HARDtalk

The man Stephen Sackur, talks loud. He asks a question and before the question is answered he cuts in to ask another question. Thus he leaves the effect of his question in the mind of the listener who has no time to hear the answer.

Watching this comedy of hard talk it becomes quite evident that Sackur does not want to elucidate facts, but impose his prejudiced judgment in the minds of the listener. In such circumstances it becomes a one sided talk show meant to fluster and destabilise the questioned projecting his image as a man who has no answer to the wise white mans questions.

Stephen Sucker had come to Sri Lanka and visited the IDP Camps in the North and finally when he came to question the Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse he had nothing new to ask him from what he had gathered in his meetings with the people in the north and the small talk shows he had with the people and the students and their teachers.

Hard talk programme is said to be of “ world wide fame due to its global reach “.. But unfortunate it grapples important subjects about which some of the listeners in the west may be prejudiced, and the talk show which high lights these controversial questions leave out what is important for the prejudiced listeners to clear their doubts.

Hard Talker Sacker, does not look at the positive aspects of the subject, but emphasis on negative side of the subject. After all the time Sacker lost in interviewing the people who had been affected by the terrorism, he comes back to the Defence Secretary to ask him the same old questions which had been repeatedly asked and answered. They will ask this self same questions until the cows come home.

Sackers questions do not interest the people of Sri Lanka except those who oppose the President Mr.Mahinda Rajapakse and his Government. Sacker asks the Defence Secretary that in the North there is a large presence of the Military . This question he asked from a IDP Tamil man about to leave the camp to settle down in his former village, he again asked the same question from Tamil man who had been with the terrorists, then he asked the same question from the Students and their teachers.

But Sacker has no intelligence, to understand that it is necessary to have a military presence as the people have still to be protected. It also helps the people and the children who had come out of the horror of terrorists, who had been brain washed to think of the Government Army is their enemy, know the Soldiers are in fact their friends..

With the constant presence of the Government Army now reverting to civilian non-military tasks, would be an effective means to remove from the brain washed minds of former terrorist child soldiers and terrorist sympathising Tamil people the notion that the Government Army Soldiers are their enemies.

And what the Western interviewer forgets is that the Government Armed Forces were not engaged in a conventional war, but an armed struggled against a group of terrorists who sprang from the people, and utilised by the Indian government to make terrorists of them.

Fighting terrorism is different from fighting against an enemy state or an invading army. Therefore, it is foolish to point to Geneva Conventions of 1949 which was long before terrorism raised its head, to point out that the Government Forces may have acted against the Geneva Convention.

Sacker asks the Defence Secretary, whether he does not think that having the Military Soldiers walking the village paths and streets of their towns a scary concept for the Tamil people.

Sacker cannot imagine with his western mentality that the presence of the Military Soldiers is not a scary experience to the Tamil people as the Sri Lanka Soldiers, are not after all foreigners but there own people, who had in fact rescued them from a more scary experience with the terrorists walking in their villages and towns looking out for children to be forcibly taken away to be trained as child soldiers.

Sacker had not been in the same situation that those Tamil people had been for 30 years, and therefore, he cannot and will not understand their mind set however much he tries. It is only one year after the elimination of terrorism in Sri Lanka. We cannot yet be sure there would not be attempt by a stray terrorist still living some where carry out a suicide bomb attack.

The Hindu of 21 June,2010 carried a very relevant report which may perhaps open the eyes of Sacker to the necessity of the continued monitoring of the North and East by the Armed Forces. The report states; “……Three cadre of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were arrested by the ‘Q' Branch police in the city on Sunday. Large quantities of ordinary and electric detonators were seized from them…….”

Will the West and the Hard Talking man understand why a military presence is necessary in the North ?

I may follow this later to cover Sacker’s rest of the questions to the Defence Secretary.

The Fallacy of ethnicity

It has been asked whether the Sinhala people knows that the “ ethnicity is mind made and that it does not exist in reality”. The Buddhists “know” this as the whole of the teachings of the Buddha is to direct them to ultimate reality .

In ultimate reality there is no, I or me, therefore there is no my family, therefore there is no our family, therefore there is no our people, therefore there are no Tamils, Sinhala, Muslim or any other, as they are all labels we give believing the existence of I or me, therefore, my family, therefore our families, therefore my people, there fore we Tamils, we Sinhala, we Muslims or any other.

In reality we are all of the same stock , and in ultimate reality we do not exist as separate entities. The form is water, energy, wind, and earth which separate into respective elements at death, and then it is only the mind that rests to depart from the form to be born again, and through ignorance go round the same cycle believing in a self , therefore being attached to the self, believes in me or I , my family, our family, my people, the Tamils, the Sinhala etc.

To some up, ethnicity is mind made, it does not exist in reality.

But living in Samsara-in this world, ignorant of the non-reality of a self, we promote this sense of belonging to a self , and therefore attachment to all that belongs to self as, mine, my family, our people, we Tamils, we Sinhala etc. Even the Buddhists though they understand that the ethnicity, which is not evident, is mind made, yet they through the ignorance in the deeper sense of the word, still believe in a self, I, Me and mine.

But nevertheless, because of the heritage of the Buddhist Culture, therefore to this belief of the reality of self, the Sinhala people are not virulently hateful to those he thinks, do not belong to one self, therefore to the family, creed and people.

They do not go to war because of their hatred to the enemy, but because they want to avoid the enemy hurting others, and wrench away what belongs to all. King Dutugamunu went to war against King Elara not because he hated him, but because King Elara had taken away what belonged to him, his people.

