western governments must prosecute those responsible for racist pro terrorist attacks against sri lankans in their countries. now!

pro tamil tiger racists in western countries who have been supporting the ltte murderers with financial, political, and moral support are going over edge as their hopes of creating an ethnically cleansed racist tamil state called tamil ealam are dashed, and their leaders here are getting what they deserve; ignoble cowardly death.

there has been an increase in number of attacks against sri lankan institutions and sri lankan individuals in those countries. sri lankan embassies have been attacked, individual sri lankans or with connections to sri lanka have been attacked ( latest in australia link thanks to bailaman), buddhist temples have been subject to repeated arson attacks.

even before this ltte supporters intimidated other members of tamil diaspora who did not approve of ltte's atrocities. bc of this tamil diaspora has always appeared to support ltte terrorism in contrast to tamils who actually live here (btw a fact always willfully forgotten by pro terrorist propagandists and peaceniks; majority of tamils in sl have always lived and preferred to live in government controlled sri lanka even when terrorist pussies were holding huge territories and pretending it was a state).

western governments, esp european ones, and particularly britain and norway, have failed to prevent, or arrest and prosecute, those responsible, even though, as in several cases of embassy attacks, there is video evidence. western media esp those that were calling for a ceasefire ( which would have been murderous for sri lankans) recently ( and particularly bbc which has been acting like terrorist's propaganda arm publishing anonymous unsubstantiated anti sl stories) has not reported on these hate attacks in their own countries. ( given that same governments and media also failed to prevent or report on the fat financial life line that allowed terrorists here to buy arms and murder innocents, this is no surprise to us who are well aware of hypocrisy and racism inherent in some ppl in the west, esp among the leftist liberals).

some politicians in those countries ( example some british labor party politicians) depend on tamil votes, so are shamelessly pandering to perpetrators of these hate crimes, similar to the way they parroted these hate mongers when they called for a ceasefire recently. (btw if indian elections are any clue ordinary tamils do not care about ltte terrorists and their pandering will fail)

we will see whether these governments and media institutions will continue with this inaction, and remain blind while allowing innocent sri lankans to be attacked without any protection in their countries.

if this continues,
which are the failed states?
do these states have free media?

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ps
it is telling that several sri lankan bloggers who are either openly peacenik or are intellectually dishonest peacenik cowards (i.e. those who evaded taking a stand on what to do with ltte, while criticizing ppl who took a stand in supporting defeat of ltte criminals with violence if needs be), have not condemned or even written about these attacks even though typically some of them live in those countries. any of the indi padahow's suckerboy cocoon will fall into this category, but prime example is the drummerboy (who recently "led" the effort to ban another blogger from kottu bc he did not conform to drummerboy's narrow small minded world view even though they shared the same self absorbed narcissistic streak)

wall street journal opinion piece on sri lanka

read this wall street journal article on sri lanka entitled
"defeating terrorists - sri lanka is beating the tigers through military force, not negotiation".
it displays excellent grasp of reality and history of sri lanka's fight against terrorists and the lessons that other governments can draw from it .
that grasp of details is unlike most of foreign coverage which are either superficial, or downright biased towards ltte terrorist pussies, or both ( esp when it comes to media institutions like bbc that hava an ingrained leftist (or as they say in america "liberal") bias.)

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biased journalism: was kebitigolawa bus a military target ?

after yesterday's terrorist suicide bomb targeting innocents, certain foreign correspondents (from afp and reuters specifically) took it upon themselves to make a totally unfounded judgment about terrorist's targeting criteria. they said that ltte has not targeted civilians in recent years ( even they cannot deny earlier horrors of pussies) limiting themselves to military targets. they went on to say that this targeting may be a retaliation for military operations.

have they forgotten kebitigollewa bus massacre that killed at least 67 people including 15 children on 15 June 2006 (link contains photos and is not for the faint of heart). this was before mavil aru so before any major military operation by gosl. have they forgotten the killings of innocent farmers that happen regularly (last one on 26 november 3 days ago in mahavilachchiya e-village)

of course this kind of biased pro terrorist reporting is nothing new. as i and others have pointed out, racists like simon gardner of reuters and bbc' sri lankan section regularly and repeatedly engage in this sort of reporting. in addition to such white washing of terrorists, such reporters engage in several other forms of biased journalism when it comes sri lanka; racist equation of tamils with terrorists, unquestioning acceptance of ltte's false claim to be representative of tamils, wrong identification of gosl as "sinhalese" (when it fact all the major democratic minority parties are in it), and repetition of absurd white van conspiracy theories of terrorists among others.

