Support Tamils not Sri Lanka’s war-criminal government -- Eva Golinger misinterprets solidarity

By Ron Ridenour

June 1, 2010 -- Eva Golinger is known for her analysis in the service of Venezuela’s peaceful revolution against the local oligarchy and the United States empire. She is a noted author (The Chavez Code: Cracking US intervention in Venezuela). A dual citizen of the US and Venezuela, she is an attorney, and a personal friend of President Hugo Chavez. She is a frequent contributor to left-wing media around the world, and is the English-language editor of the Venezuelan newspaper, Correo del Orinoco.

Golinger's is a name synonymous with solidarity and anti-imperialism. However, she recently inexplicably emerged as a supporter of the brutal, racist and genocidal government of Sri Lanka in a resoundingly irresponsible opinion piece, printed in the Spanish daily version of Correo del Orinoco on May 15, and on May 21, published by the Caracas city government newspaper, Ciudad CCS. The piece was simply entitled, “Sri Lanka”. I translate into English the major part of its content and analyse its errors with the goal of countering rumours she started, and in an effort to broaden support for a most maligned and oppressed ethnic group, the Tamils of Sri Lanka.

Golinger wrote:

[In 2005, presidential elections occurred for the first time [in Sri Lanka] in nearly 30 years. Mahinda Rajapakse obtained victory with more than 58% of votes. He was reelected, January 2010 with more than 60%...

Rajapakse, Buddhist leader, is supported by a coalition of leftist parties, among them the Communist Party. In May, 2009, Rajapaske finalized the civil war, defeating the armed organization, LTTE [Liberation Tigers for Tamil Eelam].

The LTTE had close ties with the CIA, and Washington negotiated an accord with them for establishing a military base in the country, if they obtained power. Upon its defeat, the LTTE had established numerous organizations—fronts in different countries around the world, seeking to create `a government in exile´ and hoping to isolate the current government of Sri Lanka. Last week, representatives of one of its fronts, Canadian Hart, passed through Venezuela; it met with government functionaries seeking support in its intent to weaken the relationship between the two governments.

Instead of relating to the illegitimate opposition in Sri Lanka, Venezuela should shake the hand of an ally that also suffers imperial aggressions.

Golinger is factually incorrect

1. Mahinda Rajapaksa is not the first president elected. In 1982, J.R. Jayawardane won the first presidential election with 52.9% of the vote. The United National Party (UNP)—a pro-Western party of the comprador bourgeoisie—introduced a new constitution after its 1977 landslide victory. Before then, the office of prime minister was the highest, and Jayawardane won that post and the UNP took 80% of the parliamentary seats. In 1978, the new constitution renamed the country, “Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka”, but this had nothing to do with socialism. The economy then, as now, was a capitalist one with a neoliberal orientation much like Chile after the 1973 coup d’etat.

According to the government department of census and statistics own figures (2006-07), 82% of the rural population lives under the national poverty line, while 65% of the urban population is not able to meet the minimum level of per capita daily calorie and protein intake recommended by the government Medical Research Institute. See official figures on the government website.
There can be nothing “democratic socialist” about discriminating against 15% of its population, the Tamil ethnic group, making them unequal by legally restricting their rights and privileges. Such has been the case since independence from Britain, in 1948. Even the US Library of Congress studied Tamils as an “alienated” group. In 1988, it published, Sri Lanka: a Country Study:

Moderate as well as militant Sri Lankan Tamils have regarded the policies of successive Sinhalese governments in Colombo with suspicion and resentment since at least the mid-1950s, when the "Sinhale Only" language policy was adopted…

2. Rajapaska won the fifth presidential elections and with the least majority of all presidents, 50.29%, not 58% as Golinger wrote (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_presidential_election,_2005.) Rajapaska is the current leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), founded in 1951 to represent the Sinhalese bourgeoisie. In 1960 elections, Sirimavo R.D. Bandaranayake became the world’s first woman prime minister. The Moscow-oriented Communist Party and the Trotskyist Lanka Sama Samja Party (LSSP) formed the “United Front” coalition with the SLFP, in 1970. Now with three ministerial posts, the “old left” betrayed the young.

Many Sinhalese leftist youth became disillusioned with the “old left” and after the SLFP returned to government, they rebelled. The so-called “leftist” government, with the CP and LSSP, branded this upsurge a “Che Guevarist uprising” and crushed the rebellion by killing about 20,000 mainly rural Sinhala youth, in 1971. The next year, these “left” parties drafted the first republican constitution in which Sinhalese was codified as the only official language and Buddhism the only the official religion—Tamils are not Buddhists. This eroded whatever support the “old left” had among both leftist Sinhalese and all Tamils. Since then neither the CP nor the LSSP has managed to get a single seat in the parliament independently. They are always with the capitalist party, SLFP.

3. Rajapaska won the January 2010 elections with 57.88%, not 60%, over his former chief general, Sarath Fonseka, who was in charge of liquidating the Liberation Tigers for Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Fonseka’s party, the New Democratic Front, received 40.15% of the vote. In desperation, a few Tamils voted for Fonseka knowing that he was the main army force in carrying out the president’s orders in liquidating the LTTE, and massacring tens of thousands of Tamil civilians. The one difference between the two war criminals was that Fonseka later promised that he would release the rest of the interned Tamils and return their possessions and land. Tamils are crushed for now and resort to seeking a bit of breathing space. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_People%27s_Freedom_Alliance.)

The egomaniacal president was not satisfied with just defeating his former general in the ballot box, he had him arrested and beaten, on February 7, 2010, shortly after the elections, and charged him with plotting a coup, which Fonseka denies. A purge of scores of top military officers has occurred; a dozen or more Sinhalese and Tamil journalists have been arrested. In the four years of Rajapakse’s rule, at least 23 journalists critical of his regime have been murdered: see http://jdsrilanka.blogspot.com/2010/03/attorney-generals-words-about.htmland www.jdsrilanka.blogspot.com .

4. “The LTTE had close ties with the CIA, and Washington negotiated an accord with them for establishing a military base in the country…”. That is an outrageous and unsubstantiated allegation. In my month-long research last autumn, I found nothing to indicate Golinger’s unsupported claim. Looking up in Google for “LTTE and CIA”, nothing is found. When searching for LTTE and CIA and LTTE ties to CIA without quotation marks, nothing exists that binds them. I looked up some 200 hits and only found reference to the Golinger claim, and this was cited by a most sceptical Patrick J. O´Donoghue, news editor for the English-language website VHeadline.com, in a May 23 commentary.

