International civil society urged to act on CHOGM meet in Sri Lanka
[TamilNet, Friday, 14 September 2012, 21:38 GMT]
After seeing the behaviour of today’s establishments in the
Commonwealth that was once known for its effective action against South
Africa’s apartheid, and after seeing the Indian diplomat turned
Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma stretching his position
to uphold the genocidal state and regime in Sri Lanka, the gagged Eezham
Tamil civil society activists in the island urged the International
Human Rights Organizations to come out with an international civil
society boycott of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meet scheduled
to take place in Sri Lanka in November 2013. They also urged
understanding governments in Canada, Tamil Nadu state and elsewhere to
lead the international civil society paradigm, and the international
media to help such a paradigm. The diaspora should be awakened to new
struggle strategies, they further urged.
Commonwealth
parliamentary delegates visiting Jaffna, received by the occupying
Sinhala military commander Maj Gen Mahinda Hathurusinghe [Photo
courtesy: Sri Lanka Army in Jaffna]
Commonwealth Secretary
General Kamalesh Sharma visiting Colombo this week urged Canada to drop
its boycott move of the CHOGM meet in Sri Lanka in November 2013.
Canadian
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s stand is that he would not attend the
meet unless Sri Lanka addresses the war crimes charges. During the CHOGM
meet at Perth last year, Canada and Australia were vocal at Sri Lanka’s
accountability issue and Canada opposed the Sri Lanka venue of the 2013
meet.
The crime of genocidal Sri Lanka is worse than that of
apartheid South Africa. Apartheid South Africa’s white minority
government never made 150,000 people to disappear in a single war, using
prohibited weapons, as did by the Sinhala military of the
majority-elected state in Sri Lanka.
Yet, the genocide, the
continued structural genocide and the right to protection of Eezham
Tamils of their nation and its territoriality are not recognised by the
establishments of the world. The crime is reduced only to the level of
‘war crimes of both sides’.
Heinous efforts are undertaken from
several sides to absolve Sri Lanka even from the truncated
accountability. New Delhi being in the forefront of it has been
repeatedly proved in the UNHRC sessions and at Perth last year.
Jaffna
commander of the occupying genocidal military, trailed behind by the SL
minister and paramilitary leader Douglas Devananda, receives
parliamentarians of the Commonwealth that once faught against the
apartheid of South Africa. [Photo courtesy: Sri Lanka Army in Jaffna]
It is against this
backdrop, the Indian diplomat turned Commonwealth Secretary General
Kamalesh Sharma is seen stretching his position in discouraging voices
in the Commonwealth that raise the issue of crimes-accused state in the
island.
Kamalesh Sharma [Photo courtesy: guardian.co.uk / Akira Suemori/AP]
By completely ignoring the
simmering situation of a genocide-affected nation in the island and by
implying normalcy during his visit, the Commonwealth SG casts a profile
worse than that of the UNSG and his staff including Vijay Nambiar, who
were telling only half lies during the war, as in the case with the
number of civilians trapped in the killing field, commented human rights
workers in Jaffna.
A scrutiny of the statement by the
Commonwealth on Thursday, on its SG’s visit to Sri Lanka would show that
Kamalesh Sharma’s only offer specifically to the North and East, is a
pilot project on “Sports for Development and Peace” in the North and
East in partnership with Sri Lanka’s Department of Sports. Another
general offer is training “Youth Ambassadors for Peace”, in
collaboration with India’s Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth
Development.
Whether the Commonwealth SG, who earlier helped to
rebuild independent East Timor, chooses to subtly ridicule the Tamil
Nadu State that boycotts sports with Colombo and the nation of Eezham
Tamils twice affected by Congress involved wars, or the Commonwealth in
its affairs on Sri Lanka has been hijacked by New Delhi, is the question
asked in Tamil political circles.
SL
military is the authority to receive foreign dignitaries in occupied
Jaffna. India sent the largest contingent of parliamentarians to the
Colombo meet this week [Photo courtesy: Sri Lanka Army in Jaffna]
Civil society activists
among Eezham Tamils appreciated and thanked the Assemblies of Tamil
Nadu, Karnataka and Pondicheri for boycotting the Commonwealth
Parliamentarians meet that takes place in Colombo now, ignoring the big
show of over 800 participants from 53 countries and 175 branches, in
which India had the largest contingent of 50 elected representatives.
Tamil
Nadu government and political parties in unison have to seriously work
on the civil society boycott and protest of the CHOGM meet, both inside
of India and outside, the civil society activists urged. Even before the
Perth meet, Tamil groups urged the Tamil Nadu government to think of an
official external campaign against Sri Lanka, independent of New Delhi,
at least in countries that have a Tamil diaspora.
* * *
A
noted Indian academic Radha D’Souza recently said that “As one of the
most significant movements since the end of the Vietnam War the Tamil
struggle merits deeper analysis.”
But the
establishments-orchestrated genocidal war on the liberation seeking
Eezham Tamils has not invited enough international attention, says the
very elements that kept the war and keep the war so, to excuse
themselves.
On the contrary, pampering genocidal Sri Lanka is
given unprecedented international highlight and attention, as in the
insisting efforts of the culprits to hold the CHOGM in Sri Lanka.
“This
will be the most prominent and by far the largest international event
to be held in the country since the eradication of the three-decade long
war against terrorism in 2009. It will also be a showcase event, which
will not only project Sri Lanka as a safe and secure destination but
also highlight its ability to hold international conferences of this
magnitude and the availability of infrastructure and required
resources,” said The Hindu, last Saturday.