King Dutugamunu, despite fighting against King Elara as an enemy, respect him for his goodness. He made a tomb for King Elara and proclaimed the area sacred, asked the people to go past the place in silent respect to the dead King.

Therefore the Buddhists go to war not because they do not know the reality of the teaching on ultimate reality, but because ultimate reality not being evident, they want to protect the land where they could live in peace, in their environment to enable them to understand the teaching of ultimate reality, while living peacefully with the rest of the inhabitants, what ever their belief system.

Of course the Buddhists , as much as Tamils and Muslim are ignorant of the fallacy of ethnicity, because they live with attachment, aversion and delusion- the delusion of a self, I me and mine. Hence they fight to save their people, their country , and their culture.

The same could be said about the war against terrorism. The terrorists became intolerant, they would not listen to reason. They were not ready for a dialog. They want to divide the country at whatever the cost in lives sacrificed.

The terrorists were not fighting to save or protect what belonged to them, but were fighting to wrench away a part of the land, which belonged to every one, to set up an Eelam for themselves.

While the Government was fighting to save the suffering of the people in the area who were sacrificing thousands of their children for the cause of the terrorists- which was to wrench away a part from the country which in fact is their’s, to make a separate Eelam.

Of course the Government apart from freeing the Tamil people forced to suffer under terrorism, wanted to stop the terrorists from wrenching away a part of the Country to set up an Eelam, and thus separate the people from the rest of inhabitants of Sri Lanka.

The terrorists wanted to force on the people a theory of a Tamil Homeland, to separate them from the larger family of all the inhabitant of Sri Lanka.

Thus the war against the terrorist by the Government is justifiable, as the effort of the Government had been through out the military operations against terrorists, up to now is to keep all the people no matter whether they are Tamils, Sinhala, Muslim, or any other , together without separating them according to different ethnics.

In that sense the Government relates its action , accepting the fallacy of ethnicity, as a characteristic of separateness of belonging to a community or a group.

Sarath Fonseka is an angry man, he should keep away from politics

On the day of the Victory Pageant one cannot help thinking of the then Commander of the Armed Forces Mr.Sarath Fonseka. But if he is not there to proudly participate in the event it is because of his own fault.

Now there is nothing to be proud of this man, who has turned out to be a traitor to his comrades in arms, a Secretary of Defence who had been his friend, and a President who held him in high esteem.

To-day, Sarath Fonseka is an angry man. He is a self centred man who is overcome with emotions of anger. A man who feels that he is more important than others who shows his anger towards those who he thinks have wronged him.

An angry man cannot accept defeat. After his defeat from the Presidential elections, he was mentally ill with unbearable anger. He once even saluted the people at a press conference thanking them for electing him as their President. He said, from the numbers that attended his election meetings he could not have lost the election. It was he said through computer manipulations that he was made the looser.

Anger can lead to lot of mental disorders which psychologists treat in different ways. The root cause of anger is jealousy through intense attachment, hatred or aversion which is the intense dislike, delusion of the existence of an extra ordinary personality, a self, and attachment to that self. Such a person refuses to understand any thing that is contrary to his way of thinking. An angry man cannot serve any body other than himself. Therefore Sarath Fonseka is intensely self centred and he cannot be a politician capable of serving the people.

Anger could be treated to keep it under manageable control. In order to change the emotions of anger he should keep the company of people who are reasonable, patient and pacific. But unfortunately Sarath Fonseka is “planted” amidst men who are frothing mad with anger. They are frothing mad perhaps because they have caught the “virus” of anger from Sarath Fonseka, or they are angry people by nature and find Sarath Fonseka ideal company, a case of birds of feather flocking together.

The angry men into whose lap Sarath Fonseka has fallen are, Anura Kumara Dissanayake the former JVP stalwart who is now the spokesman for the DNA. He cannot speak without being angry, when angry his face swells, his eyes pops out of their sockets. His mouth froths and he screams. So are Tilvin Silva and Vijitha Herath. They are all like hot chilies boiling in a curry…….

I watched Lal Kantha another angry man from JVP being interviewed in a TV programme, and I did not see a smile in his face right throughout the interview which lasted 26 minutes. These are JVP politicians who have completely lost their calm, seeking ways and means to come back into the political limelight backing a man who Commanded the Government Forces in its war against terrorism. That is all the qualification Sarath Fonseka has, wich is insufficient without any political experience to govern a country.

An angry politician cannot solve the problems of Sri Lanka, as such a man is already mentally sick unable to sort out what is good and what is bad. Sarath Fonseka’s only reason to be in politics is to take revenge from the President and his brother Gotabhaya Rajapakse.

Nobody seems to know the real reason for his enmity towards the President. If it was because some of the powers given to him under the post to which he was designated, had been removed, then it is for selfish reasons. One wonders whether all that is only to hide the fact that he had made use of the war to make his family rich.

Sarath Fonseka knows by now that he was elected by the interested parties in Colombo and his popularity in the country is nothing to write home about. The Colombo UNP voters must have rallied round him. The UNP vote bank in Colombo appears to be composed mostly of people who will vote even to a “broom stick” if it has some connection to UNP.

The UNP Candidate Paba wo had been elected by the Colombo voters was recently interviewed by the Derana television and she made a fool of her self through out that interview. She giggled all the time without being able to express herself. The UNP constituency that elects such candidates as Parliamentarians seem to lack any idea of who they should vote into Parliament. In that situation there is no surprise a Colombo constituency also elected Sarath Fonseka as a Parliamentarian. It was a mistake as much as electing Paba as a Parliamentarian was a mistake.

