United States and UNHRC could pontificate:

Sri Lanka practises what it preaches

by K. M. H. C. B. Kulatunga

Genocide, acts against mankind, human rights violations and accountability are some of the popular words used by certain countries in the West to intimidate Sri Lanka. They attempt to use these slogans as and when they like to intimidate countries or regimes which do not dance to the tune of the West.

We hear these words used enough and more on a regular basis during the ongoing United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) sessions now in progress in Geneva. But none of those so-called champions of human rights have ever uttered a word against numerous human rights violations by the now defunct LTTE terrorist organisation.

Massive bomb explosions carried out by the Tiger terrorists for over two decades were not even mentioned by the West, including the US, which now show an undue hurry in implementing the recommendations of the LLRC. They seem to be worried only about the human rights of a terrorist outfit, forgetting the very same of thousands of hapless civilians who had been brutally assassinated by the LTTE.

While certain countries in the West talk of genocide and human rights, we would like to remind them the genocide of Muslims by LTTE.

One classic example was the massive bomb attack which targeted Holy Prophet’s birthday celebrations in Godapitiya, Akuressa, exactly three years ago. \

Fourteen people were killed in the indiscriminate bomb attack as the LTTE targeted civilians attending the national Milad-un-Nabi celebration held at the mosque in Akuressa on March10, 2009.

The festival marking the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed is celebrated as a national festival in Sri Lanka.

Minister Mahinda Wijesekara who was also attending the celebration suffered serious injuries in the explosion.

The sources added that another 46 people with injuries were admitted to the government hospital in Matara and elsewhere.

Five other government ministers; AHM Fowzie, Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, Pandu Bandaranaike, Chandrasiri Gajadeera and Minister Amir Ali had narrow escapes. Among the deceased and injured were several local government representatives.

The West is acutely aware that the LTTE had been a ruthless terrorist outfit which had showed no mercy to humans. The LTTE is still a banned terrorist outfit in the US, Canada, UK, India and the European Union. But several countries in the same region show extraordinary sympathy to human rights of terrorists, rather than that of innocent civilians.

Led by Velupillai Prabhakaran, the world’s most ruthless terrorist outfit had slaughtered tens of thousands of innocent civilians during its three decades of terror campaign. But the definition of terrorism becomes a different one when it come from West to this part of the globe.

The LTTE had been engaged in a systematic and brutal ethnic cleansing campaign against Muslims and Sinhalese living in the North and Eastern Provinces in its fanatical attempt to create an ethnically pure Tamil province.

Muslims and Sinhalese who had been living in the North and the East were forcibly chased away to other parts of the country. That is precisely why the LTTE stormed into many Muslim and Sinhala villages in the two provinces and went on the rampage with their brutal killings.

Aren’t those acts against mankind, genocide of Muslims and Sinhalese, human rights violations of innocent civilians? Aren’t those more important issues that should be discussed at the UNHCR? If the US is genuinely concerned about human rights, these are the issues that they should have raised at the highest levels and given top priority.

But they had been totally blind to all those inhuman acts of the LTTE and now try to preach us on human rights violations and reconsolidation.

All peace loving people should condemn in the strongest possible terms the LTTE suicide bomb attacks, which included that inhuman attack at Muslim festival of Prophet Mohamed’s birthday at a procession of a mosque. The attack reaffirms the fact that the LTTE is not only a ruthless terrorist outfit but also one which has no regard or respect for religion. This is an attack that deliberately targeted the Muslim community and one that has sought to sow ethnic and religious disharmony.

The attack reminds us of the LTTE’s massacre of more than 200 Muslims at worship in three mosques at Kaththankudy and Eravur in the East, in August 1990. Selecting a Muslim shrine and a day sacred to Muslims, both in Sri Lanka and the world over, to carry out this type of an attack, underscores the hatred the LTTE has towards the Muslim population of Sri Lanka, who have suffered considerably under its policies of ethnic cleansing both in the North and East.

The LTTE had been making a big hue and cry that they represent the Tamil-speaking people in Sri Lanka. But the way they had treated their Tamil-speaking fellow Muslims proves that the LTTE had only been interested in gaining their political objectives. The indiscriminate attack on Muslims at the Kaththankudy mosque is ample proof that they had not cared for other minority.

Terrorism knows no religious sanctity, nor does it care for lives of infants, children, women and clergy.

This was once again proved when LTTE terrorists cold-bloodedly butchered 147 Muslim devotees, praying in mosques in the pre-dominantly Muslim town of Kaththankudy, in the East.

The massacre at Kaththankudy that shook the nation and drew worldwide condemnation was meticulously pre-planned and executed in secrecy by Tiger terrorists who had disguised themselves as Muslim prayers and entered the Meera Jumma and Husseinia mosques when hundreds of devotees were attending Friday Isha prayers. Why did the UN turned a Nelsonian eye to all those brutal killings.

None of the countries in the West, at least the US which now show a big undue hurry on reconciliation process in Sri Lanka, ever uttered a word against these indiscriminate killings, especially the Muslims. None of them ever thought of bringing any resolution to tame the LTTE and liberate those innocent civilians.

But it was President Mahinda Rajapaksa who faced the challenge and gave that relentless political leadership to the Security Forces to liberate over a half a million people from the clutches of the LTTE terror.

The US or the UNHRC could preach enough and more and pontificate anything they like. But the people in Sri Lanka know that they only had the protection of Sri Lanka’s valiant Security Forces, not the US or the UN. It is the legitimate duty of the Government to protect its people and the President, as the Commander-in-Chief merely exercised this with the support of the Security Forces.

No country or international organisation should preach us on reconciliation and national harmony.

We are a country which has respected human rights even when the countries in the West invaded other countries by killing thousands of human beings.

If the UK could ever remember how they treated Sinhalese villages when they invaded Sri Lanka in 1800s, they should feel ashamed of to talk on human rights.

In this context, Sri Lanka, from its ancient days, has always practised what it preaches. The West should stop targeting Sri Lanka and should allow us to make our own reconciliation process without forcing us any timeframes.