I'm not sure whether someone else has already posted this link, but I found it very interesting, and timely. It's an article written by D. B. S. Jeyraj, entitled: Tigers, Tamil Diaspora and the Tamil civilian plight
Found it originally through a link shared by a friend on FB.
Some excerpts:
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The demonstrations were shown as being expressions of concern about the civilian plight. That this humanitarian concern was only a facade was exposed by four factors.
First, no such concern was shown when civilians in the Eastern province were in distress owing to the military campaign or even when civilians in the north-western regions of Wanni were affected. It was only when the LTTE-dominated north-eastern enclave was under threat that this cacophony for civilian concern increased in volume.
Secondly, these voices were stridently loud about the damage and destruction caused by artillery shelling and aerial bombardment by the armed forces but were conspicuously silent on the atrocities committed by the LTTE against its own people. There was no condemnation of the Tigers endangering civilian life, limb and property by locating their artillery and mortars in thickly populated places and engaging the enemy, thus bringing about inevitable retaliatory attacks.
Thirdly, there was no criticism of the LTTE for preventing sections of the people fleeing its territory for safety reasons. The LTTE has killed and injured several civilians for daring to escape its clutches and seek Army protection. Only the armed forces were blamed by these sections of the diaspora.
Fourthly, these sections wanted a permanent ceasefire. The United Nations has called for a temporary ceasefire to help facilitate the humanitarian exercise of evacuating entrapped civilians. But the pro-Tiger elements agitating for civilian protection are not responsive.
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The demonstrations were shown as being expressions of concern about the civilian plight. That this humanitarian concern was only a facade was exposed by four factors.
First, no such concern was shown when civilians in the Eastern province were in distress owing to the military campaign or even when civilians in the north-western regions of Wanni were affected. It was only when the LTTE-dominated north-eastern enclave was under threat that this cacophony for civilian concern increased in volume.
Secondly, these voices were stridently loud about the damage and destruction caused by artillery shelling and aerial bombardment by the armed forces but were conspicuously silent on the atrocities committed by the LTTE against its own people. There was no condemnation of the Tigers endangering civilian life, limb and property by locating their artillery and mortars in thickly populated places and engaging the enemy, thus bringing about inevitable retaliatory attacks.
Thirdly, there was no criticism of the LTTE for preventing sections of the people fleeing its territory for safety reasons. The LTTE has killed and injured several civilians for daring to escape its clutches and seek Army protection. Only the armed forces were blamed by these sections of the diaspora.
Fourthly, these sections wanted a permanent ceasefire. The United Nations has called for a temporary ceasefire to help facilitate the humanitarian exercise of evacuating entrapped civilians. But the pro-Tiger elements agitating for civilian protection are not responsive.
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He ends the article with:
This short-sighted conduct of the LTTE within the diaspora is just one more instance of the irreparable damage inflicted upon the Tamil people by the Tigers. After having brought Tamils to the precipice of disaster in Sri Lanka, the LTTE is now compelling the diaspora to embark upon a confrontational course with Western governments and law-enforcement authorities.
Unless saner elements among the Tamil diaspora are willing and able to protest against the monstrous activities of the LTTE in their midst, this trend is likely to continue. Apart from being totally counterproductive to their own interests, this conduct of the LTTE will in the long run stigmatise the Tamil diaspora as being supporters of terrorism.
This certainly is not in the best interests of the global Tamil diaspora in the long run.
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Worth reading the comments as well. All 305 of them :)
2 comments:
Hi,
I wanted to apologise if my post caused any offense. I only wanted to say that we could celebrate but that there was a lot to still fix and that having people in positions of power is very risky. I am aware that my post was full of factual errors and that the way I wrote it, it wasn't quite so clear what I was trying to say. I have taken the original post down and have instead put up a brief explanation of what I intended to say and an apology.
- Marisa
There was another pretty good article by him on today's Daily Mirror.
Good stuff.
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