so what are we, as ordinary sri lankans opposed terrorism, to do to counter them ?

well for a start, speak out when you see such reports, write about them, and openly condemn them. write to the editors or administrators of mainstream news outsets (be they newspapers, tv stations, or websites) that publish this kind of reporting. most have feedback options, use them. just state the facts and why the report is inaccurate, simply. don't worry too much about english. be authentic.

such write backs matter because generally people who run mainstream news organizations and websites want to preserve their reputations and credibility. as people who have worked in news organizations will know pro israeli organizations and individuals (rightly) send letters by the dozens when there is even a hint of an inaccuracy in reports about israel in any newspaper anywhere in world. we cannot match that, but we can start. in any case reports about sri lanka are comparatively rare, so any letter you write will ultimately help induce people who write and publish, to think twice and check facts in the long term.

--
blog reactions to terrorist bombing
bloggers have reacted in various ways; some merely acted as reporters, a lot expressed shock and horror, some have been sober and solid in their analysis, others (like cerno) have made valid points about our psychological non reaction to bombs (though it must be stated that most ppl i know were genuinely concerned and hardly indifferent, even though or because of, like me, most have experienced bombs at first hand).

most "interesting " have been the reaction of peacenik bloggers (btw it is great that blogosphere that only two years ago consisted almost exclusively of peaceniks, a tiny minority of sri lankan public at large, now increasingly accommodate other bloggers. at this rate, as i predicted, we would eventually have a blogosphere that will genuinely represent sri lanka).

anyway the peacenik bloggers were "oh so horrified", and after blaming mahinda buffalo, chithanaya, militray, and even the public ( but never the terrorist pussies who according to them will "love peace" if given the opportunity - really !) want us to appease terrorist so that we get "peace". they as usual forget to mention that such a course will involve giving up principles of democracy, human rights, justice, and freedom. similarly they forget millions who will have to suffer a living death under ltte if there was such an appeasement. to peacniks those people (or anyone outside their colombo/foreign cocoons for that matter) are not human.

i was tempted to challenge them in their own blogs but unfortunately am busy at the moment. however as soon as i get some free time i will write a post going through a selection of their posts in detail and examining their confused logic and attitudes.

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no to censorship!

i was going to write a post denouncing a proposed censorship of military news, and suggest ways to get and publish such news without getting imprisoned when i heard the welcome news that after all there won't be a censorship. so i will keep this short and keep that draft in case some idiot decides to impose a censorship for real.

as i have pointed out before, so far there isn't any state censorship in sri lanka, as anyone who actually examines a sri lankan newsstand will know. all points of view (including that of terrorist pussies) are amply represented. both substantiated and unsubstantiated allegations and mud throwings are allowed free reign. this should continue unhampered. to put this freedom in perspective; you wouldn't find any other country allowing enemy terrorist statements to be published in full in national newspapers and electronic broadcast media. ever seen full speeches of osama bin laden in new york times? or bbc? but we see unedited full speeches and interviews of big pussy and rest of his thugs. that is a good thing imo. sri lankan public can judge intelligently .

when it comes to freedom of expression only real compliant that can be made against the current administration is the temporary blocking of tamilnet. btw it is now freely accessible.

all other incidents usually cited by terrorist parrots like so called free media movement ( in fact nothing more than another pro terrorist peacenik ngo) when examined in detail do not stand up as censorship (not counting censorship imposed by local cultural/pc standards which can be found in every country; we ban fashion tv and on-air sex on radio, united states censor certain words and 'wardrobe malfunctions' etc.) . for instance in the recent case about abc radio network, abc clearly was irresponsible to report a false news story about an ltte attack. and if the remedy of canceling their license was too strong (as i personally think it is), abc has recourse to normal law. let the courts decide what the equitable remedy is in such cases. that is not censorship that is justice.

as for terrorist parroting peaceniks (who btw are not shy to censor any opposing views in places they control) let them cry themselves hoarse in the local media, as they have a perfect right to do, about an imaginary censorship. (however ppl who point out their hypocrisy and subservience to terrorists also have a similar right.)

