Voice for the Voiceless
By Richard Dixon
Sri Lanka: A Paradise turned into Kingdom of Vultures!
Wednesday, May 20, 2009, 10:18 PM GMT [Current Affairs]
This article was originally posted to Telegraph on 04th of May 2009
Land that was known for beautiful beaches and waterfalls has now been turned into a Kingdom of Vultures.
Dead bodies of the innocent Tamils are dragged away by stray dogs and wild beasts while the survivors hide inside the bunkers.
Let the dead bury the dead as the living will be dead if they try to bury the dead. Screams of the innocents can't be heard to the far away lands because the rulers of Sri Lanka are not even allowing the birds in the sky to carry the messages to the lands of the living.
Nations have failed to hear the voice of the dying Tamils
Mothers cuddle their crying babies and hide in the bunkers all day long. Starving mothers don't have anything to give for their children. Frightened parents wipe their tears and pretend to be strong in order to comfort their children who are tormented by the demons of war.
Food and medicine are denied for the innocents and many of them are forced into starvation.
Most of the wounded are let to die in the open fields. Those who are fortunate enough to make to the make shift hospitals have their limbs amputated without anaesthesia. Caesarean operations are carried out without pain relievers.
Chinese F7s and Russian MIG fighters fly over the skies of Vanni continuously and they regularly bomb hospitals, schools, churches and orphanages. Cluster bombs and phosphorous bombs are used against innocent Tamil civilians.
Children are dying in front of their parents and the parents are dying in front of their children. Many of the dead have nobody to mourn for them. More than eight thousand innocent Tamils have been killed just within the last three months.
Tamils are now left with nothing. All their homes and farm lands have been made into grave yards. Many families have lost their loved ones. Thousands of orphans and widows are longing for death than suffering from hunger and untreated wounds in the killing fields of Sri Lanka. They have no more comforters left to comfort the victims.
Destruction came upon the Tamils suddenly
People of Vanni in the Northern part of Sri Lanka once had their barns full of grains, children played in the parks and on beautiful golden beaches, fishermen went to the seas, farmers went to their farms and the mothers worked hard at homes. They had the money, resources more than enough even to send their children abroad for education. They were neither prisoners nor hostages.
All came to an end when the Buddhist Sinhala rulers of the country decided to destroy the lives of the minority Tamils in the disguise of “War on Terror”.
As part of the so called deceptive humanitarian and rescue operation, Sri Lankan forces surrounded an area that is almost two times bigger than Singapore, bombed and destroyed all the hospitals, schools, orphanages and homes in this prosperous land that was once flowing with milk and honey.
They destroyed farms, fruit trees and the cattle belonging to the people who have lived there for years. They dropped cluster bombs and killed so many thousands of innocent people including children, women and old people.
They have forced people into starvation and made them to live in tents and bunkers for months. All this is according to them for just to catch or kill few hundreds LTTE fighters that were living among more than three hundred thousands of innocent Tamil civilians.
Tamils are persecuted all over Sri Lanka
Tamils who are forced to live in the open fields are bombed and killed in thousands. Those who leave the war zone are sent to barbed wired concentration camps and torture camps. The ones that live in the other parts of the country live in open prisons with the constant fear of abductions, extrajudicial killings, torture and rape.
Their hands are tied and their voices are suppressed. Their loved ones living in the lands of freedom have been knocking on the doors of the kings and queens. Nobody has so far come to rescue the Tamils from these man made pits of hell.
Thousands of Tamils are living in the so called safe zone which is the most dangerous place on planet earth
Sri Lankan government had few months ago, declared a safe zone in a tiny strip of land and asked the Tamil civilians to move in. People were moving in and started to live in tents and bunkers. They are no longer protected from the rain, sun and the bombs falling on them.
Sri Lankan forces have now reached to the borders of this tiny over populated safe zone and started to use heavy weapons on innocent civilians. People are now getting killed in thousands. They are making the people to starve.
They let them to die with their wounds because people don't have access to proper medical care. Wounded civilians that are treated in the make shift hospitals are bombed again by a murderous regime that has no respect for human lives.
