Honourable Mr. Nirupama Rao,
Indian Foreign Secretary.
Dear Mrs.Rao,
The open letter addressed to you by Mr.Rajasingham Jayadevan and appearing in the Sri Lanka Guardian Website on 5 September,2010, does not explain the correct situation with regard to Sri Lanka. Therefore , the following back ground of the writer and the Website in which it was published will help you to evaluate the correctness of the information he had intended to give you.
In 1983 the LTTE terrorist instigated riot, of which the Indian RAW is not completely unaware, gave an opportunity for many Sri Lanka Tamils to migrate to UK and Canada as refugees running away from danger to their lives from the monstrous Sinhala majority Community.
Mr.Rajasingham Jayadevan appears to be one of them who sought the “ green pastures” of UK to migrate to make it his country of residence . He is now accusing the government of Sri Lanka from his cosy comfort in UK.
His open letter was published in the Sri Lanka Guardian website , which is said to be run by one Neelantha Illangamuwa (if not a Tamil Expatriate living in USA), who is openly against the Government of Sri Lanka and the Sinhala Community despite the fact he has a Sinhala name.
It is said that he deliberately attacks the President and his government expecting some sort of reprisal, so that he could go to a foreign country as a political refugee under the pretext that he is being pursued by a dictatorial anti democratic government to thwart his freedom as a journalist. The Editor( who ever it was) of this website had editorially accepted the terrorist Leader Prabhakaran as the leader of the Tamil people.
This web site encourages those who write against the government and the Sinhala Community. After the 18th Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka was passed into law in the Parliament, Lanka Guardian portrays the President of Sri Lanka as Hitler, which shows a complete degradation, lack of morality and respect to ethical standards of journalism of the web site.
Therefore Mr.Rajasingham Jayadevan’s letter coming from that background without firsthand information of what he writes is far from being an accurate situation in Sri Lanka.
I am therefore pleased to write to you this open letter following that of Mr.Rajasingham Jayadevan, to give you my point of view and show to what an extent he is biased against the government of Sri Lanka and the Sinhala people with whom he had never lived and perhaps have no contact with expatriate Sinhala community in UK as well.
I also thank you for visiting the North and East of Sri Lanka vandalised, and destroyed by the terrorists for thirty years and left in utter desolation, which was finally liberated by the valiant soldiers of the Armed Forces of Sri Lanka.
These two provinces are today seeing an unprecedented development process thanks to the President of Sri Lanka Mr.Mahinda Rajapakse. I however regret that you did not seem to have thought it necessary to visit the south of Sri Lanka which also suffered in the hands of the Tamil terrorists.
The government of Sri Lanka as you may have observed, had been capable of achieving what many local and international critics of Sri Lanka Government and President Mahinda Rajapakse, thought unachievable. First it eliminated the terrorism with considerable difficulty at a heavy loss of men and material, planning at the same time development project , and secondly took all measures to defend and take care of the people in these two provinces as well as those in the south.
Madam, Sri Lanka is the only country in the world which was able to defeat terrorism that for 30 years caused immense suffering to the people of the country, and abject misery to our Tamil people in the North and East.
That great victory against the terrorists bringing safety and peace to the Tamil civilians of these areas was the result of the dedication of the Soldiers of the Sinhala Community who sacrificed their lives and limbs in that effort.
The Armed Forces carried out the most arduous task of carrying out successfully a rescue operation of bringing to safety from the clutches of the terrorists keeping nearly 300,000 Tamil civilians as a humanshield in the midst of the constant attack by the terrorists using their heavy artillery. Many of our Soldiers died in that operation, the likes of which, to my knowledge, had never been undertaken by any other country in the world.
Besides the rescue operation of these nearly 300,000 Tamil civilians, the armed Forces had to find for them accommodation, food, provide them with medical facilities, water , and above all give them protection from the terrorists who may have come along with them as refugees. It was an unimaginable, onerous task only the intelligent, unbiased persons could visualize and understand.
These facts have not been mentioned in the letter sent to you by Mr. Rajasingham Jayadevan, because mentioning them would only show the sacrifice made by the Sinhala people to liberate their Tamil compatriots from their suffering under the jack boots of terrorism, would be a paradox of the image of the Sinhala people Mr.Jayadevan is trying to present to you as monsters living on the blood of the Tamil people.
If according to the 13th Amendment the North and the East remained merged, the terrorists would have set up Tamil Ealam which would not have been in the greater interest of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka where 55 percent of them live happily in the south with the Sinhala people.
Mr. Jayadevan also mentions the 13 Amendment which was more a secret pact as you may well be aware which would have facilitated eventual annexation of that part of Sri Lanka to Tamil Nadu as an extended territory . That is why the people of our country have apprehensions about frequent visits of Indian Ministers and officials to north and east of Sri Lanka as it is already an Indian territory without paying attention to the people of Sri Lanka as a whole. Incidentally such visits were not made during the military operations against the terrorists, except to advice our government to come to a political settlement with the terrorists !
The Foreign Minister S.M.Krishna’s statement in the Lok Sabha , referred to by Mr.Jayadevan, “the rightful assertion of the Foreign Minister Hon S M Krishna in the Lok Sabha recently that any political resolution in Sri Lanka must be more than what has been offered under the 13th amendment to the constitution,” seems to have other important connotations than meets the eye.