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"tamil tigers vow retaliation"- so what?

some of the western corespondents here are highlighting smiling pussy's aka tamilselvan's statement; "(we will) weaken the military capacity of the government of sri lanka, which will invariably end up hitting economic targets as well". this ap report in washington's post is typical, it starts; "separatist rebels vowed thursday to hit military and economic targets across the country in retaliation for the army's capture of eastern sri lanka, ..." (btw so called 'rebels' may have forgotten that they said only the day before that army did not capture east). meanwhile the racists at afp say "tamil tigers threaten guerrilla warfare after conventional defeat". others of similar ilk also did likewise. peaceniks are parroting ltte spokesman as usual.

it is a pity (and typical) that these so called journalists forgot to ask; what is new in that ? have the terrorist pussies done anything but "hit military and economic targets across the country " before? (militarily speaking of course, that they engage in all kinds of other atrocities goes without saying.)

fact is the people in the east feel much safer now. occasional terrorist attacks on military and civilian targets in east (which will happen and will be unavoidable even when ltte is reduced to a handful) is not perfect, but that is certainly better than living under terrorist oppression or imminent threat of terrorist invasion or artillery attack. anyone who belittles recent military victories in east should ask themselves why they considered colombo and its suburbs with their own occasional terrorist attacks safer than east and north.

as i have said before "victory in this war will not be determined by the attacks carried out by terrorists but rather how many or how few people will be forced live and act in terror day in and day out."

don't they want the people in the east to be free of ltte's direct oppression or threat of direct oppression?

and don't they want people in the north to be likewise? or do they want an unsustainable 'peace' in colombo at any cost (at the cost of human rights, justice, freedom and democracy. especially of the people in north and east provinces of sri lanka)?

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note

did not blog recently. same old story; was busy and traveling, including to trinco. but will be relatively free soon .

more racist reporting by western media's sri lankan corespondents

one more example of racist reporting by westerns media can be seen below. the headline reads “Tamils kill seven civilians" (this time the culprits are 'afp correspondents'). this equating of tamils with terrorists is inexcusable. being journalists should not excuse anyone. they are free to be racists and slander sri lankans if they want, but we should expose their racism and unprofessional conduct.

this equating of tamils with terrorists is exactly what ltte terrorist pussies promote. their propaganda is always full of that. anyone who parrot that is doing terrorists' work for them.

we should continue to name and shame such terrorist parrots and racists whenever we can. i have already pointed out the examples of habitual racism by simon gardner the reuters correspondent here and bbc's sri lankan section. that they change the headline later does not take away the enormity of the crime or the damage caused by the slander (see the number of australian sunday newspapers this was published in).


in fact that they write this kind of headline in a hurry (though this was certainly not in a hurry) indicate how their minds perceive the tamils. as the sinhala saying goes, tongue doesn't lie even if mouth does.

hypocrisy of fmm and peaceniks
sri lanka's so called free media movement of sunanda deshapriya has always been quick to defend such racists and terrorist biased journalists. they call exposing of some journalist's terrorist parroting and racism, a threat to freedom of expression. in fact such exposure is part of freedom of expression. by trying to stop such exposure it is the fmm that is trying to curtail freedom of expression. in other words they find nothing wrong with tamils being equated to terrorists, but condemn anyone who point out (with evidence) that some journalists are repeating ltte propaganda.

sri lankan peaceniks, who also regularly parrot terrorist propaganda, believe this sort of racist stuff over usually more balanced local mainstream media, which says a lot about their level of intelligence, bias, and attitude. people like sanjana hattotuwa of groundviews swear by this kind of reporting; if it is foreign, it is god given truth to them. they will censor (and have censored) anyone who points this error in their writing or their sources. as i have said what else can you expect from people who think peace is worth any cost (including the cost of human rights, justice, freedom, and democracy). only immoral racists can hold such a postion. how many of those people who went into hysterical exaggerations about the 'eviction' incident will condemn this kind of blatant examples of real racism?

that is why we must continue to expose the hypocrisy of all those people in whatever small way we can.

