America takes the wrong side in anti-terror fight

Nope, not my title :-). Its an editorial by The Washington Times on October 28th.

Really worth reading – it talks about how stupid the US is being by challenging Sri Lanka with a war crimes charge about how the LTTE war was won.

Sri Lanka’s path to peace

This is a great piece on Britain’s Guardian on what has happened in Sri Lanka and what is good for us going forward. In particular, the author touches on the misguided plan by the EU to cut off GSP+ trade concessions for Sri Lanka as a punishment for human rights violations.

One of these days I’ll blog about that topic … I need to calm down before I can write down what I really want to say about what I think of the world’s double standards :-).

LTTE's "KP" now in Sri Lankan custody

A while ago I blogged how LTTE's global arms procurement person (and their "head of international relations") was still absconding. Well, no more .. KP is now ours :-).

He was nabbed in Malaysia by Sri Lankan military intelligence folks and then brought to Colombo .. now being interrogated. He's a PRIZE catch - he set up and lead the arms procurement and delivery networks as well as handled their $200-300m annual income (profit). There have been reports of a major power struggle within the remnants of the LTTE (including this story about the battle to take control of its drug trafficking wing), especially to control the vast sums of money they (still) have .. and KP was the winner. Well, no more.

India has already asked to get to KP .. as I'm sure are US intelligence folks given the reality of resource sharing by terrorist groups.

He's going to be tried in Sri Lanka. There's no way he'll ever see any freedom again and I don't see Sri Lanka extraditing him to India or anywhere else .. but I'm sure the Indians and Americans will get their chance of chatting with KP.

KP recently started a new Web site and a blog. See: http://lttier.org/. Here's a screenshot of the home page .. I'm sure it'll change soon :):



KP was the last piece of the puzzle to give the deathblow to the terror of LTTE. RIP. No, RIH.

(There still is "Aunty" Adele Balasingham. Living in UK and the matriach and (likely) new leader of the LTTE. We're ok with the LTTE terrorism network going on in the UK. Yeah just keep it there guys; the UK government is apparently happy to ignore the ban. Just don't try to come back home.)

Absolutely brilliant of our intelligence folks to track him down (when Interpol which had an arrest warrant for him for years couldn't (or maybe didn't want to?)), grab him and bring him back home for chit-chat. AFAIK this is the first international operation by Sri Lankan intelligence.

And the funniest part of the whole thing: LTTE is upset that he was nabbed and says his nabbing was illegal. At least these guys have a great sense of humor!

In Sri Lanka: Explaining the Tamil Tigers

This is a great article by a US writer (Jim Luce) on the LTTE story. If you read nothing else about Sri Lanka's terrorism story, please read this article - it gives a good dose of reality on what the LTTE became and is.

And this bit of text explains quite well why I've been ranting and raving about "the world" lately in my blog:

Disturbingly, another factor may also be involved. Racism. I often wonder why the Fight Against Terrorism seems to be a white man's fight, and when in the word's of Teddy Roosevelt, our "little brown brothers" stand up for themselves, somehow charges of abuse and rights violations are leveled by the West.

When the U.S. invaded Iraq, with the full cooperation of the U.K., many civilians were killed. As have been killed in Afghanistan. Not to mention abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

Perhaps the specter of a developing nation conquering terrorism is galling to us in the developed world, knowing Osama Bin Laden has eluded our best efforts to capture him.

We seem to suffer from Empty Nest Syndrome. We need to accept that our former colonies have grown up - and can now stand for themselves.

Its incredibly frustrating to see how (primarily) western governments are politically trying to destroy Sri Lanka even at this time. Its only the politicians though - their own militaries and intelligence agencies etc. are fully aware of what's going on, what happened etc. and have never done anything negative. Its the paid for, bought-out politicians who only care about their own careers and not their country, who are trying to destroy us.

Jim's closing comments are also quite illuminating of the double standards that we are meted out:

And the hatred continues. One angry commenter to my last story in the Huffington Post hoped the LTTE remnants would assassinate Sri Lanka's president and defense minister. In the U.S., threatening the life of the president is a prisonable offense.

