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Political allegiance of Sri Lankan Muslims - Part III:

UNP's honeymoon with LTTE in 5-Star comfort

Continued from January 2


List of Muslims massacred by Tiger Terrorists from March 6, 1988 to October 15, 1992
Killed 16 Muslims at Sittaru, Kantalai on March 5.1988.
Killed 10 Muslims at Saindamarudu, on March 31, 1988.
Killed nine Muslims in Sittaru, Kantalai on May 1, 1988.
Murdered eight Muslims at Veeracholai in Batticaloa on July 30, 1990.
Shot dead 14 Muslims at Akkaraipattu Town on July 30, 1990.
Brutally murdered 103 Muslims and injured another 71 while on praying in two mosques at Kattankudy on August 3.1990.
Killed 17 Muslim farmers at Muliyankadu, Ampara on August 5, 1990.
Killed 33 Muslim farmers while working in paddy field in Ampara on August 6, 1990.
Killed nine Muslims at Awarantalawa, Vavuniya on August 13, 1990.
Murdered nine Muslims at Arugambay, Ampara on October 11,1990.
Killed nine Muslims by bomb explosion at Akkaraipattu Fish Market on March 24, 1991.
Murdered nine Muslims at Malwatta, Ampara on May 20, 1991.
Killed 16 Muslims at Pudur, Polonnaruwa on July 6, 1991.
Killed 13 Muslims at Palliyagodella, Polonaruwa on September 19, 1991
Killed 56 Muslims and injured another 16 at Alinchipotana, Polonnaruwa on April 29, 1992.
Killed 19 Muslims at Kirankulam, Batticaloa on July 15, 1992.
Killed seven Muslims at Parangiyamadu on July 21, 1992.
Killed 22 Muslims at Saindamarudu on September 1, 1992.
Massacred 171 Muslims and injured another 83 at Palliyagodella on October 15, 1992.


Under the UNP Governments from 1977 to 1994, Muslims faced many hardships and the UNP Ministers and MPs numbering 11 persons were utterly powerless to do anything to help the Muslims. If it was not for the Middle-East employment avenue opened up by Mrs Bandaranaike the pathetic situation Sri Lankan Muslims would have faced is horrific even to imagine it.

When J. R. Jayawardene, obliging the Americans allowed Israel to re-establish diplomatic relations, Muslim Ministers and MPs of his government went in a delegation led by Speaker Bakeer Markar to meet him and object this move they were warned that they could resign from the government if they cannot agree with his policies.

Atrocities

In the Eastern Province, when the atrocities of Terrorist elements against the Muslims, particularly by the LTTE continued to increase and when more than 500 houses were set on fire by the LTTE in Kalmunai, Sainthamaruthu and Maruthamunai areas within two or three days and the Muslim leaders in the then ruling party failed to press the J. R. Jayewardene Government to act, in order to bring peace to the area, Mr. Ashraff converted the SLMC, a voluntary social organization based in the Eastern Province into a political party in November 1986, only to use it as a tool to fight against the terrorist atrocities and against the UNP Government's complete neglect of Muslims.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa (then Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources) writing a highly commendable appreciation on Ashraff to Daily News on September 24, 2000 praised Ashraff for saving the Muslim youth from terrorist conscriptions and preventing the spread of war to our doorstep.

When Rajiv-JR agreement was signed in 1987, following the Parippu invasion, interests of the Muslims in the North and East were totally ignored and they were left to the mercy of the Indian Peace Keeping Force who desecrated Muslim mosques and shrines by entering these holy places wearing boots and also taking dogs into the premises.

The terrorist LTTE who wanted to chase the Muslims out of the Northern and Eastern Provinces, and make the areas a mono-ethnic territory, started massacring Muslims in the Eastern Province. These massacres which started in the latter part of the J.R. Jayewardene Government increased to a horrendous level during the Premadasa administration.

Performing

In the Kattankudy massacre carried out on August 3, 1990, Muslims who were performing Isha Prayers were sprayed with bullets and 103 Muslims got killed on the spot and 71 were injured. Premadasa Government which was having a honeymoon with the Tiger terrorists feasting them at Hilton Hotel, Colombo did not take any action against these massacre or provide adequate protection to the Muslims.

Even the families and the widows of the dead were not compensated. Over 550 Muslims were killed in this manner between the period from March 5, 1988 to October 15, 1992 the next major massacre being the murder of 171 persons and injuring 83 persons in Palliyagodella on October 15, 1992.

These massacres ceased only after the defeat of the UNP and steps taken by Col. Anuruddha Ratwatte to provide security cover to border villages. (See the list of Muslim massacres carried out by the terrorist LTTE in the Ampara, Batticaloa, Tricomalee and Polonnaruwa Districts, without any hindrance from the UNP Governments).

In October 1990, Muslims of all the five districts of the Northern Province, Mannar, Vavuniya, Jaffna, Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu, were given notice by the LTTE ordering them to leave the Northern Province within 24 hours.

The UNP Government of President Premadasa did not take any preventive action to protect these Muslims amounting to nearly 100,000 persons. Ultimately the LTTE forcibly chased them out from their traditional habitats where they used to live for centuries. In this world's worst ethnic cleansing episode, the victimised Muslims were not allowed to take any of their belongings except for whatever the dress they were wearing at that time.

Even the ear-rings worn by women and children were forcibly removed. A father who had a child of less than one year explaining the ordeal they underwent told a newspaper that the Tiger terrorists did not even allow him to take the partly used milk food packet he was carrying to feed his baby.

Victimised

The UNP Government of President Premadasa, in which the anti-Muslim UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe was a top ranking Minister, did not care to provide some decent shelters to these victimised Muslims.

They were forced to put up their own shelters in the coconut lands in places like Ismail Puram, Kalpitty, Palavi, Madurankuliya etc, in the Puttalam District, and several other areas in Kurunegala and Anuradhapura Districts, and languish as refugees in their own country living in cadjan huts without any basic amenity for almost two decades. Only now after the defeat of the terrorist maniacs they are being resettled in their original habitats, rightly fulfilling a pledge given in the Mahinda Chinthana.

In the midst of his busy programs President Mahinda Rajapaksa was so magnanimous recently in meeting the ladies of these refugees who were returning to resettle in Mannar and look into the problems they face and wish them every success and happiness in their new lives.

The continuous and brutal murder of Iraqi population by the United States and its allies are known even to a Muslim child in this country and need no elaboration.

The whole world sans Western countries condemned these massacres. It is indeed shame not only for Sri Lankan Muslims but for Sri Lankans as a whole to have a person to lead the main Opposition party who went to the United Nations and justified the massacres of Iraqis by the Bush administration.

Muslims in the Eastern Province experienced the worst atrocities from the Tiger terrorists during the Ranil Wickremesinghe Government from 2001 to 2003.

The infamous agreement signed by Ranil Wickremesinghe with the megalomaniac terrorist leader Prabhakaran without any concern for the majority population of Muslims in the Eastern Province, and handing over a vast extent of land areas of the Eastern Province and the Northern Province including the districts of Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu, made life of Muslims in the Eastern Province nightmarish.

Transfer

The complete transfer of Government powers to Tiger terrorists under this wicked agreement forced Muslims to become slavish to terrorist diktats. Cultivable lands of Muslims were forcibly taken over, rich Muslims were forced to pay huge amounts as extortions, to pay taxes on all earnings, to provide huge portions of their produce or fish and many other intolerable conditions were imposed on Muslims forcing many of them to sell whatever the property or wealth they had and flee to places like Dehiwala, Mt. Lavinia and other parts of the country.

 

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