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racist reuters reporter simon gardner equates tamils with terrorists yet again

as if in a hurry to fill the shoes of racist dumeetha luthra (btw i like the fact one of my posts detailing her racist reporting comes on top in google search for her name. serves a racist like her right, don't you think?) reuters correspondent in sri lanka simon gardner has posted a racist report equating tamils with ltte terrorists this is not the first time he has let slip his disgusting racist prejudices.

his headline originally read "Sri Lanka fights and evicts Tamils from capital". in other words sri lanka fights tamils not terrorists, according to this so called journalist. (original report with that title was withdrawn after about two hours though most of the content remained the same. see below for the original report). even the modified titles retains a version of inaccurate ethnic cleansing sounding "tamils evicted from colombo ".

may be reuters will soon report that americans and british are fighting against 'muslims'.

this racist also quotes an (as in one) unnamed(!) analyst saying that eviction of 376 tamils without identification and without any reason to be in colombo, is equivalent to ethnic cleansing. nowhere does he mention the fact that hundreds of thousands of tamils live in colombo. and that only real case of ethnic cleansing in sri lanka was carried out by ltte terrorists in north where presently almost 100% of the population is tamil.

he ignores the fact that most tamils do not support ltte and its terrorism.

he also ignores that most of the tamils in sri lanka live under areas under government control. the largest group of tamils the upcountry tamils are democratically represented in sri lankan government and the areas they live in are not affected by war. he also forgets to mention the fact that most of the northeast tamils (who are numerically smaller than upcountry tamils) also live in area under government control.

my opinion
i do not approve this move by police, precisely because it gives an opportunity for racists like simon gardner to make exaggerated claims about ethnic cleansing, though such claims can be easily refuted.

peacenik parroting expected
no doubt sl peaceniks (who also never mention the ltte's ethnic cleansing of northern province) will also claim that this eviction of 376 tamils is equivalent to ethnic cleansing. after all they always parrot absurd theories and exaggerations dreamed up by terrorist propaganda office as a matter of course.

remember how they claimed that there is a plan to ethnically cleanse trinco after the small riot there in april 2006. peacenik ngo, centre of policy alternatives, allegedly sent a fact finding mission led by sunila abeysekera to investigate and then issued a statement purporting to be its results. only it turned out that the statement was a word for word plagiarism from a post by pro ltte writer dbs jeyaraj who was not mentioned. most of the claims made in that statement including allegation of ethnic cleansing have proved false. one can verify that by going to trinco (and i regularly do) and observing how ethnically mixed a city it is, and how wrong cpa and other peacenisk were.

as always leading the peacenik pack in parroting terrorists, is the free media movement (yes the same group that protested against arrest of ltte related sinhala terrorists who were plotting to blow up buses in colombo). it seems that sunanda deshapriya of fmm wants nothing better than to see bombed civilian buses in colombo.

holding racists to account
best way to fight racists (especially racists like simon gardner who pretend to be journalists) is to expose and point out their racist attitudes to the public scrutiny.

it is up to sri lankan public to hold people who make such claims about ethnic cleaning to account. we must record their statements during the next few days and ask them in a week, a month, or a year later, to explain themselves when it becomes evident that there was no such ethnic cleansing and hundreds of thousands of tamils continue to live in colombo.

i will personally keep tabs on sri lankan bloggers who fall for this and parrot exaggerations about ethnic cleansing and i will remind them of their statements in the future.

original report

Sri Lanka fights and evicts Tamils from capital

By Simon Gardner

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka evicted hundreds of ethnic Tamils from the capital on Thursday citing security concerns, as troops battled Tamil Tiger rebels in jungles in the island's restive east.

Military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said the army killed five insurgents overnight in a jungle area called Thoppigala in the eastern district of Batticaloa, and that fighting continued on Thursday as Japan's special peace envoy visited camps for war-displaced families in the area.

"We are continuing with our operation in Thoppigala and neutralising their positions," Samarasinghe said. He said four soldiers were injured during Wednesday's clash, the latest in a series of land and sea battles amid renewed civil war.