The Sri Lanka government has no intention of allowing one of the world's largest terrorist organizations back into its nation -- anymore than the U.S. would allow Bin Laden to renounce violence and run for the U.S. Senate.

I wonder whether the world will ever be able to treat all people equally.

Sri Lanka under attack .. still

Wow, I was just watching Al Jazeera and its amazing the global attack still going on against Sri Lanka. It looks like the world is very concerned about what may or may not have happened in the last 2 weeks of a 30 year war. Our military killed 20,000 people in 2 weeks after carefully avoiding civilian casualties all the time before and hanging around for months to wait for the Indian election to finish and more. Yeah, sure, that makes sense.

Then there's the story of the Captain Ali. A ship that is carrying "relief supplies" and tries to come into Sri Lanka unauthorized. Dudes (from ActNow who sent the ship), we gotta navy you know .. and a damned good, war-veteran one too. That's why its kinda under custody now. (The dude from ActNow who was interviewed has apparently been on hunger strike from May 18th. Hmm, sure looked too healthy for that ... maybe a Double Cheeseburger finds its way in there once in a way?)

Oh yes then there's the "international aid agencies" that are not allowed into the IDP (internally displaced person) camps. Sri Lanka must be killing the innocent Tamil people to not let these wonderfully well-intentioned international aid agencies into help. Um, sure. Yes, these would be the same aid agencies whose equipment, money and facilities were used to build up the LTTE. This would also be the same groups who have been caught trying to smuggle people out of the IDP camps. People who were LTTE members.

We won the war after 30 years of struggling and getting screwed by most of the world. You expect us to let you get back in and mess it up? Dream on.

On Wednesday there was a massive military parade in Colombo to celebrate the victory. It was the time to pay homage to the military for the tremendous sacrifices they made to give Sri Lanka freedom, again. For the first time, we have a freedom that has been fought for militarily. You see, unlike the US, we didn't have a culture of thanking the military for our freedom - we got our independence from UK basically free .. on the coat-tails of Indian independence. Now after 30 terrible years, all of Sri Lanka has gained independence again .. thanks to the hard work of our military. There are tens of thousands of permanently disabled troops and many thousands of troops who lost their lives in the process. We owe our freedom to their hard work and sacrifices.

(Its really hard for non-military people to understand or appreciate their sacrifices - I've met one person (a sergent) who spent 16 years in the war zone .. all the while having a wife and kids in the south who he saw but once or twice an year. As a father, I cannot imagine how he survived. His children too have paid a tremendous price for us to enjoy our freedom.)

Now, if the world thinks we're gonna give in and let you run all over us again after all this work, think again. NEVER.

Are we out of the woods with this military victory? Of course not. Its only the opening that was critical for the political system to fix the underlying issues and get us on the right path. I am confident that will happen; this president means business and I believe he will get it done.

The war continues .. in UK!

Ah, this is so great :). The UK government, which tried its best to get us to give a reprieve to LTTE, is now its getting its hand bitten by trying to help these crazies: Police hurt as UK Tamil protests turn violent.

Look at that image .. its the BANNED LTTE flag being waved in front of the UK parliament. Yes, banned in UK.

How long do you think the British government allow an Al Qaeda protest to go on like that?? The double standard is incredible.

LTTE fans, its OVER. If you still believe what the person said in the article above:

The Tamil Tigers are our sole representative. It is not going to be over til we get our own nation that is called Tamil Ealam.

Lady, better start looking for a new representative! Please do continue the fight ... in UK, Canada, Australia and more.

We in Sri Lanka just want to live in peace and become the country we know we can be.

How the West was sidelined (for the moment)

This is a GREAT article by Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha, Secretary General of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process, on the Ministry of Defence Web site. I also had the pleasure of listening to him being interviewed by the BBC yesterday and it was hilarious how he told the BBC about UK's incompetent, illegal and annoying meddling in our sovereign affairs.

