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Canadian Tamils feel marginalized and muzzled
Sunday, 5 November 2006 - 12:13 PM SL Time
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With no sanctions imposed against Sri Lanka (by Canada), the ban has only strengthened Sri Lanka`s hand to subject more civilians to state terrorism, to try gaining more territory, and to impose an economic blockade to starve and kill the Tamil people - Sri Skanda-Rajah
Tamil Canadians number around 300,000, most arriving from Sri Lanka following the genocide of July 1983. Tamils are by nature enterprising and hard working and they invest heavily in education. They have swelled the professional and business ranks demonstrating a commitment to Canada`s growth and prosperity.
However, empathy for Tamils has been destroyed by sections of the media displaying an anti-Tamil bias in their regurgitated reports instigated by Sri Lankan propaganda. The media have ignored an indisputable outpouring of grief by Canadian Tamils at the burgeoning disappearances and killings of civilians at the hands of Sri Lankan state forces, even during ceasefire.
When 4,000 Tamils gathered outside Parliament in Ottawa on May 28 and 30,000 gathered the following day in Mel Lastman Square to protest the rapidly escalating violence against Tamils in Sri Lanka, the media ignored them.
In April, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day bypassed debate in Parliament and decided in Cabinet to list the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a proscribed organization in Canada. He actually implemented a plan proclaimed through his website for years.
With no sanctions imposed against Sri Lanka, the ban has only strengthened Sri Lanka`s hand to subject more civilians to state terrorism, to try gaining more territory, and to impose an economic blockade to starve and kill the Tamil people.
With this ban, Canada has shown a callous disregard for the suffering of Tamil civilians and tilted the balance in favour of Sri Lanka in the peace negotiations, hindering Canada`s ability to be an honest broker.
Apparently the decision to ban was influenced by a report by Human Rights Watch, and 100 affidavits alleging extortion of funds for LTTE. The report relied on 12 interviews with known agents of the Sri Lankan paramilitary and those holding personal grudges against the LTTE, all networking in the Diaspora. The affidavits have not resulted in any prosecutions so far.
Canadian Tamils feel marginalized, muzzled and denied their democratic right to express displeasure at the Canadian government. Tamils fear they have lost their right to fundamental freedoms of conscience, thought, belief, opinion, expression, peaceful assembly and association enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Canadian Tamils have become victims of racial profiling and stereotyping as `Tamil Tiger terrorists,` even in schools and by police.
The terrorism label attached to the LTTE has made Canadian Tamils fearful of expressing their objections to the government`s decision. Most Tamils consider LTTE members to be freedom fighters and heroes.
Tamils see an urgent need to educate Ottawa about the tragedy that`s been unfolding ever since Sri Lanka`s independence from Britain in 1948.
While previous European colonizers, the Portuguese (1505?1658) and the Dutch (1659?1796), maintained separate administrations for the distinctly different Sinhalese and Tamil nations, Britain arbitrarily imposed a unified administration over the island. This left behind a unitary constitution that ensured a perpetual stranglehold on power by the Sinhalese nation.
There were no safeguards for the Tamils and no chance for the Tamils to have decision-making and legislative powers or be part of the governing process, let alone live with security in their own homeland in the northeast or any other part of the island.
Britain chose to abandon the Tamils, preferring to secure from the Sinhalese a concession to station the British Navy`s Indian Ocean fleet in the island`s deep water natural harbour in Trincomalee.
Successive majoritarian Sri Lankan governments have employed every imaginable measure to eliminate the Tamil nation and transform the island into a Sinhalese-Buddhist state. They have used the legislature, the law courts, the police and the armed forces to pursue the cultural, linguistic, economic, educational, territorial and even physical demise of the Tamil nation. By using the 6th amendment to the constitution to block debate on an autonomous Tamil Eelam they have taken the freedom struggle to another dimension: armed resistance.
Sri Lanka invests billions to pull the international community to join in maligning and demonizing the LTTE that administers a `de facto` state in the Vanni (area in the north of the island), only because the LTTE has to date unflinchingly carried out the unanimous democratic mandate known as the `Vaddukoddai Resolution` passed in 1976; a well-reasoned call for an independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam to defend the rights of Tamils to self-preservation and self-determination.
Had the international community not been influenced by vested interests, taken timely action to stop the human rights abuses and deliver freedom and justice to the persecuted Tamils, the need to protect the Tamil homeland with arms could have been avoided.