In none of the press conferences given by Sarath Fonseka, had he said any thing sensible, other than to criticise the Government and insult the President and his family. He is an utter misfit as a politician, and one cannot understand the one time JVP stalwarts promoting a man who has neither socialist nor capitalist political ideas. Only value he has is in having been the Commander of the Army of the Government Forces that eliminated terrorism.

The elimination of terrorism was a collective responsibility, where the President as well as the Secretary of Defence also played very important roles. He would have been a respected and loved war hero if he kept himself away from politics.

Even now it is not too late for him to say sorry for what he had done and settle into a retired life and live respectfully well. He should then contact the President, who will surely pardon him for all his “mischief ”.

Sarath Fonseka’s son in law should be allowed to take the responsibility for the part he played in making an illegal living profiting from the terrorist war.

Ethnicity is mind made, It does not exist in reality.

Ethnicity is defined as an affiliation resulting from racial or cultural ties. In Sri Lanka the politicians and foreign global interfering humanists searching means to put peoples and communities asunder thus destabilising the countries of the global community to make them subordinate to another global community rich, white and powerful, gives ethnicity a different definition.

They make ethnicity look like some thing separate an isolating characteristic that differentiates one people from another. But it should not be so, because all those characteristics that differentiate one people from another are only mind made. Because in reality we are all a part of the same cosmic family.

All human beings no matter where they come from, no matter what colour of skin they have, no matter what language they speak, and no matter what gods they worship, they are all a member of the same global human family.

Therefore, the geographical boundaries of a country, may make the family smaller, but living together within that geographical boundaries, all the inhabitants are members of one human family. The religion is for the life hereafter, and the religious way of living is for that end. One wishes to attain , Nibbana, another to be one with the Paramathma, and others to enter the Gods Paradise.

But we should make the religious belief the spring board to think differently to arrive at another philosophy, which is not for the here after, but for peaceful existence here and now with the same hope of peace and happiness, even if the dreams are different .

History is to trace the present life into the past. But it should not be utilised to bring the past in to the present to divide what we are now- members of a family, with different histories behind us. If we can arrive at finding that philosophy, there would not be problems of ethnicity. It is not idealist to turn to a philosophy that renders us members of a single family.

The problems of the Tamils in Sri Lanka do not come from the fact that they are Tamils, but from the fact that are seeking to be different from the rest of the inhabitants, Sinhala, Muslim or any other. Living as members of a larger family, strengthens the bonds of unity, and strengthen progress, development, and ways to find peace and happiness.

But to seek a different homeland is to become smaller, and thus weaker, sacrificing development, progress, peace and happiness. When we loose this ability to think for ourselves, we depend on others to think for us . What would happen then is that , what we say as coming from us, is what we have been told, by those who were allowed to think for us.

This is the case of a Tamil man in the Manik Farm who did not think for himself, but repeated what he had been told or heard from some one, who had taken the liberty to think for him.. This Tamil man preparing to leave the Manik Farm to be settled in his former village was asked by a BBC reporter, whether he who had gone through extreme difficulties think now that it is going to be any better.

The Tamil man replied, “ we have to start life again in a barren land no money no assets. He added, that it cannot be said that the problem is over. It cannot be said the issues, have been resolved . We cannot say that we are a free people until we have self rule, is there any solution in the Constitution ? ” (..these were apparently what he said as appeared at the bottom of the images translated into English by the BBC reporter !)

A Tamil man who had gone through so much of suffering, used as a human shield by the terrorists, driven from place to place, without having the safety of a home, living in fear, and finally rescued by the Government Forces, if he really took the time to think on his own he would not have spoken of not being a free man until they (the Tamil people) have self rule, and spoke of solutions in the Constitution.

This is how the Tamil politicians and the foreign interventionists give false hope to these Tamil people, “brain washing” them to prepare them to go through another spate of suffering awaiting an Eelam State. These poor Tamil people who had gone through enough of suffering would now like to forget all that and start a new life, having a roof over their heads, have something to eat , educate their children and live an ordinary life that they were used to live before terrorism came to their villages.

They do not want a different Eealam State. They remember what happened with Prabhakaran who promised the Eealam State for them. Are they ready to once again go through the same suffering running after a dream ?

It is best that these people are left alone, allowing them to settle down forget their suffering and let them think for themselves, what they want to do with their lives.

The Politicians, NGOs, other foreign visitors are not doing a service to them. They force their thinking into the heads of these people and thereafter repeat them as thoughts coming out of them. They then feed these “second hand” thoughts into the media reports, as coming from the people misused and maltreated by the Government.

The foreign reporters create a sordid picture of the conditions at the IDP Camps. A BBC reporter said that the Manik Farm became a de facto internment camp for defeated broken people. Barbed wire and Government Troops kept a quarter of a million of displaced people……..

The effort of these uncaring reporters , whose only interest is to make a report to discredit the government for the money that is coming to them. They do not make an objective report with out side comments, thus disallowing the reading public to think for themselves and come to their own conclusions.

These reporters do not allow the reading public to evaluate the facts to understand the tremendous work the government did in handling a surge of nearly 300 000 people young, old, men and women escaping from the terrorists who had kept them as a human shield.

The Government Forces despite the fighting going on with the ruthless terrorists, received enormous numbers of people, accommodated them, fed them, protected them from the terrorists, while protecting themselves from any terrorists hiding among the running away people.

No other country in the world had faced this situation and no body can understand the enormity, the greatness of the task that the Government and the Government Forces had to handle. It is easy for these reporters and the UN Officials to come when every thing had been done to the best of the possibilities available to the government and the Armed Forces.