While the entire writeup is worth reading, here's a small clip (emphasis mine):

But at the same time there are also lessons the West should learn. The anger at obvious double standards was palpable amongst all our friends. Obviously we do not expect even the most idealistic country to abandon its own interests. But in sticking to them ruthlessly, the use of sanctimonious pronouncements to reach other ends is abhorrent. It is especially important that the Obama administration, which came in with such high hopes, should not be seen as just another cynical mixture as before.

Secondly, the West should not take the rest of the world for granted. Its failure to consult at all was surprising, its failure to consult neighbours who obviously have a stake in a stable neighbourhood was astonishing. The impression could have arisen that stability in our areas is not to the interest of the West, which would prefer a plethora of weak states, to allow it to maintain more easily its current hegemony, political as well as economic.

And thirdly, the West should think about the message it is sending, in seeming to want the Tigers to survive in some form or another, particularly in the light of its past blunders. After all the horrors we are witnessing now, which are attributed largely to the West, spring from its own encouragement of Taliban terrorism during the Cold War. Whatever its purposes then, there is no doubt they could have been achieved without worrying consequences had there been at least a modicum of adherence to basic principles.

Oh BTW Mr. Miliband, please do inform us when you decide to run for re-election. We will be organizing a fund raising campaign for your election .. for WHOEVER is running against you. You need to go down in history as the incompetent bureaucrat you are .. and go home soon before you can destroy the world more. Please enjoy your extravagant expense reimbursements while you can.

Pres. Obama too tells us to stop

Thanks, Mr. Obama.

Oh and Ms. Clinton has put the brakes on Sri Lanka getting a $1.9B emergency bailout from IMF because we won't give into terrorism.

That's ok sir and madam, we'll figure our way out of this .. and you know, we'll be the better for it. I'm all for us suffering and managing on our own rather than giving into international terrorism (I was going to say pressure but this is terrorism) and giving up our freedom to them.

Let me post an excerpt from the editorial in today's Daily Island. This is highly reflective of the mood in the country about the US and UK in particular at the moment:

Isn't the US unwittingly encouraging its enemies like Al Qaeda to shift from destroying economic and military targets to hostage taking to have the US aggression stopped in Afghanistan?

No sooner had President Obama issued his statement than the LTTE welcomed it. But, true to form, it chose to remain silent on the US call for disarming and releasing civilians. Instead, it demanded an immediate UN intervention in Sri Lanka so that its leaders could escape death.

Now, what would President Obama do? The LTTE has not given a damn about his strident call! How would he deal with the outfit banned as a foreign terrorist organisation in the US? The US government has not spelt out action it intends to take against the LTTE for non compliance.

If the US could force the LTTE to disarm and let go of civilians in keeping with President Obama's wish, the humanitarian crisis will be over in no time.

How does the US propose to make the LTTE fall in line?

The Obama administration has already taken punitive action against the Sri Lankan government for defiance: It is blocking an IMF loan facility to this country for the 'crime' of not agreeing to a humanitarian truce with a terrorist group. That is the US is meting out collective punishment to a democratic sovereign state for battling terrorism, while allowing a ruthless terrorist outfit to go scot free in spite of its non compliance as well as barbaric crimes.

Is this how the US is promoting democracy in the world?

Please do read the entire editorial; its quite illuminating of how much damage has been done by the behavior of certain countries with regards how they ask us to give in to terror while they go off gallivanting into other countries killing thousands of innocent people. War crimes against Sri Lanka?? Anyone heard of George W. Bush?!

The civilians caught up in this mess are my fellow brethren Sri Lankans. Unfortunately, they've not been caught up in this only for the last few months when the world has paid attention (because LTTE has forced attention to save it from death), but rather for 30 years! We've tried to make peace with LTTE at least 3 times and each time it has resulted in Eelam War Next starting up. Finally we've been pushed to a situation where the only way to get past suicide bombs, bus bombs, airplane bombs, extortion and more is to totally destroy the LTTE. That's what my country is doing now.

