Bruce Fein the unfortunate victim
(By: Thrishantha Nanayakkara)
The website of an LTTE front organization called the
"Tamils for Justice" enjoying the democracy of the United States,
published that they were going to hire the lawyer Bruce Fein to launch a
propaganda campaign approving the demand for a separate state by the
LTTE: ( http://www.tamilsforjustice.org/ ). It also published the funds
needed to hire this lawyer for two phases and justified the amount based
on his links to the top political leaders in the United States. Bruce
Fein started his job by publishing an article in Washington Times on
January 29th under the title "Tamil Statehood".
I am writing to rectify some of his purposeful
attempts to mislead the public. First, I feel sad to see how Bruce Fein
is misleading the American public by drawing parallels between the great
American declaration of independence and the terrorist movement led by
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) for a racist, mono ethnic
state for Tamils. In that movement, they have silenced many Tamil and
Sinhalese leaders, writers, speakers, artists, or politicians simply by
killing them. Among such Tamil victims are the former foreign minister
Lakshman Kadiragarmar, the world famous constitution lawyer, Dr. Neelam
Thiruchelvam, and Prof. Rajini Thiranagama, member, Jaffna University
Teachers for Human Rights. It is a well known fact that more Tamil
scholars have been killed by the LTTE than by any other force. American
declaration of independence clearly promotes diversity of ethnic groups,
freedom of speech, and freedom to live.
Bruce Fein points out that soon after independence,
Sinhalese disenfranchised a staggering 1 million Tamils. These Tamils
were those who were taken from South India by the British planters to
work in Sri Lanka, and they never enjoyed the citizenship of Sri Lanka
or never enjoyed a franchise to be disenfranchised. However, later the
Government of Sri Lanka and the Indian Government came to an agreement
on the citizenship of these Tamil plantation workers. Under this
agreement, 1 million Tamils willingly undertook to return to India and
all others were given Sri Lankan citizenship who immediately became the
pivotal block of votes under the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) who
decided the majority in the party politics of Sri Lanka.
He further claims that there has not been a Tamil head
of military in Sri Lanka. In fact the first native commander of the Sri
Lanka army (then Ceylon Defense Force) was Major General Anton
Muttukumaru , OBE. He was a Tamil. The first native commander of the Sri
Lanka navy, Rear Admiral Ranjan Kadirgamar, was a Tamil. The present
deputy chief of staff, Sri Lanka Air Force, Air Vice Marshal Ravi
Arunthavathan is a Tamil.
He then goes on to blame Sinhalese to standardization
of the criteria to enter Universities in Sri Lanka as a measure to
discriminate Tamil students. It is noteworthy that by 1885, out of 819
schools in the country, 300 schools were in Jaffna where the Tamils were
living. This amounted to 40% of the total expenditure on education spent
on less than 10% of the total population in Sri Lanka. The post
independence Government brought in reforms in terms of a District quota
system in order to iron out the apparent unequal distribution of
education infrastructure in different part of Sri Lanka so that all
students living in any underprivileged part of the country get fair
opportunities to enter universities. Unfortunately, this ended the lion
share of Tamil students.
Bruce Fein is quoting this as a discrimination
unleashed on Tamils due to his ignorance on the true history of Sri
Lanka. However, I wish to stress that by experience I know that Tamil
students from Jaffna have been among the most brilliant students I have
met so far. Therefore, I am for taking more and more students from
Jaffana.
It seems that Bruce Fein has never seen a Sri Lankan
passport or a currency note, because he thinks that there is language
discrimination. On the contrary, perhaps Sri Lanka is one of the few
countries in the world that prints all Government documents in three
languages including Tamil.
The Sri Lankan passport is written in Tamil,
Sinhalese, and English. All Sri Lankan currency has all three languages
in them. Bruce Fein's ignorance about these facts has been cleverly
manipulated by his clients.
Moreover, I wish to remind Bruce Fein that 1983 July
riots never repeated in Sri Lanka no matter how many times LTTE tried to
provoke Sinhalese in the South to do so. All Sri Lankans learnt a good
lesson from 1983 riots and it will be remembered as the biggest trap Sri
Lanka has ever fallen into.
We Sri Lankans will not promote racist mono ethnic
states. Tamils in Sri Lanka can live in harmony with other ethnic groups
without any problem. That is proven by the vast majority of Tamils
living in Colombo. We love being with Tamils and we want them to feel
free with us.
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