We have no way of knowing if the LTTE even met with the CIA, but in war most anything is possible. What we can know is that the US, and its CIA and Pentagon, have long supported the genocidal Sinhalese governments, and most certainly that of Rajapaske, and it placed the LTTE on its “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” hit list in 1997. I will delve into this further on.

5. Golinger’s claim that Canadian Hart is a front for the LTTE is denied by several solidarity groups in Canada who know that organisation for its humanitarian work. See their perspective, “Venezuela: Eva Golinger’s misinformation endangers exiled Tamils’ fight for freedom” at http://vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=92565.

6. Golinger depicts the Sri Lankan capitalist and genocidal government as an “ally” of Venezuela, one that she recommends her revolutionary government to “shake the hand of an ally that also suffers imperial aggression”. This boggles the mind, or “beggars belief”, as O’Donoghue wrote. Instead of opposing the Yankee empire, her position is allied with the imperialist United States and its allies Zionist Israel, the United Kingdom and other former European colonialists, as well as the emerging superpower and worker-exploiter China. (See my pieces in Counterpunch: “ALBA Let Down Sri Lanka Tamils”, “Equal Rights or Self-Determination” and “The Terrorists: International support for Sri Lanka racist discrimination”, November 16, 20, 25, 2009. See the entire five-part series at http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=9428&lg=en).

There is not a shred of evidence that the United States acts against Sri Lanka governments, on the contrary.

US supports Sri Lanka’s genocide

The Indian Ocean is a vital waterway where half the world’s containerised cargo passes through. Its waters carry heavy traffic in petroleum products. Sri Lanka’s cooperation is vital to the US empire’s global interests. A separate Tamil state would complicate cooperation requirements.

The United States has been arming and financing Sri Lanka for most of the civil war period (see www.cdi.org/PDFs/CSBillCharts.pdf.) From at least the 1990s, the US has provided military training, financing, logistic supplies and weapons sales worth millions annually. A Voice of America installation was set up in the northwestern part of the country.

The United States government praised Rajapaksa for restarting the war in July 2006, and officially ending the ceasefire in 2008. The US embassy in Colombo issued this statement: “The United States does not advocate that the Government of Sri Lanka negotiate with the LTTE …” (see http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11769).

On May 26, 2002, the Colombo English-language Sunday Times wrote about a joint military pact between Sri Lanka and the US:

The Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement [ACSA] … will enable the United States to utilise Sri Lanka's ports, airports and air space. As a prelude to the signing of the agreement scheduled for July, this year, United States Naval ships have been calling at the Colombo Port for bunkering as well as to enable sailors to go on shore leave.

In return for the facilities offered, Sri Lanka is to receive military assistance from the United States including increased training facilities and equipment. The training, which will encompass joint exercises with United States Armed Forces, will focus on counter terrorism and related activity. The agreement will be worked out on the basis of the use of Sri Lanka's ports, airports, and air space to be considered hire-charges that will be converted for military hardware.

US Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca was the key liaison person with the Sri Lankan government. [Rocca had been a CIA officer before joining the state department.] (See www.colombopage.com/archive_07/March5132506JV.html.) The ACSA agreement was not finally signed until Rajapaksa came to power. It was US citizen Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, secretary to the defence minister and brother to President Rajapaksa, who signed the agreement, on March 5, 2007. (Their younger brother, also a minister, is a US citizen as well.)

George W. Bush was especially glad for Sri Lanka’s state terrorism. In 2006, he encouraged the government to resume the civil war, which Bush financed with US$2.9 million. The Pentagon provided counter-insurgency training, maritime radar, patrols of US warships and aircraft. This was a continuation of “Operation Balanced Style”, which has used US Special Forces instructors since 1996.

At the end of Bush’s first term, the US was forced to cut back on aid given that it was bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq. That, coupled with critical public opinion, organised by the Tamil diaspora, of state terrorism and systematic discrimination of Tamils, prompted US Congress to make noises about abuses of human rights by not only LTTE but possibly by paramilitary forces linked to the Sri Lankan. government. Thousands of Tamils blocked highways in Canada, camped outside British parliament for months, some committed suicide in front of government offices, while Indian Tamils conducted paralysing strikes.

Nevertheless, in 2008, the US granted $1.45 million in military financing and training to the Sri Lanka government out of a total of $7.4 million in total aid. The US made noises about a “humanitarian crisis” when the Sri Lankan army was about to finish the war but it never took affirmative action to bring the war to an end nor to condemn the army or government.

Even after leading international observers, and some mass media, especially in the UK and France, began to expose the Sri Lankan government’s and the army’s systematic atrocities against Tamil civilians and captured LTTE soldiers, the US continued to back the Sri Lankan government, in contradiction to Eva Golinger’s account. In mid-April, 2010, US and Sri Lankan military forces conducted military exercises in eastern seas (Trincomalee) for the first time in 25 years.

Said Lt Col. Larry Smith, the US defence attache: “The joint exercise helped members from our two militaries to exchange best practices on how to address complex humanitarian challenges.” He added: “The US and Sri Lanka have a long tradition of cooperation. We hope this partnership can be expanded.” (See http://jdsrilanka.blogspot.com/2010/04/us-sri-lankan-militaries-in-joint.html.)

John Pilger compares Sri Lanka’s genocide to Israel

“The Sri Lankan government has learned an old lesson from, I suspect, a modern master: Israel. In order to conduct a slaughter, you ensure the pornography is unseen, illicit at best. You ban foreigners and their cameras from Tamil towns like Mulliavaikal, which was bombarded recently by the Sri Lankan army, and you lie that the 75 people killed in the hospital were blown up quite willfully by a Tamil suicide bomber” (“Distant Voices, Desperate Lives”, New Statesman, May 13, 2009.)

When the US does not want to be seen on the frontlines in a war, it sends in surrogates, and Israel is its main partner in this war crime. Israel was officially re-awarded diplomatic relations, in May 2000 (www.dailymailnews.com/dmsp0204/dm44.html), after Sri Lanka had severed them in 1970, in protest at Israel’s continued illegal expansion into Palestinian territory. Nevertheless, Israel continued to operate inside Sri Lanka out of a special interests office set up in the US embassy. Under the table, Sri Lanka’s successive regimes embraced Israel’s military advisors, a special commando unit in the police and Mossad counter-intelligence agents—who sought to drive a wedge between Muslims and Tamils. Israel sent Sri Lanka16 of its supersonic Kfir fighter jets, some Dvora fast naval attack craft, and electronic and imagery surveillance equipment, plus advisors and technicians. Israel personnel took part in military attacks on Tamil units, and its pilots flew attack aircraft. Tigers shot down one Kfir. Just before the end of the war, Prime Minister Wickremanayake was in Israel to make bigger deals with Israeli arms supplies. (See http://niqnaq.wordpress.com/2009/05/10/wayne-madsen-on-israel-and-sri-lanka/ and http://adamite.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/sri-lanka-israels-dirty-secrets/.]