Of course that's not coming at no cost. Hundreds (and maybe thousands) of civilians have probably lost their lives, many more thousands have got injured and nearly an entire generation has been tainted by the horrors of war. That's not only amongst Tamil people - Sinhalese, Muslims and every other race in Sri Lanka too has suffered! And then there's the military - most of the young men and women who die and are getting maimed for life from landmines and more are poor people who're fighting to keep our country safe. They're dying to save the currently affected civilians and to prevent future generations from being under the tyranny of a madman.

Is this the end of the problems in Sri Lanka? Of course NOT. This is simply the beginning of a historic opportunity for ALL Sri Lankans to come together and once and for all find a 21st century style, humane solution to a fight we've been meaninglessly continuing between two closely related races for 2000+ years. Enough is enough.

Sinhalese and Tamil people are both of Indian origin. We may have come from different racial origins and may speak languages that have different roots. However, we've been living together in a tiny sliver of land for 2000+ years!

This is the 21st century. The world is not local any more. The world is flat. The battle is global. There is no time to waste fighting with each other and not give simple respect and rights to everyone. In the last several hundred years the fight was continued on partly because it was helpful and supportive for foreigners who dominated us to have us biting each other's toes. After independence we went a step further and let petty short term political advantage continue the fight.

Today the world is a trivially small place. We don't have time to be bickering internally. If we don't get our act together and unite and start establishing our place in the evolving world, we'll be left FAR behind while others continue to exploit our weaknesses and get ahead. In the end ALL of our poor people will suffer- Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and more.

I hope everyone who's been vehmently arguing to destroy the LTTE will continue to vehmently argue to find a rational, reasonable, decentralization of power in Sri Lanka to enable not only Tamil people in the north and east to develop themselves, but also for the Sinhalese, Muslims and Tamils in other parts of the country to develop too. We need to get together and become a stronger force in the world; internal bickering is simply playing into the hands of those that want us to keep doing that so they can make money selling us deadly weapons and more.

After that let's get together with the rest of the world oppressed by the IMF thugs and create a new truly democratic global structure. They destroyed Asia in the '97 Asian crisis (read Globalization and its Discontents by Josef Stiglitz) and when its the western system that's melting down they're doing what Asia was prevented from doing: bailing out everything from public companies to private companies to banks. Now when we're affected by that mess our soverignity must be surrendered to get help. Enough of that thuggery.

Sex, the weapon against terrorism too??

I saw this story on CNN just now: Sex-starved Kenyan sues over boycott. I wonder whether this could work against Prabhakaran too??

Oh wait, his wife already lives in the UK, where his daughter is too. His son, who studied aeronautical engineering in UK, is the head of Air Tigers, the now wiped-out LTTE air force, is in Sri Lanka fighting with dad. Want to get a peak into Prabhakaran's life? Check out these photos that the military recently picked up from his albums.


On one side he's got a cushy life for his family, including studying in England and gala 21st parties (which apparently was the case for hs daughter ... probably entertained by MIA).

On the other side, he recruits child soldiers and fires off suicide killers. Nice guy.

I guess the Kenyan strategy won't work against Prabha .. he's already starving. Prolly explains his maniacal behavior?

Sri Lanka: Is this the 'endgame' for the conflict with Tamil Tigers?

This is a good article in the Christian Science Monitor about the war in Sri Lanka.

This is an amazing newspaper (its not about Chrisitian Science despite the name) - I first started reading it in 1985/86 when I was a freshman at Kent State University. That was before the Web, before proper email even really. CSM was pretty much the only paper that would have a reasonably in-depth article about Sri Lanka and about what was going on in the world, instead of the drive-by type articles found in most newspapers and now of course Web sites. I even subscribed to the print edition for a while when I was a grad student at Purdue.

Despite the ability to write arbitrary length articles on the Web, sadly most Web news articles have followed their newspaper and TV brethren and have very shallow content.