Back in Colombo, police packed 376 minority Tamils deemed without valid reasons to be in the capital into buses, most of them headed towards the northern district of Vavuniya - which is now the front line of the renewed civil war.

Rohan Abeywardene, Inspector General of Police for Colombo, said the ethnic Tamils were being sent back to their own villages for their own safety amid a rash of abductions blamed on state security services and Tamil Tiger rebels, and to avoid insurgents infiltrating the capital.

"Some people who had no valid reasons to be in Colombo and are just hanging around, they have been requested to leave and told they had better get back to their own villages," he said. "It is for their own good. You all have been complaining about people being abducted and arrested and detained."

"There is also a possibility that LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) cadres are among them also," he added.

Officials said most of those evicted would cross over into Tamil Tiger-held territory to return to their villages and that the Tigers had agreed to let them cross defence lines. The Tigers were not immediately available for comment.

ETHNIC CLEANSING?

Analysts decried the eviction as a shocking violation of human rights, with one likening it to a form of ethnic cleansing.

The move comes after a series of suspected Tamil Tiger bomb attacks in the capital in recent months as a conflict that has killed nearly 70,000 people since 1983 deepens.

Japanese envoy Yasushi Akashi, who is on a 5-day visit to try and find ways to salvage a battered peace process visited an elite police commando base and camps housing internally displaced in Batticaloa on Thursday, an aide said.

The camps are located far away from the jungles where the fighting is taking place.

Akashi was also due to visit the former rebel stronghold of Vakarai further north, which troops captured in January along with a vast swathe of eastern territory the rebels controlled under the terms of a tattered 2002 truce.

Japan has played down expectations of any breakthrough from the visit, but says the envoy will try to push forward an initiative to create a devolution proposal to end the conflict.

Reuters (IDS)

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missing the concrete for the garbage

this is a screenshot (click to enlarge) of google news for term 'sri lanka' sorted for 'relevance' at around 1 am june 5 sri lankan time. anyone really interested in news about sri lanka will notice straight away what is missing here; heavy fighting north of vauniya. imo that is the most newsworthy event taking place in sri lanka. however one has to search hard to find a news story about that in any major international news source.

it is missing in spite of the fact that stories about the fighting were in sri lankan news sites (sri lankan sites are in google news but for other stories) of all persuasions.

this is not the fault of google news; it merely reflects and grades news as reported in the web. (btw i am not complaining about the normal neglect of sri lanka in international media. that sort of bias is to be expected given their market audience, as i have said before. i am pointing out what is missing in what they do report about sri lanka)

all this is typical of international coverage of sri lanka in general and sri lankan conflict in particular. they miss the concrete forest for the garbage. by garbage i mean the completely false manufactured stories like 'expelling' (peaceniks going far as to say 'ethnic cleansing') of tamils from colombo.

cocoons
but some cocooned people in colombo (especially those with peacenik sympathies) swear by international news sources. (a recent post in peacenik sanjana hattotuwa's groudviews blog erroneously comparing news about darfur and sri lanka is a good example of this warped mentality. as usual the loser censored my comments pointing out the errors in the post. i will write a more detailed post on that later as soon as i have some free time).

same sort of people believe local sri lankan news to be censored even though they can easily realize their error by visiting the nearest newspaper stand ( if they are even in sri lanka, most of them aren't for most of the time) . if they do they will be able to read all points of view (even terrorist pussy point of view not to mention peacenik parrots of terrorists) uncensored (which is as it should be, this being a democracy).

typical peacenik response when their errors are pointed out is to ask us to mind our own business and not read them (see this thread). in other words, they want us to lock ourselves into a news and opinion cocoon as they have done. fat chance!

let them live in their self generated cocoons if they want, while we remain open to all news sources. let us also point out and expose their errors and their cocoons.