Canada should demonstrate moral leadership by forcing Sri Lanka to reach a political settlement reflecting Tamil aspirations, freeing it from sustaining an economically disastrous and unwinnable war.
Canadian Tamils want their motherland to be freed.
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Source(s)
• The Toronto Star
• Submitted By: AnuD
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Pera
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5 Nov 2006 08:14:29 GMT Report for Abuse
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Canadian Tamils want their motherland to be freed.
Freed from what?? Is USA attacking Canada or freed from the Queen...
Oh yes..now I remeber, officially Canada is a colony of UK. Our good old Tamil guys fighting against English occupation in Canada!
Cheers
PERA |
Stripes
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5 Nov 2006 09:30:03 GMT Report for Abuse
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They want their homeland to be freed from so called 'Academics' of hell (who talks from their backside) who are hell bent on promoting racism and living in denial.
cheers |
shan
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5 Nov 2006 11:55:04 GMT Report for Abuse
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AnuD
What prompted you to submit this article? I 'm really confused. |
vinivida
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5 Nov 2006 12:03:25 GMT Report for Abuse
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AnuD
What prompted you to submit this article? I 'm really confused.
I'm too! Did thangachchi tigeress19 spike your drink? |
vinks
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5 Nov 2006 12:06:16 GMT Report for Abuse
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Before the canadian tamils agitate for the tamil freedom just
ASK YOURSELF
what freedom has LTTE given to the Tamil under LTTE control other than taking away all known freedom!
ASK YOURSELF
why 450,000 tamils have fled to the safety of the south and probably none from the south to the north? If there is no freedom why have they moved to the south?
IS SO WHY DON'T THEY ASK THE LTTE TO RESTORE TAMIL FREEDOM FIRST???????
Consider the following....
..'Tamils open mouth only to eat'- Nirmala Rajasingham
.....'LTTE has brought only misery to tamils'-Richard Boucher _US under secretary
.....'People live like slaves in Vanni'-A'sagaree
....'Vanni is a giant torcher chamber'- international media
...They have killed more than 700 political opponents since CFA. No body can have a opposing view which is not compatible with gr. 8 drop out and a barber
...Biggest killers of tamils in the conflict
....Students forced to undergo training if they are to sit exams. Most are perished on the alter of self determination. More than 6000 before CFA have died..
...5368 forced/abducted child recruits since '02 ( UNICEF)
... hands chopped off the voter ( not even animal rights to tamils !!)
... No freedom of expression, opposition, demonstration. People are reduced to puppets...
... Economy destroyed. 'Back to bullock cart age'
.. education systematiclly destroyed. Principals killed. Parents scared to send kids to school for the fear of abduction..
...Golden chance to acheive peace was destroyed by preventing voting. Why? as they are never interested in peace and would like tamils to suffer eternally...
the list is endending...
SO WHY DON'T THEY FIRST ASK THE LTTE TO RESTORE ALL TAMIL FREEDOM AND FREE TAMILS FROM ALL MISARY ?????? |
Achilles
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5 Nov 2006 13:42:47 GMT Report for Abuse
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Piques and peeves of a Canadian Tiger enthusiast
- Satchi Sithananthan with files from Siva Sunderam in Toronto
We were directed by our Canadian correspondent to the feature above written by Sri B Sri Skanda-Rajah in today?s issue of The Toronto Star, one of Canada?s prestigious national dailies. Naturally the contents shocked us at the scurrilous reportage he indulged in the feature with scant attention to ground realities in Sri Lanka.
This feature is a tragic example of the kind of mischievous information that is being freely spread among the Tamil Diaspora by people who are obviously well placed in life but have a problem with their identity; one may call it a crisis. It is such people who are having a major impact on the minds and lives of their young people who gather from their elders information that is not only false but also that which twists and contorts their views in respect of circumstances in Sri Lanka.
At one stage Mr Sri Skanda-Rajah pointed out that ?most Tamils consider LTTE members to be freedom fighters and heroes? a view that he himself has strained so much to present in his feature. Reading through the feature, one gathers the impression that the Tigers are a highly disciplined ahimsa activists who are being gunned down by the terror forces of the Government of Sri Lanka.
There is in Sri Lanka today a real crisis situation of violence and many innocent people are affected. The victims are Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims. However, the confrontation is not between the Sinhalese people and the Tamil people not even between the Muslims and the Tamils or even the Muslims and the Sinhalese and Mr Sri Skanda-Rajah had better be clear about this actuality.