Sri Lankan government war crimes

Golinger even ignores ample evidence of extreme war crimes committed by her choice for president, Mahinda Rajapakse, against the minority Tamils. Tamils have a righteous claim for liberation because of being subject to systematic discrimination, oppression and genocide. (Ibid: “Equal Rights or Self-Determination”.)

Sri Lanka’s first president, J.R. Jayewardene, expressed the essence of this genocide to the Daily Telegraph, on July 11, 1983: “Really if I starve the Tamils out, the Sinhala people will be happy.”

In May 2009, Rajapakse had all the civilians who survived his gunfire placed into concentration camps, which he called “welfare villages”, much like those the Yankees concocted in Vietnam. In violation of United Nations’ international rules, between 280,000 to 500,000 people were forcibly interned. One year later, 100,000 remain. Only 2 million Sri Lankan Tamils remain in the country. Nearly 1 million have fled in the past three decades.

Even the United States’ choice for secretary-general of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, was displeased with these camps when he made a brief visit to one shortly after the war’s end.

“I have travelled around the world and visited similar places, but this is by far the most appalling scenes I have seen… I sympathise fully with all of the displaced persons.”

Several internationally respected organisations concerned about war crimes, and a few mass media journalists, have conducted interviews with internally displaced persons (IDPs), taken or viewed photographs, videos, satellite images—taken surreptitiously during the war—and have read electronic communications and documents from many sources. Some observers have been able to visit a camp or two.

On May 17, one of those organisations, the International Crisis Group, released its report, War Crimes in Sri Lanka. I cite from it:

The Sri Lanka security forces and the LTTE repeatedly violated international humanitarian law during the last five months of their 30-year civil war…from January 2009 to the government’s declaration of victory in May [violations worsened]. Evidence gathered by the International Crisis Group suggests that these months saw tens of thousands of Tamil civilian men, women, children and elderly killed, countless more wounded, and hundreds of thousands deprived of adequate food and medical care, resulting in more deaths.

This evidence also provides reasonable grounds to believe the Sri Lanka security forces committed war crimes with top government and military leaders potentially responsible.

Here is a revealing example of this evidence.

On August 25, 2009, Channel 4 News (UK) broadcast raw footage, one-minute long, showing Sri Lankan government soldiers casually executing eight bound and blindfolded, naked Tamil men, believed to be LTTE combatants. This is a war crime according to all international agreements. Rajapaska’s government denied the authenticity of the photos, apparently taken by a Sri Lankan soldier and provided to Channel 4 through the exiled group of Sinhalese and Tamil journalists, Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka. But internationally renowned forensic experts have validated its authenticity. [Seehttp://jdsrilanka.blogspot.com/2009/12/sri-lankan-execution-video-not-fake.html, http://jdsrilanka.blogspot.com/2010/01/experts-strongly-suggest-that-video-is.html and http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/international_politics/sri+lanka+option/3652687.]

In a recent Channel 4 News broadcast by Jonathan Miller, two eyewitnesses spoke of systematic murder of all LTTE fighters caught or surrendered. One witness is a senior army commander: “Definitely, the order would have been to kill everybody and finish them off.” A frontline Sri Lankan soldier told Miller: “Yes, our commander ordered us to kill everyone. We killed everyone.”

Even the head general in charge of defeating the LTTE, General Fonseka, spoke of having orders from the defence secretary to kill leaders without taking prisoners—“all LTTE leaders must be killed” (see http://www.defenceforum.in/forum/showthread.php/7399-Lanka-Army-killed-surrendering-LTTE-militants-Ex-General).

Returning to the International Crisis Group war crimes report:

Starting in late January [2009], the government and security forces encouraged hundreds of thousands of civilians to move into ever smaller government-declared No Fire Zones (NFZs) and then subjected them to repeated and increasingly intense artillery and mortar barrages and other fire. This continued through May despite the government and security forces knowing the size and location of the civilian population and scale of civilian casualties.

The security forces shelled hospitals and makeshift medical centres—many overflowing with the wounded and sick—on multiple occasions even though they knew of their precise locations and functions. During these incidents, medical staff, the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and others continually informed the government and security forces of the shelling, yet they continued to strike medical facilities through May …

Among the charges that must be investigated, wrote the ICG, is “the recruitment of children by the LTTE and the execution by the security forces of those who had laid down their arms and were trying to surrender.”

Shortly after this report, Amnesty International released its report of torture in 111 countries. Among those Amnesty International condemns for the “politicization of justice” is Sri Lanka’s government. It also criticizes the UN “for its failure to intervene … By the end of the year, despite further evidence of war crimes and other abuses, no-one had been brought to justice”. Amnesty’s secretary general Claudio Cordone said that “one would be hard pressed to imagine a more complete failure to hold to account those who abuse human rights”. (See http://jdsrilanka.blogspot.com/2010/05/amnestys-report-condemns-politicisation.html,
http://thereport.amnesty.org/regions/asia-pacific and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9vb-ORJCgg.)

Some leaders of the Latin American ALBA countries may be under the impression that when Westerners protest about human rights abuse that this reflects the double-speak language of white imperialism, or NGO imperialists. This is sometimes the case. But it is definitely not so with Sri Lanka. None of the Western governments on the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) wished to condemn Sri Lanka. They only condemned the LTTE and simply asked Sri Lanka to look into its own behaviour during the war.

Do not take my word or those of Amnesty International or the International Crisis Group for this assessment alone but look at the conclusions drawn by internationally renowned figures with impeccable solidarity credentials, such as Francois Houtart, who, among other positions, is an honorary professor at the University of Havana. He chaired an 11-judge panel looking into war crimes charges against Sri Lanka’s government and army—the Permanent People’s Tribunal on Sri Lanka (PPT), held in Dublin in January. Among the many supporters of the panel and their conclusions is Miguel D´Escoto, senior advisor to Nicaragua’s president Daniel Ortega. Ironically, Nicaragua is one of the ALBA countries that praised the Sri Lanka government and voted for their resolution at the HRC. The PPT’s conclusions approximate those allegations made by the above-mentioned organisations: Sri Lanka committed “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity”. These conclusions are found on pages 14-15 of the 50-page verdict:

Summing up the facts established before this Tribunal by reports from NGOs, victims’ testimony, eye-witnesses accounts, expert testimony and journalistic reports, we are able to distinguish three different kinds of human rights violations committed by the Sri Lankan Government from 2002 ... to the present:

• Forced “disappearances” of targeted individuals from the Tamil population;

• Crimes committed in the re-starting of the war (2006-2009), particularly during the last months of the war:
• Bombing civilian objectives like hospitals, schools and other non-military targets;
• Bombing government-proclaimed ‘safety zones’ or ‘no fire zones’;
• Withholding of food, water, and health facilities in war zones;
• Use of heavy weaponry, banned weapons and air-raids;
• Using food and medicine as a weapon of war;
• The mistreatment, torture and execution of captured or surrendered LTTE combatants, officials and supporters;
• Torture;
• Rape and sexual violence against women;
• Deportations and forcible transfer of individuals and families;
• Desecrating the dead;

• Human rights violations in the IDP camps during and after the end of the war:
• Shooting of Tamil citizens and LTTE supporters;
• Forced disappearances;
• Rape;
• Malnutrition; and
• Lack of medical supplies
(http://transcurrents.com/tc/2010/01/full_text_verdict_of_the_perma.html and http://www.pptsrilanka.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=109&catid=30&Itemid=36)

Conclusion

I urge ALBA members of the Human Rights Council—Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua—along with their brothers and sisters in Venezuela to recognise an error made when they promulgated Sri Lanka’s own resolution before the HRC and adopted it by the majority, on May 27, 2009 -- Resolution S-11/1, “Assistance to Sri Lanka in the promotion and protection of human rights” (http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=9105&LangID=E).
The self-serving resolution only condemned the LTTE for acts of terror while praising the Sri Lankan government and supporting, naturally, its right to sovereignty. These ALBA countries, along with most members of the Non-Aligned Movement on the HRC, let the entire Tamil people down, especially the internally displaced persons. My assessment is shared by the people’s tribunal in paragraph 5.5

The Tribunal stresses the responsibility of the Member States of the United Nations that have not complied with their moral obligation to seek justice for the violations of human rights committed during the last period of war. After repeated pleas, and in spite of the appalling conditions experienced by Tamils, the UN Human Rights Council and the UN Security Council failed to establish an independent commission of inquiry to investigate those responsible for the atrocities committed due to political pressure exerted by certain Members.

The PPT came to the opposite conclusion that Golinger does on all accounts. The US is not an actor of “aggression” against Sri Lanka’s government, rather it is the case of one war criminal supporting another. The tribunal “highlights the conduct of the European Union in undermining the CFA of 2002. In spite of being aware of the detrimental consequences to a peace process in the making, the EU decided—under pressure from the United States and the United Kingdom—to list the Tamil Resistance Movement [which included the LTTE] as a terrorist organisation in 2006. This decision allowed the Sri Lankan government to breach the ceasefire agreement and re-start military operations leading to the massive human rights violations listed above. The PPT also points to the full responsibility of those governments, led by the United States, that are conducting the so-called “Global War on Terror” in providing political endorsement of the conduct of the Sri Lankan government and armed forces in a war that is primarily targeted against the Tamil people.”

As solidarity activists, we advocate the right to resist and conduct armed struggle once peaceful means fail to induce oppressive governments to engage in a process aimed at justice and equality—such is the case in Sri Lanka with the Tamil people, just as surely as it is in Palestine.

I find that most armed movements commit acts of atrocities, even acts of terror. The struggle for liberation in Cuba was an exception to the rule. Fortunately, it only lasted just over two years. The armed struggle for liberation from Sinhala oppression against another Indigenous group lasted for quarter of a century and, at the end, the LTTE clearly did resort to acts of desperation and terror. Other brave and righteous groups fighting for liberation, for equality and justice, such as Colombia’s FARC and Palestine’s PFLP, have also committed acts of terror. The ANC in South Africa was brutal in its struggle for liberation.
I wonder how I would act in such circumstances!

True solidarity activists have no choice. We must support the Tamil people. Today, they are in disarray. Various tendencies are in formation. But dialogue with them all is what solidarity forces must engage in around the world. One tendency is the new Provisional Transitional Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE), which just constituted itself in Philadelphia. Its coordinator, Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran, is a resident of the United States and an attorney. In February, he filed a suit in the US Supreme Court that would negate parts of the US Patriot Act and allow people to provide “material support or resources” to armed groups fighting for their liberation. Tamil Eelam advocates in the US have associated with the civil rights organisation, Humanitarian Law Project, and along with supporters of the crushed LTTE and the PKK (Kurdish rebels in Turkey) are seeking to legitimise the rights of oppressed minorities to fight for liberation, if necessary with arms when peaceful means are impossible. (See TGTE’s website: http://govtamileelam.org/gov/.)

My main motivation for siding with people who fight against oppression and for liberation is a matter of basic solidarity morality, and an understanding of this is a necessity for suffering people. The basic reason why so many millions of people have respected and loved Che Guevara is because of this moral stance. To back any corrupt, capitalist, genocidal government—albeit in the name of support for “sovereignty”—is not consistent with Che’s and our collective moral stance.

[Ron Ridenour is a veteran activist. Find out more at http://www.ronridenour.com/about.htm.]

Cuba latin america Venezuela national question internationalism Bolivia Asia Nicaragua Sri Lanka Tamils LTTE

We, organizations in Canada that have been working for years in solidarity with the Bolivarian process and have been responding to misinformation against Venezuela and the revolution. We have also been strong admirers of Eva Golinger's standard of investigative journalism and advocacy against imperialism. Today we are compelled to address what appears to be some misinformation in her piece titled 'Sri Lanka', printed in the Correo del Orinoco on Saturday, May 15.

Eva Golinger's article makes a number of claims, including that the Canadian Humanitarian Appeal for the Relief of Tamils (HART) is a front group for the now defunct Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

This is a bold , not to mention dangerous and ultimately false assertion.

As organizations on the ground here in Canada, we know this organization to be largely first generation youth of Tamil origin who have been working tirelessly to educate people on the situation of the 300,000 internally displaced Tamils in Sri Lanka as well as those in forced migration. The charge that Eva Golinger is labelling on them is the same that our own (Canadian) government ... the reactionary government of Stephen Harper ... has been looking to place on them for some time now.

In Canada, where groups like the LTTE are categorized as terrorist -- just as they categorize Hamas in Gaza, the FARC in Colombia and many other groups globally -- carries what could be a lengthy jail sentence. It is disappointing to see such un-validated claims considering Eva Golinger's record of well-researched literature and articles.

Unfortunately, the same claims appear in articles in Sri Lanka such as the article Sri Lanka's The Sunday Times entitled 'Tiger Carcass in Caracas' http://www.sundaytimes.lk/100516/News/nws_05.html and other media sources which re-iterate these false statement in an attempt to cast doubt on the work of these young activists.