Having come and seeing the conditions of the people in these camps, and without “thinking “ of the situation under which these people had been accommodated, make reports that do not justify the great task that had to be handled by a war weary Armed Forces, and a Government of a small developing country, which had to look after the Armed Forces, the IDPs, carry out different development projects, and administer a whole nation.

It is possible to make a fair and justifiable evaluation, only if these reporters and Investigating UN Officisla take off time to think for themselves the situation “that would have existed” when the “cornered” terrorists were fighting for their lives , against the Government Forces who were defending themselves as well, using small arms against the terrorists avoiding the civilians pouring away from the ”terrorist hold” ,into the safety of the armed forces.

To arrive at a justifiable and realistic evaluation of the situation, one has to think bereft of what one heard, had been told, and without any prejudice. This unfortunately is not happening. The idea of a global family is far away from their thoughts. The reporters and other critics make reports and statements not to bring a defeated, broken people back into the family from which they had been separated, but to keep them away from the family to which they belong.

Chandrika Kumaratunga lies with knowledge of things she says, and Arundhathi Roy lies with no knowledge of anything she say.

Part One
There were statements from two women that appeared one in the Sunday Island of the 6 June,2010, and the other in the Times of India of the 5 June,2010. The former is from Chandrika Bandaranayake Kumaratunga, a woman known very well in Sri Lanka, and who knows about Sri Lanka.

The other is from a woman called Arundhati Roy who is little known in Sri Lanka and who knows nothing about Sri Lanka. It is interesting to know what one who knows Sri Lanka and the other who does not know Sri Lanka at all, have to say.

The first Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga was the President of Sri Lanka from November, 1994 to June, 2005.

She was elected as the President of Sri Lanka at a time the terrorist problem was at its peak. Her entry into politics of Sri Lanka as its President marked the end of 17 years of mismanagement and political cruelty against the people by the UNP, never seen before in our country. It was the worst form of political repression by an executive Presidency one following the other, from which the country and the people were morally worn out

It was at a time, the people were desperately seeking relief from utter exhaustion from a UNP rule, that Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga was elected to the high office. People at once rallied round her, attracted by her youth and the political ambition at the time, believing that she will bring relief to the people as well as stability to the country which was also straddled on one side by a pernicious terrorism, that held the whole country to ransom and on the other moaning the disappearance and the assassination of thousands of youth both by the terrorists and the repressive regime that had been in power.

The most serious problem was that of the terrorism that seemed to have settled in putting the people and the country in to a disastrous situation. The people believed that Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga will settle the problem and bring about progressive development that was much in need.

But the steps that she took for the settlement of the terrorist problem was not well thought out and investigated. Her getting Eric Solheim of Norway as a facilitator for peace talks with the terrorists was bound to be a failure as Norway did not have any acceptable credential to do so. Netherland had failed in its mediation in the Middle East, and the political climate within Netherland was not suitable for it to negotiate peace as a Mediator.

Chandrika offered her hand of friend ship to the terrorist Leader Prabhakaran in a gesture of reconciliation, but the terrorists declined the offer and instead blasted a bomb and made her blind in one eye. Thereafter, further problems ensued with UNF Government lead by Ranil Wickramasinghe coming into power.

Ranil Wickramasinghe who was only the Prime Minister of the UNF government, took himself for the President, with the backing of the Western Governments he could depend on. He completely over looked the President, and also the Parliament, and set about to solve the terrorist problem through negotiations for peace, after having signed with the Terrorist Leader Prabhakaran a Cease Fire Agreement prepared by the Norwegian Eric Solheim in connivance with the terrorist leader himself.

In terms of the CFA Ranil Wickramasinghe had agreed to recognize a large land mass in the North and the East as areas, under terrorist control.

The agreement forbade the Government Armed Forces or the Police Force to enter into these terrorist controlled areas, while the terrorists were allowed to enter into Government areas for “political work”.

The latter condition made it easy for the terrorists to plant bombs in the North and the East and transport bombs and suicide bombers to the South, while the former allowed the pistol gangs and grenade lobbers of the terrorists to escape into areas under their control after doing considerable damage to persons and property in the Government “controlled” areas, and in the South.

The peace Negotiations started by Ranil Wickramasinghe’s government with the terrorists, held in foreign Capitals were a disastrous. They only helped the terrorists to organise their expatriate Tamil “lobbies”, buy ships, and latest models of heavy artillery, while they continued their terrorist activities in Sri Lanka unabated.

Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga the , President was reduced to being a helpless spectator of UNF “mis-doing”. She did not have the guts to stand up and say, “ no “ to Ranil Wickramasinghe who was usurping her Presidential powers. It was only when Ranil Wickramasinghe was away dining in his Sunday best, with the USA President Bush that Chandrika Kumaratunge took the courage to take over the Defence Ministry and put Ranil in his place.

There were no lack of problems at the time. The tsunami caused the worst human disaster in 2004. The large numbers of NGOs sprang up like white mushrooms after a rain and with them came money for reconstruction of tsunami affected areas.

That helped the terrorists to get down engineers and heavy material to construct air strips, set up communication centres etc. Donor states too decided to contribute large sums of money. Over a disagreement on distribution of tsunami Funds to the terrorists the JVP left the Chandrika Kumaratungas’s UPFA Government.

Soon after Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga’s term of Presidential Office came to an end, and she had by then only increased the problems and bequeathed to the Mahinda Rajapakse who succeeded her more problems than she bequeathed from the UNP President when she was elected President.

