Ethnic conflict:

A poser to two main candidates

BY MANONITA Ratwatte

SRI LANKA can learn a few lessons from Israel. The Likud party led by General Sharon could make lasting peace with Palestinians because they have credibility with people who opposed appeasement guised as peace.

In Sri Lanka only a Southerner with the backing of the JVP can make lasting, fair and credible peace with LTTE because it will show the terrorists that they cannot have the cake and eat it too.

Ranil Wickremesinghe must be given a lot of credit for continuing President Chandrika Kumaratunga's policies on negotiating a settlement to the critical issue. He signed the current peace accord ensuring the longest lasting period of relative peace in SL in 20 years.

However he negotiated that from a point of weakness, gave too any concessions to Tigers and soon after lost the election. Tigers abandoned the peace talks because they felt they could pressure him.

The Tigers got unparalleled access to advanced telecommunications equipment, and TV relay equipment because the Tigers blatantly abused the peace accord.

Appeasement has never worked with Hitler or with racist fascists organizations anywhere in the world. A leader and a party must command the respect and vote of an overwhelming majority of those opposed to terrorism and separatism so that terrorists will realize they are speaking to a nation that is united and not divided and backstabbing each other.

When the political proposals under the CBK government were presented to Parliament, which party burnt copies of it and walked out claiming such a patriotic fervour? Why did they do that? However there was a lot of progress on the economic front under him too. It is only fair to give a person his due.

Whoever is elected will have to have credibility among all the people who really oppose giving in to Tigers. It is sad that no one in the UNP has openly condemned their murderous ways so far.

No one criticised them when they murdered a patriotic Sri Lankan; instead, they made allusions to connections with the EPDP to almost justify the killing by Tiger terrorists.

Why ? No one has done more for SLs cause than Kadirgamar on the international forum. Yet the propaganda mills in Sri Lanka exposed him, and his security details and attacked him daily in their newspapers. They printed details of his security and houses.

In the US and Britain such blatant violations of people's privacy and security would be treasonous. And when he was murdered no one had the courage to tell the LTTE that this is wrong. Why?

In a nation dependent on aid and imported energy, it will also be foolish for any candidate to make pie in the sky promises about guaranteed prices on energy dependent imports such as fertiliser or on the price of imported goods like flour.

The Jaffna farmer should ask themselves who benefited the most from the Agricultural policies of Mrs Bandaranaike's regime ? Onions and Chili cultivators. Was it that wrong to help local agriculture that way? When oil is 68 US dollars a barrel, repercussions are worldwide.

Anyone worth his or her salt must speak the truth that what the Tigers want is a racially exclusive nation only for Tamils who are about 15 pc of the population.

Their Eelam is to encompass 45 pc of the land mass and 60 pc of the coastal resources of a small overpopulated island nation with scarce resources. Why cant the NGO appeasers see this for what it really is? WHAT do the Tigers want?

They want a separate nation. ISGA is their stepping stone to it. Why don't people first ask them to renounce violence like the IRA did and renounce the notion of a Eelam?

They cannot do it because their leaders depend on keeping the people under their rule oppressed and their reason for existence will cease if they do that. Is there democracy in Tiger territory ? Is this the have the cake and eat it too policies that the South's appeasers want to impose after elections?

Every religious community and every ethnic community should have the right to live, own property, prosper, practice their faith and take advantage of the free education system of Sri Lanka. Why won't the Tigers allow that in their so called homeland? Why is it that Tamil politicians are silent on this issue?

Why is it that the impoverished conditions of the poor Tamils which is the same as the horribly impoverished conditions of the rural Sinhalese and Moslems not addressed with equitable economic policies?

Why is that people don't realise there is a huge gap between the haves and have-nots, and that iniquitous distribution of resources has nothing to do with race? It is time people realize it. EVERYONE must have freedom to live and travel and prosper and own property anywhere in Sri Lanka.

Those who want an Eelam and a racially exclusive homeland are the ones who are real racists. They want to have the cake and eat it too.

They openly travel, and attack political opponents at whim in Colombo. They get on TV and radio talk shows and attack Sinhala politicians and do the political propaganda work for the terrorists.

But do they DARE, Yes do they dare to condemn child conscription? Do they dare to condemn the murder of Teachers and Principals? Do they dare ask the leaders to stop provoking the military?

Do they dare ask their Supreme Leaders why they kill more Tamils now than before the Peace agreement? Who is getting a bum rap and abuse? And who really is the racist who want an exclusive nation for one race but everything else needs to be shared?

If LTTE claims they have right to wear suicide bombs and kill people with impunity and still have a right to get Airlifted and protected in the terrible Sinhala Heartland, then using their perverted logic, one could say African Americans and Native Americans have a right to wear nuclear bombs to fight against discrimination in the US and Australian Aborigines who were almost wiped out have a bigger right to independence.

Make no mistake, facts show exactly what happened in these two nations. In the US, blacks were forced out of Public institutions and forced into segregation. The US had laws banning interracial marriages until 1967.

They prevented Blacks from going to Universities even thought they were all tax paying American citizens. They fought for the US only to come back from Korea and Vietnam to be forced to the back of the bus and inferior seating and were humiliated.

In Australia aborigines were forcibly taken from their families and raised to be White and Christian by state sponsored Christian institutions.

I am making this appeal to the Sinhala upper classes who in their comfortable environments sip their Gin and tonic and appreciate the English paper and the superior English speaking Gentry of the upper classes.

You ape the West and laugh and say yes massah bwana everytime a Western White guy pontificates to you about what is wrong with Sri Lanka. Did you ever dare to challenge them on any of these facts? This is what is called a Bum Rap.

Sri Lanka gets a bum rap and it is time you wake up. Did anyone ask the British about what they have been doing since the July bombs?

Why is it that all their NGOs tsk tsked Sri Lanka for adapting measures a lot less draconian than they have? They only had four bombs and they are deporting terrorists. Sri Lanka had over 250 suicide bombers and we are expected to bend over and appease them?

NGOs are beholden to their paymasters to carry out their agenda. Is it the same as what is good for Sri Lanka? Think about these things. No one wants war, but no one should appease from a position of weakness. Unity is what is needed now.

Will the two front runner candidates have the courage to say the following? I CONDEMN Suicide bombers; I CONDEMN child conscription and I condemn Racists and religious bigots of all faiths.

I THINK all SRI LANKANS should have the right to live anywhere in SL and own property, and live without fear anywhere in Sri Lanka. I condemn the LTTE's assassination tactics. Who can say it to on Public TV and Radio to all Sri Lankans ?

Learn from Israel. They have been one of our best friends when the sanctimonious western abetters of terrorists abandoned us. Listen to what Sharon and Barak and Nethanyahu said.

Just like Adolf Hitler the LTTE leaders preyed on the misery of the Tamil poor to use the race card to drive hate into them.

Just like Hitler who blamed Jews for all the woes of the German people before World War-II Tiger terrorists and their NGO appeasers want to use the race card about an issue which is essentially a class struggle.

And Just like in many nations the ugly violence perpetrated against innocent Tamils in the UNP led riots of 1983 helped a separatist movement gather momentum and it gave birth to terrorism as we know it now.

Who is best able to deal with such issues ? One who has consistently been against such violence through word and deed.