Barbed wired Concentration Camps for Tamils
While Tamils are being slaughtered in thousands in the war zone, the ones that come out of that area are sent to barbed wired concentration camps where they are kept as prisoners.
Aid agencies, foreign diplomats and Journalists are not allowed to see these notorious camps except to the one that is used only for propaganda purposes. Friends and relatives of the detainees can't visit these horror camps.
They once lived in their own homes
Children are separated from mothers and fathers and sent to different camps. People are treated like wild animals. Food packets are thrown at them from military vehicles. They are forced to drink unclean water collected from irrigation tanks.
Tamils are dying of diseases. Many have become mentally ill. Even the very severely ill people are not allowed to leave the camps and to live with their relatives.
There are fears that many of the young people who are taken away from these camps for questioning, might end up in torture camps and mass graves.
When the Sri Lankan military did a similar operation in the Northern part of Sri Lanka several years ago, thousands of Tamils were taken away for questioning. Many of them were killed and their bodies were dumped in mass graves. The military commander, who was responsible for those atrocities, is now overseeing the barbed wired camps.
Tamils in Torture camps
Young Tamil men and women are filtered out and regularly taken for questioning. They are tortured, raped and sometime killed in the torture chambers of Sri Lanka.
Most of them are kept naked in these torture chambers in order to prevent them from fleeing. One of the popular phrases used among the Sinhala forces is about feasting on the women of Vanni while turning the Indian Ocean red with the blood of the Tamil men.
Torture camps of Sri Lanka are a well known fact that has been documented by many International rights organisations.
World very well knows how the Sri Lankan soldiers were asked to leave Haiti after they were blamed for rape, while doing peace keeping operations as part of the UN force.
Sri Lanka is under reported
Although the images of the dying Tamils are beamed through the television stations and internet all over the world, many people have only a little knowledge about this internal civil war that can one day even turn into a confrontation between nuclear armed India and China.
How is the world reacting to the current situation in Sri Lanka?
Why are they killing the Tamils?
Are all the Sinhalese people racists?
Who are partnering with Sri Lanka to slaughter the innocent Tamils?
Why do they do what they do?
Who are so far the winners and losers in this dirty War?
Why should we stop Rajapakse from continuing with the War on Terror?
Who can save the Tamils?
Why did the nations wait till it got so worse?
What is the UN doing about the whole crisis?
What would be the consequences, if the Nations didn't intervene?
What is the Solution for the problems in Sri Lanka?
How is the world reacting to this?
Cries of the dying children and women are reaching to the skies but they haven't yet touched the hearts of those who have the ability put a stop to this man made disaster within minutes.
We have the technology to reach out to the injured in North Pole in minutes. We have built rockets and space stations. But we have failed miserably to save the lives of innocent children and women in a land that is only twenty miles away from a country that claims itself as the largest democracy in the world
As the scenes of Rwanda and Kosovo are being repeated on their TV screens, the leaders of the free nations have so far failed to bring peace to this troubled Island.
Why are they killing the Tamils in Sri Lanka?
Deception, foolishness, ignorance, arrogance, hatred, pride and greed. All of these evils come together and make people to commit crimes against humanity. Sinhala Buddhist extremists want to wipe out Tamils from this tiny island and they have so far been successful in killing many thousands of them.
Hitler slaughtered millions of Jewish people for a simple reason that they were different. Muslim extremists kill people all around the world that they treat the non Muslims as infidels.
In the same way, Sri Lankan governments that are backed by the Sinhala Buddhist extremists have been persecuting the Tamils in Sri Lanka for more than 60 years.
Muslim extremists use Quran as their source of hatred and the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka have a holy book called Mahavamsa, a book with controversial writings, full of hatred towards the Tamils. Sinhala youth are indoctrinated by lies and deceptions in schools.
Buddishm that preaches hatred and violence against Tamils in Sri Lanka
This book is very specific to Sri Lanka and not used by Buddhists in other countries. Buddhism in Sri Lanka is not the peaceful one that is preached by Dalai Lama in Tibet. One of the former prime ministers of Sri Lanka was assassinated by an armed Buddhist monk.