All that is to explain how Chandriaka Bandaranaike Kumaratunga by being elected as the President of Sri Lanka became a part of the problem, and how when she finally left, it was part of its solution.

That was why one does not understand how dare she opened her big mouth to say what she had said as the Chief Guest at her alma mater St.Bridget’s Convent’s annual Prize Giving. It was not a speech to be delivered to the children on their schools Prize Giving Day. Because, it was more a speech to whitewash herself from the ills of the past she gathered herself, and let Sri Lanka under her Presidency was made to gather for itself as well.

It was a speech of a person with a wounded “ego”. It frothed with venom of hatred, jealousy, regret of what she could have done but failed to do . She tries to make it out for the children that ”may” have listened to her, that every thing was white and shining when she was holding rein, and all the ills have suddenly propped up after she left her reins in the hands of the other.

Even though she said using the present tense, that politics is the most lucrative of business in Sri Lanka today, things were no better yesterday, in the past. It may perhaps not be correct to quote what others say about her acquired wealth after she left the Island to live in UK. But, it may perhaps be appropriate to say that during her period of Presidency Sri Lanka did not see any infrastructure development , that people of Sri Lanka has seen during the four years after Mr.Mahinda Rajapakse was elected, replacing her, as the President.

Within that short time Mr.Mahinda Rajapajkse has accomplished enormous amount of progressive work in the country, other than winning a war against terrorism, that puts to shade what ever she did during her 10 years as the President.

She has no right to say things about the country and the elected representatives of the people even if they are “ making a quick buck” profiting from their position, as she was once that country’s President. Doing so, as the old Sinhala proverb goes, is to spit turning the face upwards. That shows lack of shame, and decorum. It is far better to be corrupt and do good work, rather than be not corrupt and do nothing, even if it were to show a lack of moral goodness.

Her speech, at a respectable School like St. Bridgets Convents shows her own lack of decency, to make use of that occasion in which she had been invited as the Chief guest, to attack the government merely to went her own personal ill will towards her political opponent That speech sounds more like a “gutter speech” worthy of a third class mafia chief.

She had said all that perhaps to bring sympathy of the audience, that she is living selling her assets and not on quick bucks she had earned,. She had said that she will never come back to politics again. It is a good decision as nobody will want her back campaigning for an election for herself, or any other.

The statement she is supposed to have made, “ that ….the language of racism’ is being wantonly used by those who currently mould opinion in Sri Lanka, ……… the need to wipe out terrorism should not lead to the treatment of an entire community as if they were all terrorists”, shows to what extent Chandrika is out of touch with reality of what happening in Sri Lanka.

The President Mahinda Rajapakse , may be accused of any thing but racism, and that goes to the rest of the Sinhala politicians, and to most of the Sinhala people in Sri Lanka as well. This statement of hers also shows the extent to which she holds liege to the West and the Western political ideas of today towards Sri Lanka.


She ends up her speech saying,”….. while stressing that the education system should take over the responsibility for laying the basis for a moral education, ………moral values are a strong point at St. Bridget’s Convent.

Her speech as reported in the Sunday Island of the 6th June,2010, lacks any moral standard, specially taking into consideration that it was made as the Chief Guest at a Annual Prize Giving Day of a leading Girls’ School in Sri Lanka.

She should at least now decide not to mix politics with other activities she is called upon to share, specially as she has vowed never again to come to politics in Sri Lanka.

Now to the other woman Arundhati Roy who lies not knowing anything about Sri Lanka.

Part Two

Arundhati Roy came to fame after writing a book, The God of Small Things, for which she got the Booker Prize for 1997. Six million copies were said to have been sold in 80 languages. She now writes essays from Nuclear weaponisation in India and Pakistan to terrorism in Sri Lanka.

She has become an activist on Issues related to Social Justice and Economic Inequality. This allows her to put every thing that she knows nothing about into either Social Justice, or Economic Inequality. It is like the human rights activists, and international crisis peddlers. There is nothing, but each one of them makes up some thing to make a big noise to say nothing. But fortunately there is some one to pay for them.

It is like the story I had heard of the broth made by the three friends who were journeying together. Each one of them had a small pouch of rice. After a long journey when they were tired and hungry decided to make a broth with rice as they had nothing else. They boiled a pot of water and each one , without being seen by the other two, pretended to drop a handful of rice into the broth. When the “broth” had boiled long enough, they took out their bowls and with a ladle put a little “broth” in the bowl, and started drinking.

There was no “ broth”, there was only water, as none of them had in reality put any rice into the pot. But none of them would say that there is no rice in the “broth” as it would have been to admit ones own dishonesty. It was just water, but none of them wanting to show their dishonesty drank the water pretending it was the “broth”, and that it was tasty.

Arundhati Roy did not bother to write any more books with the fame she got for the book, which some in India called obscene, and acclaimed by the West, who does not separate sex from art.

It had been said that she gets hysteric for nothing, and she replied , “"I am hysterical. I'm screaming from the bloody rooftops. And he and his smug little club are going 'Shhhh... you'll wake the neighbours!' I want to wake the neighbours, that's my whole point. I want everybody to open their eyes".

That is what she does she makes a noise whether there is substance in what she screams about or not. That makes her more important, listened to and even awarded prizes , just for screaming, to keep people awake. Genocide is a word that pops up repeatedly in her speeches, and in her mouth, the word itself has lost its real meaning. She is clever in making up words , she has many words in her book she had invented, to fit into what she has to say.

Speaking at the Convention on Operation Green Hunt and Genocidal attack on tribals by Indian State' by the Federation Against Internal Repression, she said “ the resistance in central India was a fight against injustice and not a rebellion against the state as the government says it is.

