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What greater act of enmity and/or treachery can one country commit towards another other than by arming, equipping and training a gang of disgruntled citizens of that country to commit mass murders of residents of the latter country, regardless of their ages, genders, ethnicity and/or religious persuasions and to destroy the property of that country? While doing so is sufficiently vile and despicable, how much worse would it be when that country engages in such conduct while having the gumption to falsely proclaim its undying love and affection for, and its centuries old ties of alleged close `friendship’ with that country?
The time is now opportune for Sri Lanka to examine the conduct of India when both our country and our people are being specifically targeted and attacked by and at the behest of the twin clowns of Tamil Nadu, Karunanidhi and Jayalalitha for the only reason that both of them hope, by doing so they could inveigle the gullible voters of Tamil Nadu to vote for them.
The litany of Indian treachery towards Sri Lanka in living memory is indeed long and bespeaks human greed, cruelty and hypocrisy to a degree that is surely unimaginable in a civilised country.
First, there was the unbelievably vile and equally contemptible conduct of India in equipping, training and arming gangs of Sri Lankan Tamil thugs to commit a variety of acts of terrorism against us both on our soil and outside.
Let not India, Karunanidhi or Jayalalitha with their limitless hypocrisy coupled with mendacity, say or suggest, directly or indirectly that their conduct was motivated by their love for the Sri Lankan Tamils, who according to them, were being suppressed, discriminated against and at the receiving end of a variety of atrocities at the hands of our Government [of whatever political colouration] and the Sinhalese people. I say so because, inter alia, among the victims of the terrorism exported to us by India were Tamils and Moors of all ages, both genders and all walks of life, the most affected being the Tamils, and neither India nor Jayalalitha nor Karunanidhi made even a statement condemning the Tamil terrorists for such conduct.
Today, Jayalalitha and the People of Tamil Nadu at her behest are said to be bemoaning and furious at Sri Lanka for the tragic plight of Prabhakaran’s younger son Balachandran who was alleged by them, without a hint of credible evidence, to have been murdered in captivity by our Army. However, none of these `worthies’, raised a whimper of protest when the LTTE was murdering whole villages of Sinhalese and Moors including, not merely young children like Balachandran but even infants in arms. As far as our hypocritical persecutors are concerned, the Sinhalese and Moors of Sri Lanka are clearly the “children of a lesser God”. Despite their patently fraudulent and equally deafening protestations about their concern for the Tamils of Sri Lanka, none of them raised a whimper of protest when Sinhalese, Tamils ,Moors and members of other ethnic groups were indiscriminately `butchered’, (some murdered and others maimed) by Tamil terrorists exploding bombs and other explosive devices in crowded city centres. They did not even protest when the Indian Army of Occupation in Sri Lanka [fraudulently called the “Indian PEACE KEEPING Force”] committed bestial atrocities on Tamil civilians in the Northern Province including murdering sick Tamil civilians lying in bed in the Jaffna General Hospital. Nor did they raise even a whimper of protest about the conduct of the LTTE kidnapping little Tamil children of and about the age of Balachandran for slave labour in their terrorist cadres, abducting Tamil adults for ransom and extorting from them, their hard-earned money in the guise of collecting `taxes’.
Today, when, despite the efforts of India and these self-proclaimed `lovers of the Tamils’, terrorism has been eliminated, the atrocities perpetrated on Tamil civilians of all ages and genders by the Tamil terrorists who were protégés of India ended, and relative peace prevails throughout Sri Lanka, Tamil fishermen from Tamil Nadu are making conscious and deliberate efforts to cause starvation among the Tamil and Moor fisherman of the North and East of Sri Lanka by trespassing upon our territorial waters and stealing their means of livelihood, which enables them to feed and clothe their families that include children of and about the age of Balachandran, namely, the fish they would otherwise have caught from our territorial waters. What is worse is that not content with not condemning these thieves and modern tormentors of the Tamils of Sri Lanka, those thieves actually receive support from the Central Government of India as well as from that of Tamil Nadu and the likes of Jayalalitha and Karunanidhi.
They receive such support, not because the Central Government of India, the State Government of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalitha, Karunanidhi or Sonia Maino’s `gofer’, Manmohan Singh have any affection for thieves and burglars in general, and would raise cain if some thieves robbed them of their property, but because they are addicted to power and they need the votes of the people of Tamil Nadu so badly that it matters not to them or any of them what atrocities are committed by such thieves on the Tamils of Sri Lanka provided they get the votes of the people of Tamil Nadu.
