Muslims lash out at LTTE terrorism
Recall Tiger atrocities against community:
Muslim families butchered in their sleep :
Chaminda PERERA and Nadira GUNATILLKE
A cross section of the Muslim community in Sri Lanka yesterday
condemned LTTE terrorist atrocities which were aimed at ethnic
cleansing.
They recollected the gloomy era of the country when Muslims in the
North and East were subjected to untold hardships and harassment from
LTTE terrorists who wanted to carve out a separate homeland by killing
tens of thousands of Muslim and Sinhala civilians.
They said that their basic rights were snatched by the LTTE during
this era.
Mohammed S Anees , a farmer living in Eravur remembers how the LTTE
brutally killed 173 civilians in his village on August 4, 1990.
Anees said hundreds of LTTE cadres who invaded the village with clubs
and swords, began killing innocent civilians in the village who were
asleep at midnight.
He said even pregnant women were not spared by LTTE terrorists.
“Infants were dashed to death,” he added.Anees said that the Muslim
community in the Eastern region depend on fishing and farming.
He said that their farming activities were hampered by LTTE attacks
on Muslim villages. Vast areas of arable paddy lands were left
uncultivated and the economy of the people in the area also collapsed,
he said.
Child Development and Women's Affairs Deputy Minister A L M Hisbullah
said that the Muslim community in the North and East had to face many
hardships and obstacles during the conflict.
He said that thousands of Muslims were killed and their villages
destroyed by the LTTE as part of the ethnic cleansing drive to achieve
what they termed a separate state for Tamils. The deputy minister said
that the LTTE plundered banks in Muslim dominated areas in the North and
East.
"LTTE terrorists evicted Muslims from their lands and handed them to
their members in Muslim villages. The Muslim community left the villages
in fear of LTTE attacks," he said. The Muslims were deprived of their
basic human rights by the LTTE, Hisbullah said. "Their main sources of
livelihood were fishing and farming.
The terrorists did not allow them to engage in fishing or farming
during the conflict".
Western Province Governor Alavi Mowlana said that the US is suffering
from a phobia and is scared of Islam which is peace.
"Islam is peace and not violence. Before preaching about human rights
to Sri Lanka and other countries, the US has to rectify what they did.
The LTTE did the same and brutally massacred thousands of innocent
Muslims in the North and East.
The US has now forgotten what the LTTE did to innocent Sri Lankan
Muslims. First of all they have to rectify it."
Technology and Research Deputy Minister Faizer Mustapha said that
when the LTTE was brutally massacring innocent Muslim civilians, the US
turned a blind eye and was now preaching human rights.
"The US resolution at the UNHRC will only create new problems for the
smooth progress of the reconciliation process in Sri Lanka and will
cause severe damage to it," he said.
Journalist and artist Nilar N Cassim said that massacring innocent
Muslim civilians worshipping in mosques is one of the many barbaric acts
carried out by the LTTE.
"Massacring innocent civilians who practise their religion in their
religious institutions is not acceptable.
It cannot happen anywhere in the world. It is an act of beasts. The
LTTE shot and chased away thousands of innocent unarmed Muslim civilians
from their traditional villages," Cassim said. |