“Your presence in Sri
Lanka gives you a good opportunity to see for yourselves the progress of
democracy in our country, after the major threat it faced under
terrorism. This is important in the context of the barrage of lies being
spread about Sri Lanka today […] You can now see the truth and return
to your country with deeper understanding," said Mahinda Rajapaksa in
inaugurating the Commonwealth parliamentarian’s meet.
The
emerging truth is that to what extent the establishments of today and
their organs could stretch their orchestrated engineering to absolve
themselves from the crimes they have committed and continue to commit.
Unless
the global civil society in unison admonishes, corrects and if not
effective, disowns them, they would continue with their paradigm and
would bring in violent crisis to the entire world, commented Tamil civil
society activists.
Contrary to the adamant machinations of the
so-called International Community, India and their protected partner in
Colombo, the Eezham Tamils don’t want to see violence once again
becoming the only option and this time it spreading into India, the
Tamil civil society activists said.
Commonwealth parliamentarians hosted in SL occupied Jaffna
As a body of 54
English-speaking or English-knowing countries, the social power of the
Commonwealth block in the contemporary world is extraordinarily
significant.
While India manipulates to hijack it from inside,
two powers outside of the Commonwealth, the USA and China, are also
competing.
If making the Commonwealth to get tagged behind it is
the aim of the USA thinking that it is the unquestioned leader of the
‘English-speaking’ world today, China would be happy if the Commonwealth
breaks up.
A threat that came from the Maldives last week that
the tiny country that receives significant assistance from China may
“look to other relationships that reflect modern realities of the
world,” if it is not removed from the Commonwealth scrutiny of human
rights, should be carefully noted by the civil society of the
Commonwealth as well as the world.
Commonwealth civil society
should be prepared to operate independent of the establishments for the
edification of the establishments.
If the prime ministers and
presidents of the Commonwealth want to meet to endorse a genocidal state
and regime in the island, without any care for values, let them do so.
But the civil society should design a mechanism to tell in a powerful
way that it denounces them.
Meanwhile, Canada and Australia are
large countries in the English-speaking world to set the paradigm to
save the values of the Commonwealth.
The international media
should help the process and the role of Indian media is crucial in the
particular case of Sri Lanka, which is also a test case for a global
paradigm change, the Tamil civil activists said.
SL minister Douglas Devananda seeted in the front was the host of the commonwealth parliamentary delegates in Jaffna.
“As you will see, there is
full freedom of travel to any part of the country. You can also speak to
anyone, from government or the opposition and different communities,”
Mahinda Rajapaksa came out with his habitual deception in addressing the
parliamentarians.
A 60-member group of Commonwealth
parliamentarians visited Jaffna on Thursday. Four parliamentarians chose
to visit Thirukkoayil in Ampaa’rai district of the Eastern Province.
Kamalesh Sharma also notes that he had gone to Thirukkoayil and
Kaagnchirang-kudaa in the Eastern Province.
The group that went
to Jaffna was received by the occupying genocidal military’s commander
in Jaffna, Maj. Gen. Hathurusinghe, had a guided programme to hear a lie
from the officials that only 3,000 families are waiting to be
resettled, and was later entertained by SL minister and paramilitary
leader Douglas Devananda.
The SL Government Agent who very
recently told media that 32,000 families had to be resettled in Jaffna
alone, was silently watching when the lie on resettlement, amidst other
lies, was told to the parliamentarians.
The group has not met the
civil society, ex-LTTE cadres, social workers or any other sections
that could have given them the true picture. Even though they are
gagged, seeing their very faces could have told the truth, human rights
workers in Jaffna said.
Perhaps the only useful part of their
visit was seeing a housing scheme at Ma’ravan Pulavu in Thenmaradchi
that is developed with Swiss aid. The group also visited an Indian
housing scheme at Pazhai.
They might have seen for themselves
the sharp contrast between the Swiss scheme having an understanding for
the culture of Eezham Tamils and the monotonous, line-like housing
scheme conceived by New Delhi, media circles that covered the visit
commented.
The parliamentarians didn’t fail to amuse onlookers at
the Nalloor Kanthasaami temple that has nowadays become a showcase for
the occupying Sri Lanka that engages in genocidal destruction of temples
and construction of Buddhist stupas in various parts of the country of
Eezham Tamils.
All the parliamentarians who visited the temple broke coconuts in the name of the countries in the Commonwealth.
As
coconuts are broken in a temple, usually for the success of what is in
one’s mind or as a thanksgiving, the onlookers were joking at the
‘orchestrated intention’ of the Commonwealth countries in breaking
coconuts at the temple.
The only ‘politicians’ the
parliamentarians saw in Jaffna were the EPDP leader Douglas Devananda
and his key operative Chandrakumar, who have hosted them at a hotel in
Jaffna.
The very fact that the parliamentarians were received by
the occupying military commander and were hosted by the SL minister
accused in several international documents for his paramilitary
activities should have conveyed the message to the parliamentarians that
there is no normalcy, media circles that covered the events commented.
Civil
society activists commenting on the unfolding scenario said that
nowadays they don’t find much difference between Douglas Devananda and
many of the articulating diaspora activists who are keeping the
liberation struggle away from the masses and cling to the designs of the
establishments, either because of their incapacity, gullibility or
because of their self interest in political careers in the West.
It
is time for the diaspora grassroot to remind the political articulators
to change strategies to come out with mass civil society uprising to
counter the orchestrated onslaught on Eezham Tamils by the
establishments, the Eezham Tamil activists in the island further said.
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