Helping a terrorist

MIA, a British-born rapper who's parents are from Sri Lanka and who's father is a terrorist in Sri Lanka, asking Oprah to "help save the Tamils".

OK so I understand a daughter's love for her father. However, as her own Wikipedia article says (link above), her father started EROS, one of the groups that has now become part of the LTTE. Here's a small except from the Wikipedia article on EROS:

In 1976, the EROS established links with the Abu Jihad of the Palestine Liberation Organization and began planning the setting up of camps to train Sri Lankan Tamils in military and guerrilla warfare. EROS even opened up their training camp for the LTTE where Prabhakaran had his initial training. The Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO), EPRLF and PLOTE sent their own men to the PLO's camps for training under the request of EROS, and EROS also organised for men of other groups to be sent. A number of Tamils, including many who would later form the core of the other Tamil militant groups, started their militant careers in these camps.

So MIA's dad is a "founding member" of EROS, the organization that gave birth to Prabakharan, the leader of LTTE. You want the world to save your dad and his band of criminals?? You want the British and US governments to save them? (See her comment about being within a paper airplane of Michelle Obama:

Michelle Obama gave a speech and there was mad secret service in the air so I didn't get to throw a paper plane at her saying 'stop the bombing of the Tamils in Sri Lanka.'

The LTTE is a banned organization in the UK, US, all of EU and 30+ other countries. Her father is a terrorist. Not only in Sri Lanka but in a large part of the world.

She claims the Sri Lanka is bombing Tamil people. What's really going on is that LTTE is holding a group of innocent people as mobile hostages and getting away with it. Read this article in today's Sunday Leader by Indi, who's an independent journalist in Sri Lanka and Sunday Leader (who's editor was killed a few months back) is a fiercely independent paper usually highly critical of the government, to get better sense of the likely reality.

Sri Lanka is being harassed by the "international community" for trying to save these people. Why? Because of a brilliantly executed PR campaign by LTTE supporters, like MIA, globally. Sorry MIA, your dad is a terrorist. Many people, including myself, strongly support greater autonomy for Tamil people in Sri Lanka (and in fact not just for Tamil people, but for every province outside of the western province), but the LTTE style of killing everyone who's not in agreement is not the way to get it done.

As Indi's article points out, LTTE has mastered yet another form of terrorism: mobile hostage groups, in their thousands. Its only a matter of time before Taliban and others learn the PR power of this type of tactic and do the same. Maybe then the British and US governments will learn the realities of fighting terrorism.

I wonder how the US would react if they had Osama bin Laden cornered and he took a huge number of people hostage and held them and killed anyone who tried to get away. Would the US succumb to "global pressure" and let him get away? Of course not - even this past week their errant US bombs killed maybe 100 civillians and nothing has changed - the fight goes on. In fact, Pakistan was chastised for talking and settling with maniacs! However, the west is attempting to order us to exactly that .. I guess because the LTTE doesn't threaten the west the situation is different eh? Sorry guys, we've been pushed into some unholy alliances that now don't give you the right to do whatever you want with us.

Last week the British and French foreign ministers were here to tell us to stop the war. Apparently in the meeting with our Secretary of Defence, the British FM (Millibrand) got into a HUGE argument and was basically told to get out. Such behavior is simply never done in the diplomatic world, especially by the head diplomat of a country. Apparently Mr. Millibrand acted as if we're still a British colony and he can march in and tell us what to do. Dude, that ended in 1948 .. probably before you were born? We don't play along to your whims and fancies any more.

This week those two are going to be briefing the UN Security Council on their visit. Oh great; we can expect another lecture in a few days. Luckily we have some friends in the security council who won't let us get totally raped. Funny how that veto thing works, eh?

International politics is guided by enlightened self interest. We (and many poor countries) have for a long time operated as if others countries really meant well and they wanted to help us. That is simply naive and we're now learning how to play the game of international politics. About time.

