Outright defeat or marginalization of the tamil tigers would provide Sri Lanka an important opportunity to re-build the nation. Currently the majority of tamils live in government controlled areas in which the majority Sinhalese treat them as would anyone else. As a long term resident of Sri Lanka, I have been a neutral observaer of the conflict and am hopeful of a military success for the Sri Lankan armed forces against the tamil tigers, for the sake of the peace-loving tamils who have lived in abject fear for far too long.

 

At times of increased tension due to terrorist attacks by tamil tigers, young male tamils are known to be subjected to increased scrutiny by the Sri Lankan police also. This is with a focus on any new faces in any area when terrorist attacks take place, which has yielded the Sri Lankan law enforcement agencies vital clues in combatting terrorism. These random checks have also prevented the tigers from being able to carry out major attacks on civillians settlements since anywhere between 50 to 200 of their trained suicide bombers have been neutralized by the Sri Lankan intelligence agencies in the past one year. This unfortunately allows the overseas tamil diaspora to claim human rights violations, and their supporters in nordic nations seem to support these claims without much hesitation. It is about time that the world understood a fundamental truth; Suicide bombers cannot be afforded the same rights that ordinary people are entitled to. Simply because Sri Lankans are brown skinned, they are people too and have the same right to protect their families as do any western nation. We do not need to wait until dormant tamil terrorists who have been infilterated into our cities start blowing themselves up, to realize this truth. The learning from Sept 11, 2001 is that we need to take the initiative before the terrorist does.   

 

Sri Lanka has a history in which the tamils appear to have been treated as second class citizens and even with discrimination by the majority. But in my over twenty years of association with this nation, I have observed greater contempt among tamils for their own kin, based on the dictates of the Hindu religious based caste system as well as a regionalism which only a Sri Lankan would be able to explain clearly. The tamils of northern Jaffna consider all others inferior, treat eastern tamils with contempt and the estate based tamils of Indian origin even less. In sinhalese areas, the greater population's tolerant nature tends to mellow the impact of the northern tamils' hatred for other. However, particulary in tamil dominated areas, the same centuries old discriminatory systems still prevail.

 

Finally, the war started with a claim of discrimiantion by the majority against the minority tamils, over 30 years ago. However, the Sri Lankan Sinhalese that are being targetted by the tamil tigers are of a younger generation and are not responsible for whatever may have been committed by an earlier generation. Similarly, the present day tamil tiger youth have never experienced any discrimination in the hands of a sinhalese, for the majority of them have never lived in close proximity with the majority. If they did, the Sinhalese' inclusive and tolerant culture would have made them think differently and challenge the vicious inaccuracies of the tamil tigers'  racist propaganda. For this reason, the tamil tigers recruit tamil kids who've never had any experience living with any other ethnic group and mind-bend them into accepting their falsely concocted victim-mentality. The big losers of this game of course have been the tamils themselves, as a cursory study of Sri Lanka's contemporary history shows; the tamil tigers are responsible for the over 70,000 deaths this war has caused, majority of them tamil and slaughtered by the tigers themselves.

 

No matter what the reasons behind this tragic war are, it is about time for the world to help the present day Sri Lankans, who have proven to be stubborn committed to democraticy, a chance to eradicate the senseless terror which has devastated two generations. The tamil tigers are a menace not only to Sri lanka, but to the entire world as a whole and their eradication cannot be an arguable point any further.  

Wel well Mr Harvey (if that is even your name...you sound very Sinhalese to me) you certainly get around peddling your false propaganda don't you.

 

 

So Tamils in the south are treated just like everyone else eh? Wonder why all these human rights bodies, the UN, the EU, the US of A, etc are clamouring for human rights investigations in the failed Sinhalese state of Sri Lanka. There are over 1,500 disappearances of Tamils in the island, nearly all Tamil and nearly all from Government controlled areas. Is this what you want Tamils to just lie down and take, so sorry we refuse.

 

Why is it that the armerd forces who are responsible for all these outrages, such as the masacre of 17 aid workers (16 Tamils and 1 muslim) are 99% Sinhalese?

 

Stop your lying you can't get away with it anymore, maybe the docile Sinhalese fanboys here think you are some hero but we see right through your charade and your job just got a little harder.

 

What Tamils call "discrimination", is the end of the favouritism and advantaged positions they enjoyed under the British. The term "discrimination" is just a play on words, a catch phrase to invoke memories amongst the Western world of in order to win sympathy and mask the real issue at hand. (Other catch phrases include "oppression", "fight for our right" and "freedom fighters").

 

Sri Lanka's problems start before Independence in 1948. Conveniently everyone looks at Sri Lanka from 1948 onwards, which is of course the best way to blame the entire situation today solely on the Sinhalese.

