Since Mullivaikkal 2009, the political scene in Sri Lanka and especially, the plight of the Tamils has moved in different directions. The UN was caught on the hop for not safeguarding the vulnerable civilians. The west which supported the Government of Sri Lanka's (GoSL) genocidal war against the Tamil freedom movement faced the increasing revelation of war crimes.

India, whose war the GoSL's.President said he was fighting, maintained a fictitious non-involvement but has finally announced that it will not interfere with GoSL's internal affairs anymore. The GoSL which had previously insisted there had been 'zero civilian casualities' as opposed to independent experts' estimation of 40,000 Tamils massacred in the final phase of the war, reluctantly yielded to accept there might have been some civilian deaths during the final stages of the war. The LLRC Report has now given the GoSL a Get-out-of-Jail card.

The west which supported the war against the freedom fighters must have resigned to the fact either everything went as they planned or to the realisation of being led up the garden path and dropped in Mullivaikkal by the GoSL government, as thousands of innocent people perished in Mullivaikkal in May 2009.

The quotations published recently from the politicians are more apt to GoSL politics. The President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad has said, despite the accusations against him, that no one will kill his own citizens unless he is mad. Tributes have been made to the former Czech president, late Vaclav Havel whose motto was: 'Truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred' After his death, the US president Barack Obama said:' His peaceful resistance shook the foundations of an empire, exposed the emptiness of a repressive ideology and proved that moral leadership is more powerful than any weapon'.

Following the massacre of Mullivaikkal, we have heard enough headlines from the west calling for stern action against the GoSL and insisting on an independent inquiry. These promises are as hollow as a chocolate Father Christmas!

The government of GoSL in the meantime has been progressing unhindered with the Sinhala Forces and their families' colonisation of the northeast. After three decades of war, Tamils are weary of the political manoeuvres. The absence of war, in relative terms, is a double-edged relief, as the presence of thousands of army personnel and the GoSL's more deranged 'Grease Devils' are unleashed in the north-eastern provinces.

The question remains as to why are there so many armed forces if the enemy is defeated? The president has reiterated recently that under no circumstances will the armed forces leave the northeast. Then, are all Tamils to be treated as potential terrorists? Will this theory be held in perpetuity? Is there a master plan to eliminate them all?

It must be emphasised that democracy cannot be driven home by bullets.

Tamils must unite as one body to fight for justice. A good start will be to gather information about those who are dead or missing from each family in order to substantiate the claim of the missing thousands. In the meantime, the GoSL is trying to erase any evidence of the war, including the uncivilised act of destroying the cemeteries of the fallen freedom fighters and the wholesale clearance of mass burial sites.

The sad indictment of the international communities' inaction can best be summarised by the following quotations:

'All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing'. (Edmund Burke)

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil; but by those who watch them without doing anything'. (Albert Einstein)

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Tamil Writers Guild Editorial Team, UK

Source: Tamil Writers Guild
Date: 22 January 2012