Therefore, Madam, it is important that the Indian Ministers are informed that when they make statements in the Lok Sabha or else where to please the Tamil Nadu, they should diplomatically avoid seeming interference to the internal affairs of our country.
Mr. Jayadevan in his letter says that , “…..I, like many other Tamils was pushed out of my motherland in a systematic manner by the state. It is the deep rooted historical animosities and inferiority complexes of the communities….” There is absolutely no truth that the Government of Sri Lanka pushed out any of its citizens from Sri Lanka, they went on their own, some of them to fulfil their desire to go abroad for economic reasons, making use of the situation that had been created by the terrorists at that time, as an excuse.
In 1970’s Sri Lanka had a very few Universities and accommodation was limited. Therefore, the government in order to reduce the number of admissions, introduced a standardisation system, which affected students from all Communities. There was the problem of employment in Sri Lanka at the time and that was a problem common to all youths in Sri Lanka.
The terrorism had still not started, when some unemployed young Tamil youth had been taken over by certain interested persons and given a training in guerilla warfare and terrorism some where in Sout India. After that training they were let loose in the North of Sri Lanka.
These youths now trained in terrorism killed 13 Government policemen of the Sinhala Community, expecting a backlash from the Sinhala people of the South. That resulted in the installation of the Tamil youth trained in terrorism, with the desired sympathy of the Tamils who suffered from the Sinhala back lash that resulted in a racial riot that was the result of killing the 13 Sinhala soldiers by the terrorists..
That was how the terrorism found its beginning in Sri Lanka. Mr.Jayadevan says, that “….If I had decided to remain in the country, I too would have been a gun carrying militant succumbing to the destiny faced by my brothers and sisters in the war that followed.”
Fortunately he had by then run away from Sri Lanka, and did not participate as a terrorist in causing misery to his own people following Prabhakaran’s dream of a Tamil Homeland. Nevertheless, Mr.Jayadevan’s heart seems to be still with the terrorists, therefore we can understand the reason for his letter, and publishing it in the Sri Lanka Guardian Website.
Later, Mr.Jayadevan seem to have suffered from the terrorism of the Tamil terrorists rather than by the Sri Lanka Government Forces, as he recounts his experience.
“….Even with my survival in the pastures of England, with my heart and mind deeply embedded with the land I was born, I have gone through many painful and terrifying experiences. “…..deaths of my mother and a sibling in the hands of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in 1987 and my incommunicado detention by the LTTE in Vanni in 2005 … major adversities I experienced as a Tamil.”
Apparently Mr.Jayadevan had suffered more under the IPKF and LTTE, than under the Government of Sri Lanka.
From there he runs off to display his hatred to the present government, perhaps displaying his separatist Sri Lanka Tamil expatriate policy, stating”…... The present regime in office is no better than the regime of the late President J R Jayawardene. It is a cocktail of lethal vermin and is a much bigger specialist in pulverising any accommodative processes….”
Mr. Jayadevan’s letter is a poor attempt to discredit the government of Sri Lanka, the President and the Sinhala community. In Sri Lanka unfortunately the Tamils cannot speak a word without referring to themselves , lamenting over their own misery and suffering at the hands of the Sinhala community. All that attempts to bring them peace, happiness and economic wellbeing by the Government and the President seem to be of no avail, in chasing away the mental phantoms they seem to have made of the Sinhala people.
Madam Rao it would be a waste of time your reading the written lamentations of Mr.Jayadevan. You have come and seen for yourself the situation and it is for you to intelligently understand what had been going on in the North and East before terrorism was eliminated in the provinces and evaluate from what is going on now in those provinces thanks to the Government of the President Mr.Mahinda Rajapakse, the reality of how the Tamil people in Sri Lanka is taken care of by “their” government and “their” President.
But in conclusion, I should mention that we do not agree with your statements made to the press before you left Sri Lanka after your visit, even if they were made with and eye to please the TamilNadu crowd of politicians, who have really no business to interfere into our affairs. The Tamil people in Sri Lanka are far apart from the Tamils in Tamil Nadu and any attempt to show that they are their people is a false pretext to divide our country and to help India to annex it in its expansionist manoeuvres.
I am sorry to say that Madam, but that is how we the ordinary citizens of Sri Lanka feel about India with different Indian Ministers and officials coming and going away making statements which are uncalled for interference into the affairs of Sri Lanka, treating our President as a high school dropout.
Madam you had said, “While the focus on development and rehabilitation is very welcome, a long term perspective that also includes the issues relating to the political settlement that would meet some of the needs of the minorities should also be kept in mind,”
But, Madam Rao our President who at all odds was able to eliminate terrorism from Sri Lanka, and bring peace to our people had said loud and clear that there are no minorities and majorities in Sri Lanka, and there are only good Sri Lankans and bad Sri Lankans. He therefore knows without, you or any body having to tell him to bring about a political settlement to the country that benefits equally all communities . It is only necessary for the Tamils in Sri Lanka to think of themselves first as Sri Lankans and as Tamils thereafter.
However, our President need not be told what, and how he should settle the problems affecting our people. We only hope that India keeps away from trying to pamper our Tamil population making them feel different from the rest of the communities in Sri Lanka.
Thank you, Madam,
I remain ,
yours most respectfully,
Charles S.Perera
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