"The government is on the side of the corporates who want to take over the lands, forests, rivers, the traditional homes of the tribals. Operation Green Hunt follows the Bush doctrine of you are with us, or against us," she said. "Anyone who resists this corporate takeover, whether Gandhian, tribal or Maoist, is branded a terrorist" .

She says the war in Sri Lanka is against the Tamil people, and adds that it was a corporate war. All the large Indian companies … are now heading to Sri Lanka to make more money" . She says, "…..The political parties of Tamil Nadu were the only ones who could have stopped the genocide in Sri Lanka, but they chose to stand by silently”

She likes controversy and opposes without reflection. She says Kashmiri people wants independence as Kashmir does not belong to India.

She had said damning things about Sri Lanka just going on Western media reports. The excerpt below from Wikipedia is one such. “In an opinion piece, once again in The Guardian (April 1, 2009), Roy made a plea for international attention to what she perceived, based on reports, to be a possible government-sponsored genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka. She cited reports of camps into which Tamils were being herded as part of what she described as "a brazen, openly racist war."

She also mentioned that the "Government of Sri Lanka is on the verge of committing what could end up being genocide", and described the Sri Lankan IDP camps where Tamil civilians are being held as concentration camps «

Ruvani Freeman, a Sri Lankan writer called Roy's remarks "ill-informed and hypocritical" and criticized her for whitewashing the atrocities of the LTTE.

These are the people that the Western Organisations recognise, by awarding Prizes. Even if Arundhati Roy were to be given credit to some of what she “screams” about. She is mostly parroting the Western Media and Humanitarian activists with regard to the problem we had in Sri Lanka.

It is not justifiable to say that the War against terrorists in Sri Lanka was a war against the Tamil People, and that there was genocide, when the Sri Lanka Army saved hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians from the ruthless terrorists who were keeping them as a human shield to save themselves.

And again it was not right to say the IDP camps were concentration camps, as the Government of Sri Lanka was not fighting against a civilised group of Tamil youth , but ruthless terrorists who had scant respect to lives of human being whether they were children, old men or women. The government while fighting a war, looked after the people, and administration of the Country as a whole, put up shelters and provided food and clothing to the IDPs, unlike any other government anywhere else in the world had so far done. Appreciation for all that is criticism and the effort to take the Armed Forces for courts for the elimination of terrorists.

Therefore Arundhati Roy when she screams about Sri Lanka, should find out real facts without screaming for nothing, and understand that poor developing countries have the ability do things that the rich countries are unable to do, with all their riches and technology. .

Is Sri Lanka giving into India’s expansionist ambition , without realising the role India is playing for the Agenda of the West ?

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has returned after a three day official visit to India, after which he has released a statement that his visit had strengthened traditional friendly relations between India and Sri Lanka.

India’s traditional friendly relations with Sri Lanka existed long time ago when King Asoka was the ruler. After that the Jawaharlal Nerhu Government had extended friendly relations with Bandaranaike Government as SWRD Bandaranaike was already a friend of his from his Oxford Days.




But things changed after Indra Gandhi became the Prime Minister of India. Since then India cultivated expansionist intentions. 1983 riots in Sri Lanka, which began with the assassination of 13 policemen in the north was manoeuvred by the Indian RAW during the period Indra Gandhi was the Primer Minister.

It was during her period in office that the RAW took over a group of Tamil youths from the North to train them as terrorists. Thereafter India , (as far as the public in Sri Lanka is aware) , directly supported the terrorists first by the 1987 parippu drop when the terrorists were on the verge of being eliminated, and getting the then President of Sri Lanka to sign an agreement to implement a 13th Amendment to the Sri Lanka Constitution.

Next India refused to provide transport to evacuate the Sri Lanka soldiers besieged in Jaffna by the terrorist forces. Thereafter, India refused to sell arms and artillery, and forbade Sri Lanka to buy them from China or Russia. India sold us an out mode radar system that could not detect even a fly, let alone a terrorist plane. Perhaps it was to help the terrorists.

That was the traditional relation ship we had with India.

The President Rajapakse’s attempt to cultivate friendly relation ship with India, will only be taken as a weakness, and India will profit from it to divide Sri Lanka in a different way.

We already see it happening in a grand scale, with India offering assistance for development project in the North and East, giving crores of Indian Rupees as aid, proposing at the same time direct discussions with ethnic groups in Sri Lanka , which would be a real interference into internal affairs of Sri Lanka. India also proposes opening an Indian High Commission Office in the North, partially recognising by India of the existence of a separate state in the North.

The President Mahinda Rajapakse won a war against the terrorists, but he is at the same time allowing India to dominate over Sri Lanka. Wimal Weerawansa said in a debriefing session in a video that there are already Indian workers in the South working in paddy fields. They may very well be RAW recruits. It appears the President Mahinda Rajapakse is sure of himself , but he does not seem to be awre that India is discretely working for a partnership with the West for a global leadership.

Hillary Clinton the Secretary of State of the Obama Administration said recently in a statement that "India’s growing role in the global economy is accepted the way we accept the law of gravity.", while the President Barrack Obama the President of USA said on his part,"……The relationship between the United States and India will be one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century".

We know very well the intention of the West-that including USA, is to divide Sri Lanka so that its strategic importance in the Indian ocean is weakened, opening a means to establish an American Naval Presence in the North of a divided Sri Lanka. The West wants at any cost to displace the Chinese influence in Sri Lanka. Even if there is a strong presence of the Chinese in the South, the West can change the situation by having a greater presence and influence in the North and East. India is the “cats paw” in Asia for these Western projects.