Much of this response, both from Eva Golinger's article, and those in Sri Lanka before it, appear to have been prompted by the recent article in Cuidad CCS entitled 'Piden refugio en Venezuela para desplazados tamiles.' http://www.ciudadccs.org.ve/?p=61361 This article is telling in a number of different ways. First of all, it reveals that Canadian HART is in fact engaging in advocacy around Tamil refugees particularly the case of the close to 300 Tamil refugees in Indonesia, as the article makes clear.

Canadian HART has been a participant organization in Frente Norman Bethune ... an internationalist solidarity project which looks to establish people to people solidarity between movements and organizations in Canada and those in Venezuela.

We believe Venezuela represents a hope in our world, a place where the principles of social justice, equality and popular democracy are being struggled for by the people. These are universals which should be available to all people, and the struggle of any people denied these basics are the struggle of all.

Secondly, the deplorable situation of the majority of Tamils in Sri Lanka and the sheer number of civilians killed should give one cause to reconsider the label that Eva Golinger has placed on Sri Lanka. In characterizing the government of Sri Lanka as 'leftist' and a victim of 'imperialism,' she has, unfortunately, overlooked the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people and the 7,000-20,000 Tamil civilians killed in the military offensive of 2009 using Israeli weaponry such as AI Kfir fighter jets and Super Dvora Mk III class patrol vessels.

There was no mention of Rajapaska's statements to TIME Magazine that Sri Lanka "followed what [George W.] Bush said. We accomplished what he wanted: eliminate terrorism. They must give credit to us. We fought their war." Nor is there any consideration for the comments of Sri Lankan Ambassador to the United States, Jaliya Wickramasuriya, when he met with Bush to share his "appreciation of US support to Sri Lanka in its continuing struggle to combat terrorism, especially the pro-active measures taken by the US toward this end."

There are may other facts which dispel the characterization of the Rajapaksa government and state as 'progressive' or 'anti-imperialist.'

We are not LTTE supporters, as it is not our place to tell people who their representatives or spokespeople should be. We are also not telling sovereign governments like Venezuela who they should trade and establish relationships with.

However we are committed to an anti-imperialism that is internationalist, and as such strongly ask Eva Golinger to reconsider her positions and particularly her claims labelled against committed, revolutionary activists whose well-being -- and even lives -- are threatened by such baseless allegations.

In Solidarity,

Barrio Nuevo
Toronto Bolivia Solidarity
Coalicion Venezuela Estamos Contigo
Colombia Action Solidarity Alliance
Grupo Cultural Victor Jara

Submitted by Richard Fidler (not verified) on Fri, 06/11/2010 - 12:16

Permalink

Canadian HART

Ron Ridenour criticizes Eva Golinger for "rumours she started". But, as the statement below notes, the source of her misinformation is the Sri Lankan government.

Ridenour's appeal is predicated in part on his support for continuation of the LTTE armed-struggle strategy and an independent Tamil state in Sri Lanka (TGTE). But continued pursuit of these methods and objectives today would appear to be counterproductive to the cause of Tamil equality and self-determination. Progressive Tamils and Sinhalese are now turning their attention to the (admittedly very) difficult task of rebuilding a progressive Sri Lanka that can successfully integrate Tamils and other minorities while respecting their need for cultural and national autonomy, land rights and local governance.

Ridenour in effect asks the Venezuelan government to break diplomatic and political relations with Sri Lanka. However, an effective answer to Golinger (and to others in Latin America who might be similarly misinformed on the Tamil question and the specific issue that sparked her article) might focus on explaining just what Canadian HART is all about; it is their approach to Venezuela that has provoked the ire of the Sri Lankan embassy and its anti-Tamil campaign. With that in mind, I suggest you publish the following statement issued May 30th by Canadian Humanitarian Appeal for Relief of Tamils (Canadian HART). Although it doesn’t mention Golinger, it is an answer to her.

-- Richard Fidler

Canadian Humanitarian Appeal for Relief of Tamils (Canadian HART) Initiatives in Venezuela

May 30th, 2010

Press Release (http://tinyurl.com/2av9hvx)

(Toronto, ON) - Canadian Humanitarian Appeal for Relief of Tamils (Canadian HART) both condemns and refutes the campaign of misinformation and intimidation being employed by the Sri Lankan government and it's envoy to misrepresent Canadian HART's international solidarity work in Venezuela.

Canadian HART is an independent grassroots humanitarian group organized by Canadian university students and activists in 2008 to educate on the situation of, and advocate for the human rights of the vulnerable displaced Tamil population of Sri Lanka. Canadian HART is an anti-imperialist, anti-oppressive, grass roots, solidarity based, non-partisan human rights organization and is in no way affiliated or connected with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) or the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE). Canadian HART works with and in concert with student and labor unions; human rights NGOs and anti-war activists; anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-poverty organizations; Latin American, Palestinian, and Indigenous solidarity groups; and other grassroots community based organizations.

Canadian HART has recently expanded its work internationally as the situation of the Tamil population within Sri Lanka has deteriorated forcing many Tamil civilians to flee internationally seeking asylum. Currently Canadian HART is working on trying to get recognition and assistance for the plight of Tamil asylum seekers trapped on boat for nearly 9 months and abandoned by the international community. These asylum seekers have now been detained in Indonesian detention centers and face forcible repatriation to Sri Lanka where they face persecution, torture, and death at the hands of the SriLankan state. Canadian HART has specifically approached Venezuela as both admirers of the Bolivarian Revolution and Venezuela's history of providing asylum to Palestinian, Colombian, Saharawi, and other desperate peoples fleeing violence, displacement, and persecution in their homelands.

Furthermore there have been statements made about Sri Lanka which both mislead and misrepresent the state to the Venezuelan public. While we do not wish to judge or prejudice the Venezuelan people’s international relationships, we do feel that they deserve to know the truth.

1. Tamils are not proxies for the CIA or the United States, where the LTTE has been listed as a terrorist organization alongside groups such as the FARC and Hamas, making any kind of support for the organization illegal. Tamil solidarity and human rights activists are often accused by the Sri Lankan state of being LTTE supporters as a tactic to intimidate and persecute activists.

2. Sri Lanka already has several military treaties and trade agreements with the United States allowing the United States military forces to use the island's seaports and airports for military operations. Sri Lanka also purchases large quantities of weapons and training from the United State's proxy, Israel.