I recently blogged about how maybe we also need to start a "weapons of mass destruction" program so we get international respect. One commentor (apparently someone who knows me), wrote saying I have threatened the US and is now on the DHS terror watch list:

So you don't get support from the USA and the West so you threaten us? Good luck getting back into the USA on your next business trip. I'm sure DHS has picked up your story by now and you've likely made it onto a terror watch list with your threatening comments. A green card does not afford you any rights to re-enter as you please. You may want to remember that before you go spewing off hate comments towards the country that educated you and provided you the lifestyle which you now enjoy.

So fighting to get respect for your own country is threatening the US? That mindset is exactly what is wrong with America today: the thinking that for America to be on top it must prevent others from getting up there. I spent 16 years in the US and learnt a lot of my thinking there ... but America today is not consistent with the human rights and "do no evil" principles on which it was formed. The US government policies and actions are not consistent with the way most Americans think about their role in the world. I will write a long blog about it one of these days ..

Oh and BTW, I no longer have even a green card - I gave that up (voluntarily) nearly 3 years ago and now am on a B-1 visitor visa when I go to the US .. even easier to kick me out. (Of course the real risk to me is of being called an enemy combatant and simply being made to disappear.)

Sri Lanka orders end to combat operations

I just saw on TV and now also on CNN that our government has ordered an end to combat operations in the war against LTTE.

Thank you Ms. Clinton and all the other LTTE-funded terrorist supporters out there for forcing our hand. You have given that bastard terrorist Vellupillai Prabakharan another breadth of life. So much for America being anti-terrorist - I guess that's only if the terrorists are attacking you eh?

Sri Lanka is cursed to have history repeat itself.

LTTE and their supporters - congratulations on running a successful PR campaign and hoodwinking the world.

Looks like the only way to get ahead in the world is to become part of Bush's Axis of Evil and become a terror sponsor ourselves. Or maybe its time for us to build a nuke. Or both.

If Prabhakaran lives and LTTE lives after getting so close to wiping that menace off the face of the earth, then you can bet that we'll start getting more creative with how we deal with our problems.

The world is full of bull shit. But, remember, what goes around, comes around.

Washington Times Editorial: Tigers at bay

This editorial from the Washington Times is another editorial today which shows how ridiculous the treatment we're being given by the US, UK, Australia and others is! Let me paste one sentence from it:

It is unconscionable for the United States to castigate its Sri Lankan ally for prevailing in its war against terrorism.

(Emphasis is mine.)

What the Washington Times may not know is that Ms. Clinton has been speaking on behalf of the LTTE even during her campaign. I guess it could've been worse for us had she won. Phew.

Today's news is that the LTTE is offering a ceasefire! Hahahahahaha :-). Is it April Fool's day again already??

Ceasefire against a bunch of maniacs who are finally cornered and about to be destroyed after 30 years? No, not a chance. Release the people, drop your weapons and wave a white flag - that's the time to ceasefire; not a moment sooner.

The sad thing is, I actually thought that after 9-11 and all that the world finally understood that terrorism is an international disease that needs to eradicated. I guess that's really not the case- the world is indeed doomed; one man's terrorist is still another man's friend.

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.

Share the blame

Today's Sunday Times in Sri Lanka has a great editorial on how the blame for the LTTE situation needs to be shared by India, US, UK, Australia, Canada and others. All of these so-called "civilized nations" enabled, supported, ignored and downright cheered the LTTE for many many years. Successive Sri Lankan governments cried and screamed for help but it was ignored. It was only the late Lakshman Kadirgamar (a Tamil himself) who was able to make some headway finally. And then of course finally when 9-11 hit the US woke up to terrorism.

Yet, not really it seems. Yesterday the US asked us to stop the war. Compare that to what Ms. Clinton did at a senate hearing. Quoting from the editorial:

Take the typical case of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. This week, giving testimony at a Congressional hearing, she asked that Pakistan take more action against (Islamic) extremists and asked Sri Lanka to 'pause' action against (Tamil) extremists. To cap it, she asked Pakistan to adopt a 'paradigm shift' and called for a 'change in mind-set'. Look who's talking.