So, when President Mahinda Rajapakse, who had wined and dined with the Indian head of State, its Prime Minister and the President of the Congress, thinks that his visit had strengthened traditional friendly relations between India and Sri Lanka, he may not have suspected that the West has perhaps sent messages of congratulations to Manmohan Singh for fooling the head of State of Sri Lanka , without allowing any suspicion of India’s real motives for entertaining him in Style.

India has in store many other surprises for Mahinda Rajapakse who seems to be swallowing all baits thrown at him by India. The CEP that is proposed by India will make Sri Lanka a real colony of India, with India making proposals and Mahinda Rajapakse accepting them, and issuing statements of furthering good relations with India.

The other bait coming Mahinda Rajapakse’s way is the digging of Oil wells in the seas of Mannar. The large scale construction of houses by India for the war affected people in the North and East will greatly strengthen the popularity and with it the influence of India on Sri Lankan Tamil Community.

Mahinda Rajapakse our President who gives into all whims and fancies of India has received a delegation of Tamilnadu Politicians during his much publicised official visit to India. He has even invited them to visit Sri Lanka to see for themselves the progress his government has made in resettlement and rehabilitation of the war affected people in the North. But apparently the Tamil Nadu delegation does not seem to have been impressed at all by Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse’s interview.

Indian media the Hindu hails the President Mr.Mahinad Rajapaksa’s visit and says “…the Sri Lankan leader clearly wants to reformulate the bilateral relationship. That he is prepared to go the extra mile for this is evident from his agreement to an Indian consulate in the southern city of Hambantota where China is assisting in building a modern port, in addition to the already agreed diplomatic outpost in Jaffna….”

What ever the President Mahainda Rajapakse has in his mind he should wary about India’s real intentions. India is already imposing itself on a “naïve” President of Sri Lanka whose heart is too large to wary on India’s real intentions. It may be too late when he awakens to underhand dealings of India that may set communities apart. India has no business to make any suggestions on our constitutional changes that are being proposed.

What is necessary in Sri Lanka for an ethnic unity is not devolution of political power, but a change in the attitude of the Tamils to accept the Sinhala people with confidence. The Tamils in Sri Lanka need no proof that the Sinhala people had acted with honesty and sympathy towards the Tamil people, sacrificing the young Sinhala youth to deliver the Tamils in the North and east from a ruthless terrorists who would have been a dangerous Fascist if he ever came into power.

If the Tamils in Sri Lanka regret the demise of terrorism and follow the separatist Tamil idealists in the TNA, there seem to have no reason for political devolution. In a post terrorist Sri Lanka political solutions it takes should be home made solutions, without having India or the International Community telling Sri Lanka how it should settle its problems.

There is far too much of external interference in the affairs of Sri Lanka. It may perhaps be necessary to draw an “iron curtain” to keep away outsiders to develop our country as we want.

The 13 Amendment has been imposed on us at a time Sri Lanka was politically weak, and it is not an appropriate solution for an ethnic solution, if we have one. India wants us to implement it whether it is good for us, as a nation or not. It is certainly not their business what happens to Sri Lanka with its development plans.

India firstly wants to satisfy the Tamilnadu Politicians so that the fear of Tamilnadu one day breaking away from Indian Federal system will not happen. And secondly, India being a “pawn” in the hands of the West, plays its role demanded by the West, to destabilise the Government of President Mahinda Rajapakse.

Why cannot the Government of Sri Lanka understand, why there are so much of anti Sri Lanka moves by various Groups, such as the Western Media, BBC, International Crisis Group, Human Rights Watch, Banki Moon , Navi Pillai, European Council, Robert O’Blake, and Amnesty International ?

The most disgusting part played by the Amnesty International was its recent award to Channel 4 which “cooked” anti Sri Lanka Videos The award is to ,”…. recognise excellence in human rights reporting and acknowledge journalism's significant contribution to the UK public's awareness and understanding of human rights issue “ .

How could one respect Amnesty International which makes awards to such low disgusting false reports ? That shows the low “stinking” depth into which the Amnesty International has fallen, merely wanting to damage the credibility of the one and only country in the world that eliminated terrorism from its soil.

The reason is that they are all afraid of China having more influence in Sri Lanka, so that the strategic position of Sri Lanka will be lost to the West, and they will not be able to block the power balance falling into the hands of China and Russia. The West would therefore, in order to save the power balance from falling away from them, do all within their means to make India the leading Nation of Asia, making China and Russia lag behind India.

That really is India’s role, putting away the “bull…” idea of strengthening the traditional friendly relations between India and Sri Lanka, from which India will stand to gain. The 13 amendment will be a means to set up a separate Tamil State in the North, with India having its High Commission Office, a place with Diplomatic immunity in the North, which would be an added opportunity for any future rebels to seek safety in the High Commission of India in Jaffna. It is like the call to set up a UN Mission in the war affected area when the Military Operations against the terrorists were going on.

Hope the Government of Sri Lanka and the members of the UPFA that helped Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse win the Presidency with a massive majority, awaken the President to reality before it is too late.

What does this woman Louise Arbour want ?

There is money in the business of accusing Sri Lanka government for elimination of terrorism from its soil. It looks the money in the “game” is much greater than we can imagine. It is a gold mine for those who take the trouble to adventure into being a human rights activist to investigate into the military operations against the terrorists in Sri Lanka.

In a recent interview, such a human rights activist - Nimalka Fernando admitted that she gets lots of fund from NGOs, but unable to spend them to help the people in the North and East as the Government has not allowed her access into these areas.