In the fifties, sixties and seventies, the Sinhala extremists slaughtered thousands of Tamils with knives and swords. They burned them alive and destroyed their homes. Hundreds of thousands were made homeless and sent to the North of the country in ships.
Now they kill Tamils with cluster bombs and phosphorous bombs. They bomb hospitals, schools and orphanages in Tamil areas.
Are all the Sinhalese people racists?
There are many peace loving Sinhala people living in Sri Lanka. Several academics, human rights activists, journalists, Christian leaders and professionals from the Sinhala community are supporting the Tamils in their struggle for freedom. Some Tamils even tend to intermarry with the Sinhalese.
Although the extremists are only a minority among the Sinhalese, they have been successful in influencing politicians, military leaders and ordinary Sinhala people to incite racial hatred, violence and discrimination against Tamils.
This Sinhala journalist was killed in Sri Lanka for telling the truth
Buddhist extremism has gone to the extreme levels that more than Hundred thousand innocent Tamils have been killed, six hundred thousands are made homeless and forced to live in camps, fifty thousands have become orphans and widows and many thousand Tamils are now disabled and mentally ill.
Majority Sinhalese support the War on Tamils and they elect politicians who come up with racist policies.
Who are partnering with Sri Lanka to slaughter the innocent Tamils?
China and Pakistan are giving the weapons and ammunitions. Iran and Libya are providing with low interest loans for Sri Lanka to purchase arms. India is orchestrating the whole war in Sri Lanka by providing intelligence and military expertise.
Why do they do what they do?
All these countries are trying to satisfy the racist regimes in Sri Lanka in order to look after their strategic interests in the region.
China is fishing in troubled waters. Sinhala extremists who have been killing the Tamils all these years wanted to get smart weapons to kill the Tamils in thousands as opposed to knives and swords that can be used to kill the Tamils only in hundreds.
Sri Lankan defence secretary in China with top military leaders
They went and asked India for weapons. India refused. They went to the West and the East. Nobody wanted to give offensive weapons to Sri Lanka. Two countries came forward. It was China and Pakistan. They obviously asked for something in return,
In recent times, China has been actively involved in building ports in the South East Asian countries including Sri Lanka. China is spending 1 billion dollars to construct a port in the south of Sri Lanka.
China is planning use this port as a refuelling and docking station for its navy, as it patrols the Indian Ocean and protects China’s supplies of Saudi oil. Ever since Sri Lanka agreed to the plan, in March 2007, China has given it all the aid, arms and diplomatic support it needs to defeat the Tamils, without worrying about the West.
China has so far given six F7 jet fighters free of charge, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Pakistan is also trying to spread it's influence in the Indian Ocean and in order to build a launch pad in Sri Lanka.
Pakistan has transferred huge amounts of automatic rifles, heavy mortars, multi-barrel rocket launchers, artillery and tank shells to Sri Lanka in recent years.
Sri Lanka is also getting JY-11 3D air surveillance radars, armoured personnel carriers,
T-56 assault rifles, machine guns, anti-aircraft guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, missiles and bombs
Iran provides low-interest credit to Sri Lanka to help them to purchase military equipment from Pakistan and China and to train Sri Lankan Army and intelligence officers in Iran.
Iran is now very pleased with the anti western policies that are being adapted by the Sri Lankan government.
India never wanted to supply offensive weapons to Sri Lanka which is the very reason why the Sri Lankan government went after China, Pakistan and Iran in the first place. Having 65 millions Tamils in India, it will be difficult for India to give offensive weapons to kill the Tamils in Sri Lanka.
However, India faces a real threat from China and Pakistan in it's own backyard. Sri Lanka has always maintained good relations with India.
In order to look after it's interests in the region and to deal with the threats from China, India had come up with the clever idea of providing with intelligence and military expertise to Sri Lanka.
Many Sri Lankan ministers have recently acknowledged that they wouldn't be winning the war without the help from India.
