Many years have passed since that memorable Victory Day on which the dreaded terrorists were defeated and Sri Lanka’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and peace restored.
Although peace, and freedom of movement prevailed by and large for a decade since May 2009, during the past two years, looming threats were visible once again, emphasising the imperative need to be maintain constant vigilance to safeguard the values won after much sacrifice.
Nearly two years ago, the peace and harmony was shattered due to a series of terrorist attacks targeting places of religious worship and luxury hotels, killing nearly 300 and injuring several hundreds, including foreign tourists, shocking the people, who got a fresh leaf of life after suffering amidst terror attacks for three long decades.
The 2019 suicide bombing came from a new face of terrorists, the Islamic radicals, who selected the Christian community and foreign tourists as their targets, unlike the Tiger terrorists who selected Buddhist shrines and Muslim mosques as their targets during the 30 years of terrorism.
Diaspora
On top of the new challenge from Islam terrorists, it became apparent last week that the Tamil Diaspora is planning a revival of Tamil terrorism once again to achieve their target of dividing Sri Lanka to establish their pipedream, ‘Eelam’.
Tiger terrorist sympathiser Vijay Thanigasalam, an asylum-seeker-turned politician who became a Member of Parliament in Canada’s Ontario Legislative Assembly, masterminded a resolution stating that Sri Lanka subjected the Tamil community to genocide during the armed conflict.
Hoodwinking the gullible Canadian MPs, he succeeded in accusing Sri Lanka of Tamil ‘genocide’, a term never used by any country against Sri Lanka. The Bill 104, also known as the Tamil Genocide Education Week Act was passed in the Ontario Legislative Assembly.
Without stopping at absurd accusation of ‘genocide’, Thanigasalam organised a commemoration to mark so-called ‘12th anniversary since the massacres in Mullivaikkal’ and influenced Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to issue a message supporting the event.
Thanigasalam boasted that, “Canadian politicians across all spectrums remembered the Tamil genocide with remarks from Prime minister Justin Trudeau and New Democratic Party leader, Jagmeet Singh, with further statements coming from leading MP’s and MPP.”
Supporter
Jagmeet is an ardent supporter of the call for ‘Khalistan’ the so-called independent state of Sikhs in Punjab. He too is an asylum seeker turned MP in Ontario.
Prime Minister Trudeau, in his statement, reflected on the ‘scars’ and ‘endured trauma’ that survivors of the ‘massacres’ in Sri Lanka had to face and noted that twelve years later they ‘still seek answers, including on the fate and whereabouts of missing family members and loved ones’ and called on Sri Lanka to address the ‘underlying drivers of the conflict’.
“Canada was part of the core group at the United Nations Human Rights Council this past March where the High Commissioner for Human Rights was given the mandate to ‘collect, consolidate, analyse and preserve information and evidence’ relating to violations in Sri Lanka,” Canadian Premier said indicating that the core-group’s aim is to collect evidence against heroic officers of Sri Lankan armed forces in an attempt to bring them before International Courts.
Sri Lankan leaders gave a fitting reply to the Tamil Diaspora and its Western supporters. While President Gotabaya Rajapaksa paid homage to the heroic Security Force members at the War Heroes Memorial near the Parliament, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, speaking in the August House, assured that war heroes who sacrificed their lives to secure the country will not be betrayed for any reason.
“No matter what the challenge is, we will not betray the victory of thousands of lives sacrificed to save this country from the worst terrorism ever. I emphasise to this House that the protection of those great heroes should be a great human quality of all Sri Lankans. We value the sacrifices of all war heroes. My country comes first – neither was it changed then nor will it change today,” Rajapaksa added.
Genocide
He said out that no soldier went to battle to commit Genocide.
“Former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Former Army Commander Sarath Fonseka, Former Navy Commander Wasantha Karannagoda, and Former Air Force Commander Roshan Goonetileke never led the forces to commit genocide, but to save the lives of the innocent people in the North who were used as human shields by the terrorists,” Prime Minister emphasised.
