National Post editorial board: Sympathy for Tamils, but not Tigers

The Canadian (Toronto?) National Post on April 16th had a great editorial condemning the fast organized by LTTE supporting groups to ask Canada to force Sri Lanka to stop the war against LTTE. One line summarizes the view:

Our advice to the Ottawa hunger strikers is: Eat up.

The war in Sri Lanka is about the LTTE, not Tamil people. Tamil people have been in Sri Lanka at least as long as the Sinhalese have - we're all equals. There was a time when governments acted against Tamil people broadly but that is not the case any more.

There was a great comment on that editorial by an American married to a Sri Lankan Tamil. I can't link directly to the comment so I will post it here:

by Bostonian Apr 16 2009 10:48 AM

Well said NP. I am an American married to a sweet and decent Sri Lankan Tamil. What you have said in the article is the truth and the whole truth. I returned from SL two weeks ago and had a good insight in to what was going on. We stayed in Colombo 6 with my wife's cousins, who are upper middle class Tamils who do stocklots business. They live very comfortably and do most of the business with majority Singhalese. According to my relatives, there are over a million Tamils living in Colombo and is the majority in SE Colombo (so much for the genocide!). Only negative sentiment was the hardships they have on numerous Army checkpoints in surrounding area and frequent checks, which we also experienced in our short stay. BUT they also mentioned this can not be avoided in any country that faces such suicide bombings. They were very clearly denouncing LTTE and most notably, were condemning Tamil Diaspora in Canada for their assistance to keep the flames on while living under comforts in Canada. They mentioned Canadian Tamil’s financial support for LTTE is huge and, this assistance really harms Tamils living in SL particularly in the north. They took us to Nilaveli, which I would rank as one of the best beaches in the world. Nilaveli is in recently cleared east, where we were able to witness tremendous development. My relatives mentioned east is a great example of SL GOV approach of clearing from terror and providing assistance for development. We also had a unique experience to dine with an army Major, who was attached to Police STF. He was spending few hours in Nilaveli, and treated us, and my Tamil companions with utmost respect. He was in the battlefield many times and was genuinely expressing his feelings about innocent Tamils suppressed by LTTE. My Tamil relatives had one voice, which is very different from the Tamils who live in Canada. What they say is, Tamils in Sri Lanka will be better off under SL Government than living under LTTE control. We whole heartedly than NP for exposing activities of terror supporting Tamils in Canada. Keep up the good work!

Nothing more to say.