The source from where the NGO’s themselves get these money to spend is unknown. The terrorists left behind an enormous amount of money in the hands of the pro-terrorist expatriate Tamils manning the terrorists front organisations. It is there to be taken by those who venture into the business of accusing Sri Lanka Government and its Armed Forces.

The conclusion we can come to, under the circumstances is that Louise Arbour has also stepped into “ the business” bringing in wither her the ICG which has an annual budget of over 15 million Dollars. One may argue that it is impossible that a Western Judicial personage of respect would step into such a business however lucrative it may be.

But the human nature is such, there is no limit to one’s greed, and station of life is no bar to one who would like to make a “buck”, when the going is good. Interfering ( that is what they are doing when they have no official status) into crisis situations else where had apparently not been lucrative, but doing so in Sri Lanka is hitting the jackpot.

She may see nothing illegal in making accusations, as long as it is the accused that has to disprove the accusations. She can of course be accused for making false accusations, but the accusations are so fluid and vague, and there is no mention of the source of evidence . It is evident the attempt is to discredit the government as required by those who are behind the probe, the pro-terrorist financiers-the moneymen.

An intelligent person may wonder why the Government of Sri Lanka has to be accused for “war crimes” for eliminating a group of terrorists that sowed terror for thirty long years, without any help from the countries in the West who are primarily concerned with terrorism. What other reason could one give for this woman Louise Arbour to have come forward to accuse Sri Lanka other than for some benefit she gets from it ?

Where was she, and her likes in the Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International etc; during the thirty years the terrorists were terrorising the people in Sri Lanka murdering the young and old, men women and children, assassinating Presidents, Ministers, Parliamentarians and intellectuals.

Did any one of them come forward to dissuade the terrorists from their ruthless activities ? No, they were never heard of, but now that terrorism has been eliminated for good , these humanitarians appear in great numbers accusing Sri Lanka for elimination of terrorism.

The reason is that even though the terrorism has been eliminated from the soil of Sri Lanka , the supporters of terrorism in the West- the expatriate Tamils with billions of dollars of accumulated money collected for the terrorists have taken over from the terrorist their war of separatism, to divide Sri Lanka.

They are willing to make the funds available to continue their war against Sri Lanka, by roping in every personage from different sectors and classes of people by paying considerable sums of money to do their “dirty job” of carrying out the intention of the terrorists to discredit the government of Sri Lanka for violating the rights of the Tamil minority, and thus force the establishment of a separate Eelam State for the Tamils.

Louise Arbour and her ICG are their latest recruits . International Crisis Group has to, as the nomenclature indicates, look into any existing cases of unstable situations of extreme danger but there is no such situation of an extreme danger in Sri Lanka for the ICS to consider their intervention necessary. ICS has no official status therefore it cannot interfere into the affairs of a Sovereign State let alone accuse it. But only thing ICS could do is to destabilise a government, bring discredit to it, and make an adverse world opinion against it.

ICG has failed to look into cases more appropriate to its term of reference “International Crisis “. There is a greater Crisis in Mexican seas to day with the spill of oil harming the environment causing danger to number of species of birds, fish etc. ICG should be there to see how the situation could be changed and see whether the American Government is taking appropriate actions to stop the spill, and whether there is a danger of more such possibilities of spills, and what actions the responsible companies have taken to avoid similar incidents in future.

There is also a crisis in Palestine with Israel bombardments. It is a situation of extreme danger. The International Crisis Group is not heard of being concerned with it.

In Afghanistan, Pakistan many civilians have been killed in unmanned drone attacks. The ICG should be there , as it is a dangerous situation where the drones instead of bombarding the talibans are killing civilian men women and children.

The Legal Adviser of the American Sate Department had said it is not unlawful to target dangerous areas in self defence. That means it takes no responsibility for the death of the civilians in such defensive air attacks. How can under such circumstance the ICG accuse Sri Lanka for war crimes, when Sri Lanka did not bombard the civilian targets.

Is it a question of people from non-Western countries whose word of honour cannot be trusted, and therefore the International Community does not take the word of the Government of Sri Lanka that it had not targeted civilians through out its military operations against the terrorists ?

In war specially when it is military operations against ruthless terrorists who have no respect for human life in any form, even if the Sri Lanka Armed forces had not targeted the civilians the artillery attacks of the terrorists could have killed many civilians. If the International Community would not accept the word of honour of the Government of Sri Lanka, they could accuse the Government Armed forces for those deaths caused by wanton artillery fire of the terrorists. That was exactly what happened.

International Crisis Group under normal circumstances should investigates “crisis “situations . They should investigate unstable situation of extreme danger or difficulty to the environment and living persons. So that they could intervene to get the persons or governments responsible to take appropriate action to avoid “extreme danger”.

Therefore, it is not their responsibility to investigate into past crisis situation where the “unstable situation of extreme danger or difficulty” does not exist any more, and there is , therefore, no ”crisis situation” as such.

Hence, it is not any more its business for the International Crisis Group to investigate into what happened at the close of the military operations against terrorism. Because, the “crisis situation” if it existed then is now over. Such an investigation may perhaps be left for other “meddling” groups such as perhaps the Human Rights Watch or the Amnesty International, but ICG has no business whatsoever even to make a report on what happened in that past military operations by the Government Forces.

Therefore, the Government should Asked Louise Arbour and her ICG to lay off, or in other words “get out of our way”. So that the Government of Sri Lanka that has eliminated terrorism without any aid from the Western Countries, can go ahead with its plans for development of the terrorist affected areas, and let the people in the North, East, West and the South live normal lives.