3. Sri Lanka is currently run by a coalition of racist Sinhalese ethnic majoritarian parties, from both the left and Far Right, such as the JVP and the JHU, who share common ground in wanting to deny equal rights to minorities of the island. Sri Lanka shares many similarities to Israel's ethnic majoritarian government, not Venezuela. The last elections were marred by violence, intimidation by government backed paramilitaries, militarization and absenteeism in Tamil areas, and hundreds thousands of Tamil civilians being imprisoned in army run concentration camps.

4. Grassroots initiatives such as the People's Tribunal in Ireland and many Humanitarian organizations have begun to demand an accounting for the May 2009 Massacre of 40000 Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan government and we are more than willing to present this as a proof of the genuine need of the Tamil people for asylum and assistance.

5. Nearly 1/3rd of the Sri Lankan Tamil population of 3 million has been forcibly displaced by the Sri Lankan state. There are 370000 Tamil IDPs in Sri Lanka with another 600000 Tamils having fled internationally with hundreds of thousands more in transit or being detained in India presently. 76,568 Vanni IDPs in temporary camps; 93,329 with host families in districts of origin; 1,192 in transit camps in districts of origin (UN RC/HC, 29 April 2010); 197,925 IDPs from before 2006 (UN, August 2009). These statistics do not include thousands of Tamil political prisoners, as young as 11, being detained by the Sri Lankan government.

Through community outreach and media campaigns, Canadian HART seeks to raise awareness about the human rights abuses against the Tamil minority population in Sri Lanka. Working in collaboration with labour unions, student groups, faith-based organizations and community organizations, Canadian HART aims to draw Canadian and international attention to the situation of Tamils in Sri Lanka and to push for an international presence and monitoring of the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka.

For more information please contact Canadian HART at info@canadianhart.org.

Submitted by NATARAJAN (not verified) on Wed, 06/16/2010 - 15:14

Permalink

We,the members of Latin American Friendship Association (LAFA),Tamilnadu,India,wants the ALBA countries to snap their diplomatic ties with the genocidal Srilankan government as they have done in the case of Israel. We strongly feel that ALBA countries have stopped recognising and supporting the genuine national liberation struggle of Eelam Tamils because of their close political and economical links with the emerging south asian super powers China and India. Indian government is a neo-liberal state and a close ally of North America. It has signed many Memorandum Of Understanding(MOUs) with multinationals to loot the mineral resources of the country in the name of development. For protecting the interests of the corporates it is waging a ruthless war against its own people -tribals in orissa,chattisgarh and jharkhand. ALBA countries which are working for building 21st century socialism cannot and should not be silent collobarators with a neo-liberal state like India and genocidal Srilanka When there is a growing International demand to investigate the war crimes committed by SriLanka, India and USA are doing their best to localise the issue . They are supporting the formation of Commission formed by SriLanka to investigate its own crimes. US and India are denying Justice to Eelam Tamils by stopping the issue getting Internationalised. In this context the follwing article published in Tamilnet is very revealing.

http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&artid=31972
Genocidal Colombo gets unlimited chances from US, India
[TamilNet, Monday, 14 June 2010, 23:38 GMT]
"The US and India have a very similar view of the situation in Sri Lanka and the steps that need to be taken,” said US Asst Secretary of State Robert Blake Monday to rediff.com, acknowledging, "We have worked very closely throughout the last several years on the situation in Sri Lanka, and again we have a real convergence of view on how that situation has evolved." Commenting, Tamil circles said the US policy compelled by the geopolitics of the Afghan war is tagged with New Delhi’s perception of the crisis in the island and unless the diaspora and the people of Tamil Nadu are not vigilant Colombo is likely to be encouraged with chances after chances to blunt the national struggle of Eezham Tamils and to complete the genocide. Tamil circles anticipate a long orchestrated plan soon unfolding to hoodwink their national cause as well as to make them economic slaves in their own land.
Robert Blake, considered to be the Obama administration's pointman for South Asia, said that the US had welcomed the steps taken by the Sri Lankan government including the forming of a Reconciliation Commission, and "This Commission should now be given a chance to do its work.”

Accusing the LTTE for the underdevelopment and suffering of the North, Blake said "For example, (programmes for) those who have been released from the camps and to encourage new business development in the north, because that will be critical to enabling stability in that area that has been undeveloped and suffered so much after the LTTE rule of 30 years."

Rediff.com cited Blake saying that the US would coordinate closely with India to resettle the displaced Tamils, to ensure that the power is devolved to new democratic institutions in the north, and "greater respect for the rights of all Sri Lankans."

"We always believe that it's best to have domestic answers to these very serious problems that exist because those in the long run -- if they are credible and independent and really get to the bottom of whatever the issue is -- will be much more acceptable domestically and that's particularly true in a country like Sri Lanka, where there is still some polarisation," Blake said.

Question raised in the Tamil circles is how could ‘new democratic institutions’ evolve among Tamils when there is ‘knowing’ international failure in delivering justice and political solution.

Both the US and India have a blind eye to the long-existing genocide in the island and to the righteousness of the Eezham Tamil national struggle, Tamil circles said.

“If ‘domestic’ answers are the best why have they interfered tilting the balance against the Tamils,” the Tamil circles asked.

“After internationalising the war against the Tamil cause, and some of them even covertly operating in the field itself, they deny internationalising the process of justice and political solution.”

“After the internationalized war they even deny war prisoner status to the militants.”

“The powers in fact want to escape from the war crimes they committed and at the same time enjoy the benefits of the war through the ‘domestic’ card, victimising the victims further and further,” Tamil circles said.

Blake himself is not unaware of the futility of what he is saying, Tamil circles pointed out.

According to rediff.com Blake noted that groups like International Crisis Group and Human Rights Watch and others have been skeptical because "Sri Lanka's record with such commissions in the past has been rather poor and nothing has really ever come of such commissions".

A few days ago, coming hard on the UN and the powers for their modus operandi on Sri Lanka, Edward Mortimer, Chair of the Sri Lanka Campaign Advisory Council said: "Let's remember what R2P is - the responsibility of each sovereign state to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, and the responsibility of all states collectively to take action if a state is unable or unwilling to do so. [...] Yes, Sri Lanka has damaged it. So have Western powers, and Russia."

"But that's no excuse for giving up. We cannot resign ourselves – and I believe the people of the world will not resign themselves - to letting Rwanda, Darfur and Sri Lanka remain the norm of international behaviour," he said.

"The Human Rights Council's treatment of Sri Lanka was even more appalling - instead of condemning the flagrant disregard for humanitarian and human rights law, it ended up congratulating the GoSL on its despicable behaviour. Many members of the Human Council - from the global 'north' and 'south' alike - said they were influenced by the GoSL's promise to set up a credible domestic mechanism to establish accountability."