 

During the 400 years of colonialism the Sinhala Buddhist majority was horrifically discriminated against Buddhism and Sinhala were unofficially banned; Buddhist temples and schools were destroyed and European ideology and religion was dumped into the island as replacement. The Sinhala masses had their land taken away from them had no rule or control over their lives and were reduced into a bunch of Serfs in their own country. Tamils were brought in, en mass, as labourers ever willing to work for the British (so as to spite their own kind, in India and SriLanka).

Through the now well known practice of divide and conquer implemented by the Colonial rulers, Tamils were favoured, had all the wealth, the jobs and disproportionate amount of power. The Tamils leaders of the times who had all these privileges at the expense of the Sinhala masses saw no problem with such an arrangement.

 

When Independence came, this situation reversed, (which is what would be expected from any responsible democratically elected government). This is what Tamils call "discrimination", it was the end of the favouritism and advantaged positions they enjoyed under the British. Tales of "discrimination" by Tamils in the post independent era are bogus.

 

Up to 1981 during the so called years of "discrimination" 30% of all government jobs, and all professional jobs were held by Tamils, 2 out of the countries 9 universities were exclusively for Tamils. The Tamil minority in Sri Lanka was considered the wealthiest and best of minority communities in the world. Just have a look at how Tamils are treated in Malaysia, and how other minority communities are treated elsewhere. Tamils had it all. Have a look: http://www.spur.asn.au/facts.htm

 

Since Independence, everything in Sri Lanka from bill boards to road sign, soap bars to mosquito coils, and every Government document has been done in all three languages. Nowhere else in the world is such a thing done to for a 10% minority by any majority.

 

Just look at the Sri Lankan passport. It is the only passport in the world to have Tamil in it, whats ironic is to see ungrateful racist Tamils fly off to Western countries using this passport - as it automatically guarantees these refugees visas in any Western country of their choice- immediately join the anti Sinhala bandwagon upon arrival at said Western country and pump as much money as they can to their friends in the Vanni to fuel the war they are supposedly escaping from in order to kill the people that gave them the passport so they can stay in their NEW homeland and make more money as all aspects of life, including all jobs where the pay and quality of life is a 1000x better than in the Tamil homeland which they are funding using this money. Of course most of them do not have jobs and live off social benefits, which they also abuse along with other criminal activities.

 

Tamils harp on about 1956 as the cause of al their problems. People seem to forget that SWRDs Language Act (which is what it was actually called but lost during the decades of Tamil propaganda) had special provisions introduced by 1959 to ensure that Tamil was used in Tamil majority areas.

In only very few places in the world is such a thing done. So what was the problem?

 

Remember it was GG Ponnambalam who demanded a Tamil State in 1919, and again in 1921. In 1947 he demanded 50-50 power "sharing" where Sinhalese who make up 80% of the population would be lowered into a minority, which is racist and plain unfair. All this happened prior to 1956

 

Remember it was S.J.V. Chelvanayakam who demanded an autonomous "federal" unit, for the creation of a Tamil only North and East (this racist demand is still there and still being vigorously fought for by all Tamils groups, e.g. the TULF/NTA, EPDP,TMVP and LTTE) back in 1947 when he was in the All Ceylon Tamil Congress, again this too happened PRIOR to Independence and 1956.

 

Remember S.J.V. Chelvanayakam's "Federal Party" which in Tamil was called Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi, when translated this comes to Ceylon Tamil State Party. Chelvanayakam's and his

Sorry i forgot to add, my above comment was meant in response for Ron Harvey and the other Tamil individual.

The truth is that that nationalistic feeling and importance/favouritism to your own race is what drives them all to support the LTTE indirectly or directly, because they all believe in the LTTE ideology of a Tamil Nation, which is what the LTTE hopes to achieve. Tamil no doubt enjoy that nationalistic sentiment which would come from such an achievement. 
Besides who would you believe more who would support more? the one who speaks your language and is of your ethnicity and religion, or the one who is not?

 
This is the problem. Tamils believe and spread what is favourable to them, what puts them in good light. They are unwilling to criticise themselves and find fault in themselves. On the other hand Sinhalese are. This is what separates us, and this difference (along with our willingness to accept our mistakes, correct them and show compassion to our sworn enemies who at any available opportunity would strike us, to only be forgiven again) is exploited by Tamils for the aforementioned nationalist feelings of Tamils and their desire for status in the world, not just in Sri Lanka. Tamils seem to have some giant inferiority complex (go figure..) and this is the primary driving force behind their nationalism and search for superior status from living a first class life in the West, to being given disproportional wealth/power and holding control over someone else, being "above" them in some manner. This is also why Tamils in the rest of the world, also want a Tamil Nation to be carved out of Sri Lanka.

 
Why have they NOT once said "we were wrong", we "made a mistake"? Why are they not willing to move on? Why do they always make excuses and use poor reasoning to proclaim that what they started was right, when it was wrong, racist and unfair.