The confrontation is between the state forces and the LTTE, considered as the world?s most ruthless terrorist organization today. The people who are most affected by Tiger terrorism today are the Tamils. The entire population of Wanni lives a terror-ridden life on the rebel territory where the people enjoy no freedom at all. One word against the LTTE, death is an instant visitor. In this area called Wanni, the gun determines life.
Also affected are large areas in the North and East the former populated mostly by the Tamils and the latter by all three communities. During the last four years in particular among various atrocities perpetrated on the people of these two provinces, one of the most dastardly ones have been the kidnapping of children by the Tigers to enlist them on their fighting cadres.
Mr Sri Skanda-Rajah writes about disappearances and killings of civilians, and places the entire blame in the hands of the Sri Lankan forces. Evidently he reads only the Tamil newspapers in Toronto and also listens to the CMR/TV as his daily food of twisted news and false information. Nowhere in his feature he has mentioned about the daily killings carried out by motorcycle gangs, the messengers of death from the Tiger rebel territory Wanni, Claymore mine attacks including the Kebettigollewa massacre, attacks on unarmed soldiers and sailors, threatening to attack food ships bound for the north and a host of other daily terror attacks in a number of towns and villages by the Tigers.
He began his observation stating that many Tamils went to Canada consequent to the 1983 racial riots. Most Tamils affected by the riots fled to the north and over to South India and some did come over to Canada; those who could afford to travel across the globe. But the number of migrants moving to Canada from Sri Lanka swelled in numbers much later, most grabbing the chance they had to seek refuge in Canada and nearly always they blamed the Tigers for their problems not the majority Sinhala people or the government.
This is an undeniable fact because these are on official government records and even today Sri Lankans are seeking refuge in Canada and other countries blaming the Tigers. Furthermore even the Tamils from the North and East prefer to live among the Sinhalese than under Tiger dominance or rule. The majority of the Tamils in Sri Lanka live in Sinhala areas.
Mr Sri Skanda-Rajah has the temerity to claim that even the Human Rights Watch Report was influenced by known agents of the Sri Lankan paramilitary and those holding personal grudges against the LTTE, all networking in the Diaspora. The risks these people faced were from the Tigers who are to Mr Sri Skanda-Rajah, freedom fighters and heroes. But to a large majority of others they are not only terrorists but also underworld operators of alien smuggling, drugs trafficking and arms trade.
eHMr Sri Skanda-Rajah feels as a result of the activities of those who helped with the Human Rights Watch Report, the Canadian Tamils feel marginalized, muzzled and denied their democratic right to express displeasure at the Canadian government.
He must understand that the people who came forward to help were very courageous Tamils who risked their lives to help their community. If as he writes this is the problem he sees as existing in Canada, then he does have the right to go to Wanni and stake his fundamental rights under the Tiger bosses there. He may hardly survive 24 minutes there and in the Tiger courts, the judgments are first carried out and then only the trials are held because justice must be quick is the Tiger ideal.
Mr Srikanda-Rajah may have his piques and peeves being such an active and ardent Tiger enthusiast and who states that the Tigers are freedom fighters and heroes but he must not in his enthusiasm choose to misinform and misdirect with his mischievous misconceptions. A man with such an attitude can speak for himself but not for the community and mislead it altogether. Information is free but it is sacred. . |
musketeer
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5 Nov 2006 16:46:25 GMT Report for Abuse
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| Does anyone care? Why does anyone need to care? |
AnuD
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5 Nov 2006 17:12:50 GMT Report for Abuse
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Actually, my assumption was this would be the top most article, so that we can find the views of people.
Other wise, I know this is a part of the LTTE agenda that every where in the world they begin things like this again just to keep the LTTE activities alive.
Other wise, Canada knows very well the criminal contribution of LTTE to the Canadian Tamils.
One article by a Canadian political Institute says, that Tamils who migrated before 1983 were good people and contributed well to the canadian society.
But, those who migrated after 1983 are mostly criminals. |
Stripes
Joined: Oct 2006
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5 Nov 2006 21:29:23 GMT Report for Abuse
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| Andu I am sure you must have gone to Canada after 1983 pretending to be a tamil refugee. |
AlfredSen
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6 Nov 2006 03:25:57 GMT Report for Abuse
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Am I puzzled on 'Marginalized & Muzzled?'
Even though I 'think' I can write; brilliant writer ACHILLES has left me speechless, mum and spellbound.
However, you have Written All leaving nothing more to add.
Looking forward to read more such facts well expressed.
Congratulations with my good wishes.
Alfred Sen. |
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