Oh but there is a difference - LTTE is killing poor irrelevant Sri Lankans (yes all of them- Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and more) and Al Qaeda is killing precious westerners. Oh of course, that's why on one side you need to destroy but on the other side you need to give in.

She's not alone - right now there's a protest going on in front of the British parliament by LTTE supporters with LTTE flags and more. Um, aren't they banned in UK and isn't it illegal to support a banned terrorist group?! At least the French have been nice- they did not allow LTTE to run amok in Paris recently and arrested a bunch of supporters of the illegal LTTE supporting organizations. And India- well they have internal political problems which they want to solve at our expense. Two of their big guys (Secy of Foreign Ministry and National Security Advisor) were in Colombo yesterday - and "didn't have time" to fly to the IDP camps and see the real situation without believing LTTE propaganda. Now John Homes (UN's humanitarian guy) is in town- hopefully he can make the time to go see without doing what Al Jazeera did on TV last nite showing a "video from Tamil sources" showing injured & dying people. Smart.

Cut the bull lady and everyone else from the international community. We're on our own this time and we're not giving in to the BS. We're (finally) taking our country back. You have no leverage in Sri Lanka - please do keep the aid money if you wish; we'll survive. We are not committing any humanitarian disasters - we're trying to prevent them. If you want to know the truth come and see for yourself.

If the (esp. western) "international community" wants to look for humanitarian disasters, look at Iraq. How many have you killed there in the name-of-what-now? Maybe between 100,000 to 1,000,000 .. in just 6 years. You guys have no moral authority to tell us anything; if at all its your crap is what has killed probably 75,000+ people in Sri Lanka in 30 years.

British MP's visit to Sri Lanka

Very interesting video of a UK MP visiting northern Sri Lanka and learning the truth about the LTTE. Thank you Mr. MP for setting the record straight.

On the road to understanding and hope

As many would've heard by now Colombo was attacked by two LTTE aircraft a few nites ago. They were apparently 9/11 style on a suicide mission .. but didn't quite make it where they wanted to go. (Well, not necessarily - its always possible they were paid by someone to crash into the Inland Revenue Service building to destroy some nasty tax files!!!) The good thing is that both aircraft were brought down - and with that most probably all of the remaining parts of the Air Tigers.

I can't really see what logical rationale LTTE had in launching this attack. If they were hoping to "stop" the war, the only way they'd have had any chance would've been to kill our president, defence secretary and probably at least the army commander. Well, the odds of a little Zlin 134 achieving that objective (even when they're packed with explosives) are pretty low.

On the other hand, they also now shoot at civilians leaving their clutches .. so clearly they've totally lost it. We just need to knock off the leadership and then all the lower level people can be spared .. a lot of their "soldiers" are forcibly conscripted children.

They certainly achieved a small PR victory .. or at least got some good coverage. On the other hand, it shows even more clearly that this crazy group that has airplanes, submarines, sea scooters, heavy artillery, suicide boats, suicide unit and more simply must be totally destroyed. Peace must be achieved by solving the underlying issues in our society. LTTE has no role in a peaceful Sri Lanka.

With all this fighting one may feel that there's no hope for Sri Lanka. However, what prompted me to write this blog is an amazing story that's in today's Sunday Times: about how a group of Sinhala and Tamil farmers took a week-long trip to the hill country to learn about better dairy farming approaches .. and how it lead to the people bonding across cultures. Definitely worth reading!

India: Don't give into terrorism!

Sri Lanka is currently under major pressure by the Indian government to stop the ongoing war against the LTTE. Why? The Indian state of Tamil Nadu is a key supporter of the coalition central government in India. Tamil Nadu's residents are Tamil, the same race the Tamil people in Sri Lanka belong to .. and with whom we have a 2000+ year old history of interaction in various forms. So there are bunch of politicians in Tamil Nadu who actively supported LTTE and still do. There are also many who are genuinely concerned about the well being of innocent Tamil people in the war torn areas in Sri Lanka's north. To cut a long story short, Tamil Nadu can bring down the Indian government .. and they're threatening to do so now unless India intervenes in Sri Lanka's war.

