Sinhalese calligraphy in the heart of Jaffna. That is a hell-of-a-how-do-you-do, isn???t it TNA? My knife cuts both ways and not one way and that is where you lot and I differ!
Well???well???.well??? Premachandran, Sambandan and Sridharan lets cut out this crap once and for all. Lets not go through another 30 years of violence killing each other just because you think that your blood is more crimson and purer than my Sinhala blood. Rubbish! And let yourTamil kids be kids enjoying ???hide-and-seek??? and ???hop-scotch??? and not play ???cops and robbers??? in Tiger fatigues cradling Kalashnikovs which are heavier than most of them and get killed in the battle frontlines because you adults feared to face the army bullets. I hope you TNAs have learnt a lesson from the past 27-years.
???The army has about 40,000 troops now in the Wanni. Very soon, the troops??? families will join them??? you griped to Balachandran. What???s wrong with that may I ask?
That is what we call ???Family re-unification??? in Canada . Like, when one of your Tamils get on a plane with a legitimate Sri Lankan passport at Katunayake airport on the way to Canada???s Toronto???s Pearson International Airport, and then mid-air this Tamil does an ABRACADABRA and destroys the Sri Lankan passport, and when he/she lands on Canadian soil claims with crocodile tears welling in the eyes to be a Convention refugee fleeing persecution and discrimination in Sri Lanka and have no valid document. The person goes through the normal Immigration Refugee determination procedures to get permanent residency (PR) and a Canadian passport. Once he gets the PR, then the ???Family reunification??? act kicks in immediately. So this Tamil brings over the mother, the father, the brother, the sister and the whole family caboodle and later all of them become jet-setters travelling to Sri Lanka often, the country that they ran away from saying that they were persecuted and discriminated. This is a classic case of ???Mirror, mirror on the wall who is the liar of them all!???
If such ???Family reunification??? is good for you Tamils, it certainly should be good for the Sinhalese army personnel who are legitimately guarding the Sri Lankan territory, especially the North and the sovereignty of Sri Lanka . If the families are not reunited, they will have a legitimate right to grieve as much as you Tamils have complained to the Human Rights Commission that your rights have been violated by the Sri Lankan Government. It is as simple as that. So what is your gripe TNA?
???Once a settlement comes up, infrastructural facilities like Sinhalese schools and Buddhist temples will come, and the cultural character of the Wanni will change,??? gripes, Suresh Premachandran who is contesting from Jaffna District.
Really, Suresh! Isn???t that the normal sociological phenomena? Come to Canada ???s Ontario ???s Scarborough . Within the past 20 years, the Tamil refugees have turned the place into a Little Jaffna. There are Tamil Grocery Stores, Sari stores, Restaurants, Shopping Malls, Vadai and Thosai boutiques, Tamil Curry Huts, Hindu Temples you name it, and they have it. Added to all that they also have gun-totting and knife-wielding Tamil gangs to claim their patch of Canadian territory. Isn???t that a natural phenomenon in an evolution of a new society? So let???s cut your whining as the Sinhalese are no different from you Tamils. Perhaps they are a bit lighter in complexion and talk English with a slightly different accent.
It is time that you Tamil ???Eelam??? dreamers accept that you are a minority in Sri Lanka which is a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religious society and that you Northern and Eastern Tamils should learn how to live peacefully together with the majority Sinhalese as the Tamils do in the South and the Hills who have been doing it for donkey???s years.
And your claim of a ???Tamil Homeland??? in Sri Lanka ???s North and East has created a problem in my mind, because that???s a bunch of baloney. Is it why you ethnically cleansed the Sinhalese and kicked 27,000 of them out of the North between 1971 and 1981, by killing and terrorizing. Then of course, in October 1990 you all kicked out 100,000 Muslims out of the North giving them 24 hours to move out. After those dastardly acts, and now you all think that the North and the East are purified and are yours and for the Tamils alone, and portray such legitimacy internationally. Ha! Come again. Give me a break TNA.
Remember how you Tamils ethnically cleansed the Jaffna University campus. Let me tell you what happened and after 33 years my blood still gurgles with resentment.
On 22nd July 1977, the United National Party (UNP) formed the Government after an overwhelming victory.. Three weeks later on 13th August, in Jaffna , Tamil extremists attacked the government buildings and Sinhalese shops, and you guys still spit about the July 25, 1983 riots when the Tamil shops were attacked by Sinhalese mobs in Colombo.
There were around 400 Sinhalese lecturers and undergraduates at the Jaffna University at that time. The Vice Chancellor on hearing of the anti-Sinhalese disturbances closed the University. While Tamil students went to their homes, the Sinhalese students had no place to go. The staff met and decided to move them to the Third Floor of the Main Building . While some Tamil staff members went to their homes a few stayed back to protect their Sinhalese colleagues and students, (Well???all Tamils are not bad and so are the Sinhalese who took in thousands of Colombo-Tamils into their homes to keep them away from being harmed during the July 83 riots).