There are reliable reports that many Indian soldiers are fighting along with the Sri Lankans on the front lines in Vanni. Several intelligence and military experts from India are helping fifty thousands of Sri Lankan soldiers to cause so much damage in the Tamil Land.
Even the so called medical professionals sent by India to Vanni to treat the wounded Tamils are mostly intelligent officers who are more interested in gathering information from the Tamil civilians than treating their wounded.
This is not because India hates the Tamils and loves the Sinhalese but they are not ready to see Sri Lanka going into the hands of China and Pakistan. More than seven hundred Indian fishermen were killed by the Sri Lankan Navy within the last few years but India is willing to sacrifice even their own for a greater gain in the region.
Who are so far the winners and losers in this horrible War?
Sinhala Buddhist extremists in Sri Lanka are already celebrating with flags and fire crackers that they have achieved what they always wanted to
More than eight thousand Tamils have been killed, twenty thousands are wounded, three hundred thousands of Tamils have been made homeless just within three months and many thousands have become orphans and widows.
Almost all the Sri Lankan Tamils are now either homeless or they live in homes that are open prisons. This brings joy to the Sinhala extremists whose sole aim is to wipe out Tamils.
China has a lot to rejoice for, because they have been successful in securing their interests in the region. They are now busy building a port in the South of Sri Lanka that will be used as a refuelling and docking station for its navy, as it patrols the Indian Ocean and protects China’s supplies of Saudi oil
Pakistan has made enough money by selling cluster ammunitions and fire arms. They have also found a platform in the south of India to launch attacks against India.
India is a looser. India has made a historical blunder by assisting the Sri Lankan government to commit genocide against Tamils. Once the war is over, Sri Lankan government will go after China and Pakistan as they did before. India has now lost credibility both among the Tamils in Sri Lanka and India.
India would have been in a better position if they helped the Tamils to establish a prosperous secular state in order to free them from State oppression and to secure Indian strategic interests in the region. Even now, it is not too late for India to change its mind.
LTTE is now left to fight on their own without any help from other countries. But they are supported by a powerful Tamil Diaspora which means LTTE can't be defeated by bombing the whole Vanni although they are facing defeat in the Vanni.
Why should we stop Rajapakse from continuing with War on Terror?
When the twin towers fell and the innocents died, we declared war on Terror. We have done the right thing and we have been successful in preventing many disasters in our great cities.
Unfortunately, some of the countries that have been terrorising their minorities for a long time have started to use the loop holes in the "War on Terror" strategy. to declare war on the vulnerable.
Country that bombs and kills it's own citizens
Theory of War on Terror has failed miserably in countries like Sri Lanka because the oppressor has got the freedom to declare war on the innocents who are already going through hell in their hands.
Many freedom movements that have been fighting for the freedom of the oppressed are now wrongly branded as Terrorists groups.
Some of these countries like Sri Lanka have been spending so much money in doing false propaganda, to convince the world that these freedom movements had links with Al Qaeda.
Russian made clustor bomb found in Vanni
War on Terror is a great idea but the problems come when we wrongly recognise the Terrorists and the ones who are fighting the Terrorists.
When the “War on Terror” strategy is used by a Terror government that is already killing it's own citizens, alarms should be raised to protect the vulnerable.
Did we permit Saddam Hussein who was a democratically elected president to wipe out all the Kurdish people? Hitler was democratically elected but he was still responsible for killing millions of Jews.
Rajapakse government, although it is democratically elected, shouldn't be allowed to use the “War on Terror” agenda to annihilate Tamils.
UK government would never bomb the whole city of Belfast and force people to live in the bunkers without food and medicine for months, if they had to catch few hundreds of IRA rebels. They wouldn't use chemical weapons against innocent women and children unless they had a hidden agenda of killing the people.
Sri Lanka is doing something what no other governments on this earth would do for their own citizens.
Fellowship of the Dead
The way how the war is being conducted in Sri Lanka is a clear proof that “War on Terror”, “Humanitarian operations”, and “Hostage rescue” are just the buzz words used by the Sri Lankan government to deceive the international community.