Why? Because they apparently believe that innocent Tamil people are being killed and that the war is an attempt to destroy the Tamil populace of the north. That is nothing short of ludicrous - after more than 25 years of fighting our military has learnt bitter lessons of how to win a war in this environment and killing normal people simply isn't part of the formula. The president of Sri Lanka has invited the Indian foreign secretary to come to Sri Lanka to find out for himself what's being done to prevent civilian casualties and to see the real situation here. But, I doubt the offer will be taken up.

The LTTE is being squashed these days. That's because of a well-thought out military strategy being executed very carefully without a rush. The LTTE is so desperate that they're preventing innocent people from leaving to government controlled areas where they can be taken care of.

Don't get me wrong- I've said before in my blog and will say it again: there is no military solution to a 2000+ year old racial conflict. We need a political solution involving true devolution of power to the different regions of Sri Lanka and all the military can do is create an environment where the government can indeed execute such a change. Does our government have the political strength to pull it off now? I honestly don't know .. but we have to give them a chance to do it by winning the military part. If they don't do it, I will be the first to vote against them at the next election.

Why is that important? Tell me, which country would tolerate an armed group having their own naval bases, their own air force, their own territory, their own police, courts, taxes and more? Would the US "sit and talk" to such a group if they were to do that within the US? Would India? Would Russia? Would UK? No of course not.

What cannot be tolerated is the existence of a separate area which is under LTTE control and where indeed many Tamil people live but they live under intense difficulties. For example, every Tamil family is forced to give one member of their family to the LTTE.

Is that what India's Tamil people want for the Tamil people in Sri Lanka? Of course not. This is a political game that is being played well by LTTE and Tamil Nadu politicians and the one that's standing to lose is Sri Lanka.

This is absolutely a war to liberate the Tamil people from the evil clutches of the LTTE - not an attempt to annihilate them!

We've had 25+ years of a terrible war. It has taken many many lives on both sides- and almost all of them young lives. Now we have an entire generation that has known nothing but war. We need to get past this in order to prevent our country from going more down the tubes.

We have real problems to solve which cannot be solved militarily. At the same time, we cannot solve them when there's one armed group that has appointed themselves the sole representatives of the Tamil people (because they kill off any other Tamil leaders who don't agree with their approach and solution). We need to solve it with a dialogue with all Tamil political parties, Muslim parties, Sinhalese parties and the MANY political parties that transcend race. LTTE will not allow that to happen - we've had enough failed attempts at talking to them. Now its time to destroy that beast once and for all and enter into a political solution to ensure that we will NEVER have another LTTE showing up again.

If you live in the US or EU or somewhere else you may think "ain't my problem". However, you'd be wrong. Read up a bit on the LTTE and you'll see that they're part of your problems too - terrorism is an international curse & disease and cannot be put down until everyone stops supporting it.

I hope the Indian central government will not budge and invade or threaten to invade Sri Lanka again like what they did in 1987 (with Operation Poomalai). Have you forgotten how those criminals whom you air dropped supplies for killed 1255 of your troops in Sri Lanka and then went on to kill your own ex-prime minister Rajiv Gandhi?

India, please, leave us alone.

Sri Lanka Army closing in on Kilinochchi

Al Jazeera video on YouTube.

21st anniversary of LTTE's suicide bombings

Interestingly Sunday July 6th marked the 21st anniversary of LTTE's suicide bombings. They've of course mastered and executed them to perfection since then (including first using a female suicide bomber to kill ex Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and also using a pregnant woman once) and its now a part of their normal repertoire of terror techniques.

Interesting article on Wikipedia on the topic too (of course).

BTW if you're interesting in keeping an eye on what's going on in Sri Lanka on the war front, defencenet.blogspot.com seems to give a good even-handed view of things. If you want the different sides check out defense.lk (note the proper English spelling of defence ;-)) and tamilnet.com.