It was doubtless for the same or similar reasons that they countenanced with a deafening silence, the unbelievable atrocities committed on the Tamils of Sri Lanka by the so-called IPKF and their own protégés, the Tamil terrorists of Sri Lanka.
In between these acts of consummate enmity and treachery, India forcibly and illegally prevented us from defeating the LTTE and ridding our country of terrorism 26 years ago and thereby caused multitudes of our citizens to be murdered and maimed, and billions of rupees worth of our property to be destroyed. Thereafter they forced us to enact the13th Amendment to the Constitution, the continued existence of which in our Statute Book could only cause the entire collapse and disintegration of our country which even India's protégés, the Tamil terrorists could not achieve.
Not content with committing those acts of enmity against Sri Lanka and its citizens of all ethnic groups, in a feat of virtually unparalleled demagoguery, Jayalalithaa has, among other things, compelled the Central Government of India to stop training Officers of our Armed Forces in military establishments in Tamil Nadu; forbidden and prevented our sportsmen from participating in international sporting events in Tamil Nadu; cancelled an Asian Athletics Meet that was to be held in Tamil Nadu because Sri Lankans would be among the participants therein; caused, condoned or encouraged physical assaults on Sri Lankan citizens including pilgrims and even Buddhist Monks as well as on Sri Lankan property in Tamil Nadu.
The last straw has been Jayalalithaa’s edict to the organisers of the IPL forbidding them from staging any match in Tamil Nadu in which a Sri Lankan is a player, umpire or participant in any other capacity, and IPL’s tame compliance with that edict.
We have, so far, stomached the acts of overt enmity committed against us by India as well as by Tamil Nadu and the likes of Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi, maintaining the hoary myth that India was, and is our age old friend and `elder brother’. This pusillanimous and sycophantic attitude of our Governments of all political colourations who followed the path of least resistance has only caused India’s and Tamil Nadu’s acts of enmity against us to increase.
However, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. It would appear that India too has, even belatedly realised this fact and seeks to `buy’ us out with offers of aid and more trade. We must not, however be beguiled by these `honey traps’ and both realise and act according to the proven fact that India is our enemy.
Mere speeches, rhetoric, devices aimed at `face saving’ such as making ridiculous statements such as that made by Aluthgamage that none of our players would be allowed to participate in the IPL unless the BCCI guarantees their safety and by Muralitharan that Jayalalithaa’s edict and IPL’s tame compliance with it resulting in all Sri Lankan cricketers playing in the IPL being dropped from their respective teams for the matches to be played in Tamil Nadu do not connote the end of the world, just will not do. It is now time for action. We being a civilised people, I do not suggest that we should even dream of assaulting Indians or damaging their property. However, we cannot take these continuous attacks on our country and our people lying down: we must take some meaningful action in keeping with our dignity as a civilised people.
I make two suggestions:-
Firstly Sri Lanka must stop purchasing/importing Indian goods and issue an explicit `Travel Advisory’ advising our people against visiting India. We are, no doubt, a small and impoverished country, but we must be the largest or one of the largest importers of Tata and Maruti vehicles in the world. Such a halt to purchasing/importing Indian goods must surely hurt, sorely, the Indian economy. As for us, we could doubtless purchase/import our vehicular requirements from elsewhere. China comes to mind immediately as a possible source.
Secondly, our cricketers must, as correctly suggested by Arjuna Ranatunga MP [with whose politics I do not agree], boycott the IPL which appears determined to treat our cricketers as second class players. Such a boycott will doubtless cause a tremendous financial loss to such cricketers. However, they must always bear in mind the fact that it was our country that gave them the opportunity of gaining such financial rewards, that they are already being very highly remunerated by our country, but for which and the opportunities given by which, they, or most of them would have been eking out a living in some small and insignificant jobs.
Money, no doubt is important and very important at that. However the country and principle are immeasurably more important. Our cricketers who are now National Icons must not on any account, go down the Gadarene Slope like those senior lawyers who, having exhorted the Judges of the Supreme Court not to recognise the person appointed to replace Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake [whom we (I was one of those who made that exhortation) described as being a `Usurper) as Chief Justice and not to sit on any Bench with him, now appear before him regularly without any shame or compunction.
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