West endorses ethno-military rule, military solution: Tamil civil groups

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 December 2011, 11:39 GMT]
Civil society organisations in the country of Eezham Tamils are enraged at foreign diplomats visiting their country confining the purposes of the visits primarily to meeting the commanders of the occupying Sinhala military but not the civil society. When genocidal Sri Lanka declares ’normalcy’ has come to Tamils, the gesture of these diplomats is a tacit endorsement to the ethnic-shaded military rule and military solution. Those who delay international justice, sit on international responsibilities, and talk about ‘domestic’ solutions are not honest. They only mean ‘remote controlled’ military solution, and that is what in the minds of the core sections of the Establishments that deploy cosmetic talk of human rights as a cover, the civil groups accused. They are particularly enraged at the conduct of the US, UK and EU diplomats.

The West is yet to engage with Eezham Tamils either in a civil manner or in an understanding way to the national question, compared to its dealings with the genocidal military of Sri Lanka, the Tamil civil groups in the North and East of the island told TamilNet.

A three-member delegation representing the US Department of State on their brief visit to Jaffna met SL Commander of Jaffna Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe on Wednesday, 30 November 2011.

Citing the latest examples of the British Deputy High Commissioner and a three-member delegation of US State Department in Jaffna on Wednesday, the US ambassador in Vanni a few days ago and other earlier visits of Western diplomats, the civil groups said that the recognition these diplomats give primarily to the occupying SL commanders, only shows the reality that the war continues in some way, there is no civilian normalcy, which side the diplomats are taking and what is in the minds of their Establishments.

British Deputy High Commissioner Robbie Bulloch, Second Secretary Sarah Mann, and the US State Department team, Sheila Berry, Emily Fleckner and Kathryn Bondy chose to visit Jaffna on the same day.

They were received and briefed on ‘development and reconciliation’ by occupying Sinhala military commander Maj. Gen. Hathurusinghe.

President of the European Parliament Friends of Sri Lanka Group Mr. Geoferey Van Orden along with a few other officials at Palaly meeting the SL Commander in Jaffna, Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe

Earlier, when EU parliament’s president of ‘Friends of Sri Lanka Group’ Geoferey Van Orden came to Jaffna on ‘fact-finding’, Hathurusinghe elucidated to him on the ‘high level’ of civil – military cooperation in Jaffna. Mr. Orden appreciated occupying military’s housing project for the poor in Jaffna.

It has now become a common practice that all the visiting diplomats to the North and East, first and foremost meet the Sinhala military commanders as though they are the ‘rulers and leaders.’

Most of the times the diplomats refuse to meet the Tamil civil groups and organisations.

Their engagement is primarily with the military to suit their purposes and they return with the military’s version of the affairs, Tamil civil groups said.

Getting inspired with the model, the defence minister of the tiny Maldives also made a visit to the ‘commanders’ in Jaffna.

There is an increasing suspicion in the Tamil minds that the continued oppression of Tamils and the spurts of SL military-organized violence time to time actually mean an indirect war orchestrated from outside through the agent state to materialise certain purposes in the island.

‘The military is to stay and expand’, is Gotabhaya’s version or the actual agenda of these Establishments, is an increasingly asked question among Tamils nowadays.

The military anxieties of the West and its priorities either in having a military to military pally-pally with the Sinhala military occupying the north or in militarily showing its presence was once again evident this week when the US Pacific Command got directly involved in building hospitals in the north in places where the SL military is building bases and cantonments.

The current strategy is conduct a 'controlled war' against Tamils in the island and in the diaspora that will pace with the structural genocide agenda of Colombo, a political activist in Jaffna said, citing the incident of the abduction of a university student on the Heroes Day, his release at the interest of certain embassies and the military making him to absolve it from responsibility.

Meanwhile, released cadres of the LTTE complain that they are virtually kept in a kind of prison and under psychological torture. A recent announcement said that should be confined to their localities and won’t be permitted to travel abroad. By keeping the ban on the LTTE, the Western governments also will not accommodate them.

Sometimes back the visiting British Deputy High Commissioner wanted them to be ‘rehabilitated’ by the genocidal Sinhala military.

Tamil political circles say that Western intelligence agencies show no interest in discussing political solutions appropriate to the national question, but show keenness only in knowing whether there would be another militant struggle.

In a very short span of time, Eezham Tamils have demonstrated in ample ways their orientation and inherent desire for democratic politics in achieving their goals. But the so-called ‘liberal democracies’ have not changed to match it or they have no intention of changing, a diaspora politician pointed out citing sophisticated and top level deceptions in the Establishments of the West.

US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s visit to Myanmar to shake hands with the military junta faces a ‘don’t care attitude’ by the public there. With the policies followed, that will be the reception to the West not only by Tamils but also by the Sinhalese suffering from a militarized state in the island.