"Countries such as the US should not be so quick to welcome the GoSL's Commission into Lessons Learnt," cautioned Edward Mortimer.

"Sri Lanka is a test case for the international community. [...] we are told that other countries (such as Burma and Thailand) have indicated they might wish to adopt the 'Sri Lanka option'. [...] All those with moral authority, particularly in Asia and other parts of the developing world, should take a firm stand NOW against this insidious doctrine."

“Currently the Sri Lankan government is portraying itself as the plucky non-aligned, developing country that is standing up to the West and/or the North – the imperialists and neo-colonialists. Sadly this works well today in the theatre of the UN, and of international diplomacy. But many of the countries whose governments have been supporting Sri Lanka are democracies - India, Brazil, South Africa and many smaller countries in the global South. So it's to public opinion and civil society in those countries that we need to take the argument. Do any of these countries have a national debate before they vote at the UN, or before they supply aid and investment to Sri Lanka? They should do, and the peoples of those countries should insist on it," Edward Mortimer, the communication chief of the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, said.

But, powers have their compulsions.

President Barack Obama will be visiting India in November.

Pentagon officials are keen in creating an atmosphere in South Asia so that Pakistan will be free from the fear of India to move the troops massed on the border with India to the western front and help in the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Robert Blake
“We are very encouraged that the Pakistani army has redeployed troops away from the Indian border. We do not see India as a threat to Pakistan and so we would encourage that process to continue,” Robert Blake told rediff.com.

Blake outlined one of the offerings of the US to India: “With respect to the Naxal threat, certainly that's one of the primary threats facing India right now and I know it's a very, very high priority for Prime Minister Singh and Home Minister Chidambaram. At this point, the India government has not requested any assistance from the United States, but certainly we would be prepared to entertain any requests for any assistance, given our fast-rising cooperation on counterterrorism.”

People of Tamil Nadu have to realize that much could be achieved if they show their will power to New Delhi, Tamil circles commented, adding that it is equally important the diaspora keep a vigil on elements hijacking the cause at the instance of the powers.

What the diaspora is doing nowadays is a question asked in the Tamil Nadu circles that look for a lead in supporting what the Eezham Tamils want to achieve in the unfolding scenario.

NATARAJAN,
Latin American Friendship Association (LAFA),
Tamilnadu,India

Submitted by natarajan (not verified) on Wed, 06/23/2010 - 07:29

Permalink

See the response from Tmailnet run by Eelam Tamils.
http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&artid=32010

Venezuela and the 'law of the fishes’
[TamilNet, Sunday, 20 June 2010, 00:18 GMT]
"Instead of making connections with the illegitimate opposition of Sri Lanka, Venezuela should be strengthening the hand of an ally that is also suffering imperial aggressions," says Eva Golinger, a friend of the President of Venezuela and English editor of the Venezuela government newspaper Correo del Orinoco. Writing a feature of factual and perceptual errors, Golinger says, Rajapaksa who is supported by left and communist parties put an end to the LTTE that has strong ties with the CIA. Tamil circles don’t believe that the reputed left-wing writer failed to do her homework on Sri Lanka or on the Eezham Tamil struggle. Instead, they think that in a world where the villains and the heroes are together nowadays, some forces are working on luring Latin America to enter into South Asia from the wrong direction, hanging onto the deceptive red shawl of Rajapaksa soaked in genocidal blood.

Eva Golinger, a Venezuelan-American attorney and writer, is the English editor of the Correo del Orinoco, a paper backed by the Venezuelan government. She became popular for her publication The Chavez Code, which cracked the code of intervention of the United States in Venezuela.
Golinger wrote the piece last month, advising the government to strengthen Rajapaksa regime and not to give any hearing to Eezham Tamils, when some representatives of an organisation called Canadian Hart (Canadian Humanitarian Appeal for Relief of Tamils, a group organized by Canadian university students) visited Venezuela.

A few days before Golinger wrote her opinion, Sri Lankan ambassador in Cuba, Tamara Kunanayakam, rushed to Venezuela to spearhead a diplomatic campaign and misinformation campaign against the struggle of Eezham Tamils.

The ambassador in Latin America, whose Tamil surname is misused in the game of deception, gave an interview last week, denying the existence of a liberation struggle of Tamils, genocide, concentration camps etc in the island. She painted a rosy picture of the Rajapaksa regime, which in her luring words is working for one of the fastest growing economies and “a feeder to rapidly growing China and India,” and thus could become a regional centre and “major gateway to India.”

Tamara Kunanayakam, Sri Lankan Ambassador to Cuba
The blatant lies and outbursts showing the spirit of a newly converted coming from the ambassador, a servant of Colombo and a second generation Sinhalicised Tamil of the Colombo-centric culture, sharing a historical interest in preserving the Colombo-dominated capitalism of the island, can be ignored. Not even the Sinhalese are going to respect what she says.

But, many leftists all around the world were puzzled what made Eva Golinger a well-known anti-imperialist to twist facts and views in favour of an ethnic-chauvinistic state that demonstrated to the world for the first time that a genocidal war could be fought without witnesses and a long-standing national question of a people could be crushed, by having all the imperialists on its side to abet or actively participate.

Golinger, outlining the potentialities and prospects of Sri Lanka in her article, wrote: “Rajapaksa, a Buddhist leader, is supported by a coalition of parties of the left, amongst them the Communist Party. In May 2009, it was able to end the civil war, putting a stop to the armed organization the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).”

“The LTTE has strong ties with the CIA, and Washington negotiated an agreement with them to establish a military base in its country, were they able to get to power. Soon after their defeat, the LTTE established numerous organizations – fronts in different countries around the world, searching to create a 'government in exile' and to be able to isolate the current Government of Sri Lanka. Last week, representatives of one such front, Canadian Hart, passed through Venezuela; he met with government functionaries looking for support in an attempt to weaken relations between the two governments,” was Golinger’s simplified understanding of one of the most complex crises of contemporary world polity.

“Instead of making connections with the illegitimate opposition of Sri Lanka, Venezuela should be strengthening the hand of an ally that is also suffering imperial aggressions,” she concluded.

In fact two months before Golinger writing her article, Sri Lanka’s ambassador Tamara came out with almost identical points on the potentiality, prospects and the US designs involving the LTTE, while addressing Centre for Studies on Asia and Oceania in Cuba, appealing to the audience that Cuba and Sri Lanka are on the same boat in resisting the US imperialism.

As Golinger is considered seriously because of her contribution to Latin America’s anti-imperialist struggle, many leftists cared to come out with responses.