Around 10 o???clock that morning a group of Tamil Tigers tried to force their way to the Third Floor, but were prevented by the Tamil staff members. Tamil Tigers went back, threatening to return. The Tamil staff members stayed on. At about 2 o???clock in the afternoon an armed gang of Tamil Tigers forced their way in. The Tamil lecturers again did not allow them to go up and at this point, a professor informed the Government Agent (GA) of the situation.
The GA arrived around 5:00 PM and provided meals to the Sinhalese students and lecturers who had not eaten since morning. By 7:00 PM he arranged the Army and Police to escort the 400 students and lecturers who were taken south out of Jaffna in buses all lying on the floor out of the line of a hail of rocks and stones. Just a note for you TNAs. The July 1983 riots didn???t flare up suddenly. This ethnic cleansing of the Sinhalese was part of the powder-keg that you Tamils started stuffing for it to explode one day and it did happen on July 25, 1983.
You griping TNAs, should note that while the Sinhalese undergraduates were stoned out of the Jaffna University Campus not a single Tamil undergraduate was touched by the Sinhalese in the Peradeniya and Colombo University campuses. My TNA friends, why are you hiding this incident to your western cronies? Admit to them that you guys are no paragons of virtue.
???Tamil nationalists point out that the predominantly Tamil Wanni has been substantially denuded of Tamils by the war which had gone on for 30 years, ??? you TNA Thambis were crying to Balachandran. Don???t we all know it!
The Tamils had a choice and they were the architects of their destiny, don???t you think so TNA? You Tamils got on your mythical train of Eelam which wasn???t going anywhere other than burying children under 12 inches of soil because you all abducted them and sent them out to war to be killed by bullets. The smart Tamils placed their palms together, looked up and thanked God for providing them an opening to get out of Sri Lanka in search of greener pastures bypassing their Motherland India and in countries further west. So they got on planes to fan out, and so they paid volumes of money to ship captains to take them by sea and dump them near a western shore. That was the choice of your people TNA, so let???s not gripe.
Here are the facts about the North and East which you claim to be your ???homeland???. If it was a joke then I just didn???t get it. You can read this, absorb these facts and if you don???t like it roll the paper into cigars and smoke it if you wish to but my facts will not lie.
Let me roll back to the pre-development days of the east of Sri Lanka in particular of the Gal-Oya project initiated by the first Prime Minister of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) after Independence, D.S.Senanayake, as some of you may not have yet been born, thus the false claim of the ???Tamil Homeland??? by the older generation may deem true in your naivet?? eyes.
With his vision the 62 mile long Gal Oya (river) rising from the Badulla range in the Central Province was dammed in 1949 for the welfare and prosperity of all Sri Lankans. Let me repeat for the welfare of all Sri Lankans which includes your Tamil people. The repository of water left after damming now forms the lifeblood of the peasant farmers of the historic region of Digamadulla, who some of them were massacred by your Tamil Tigers for purposes of ethnic cleansing.
Prior to this project, contrary to what you Tamils would like us to believe that it was predominantly a Tamil area, on either side of the Gal Oya River grew relentless jungle. The actual denizens were Veddahs (aboriginal people and not Tamils) and wild animals.
It is still recalled by a few old Veddahs how their parents trekked a few miles along the jungle trail to visit the dam site overlooking the Inginiyagala rock, which still stands as a giant sentinel and never met a Tamil woman or a man along the way. Those days only foot paths and animal tracks criss-crossed that vast amphitheatre which was entwined by dense jungle. I wonder where the hell the Tamils were hiding in this area as you TNA claim that it was your Tamil country (homeland). Your claim for this land is an egregious nonsense.
Thus the ???state aided colonization??? in the Gal Oya project refers to the process by which largely unoccupied and unutilized land belonging to the State which was ???traditional homeland??? of the aboriginal people, the elephant, the sloth bear, the leopard, the monkey, the deer, the mynah and the jackal were colonized by peasant farmers. They were given meagre financial assistance to enable them to gain both a livelihood and feed their fellow citizens with the fruit of their toil.
With these facts you better tell us where your Tamils were and at what point did they join the Act?
These are the facts TNA and I don???t believe your fairy tales and nor would many thousands of others. So lets stop whining about the ???Tamil cultural character of the Wanni will change??? with the ???Sinhalese influx into North Lanka ???.
Let???s not start another fight. Let???s not kill each other with another 30-year war. You Tamils in the North and East better learn to live peacefully with the majority Sinhalese as they do in the South and the hills of Sri Lanka .
You all should better get used to seeing the business signs of Silva Bakery, Perera Grocery Stores and Sumana Kopi Kade in the heart of Jaffna, as much as we have got used to seeing and patronizing Selliah Thosai boutique, Rajaiah Pharmacy, Suppiah Sari Emporium and Nalliah Jewellers in the heart of the capital Colombo.
Sincerely,
Asoka Weerasinghe