Sri Lanka and UNHRC Resolution March 2014

The following is an open letter to the Consulate of the Cuban Embassy in Sri Lanka...

(MELBOURNE) - Human rights activists are consistently appalled that countries with rich revolutionary histories fail to support modern, similar movements.

Case at hand, Cuba's decision to join countries like Israel in embracing the bloody state terrorism government of Sri Lanka, under the leadership of President Majinda Rajapaksa and his three brothers.

In December, the Permanent People’s Tribunal found Sri Lanka guilty of committing Genocide against minority Tamil Hindus and Christians in the end of the country's long running civil war between the Sri Lankan government, and the Liberation Tigers of the breakaway state, Tamil Eelam.

This international court finding confirmed years of reports about the intense ethnic cleansing of Tamils that left at least 160,000 missing or dead. Still, Cuba stands behind the oppressors instead of the Tamils who fought so bravely for so long, to defend their culture, language and people.

The following letter to the Cuban Consulate is from Tamil activist, Visvanathan:

“

To: Respectable Consulado Embassy of Cuba Sri Lanka

Dear Sir,

It is with great agony I write this letter to you as you have misunderstood the situation in Sri Lanka. There were three kingdoms in Sri Lanka before the British unified them in 1833 and called the island Ceylon. The North and the East of the island was ruled by Tamil kings and the rest of the island was composed of two Sinhalese kingdoms. Before the Portuguese and Dutch took over these islands, there was war and peace alternately between the Tamil Kingdom and the Sinhalese.

Even when the British took over the island from the Dutch in 1815, there was simmering antagonism between the Sinhalese and the Tamils. The British yoke kept them at peace. Since the date of independence in February 1948 that restrained was no longer there. The unfortunate situation was the power was handed over by the British to the Sinhalese to the detriment of the other races.

The Sinhalese wanted to make Sri Lanka a Sinhala Buddhist state long before they attained independence in 1948. In the very year of independence they disfranchised the Indian Tamils and made them stateless. Today these Tamils live in squalor both in India and Sri Lanka.

Then they took on the Sri Lankan Tamils, who were in Sri Lanka long before the Sinhalese arrived from North India. For thirty years the Tamils fought for their rights non-violently. The Sinhalese wanted to destroy their language and colonise their Homeland in the North-east of the island to reduce them to a minority. An organized mob of Sinhalese went on a rampage on the nights of May 31 to June 1, 1981, burning the Jaffna public library. It was one of the most violent examples of cultural genocide of the 20th century. At the time of its destruction, the library was one of the biggest in Asia, containing over 97,000 books and manuscripts.

After exhausting all peaceful methods, it was only in 1977 the youth took up arms and decided to fight for their liberation. That was when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) came into existence under the leadership of Velupillai Prabhakaran. Though not highly educated he studied all the revolutions in the world, including the Cuban revolution. His popular heroes were Che Guevara and Shubas Chandra Bose.

Among the revolutions he drew the greatest inspiration from the Cuban Revolution (1956 t0 1959). With an armed militia force of only 80 members, Fidel Castro and his brother Raul had sailed from México to Cuba, landing on Las Coloradas beach, on the south coast of the island, on December 2, 1956. In the first military engagement with the government forces they were defeated. The surviving members, however, penetrated the Cuban jungles of Sierra Maestra where they recruited more men, got more weapons, and became better organized. The 80-member militia force grew into an army of thousands. This spirit was manifested in Prabhakaran's character. His LTTE cadres were educated in all the revolutionary experiences.

I was surprised to read in your letter, dated 6 January 2014, to iTamil.org, that "The LTTE was a terrorist organization and the war was against them, not again the Tamils," The Tamils cannot be separated from the LTTE, as LTTE was protecting the people from Sinhalese oppression, just as much as Fidel Castro could not be separated from the Cuban people, as Castro was defending his people from the Batista’s regime. In fact the Rajapaksa's armed forces cluster bombed the LTTE and the people just because they happened to be Tamils. Just as much as Fidel Castro's army was a people's liberation force so was Prabhakaran's LTTE a Tamil liberation armed forces.

In a way you were right when you said that the present problem in Sri Lanka was created by the British. The merging of Tamil Nation with the Sinhalese Nations in Sri Lanka in 1833 and handing over of the power to the Sinhalese in 1948 were the root causes of the present conflict. It is totally inaccurate to say the present ethnic problem in Sri Lanka was created by the Western powers. It is the desire of the Sinhalese to make Sri Lanka a Sinhala-Buddhist state is the cause of the present problem. Now the Sinhalese mobs are cannoning the Muslims, destroying their mosques and businesses.

One of the reasons why Prabhakaran failed in his attempt to create Eelam was because he refused to be aligned LTTE with the Eastern Block or the Western powers. Cuba's success in its revolution was its association with the Soviet Union. LTTE would have had a better chance of success if it had gone along with the West. So it is inaccurate to say the the Western powers' interference in Sri Lanka is the cause of the problem there.

The eighty million Tamils worldwide appeal to Cuba not to abandon the Tamils to Sinhalese chauvinism. If it is unable to support the Tamils on account of geopolitical reasons, it would do the Tamils a great favour if it would abstain from voting in the UNHRC resolution in March 2014.

Yours Sincerely,
Visvanathan
(Tamil Activist)

”