Who can save the Tamils?
India has now got itself into a mess by orchestrating the war in Sri Lanka although India has no enmity with the Tamils. They are doing it to protect their interests in the region as they are becoming very nervous about the threat from China and Pakistan in the Sri Lankan soil.
India hasn't so far come forward to rescue the innocents and they won't do it in the future because they are ones guiding the Sri Lankan military to fight the battles.
China is obviously fuelling the whole situation by freely giving offensive weapons to Sri Lanka in order to look after their strategic interests.
Tamils can only be saved by the Western countries.
US, UK, France and other EU member countries are already pressurising the Sri Lankan government to stop this war.
Arrogant leaders in Sri Lanka have so far no not listened to warnings from the free world
Why did the nations wait till it got so worse?
Sri Lankan government has been very successful in demonising the Tamil struggle with lies and deceptions. [Lies and Deceptions! Comical Alis of Sri Lanka by Richard Dixons]
They have been so far successful in convincing the world that the military operation was a legitimate “War on Terror” strategy that targets only the rebels and not the innocent Tamils. They have managed to ban reporters and journalists to the war zone in order to hide their war crimes.
Western media also has failed miserably in their duties to give importance to this trouble spot where thousands of innocents are perishing.
What is the UN doing about the whole crisis?
As usual, UN has so far failed to protect the innocents. They failed in Rwanda and they failed in many other countries where millions died of man made disasters. They always waited till it was too late to act.
UN had sent it's representatives to Sri Lanka few times in the last few months, but they couldn't convince the Sri Lankan authorities to stop the war.
UK and the US are working really hard to bring the Sri Lankan issue before the Security Council. China, being a permanent member is not allowing the war in Sri Lanka to be discussed for an obvious reason that they are also partnering with Sri Lanka.
They don't want to be blamed for fuelling the war in this tiny island by freely supplying offensive weapons in order look after their own interests in the region.
What would be the consequences, if the Nations didn't intervene?
We would regret forever for repeating the same mistakes that we did in Rwanda.
Sri Lankan government would continue to use cluster bombs and phosphorus bombs to kill the remaining innocent civilians left in the safe zone. Many Tamils would continue to die of hunger, starvation and diseases. Young men and women in the concentration camps would end up in mass graves.
Sinhala Buddhists will be settled in the Tamil areas and the names of many Tamil towns and villages will be changed into Sinhala names.
Wounded LTTE with the support of the Tamil Diaspora will continue their struggle for freedom.
Nuclear armed China and India might one day confront each other as both of them are competing to dominate the same region.
This trouble spot in the Indian Ocean can one day would become a threat to the whole humanity if we didn't intervene to stop the madness that is going on, in this tiny island which has already been turned into a Kingdom of Vultures.
What is the Solution for the crisis in Sri Lanka?
World doesn't need any more proof to recognise the war crimes that are being committed against Tamils. Hospitals are bombed. People are deliberately forced into starvation and death. Voices of the victims are suppressed. Chemical weapons are used against innocent civilians. Many Tamils are locked up in barbed wired concentration camps.
UN should intervene to save the remaining Tamils in Sri Lanka without any delay.
It is time that the Nations should get together and protect the Tamils from annihilation by invoking the Responsibility to protect clause (R2P).
World doesn't need to sit and wait for millions of skulls and bones to appear on their wide screen TV sets.
Responsibility to Protect (or R2P) concept was born in 2001 and embraced at the UN World Summit in 2005. The heart of this new international norm is the belief that if sovereign governments fail to protect their own people from genocide, ethnic cleansing, or other major crimes against humanity, then the wider international community must take whatever action is appropriate.
The new norm emphasises assistance and prevention, not coercion, but it also accepts that it is sometimes right to fight. The bottom line is that the world cannot just stand by.
Tamils lived in their own Nation before. This hard working and highly literate community is once again capable of building a secular state like Singapore in the Indian Ocean.
It is time for the West and India to support the Tamils to establish a State of their own.
Richard Dixon
RichardDixons@googlemail.com