The Prime Minister expressed confidence that the same war heroes would set an example to the world again by fighting against the worst pandemic the world faced ever. “Today the war heroes have become health heroes. The same war heroes that fought the worst terrorists and set an example to the world are today fighting in the frontline to save our country once again from the worst pandemic the world ever faced. We have deployed the most brave and capable defence personnel who can face any situation. I am proud of them on a day like today,” Rajapaksa said.
The mover of ‘ The Genocide’ Bill in Ontario, Vijay Thanigasalamis is a known LTTE supporter. He was compelled to apologise for his infamous facebook post in 2011: “Happy 57th birthday to our national Leader V. Prabhakaran.” He identified himself with the banned terrorist organisation even after the end of war in 2009.
As the protests mounted from Canadian democrats, he said, “In the past I shared material related to the Tamil Tigers. I apologise and I no longer hold those views.”
Although Sri Lankan Security Forces have no practical experiences of ‘Genocide’, the Canadians are no strangers to practice Genocide. Many scholars have accused Canada of cultural genocide too. Due to the objections of various nations, the 1948 UN Genocide Convention does not use the term cultural Genocide, nor does the 1994 UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Within Canada, however, indigenous people and some scholars have argued that programs and policies of colonisation, such as residential schools were intent on destroying indigenous peoples in Canada as a distinct group and were therefore acts of cultural genocide.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission labelled the residential school system as a case of cultural genocide. The final report defined cultural genocide as the “destruction of those structures and practices that allow the group to continue as a group.”
Cultural
It stated that residential schools “were part of a coherent policy to eliminate Aboriginal people as distinct peoples and to assimilate them into the Canadian mainstream against their will.”
According to The Canadian Encyclopaedia, the forced sterilisation of indigenous women in Canada has also been viewed as an act of genocide. Sterilisation legislation in Alberta (1928–72) and British Columbia (1933–73) attempted to limit the reproduction of “unfit” persons, and increasingly targeted indigenous women. Coerced sterilisation of indigenous women took place both within and outside existing legislation, and in federally operated indigenous hospitals.
The practice has continued into the 21st century. Approximately 100 indigenous women have alleged that they were pressured to consent to sterilisation between the 1970s and 2018, often while in the vulnerable state of pregnancy or childbirth.
Prof. Karen Stote has argued that, in these ways, the coerced sterilisation of indigenous women can be viewed as an attempt to undermine the ability of a group to exist.
A landmark report on missing and murdered women in Canada has concluded that Canadians can no longer turn a blind eye to the “Genocide” of indigenous people in the country. Indigenous communities across the country have for decades attempted to convey the depth and scope of a tragedy that has haunted thousands of families.
As many as four thousand indigenous women and girls are believed to have been killed or gone missing in Canada over the past 30 years – although the true number of victims is unlikely ever to be known.
The findings of a three-year inquiry were released at a solemn ceremony in Quebec, attended by victims’ families, survivors, indigenous leaders and senior government officials. This was acknowledged by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau too. “This is an uncomfortable day for Canada,” said the Prime Minister, “We have failed you.”
Legal experts said that Sri Lanka should consider legal action against Canadian Tamil MP Vijay Thanigasalam for sedition, criminal conspiracy, promoting enmity between religions, and provocation with intent to cause a riot.
Referring to the Ontario ‘Genocide’ accusation against Sri Lanka, Thanigasalam declared the passage of Bill 104 ‘a historic event for Tamil people in Ontario.”
In this backdrop, it is essential to be vigilant to safeguard our sovereignty and the people can be happy that the government will stand firm to protect the members of armed forces.
“No matter what the challenge is, we will not betray the victory of thousands of lives sacrificed to save this country from the worst terrorism ever”, said Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, who as President gave leadership to the battle against terrorism.