“Eva Golinger’s misinformation endangers exiled Tamils’ fight for freedom,” said five Latin American solidarity groups in Canada in a joint statement.

VHeadline News Editor Patrick J. O'Donoghue
Writing an editorial, VHeadline News Editor, Patrick J.O’Donoghue said, Venezuela president should not take Golinger’s word on the Tamils and should be properly briefed before entering the minefield of Sri Lankan politics.

The USA also drew up an agreement with Sri Lanka for military relations and had declared the Tamil Tigers a terrorist organisation despite the Tigers have been combating the Sri Lanka state dominated by the Sinhalese for decades, he said.

It is not the first time that the Venezuelan President Chavez has been caught out internationally, and it is hoped that his government will study the case of Sri Lanka with care, he further wrote.

The most detailed and extensive response has come from Ron Ridenour, a veteran US born but now Denmark-based leftist and anti-imperialist, who voiced against the US aggression on Cuba in 1961, jailed in the US for his views on several occasions and contributed extensively to the study of Latin America.

Ron Ridenour, a veteran journalist, author and editor, who worked for decades for anti-imperialist ideology with a special focus on Latin American affairs, is author of several books including Cuba Beyond the Crossroads (2006) and Cuba at Sea (2008).
Ron Ridenour hits the bull’s eye, why Golinger brand of anti-imperialism professed for others outside of Latin America differs.

Bringing out her factual errors, explaining how the US supported the genocide of Tamils, revealing how the US which didn’t want to be seen in the forefront operated in the war against the Tamils through Israel, where the Latin American ALBA countries let down Tamils and discussing the war crimes of Sri Lanka, Ron Ridenour says, “Instead of opposing the Yankee Empire, her [Golinger’s] position is allied with imperialist United States and its allies Zionist Israel, the United Kingdom and other former European colonialists, as well as the emerging superpower and worker-exploiter China.”

“As solidarity activists, we advocate the right to resist and the necessity to conduct armed struggle once peaceful means fail to induce oppressive governments to engage in a process aimed at justice and equality—such is the case in Sri Lanka with the Tamil people, just as surely as it is in Palestine. [...] solidarity activists have no choice. We must support the Tamil people.” Ron Ridenour said.

When the Eezham Tamil struggle stood up all alone against all the imperialists of the world, this test case of human civilisation was ignored by the so-called anti-imperialists of the Golinger brand and was allowed to end up in genocide, Tamil circles commented.

Some of the establishments of the anti-imperialists even ganged up in the UN Human Rights to save the Sri Lankan state that received all support from all the imperialists of the world in the war.

Now both the imperialists and anti-imperialists alike want to strengthen the genocidal state of Sri Lanka and want to compete for the dividends coming from the winner.

While on one hand selling the land and resources to the imperialists, by the other, Rajapaksa paints a sympathetic picture to the gullible or the opportunistic ones – ultimately aimed to complete the genocide by hoodwinking the world. An ethnic-majoritarian and totalitarian state strategically located is convenient to corporate colonialism of the imperialists.

The so-called anti-imperialists are playing in the hands of one or the other imperialists competing in Sri Lanka – if not the US then India or China, Tamil circles commented.

When have the anti-imperialists of the Golinger brand started looking at peoples in struggle through the colonially imposed state frame work, just like the establishments of the world, ask Tamil circles.

What is happening in South Asia is the conquest of corporate colonialism enacted by imperialists through what is called ‘Matsyanyaya’ or the ‘law of the fishes’ said in ancient South Asian philosophy, i.e., the big fish eating the small.

The Sinhala state, which is not prepared to recognize the land and sovereignty of Eezham Tamils is now forced to forfeit the entire land and sovereignty to imperialists and is wailing for help. Yet it is adamant to succumb than conceding Tamil rights and strengthening the island.

Why not the anti-imperialists in Latin America tell Sri Lanka to first resolve the national question?

India was a partner to Sri Lanka in crushing the Tamil national struggle and now may be getting the returns. But the US is there now pressing for corporate interests in India including in educational institutions.

If the anti-imperialists want the law of the fishes not to become the law of the humans then they have to start from the lowest level of the chain. They should demonstrate what could be done for the Eezham Tamils. Handling imperialism at the state level, either at the Sri Lanka level or at the India level will not give confidence to the masses in countering imperialism.

If the Latin American anti-imperialists are really ignorant of what is happening in Sri Lanka and what is righteous about the struggle of Eezham Tamils, then it is a serious matter for the perusal of Eezham Tamil activists and leftists among Tamils.

TamilNet has been long cautioning political organisation efforts of Eezham Tamils not only to maintain independence in organising polity but also to be transparently seen as independent.

The leftists among Eezham Tamils and in Tamil Nadu have a noble role in telling the outside world why the liberation of Eezham Tamils is a test case for contemporary human civilisation. They have a responsibility in shaping the struggle and in seeing that it gets the due status.

Many Eezham Tamils have noticed with pain that the current reality about the trajectory of their struggle has not even gone to the academics and intellectuals in North India, when they encounter questions from learned North Indians that 'what should now worry the Eezham Tamils since the LTTE is no more.'

External Links:
VHeadline:
 
Editorial: Eva Golinger and the Tiger Tamils
RonRidenour.com:
 
Backing the Wrong Side: Eva Golinger's Tamil Libel
Dissidentvoice:
 
Ron Ridenour: Eva Golinger Misinterprets Solidarity
Daily Mirror:
 
Interview with Tamara Kunanayakam, Ambassador of Sri Lanka to Cuba
SLMFA:
 
Tamara Kunanayakam: Sri Lanka, Geostrategic Importance, Present Situation And Challenges Ahead
HandsOffVenezuela:
 
Sri Lanka: English translation of Eva Golinger's original article
VHeadline:
 
Eva Golinger's misinformation endangers exiled Tamils' fight for freedom
HandsOffVenezuela:
 
Sri Lanka and Venezuela - A Debate
CanadianHART:
 
Press statement by Canadian HART
 

With regards,
Natarajan,
Latin American Friendship Association(LAFA)
Tamilnadu,India

Submitted by lingam (not verified) on Sun, 06/26/2011 - 00:03

Permalink

The sinhala Aryans who belive in their racial and budhist religious superiority cannot be socialists.The sinhalese have been the traditional allies of the American imperialism at one time they were very keen to allow the US to set up a naval base in Trincomalee which is the proposed Capital of Tamil Eelam -the independent state the Tamils are fighting to achive.

Tamils look up to leaders like castro,Che and Chaves as role models that is why I belive the sinhala leaders of srilanka are carrying out the biggest mis information campaign in Latin america.

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