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note
did not write for a while bc i was busy (with business, traveling, esp to east, and attending sick relative etc.). thanks for the emails.

imperial delusions, aid, and reality

it seems politicians everywhere are prone delusions about their own power. one such example was on display in uk's house of commons on 2nd of may, when they debated about the situation in sri lanka.

in actual fact british empire has long gone and the ability of uk to interfere in sri lanka is very limited. we are not as poor or dependent on aid as some people here and there believe. while we sri lankans may give in on small things due to such allegedly attempted arm twistings (see below for actual situation) we will not give in on bigger things come what may. failure to recognize this difference means that any such attempt may backfire on them and their sri lankan supporters badly.

nor is it in uk's interest to see sri lankan government's position vis-à-vis ltte terrorists deteriorate, from both moral as well as real politick point of view. do they really want to see the power of ltte, the teacher of many terrorist groups grow unhindered? imo no. their actual actions in the form of continuing the ban on ltte and in recent crackdowns on their money collection activities and scams (as in other countries) clearly collaborate that opinion.

while some sri lankan peaceniks, following their masters the pussies, clearly want foreign intervention, nobody with any real sense anywhere is going to mistake ltte tigers for ragtag darfur rebels. nobody wishing to go anywhere in any field is going be caught dead publicly supporting ltte and its suicide bombers whatever they may think of sri lankan government

however with some labour mps depending on the support of tamil constituents they want to be seen as working to bring about a solution to sri lankan conflict. hence the meaningless sops offered on may 2nd

the debate
there has been all sorts of reports on this. you may read the (rather long) debate here straight from the hansard. the amount of ignorance displayed by british mps was astonishing, but perhaps typical of politicians everywhere. when they quoted bbc to back up their arguments you know they were not going to get to truth. most of the speakers were mps with tamil constituents and. with ltte terrorist lobby working full time their position and motivation was all too clear. primarily they wanted to lift the ban on ltte in uk and to create a moral equality between ltte and sri lankan government. other mps (mainly from the conservative party) pointed out the adverse implications of giving into ltte demands and the fact that ltte continues to engage in terrorist acts.

uk government ministers were clearly not in favor of lifting the ban on ltte or as the minister for the middle east, dr. kim howells characterized it 'suicide bombers, murderers, torturers and rapists'. though with predictable lack of principle, they still want gosl to talk to the ltte and to fully implement the already discredited cfa. however uk government is well aware that if gosl refuse to do that options available to uk government are very limited ( unless uk wants to be termed a terrorist supporting state which they clearly do not want).

old news recycled
this impotence was clearly demonstrated when uk government went so far as to say that it is withholding part of a debt relief package ( worth 41 million pounds over 10 years or about £4 million a year) to sri lanka until discussions between sri lankan and uk governments about certain conditions( relating to 'human rights, hostilities, defense spending and accountability') attached to the package is finished. however this decision was not something new, this was made known in february of this year. after some sri lankan papers reported on this, british high commission in sri lanka clarified this in a press release dated 18 february, basically saying the same thing that uk government said on 2nd may.

truth about foreign aid
to put this in perspective, sri lanka receives over $500 million in foreign aid (in actual fact loans) annually. british aid is comparatively very small. the package referred is the main component of british bilateral aid to sri lanka, even it was due mainly because of tsunami. normally uk gives next to nothing.

in recent years sri lanka has successfully resisted the attachment of conditions to aid. political conditions (as opposed to economic ones) as quite unheard of. this particular package signed in 2005 is mainly the result of aftermath of tsunami when the sl government probably took its guard down.

in any case the main problem with foreign aid to sri lanka has always been their non utilization due to sri lankan red tape and sheer inability to get going on projects. only around 15-25% of the aid pledged annually is actually used, though recent sri lankan governments have allegedly tried hard to increase that percentage.

in light of all these factors the debate and the announcement about aid on may 2nd can not have much of a real impact on sri lanka. they are essentially sops for the benefit of labour mps with tamil constituents who may be influenced by ltte.

in so far as that goes let them have their delusional debates in order to mislead their tamil constituents if they want to.

real interference
while debate and the non news about aid may not have any real impact, the 'all-party tamil group' (sic) formed by some british mps chaired by keith vaz (labour mp for leicester, east) may try to interfere in sri lanka for real. according to him they want to visit north and east and to invite terrorists' chief negotiator tamil chelvam (aka toothy pussy) to address them. while their actions are unlikely to change the uk policy towards sri lanka, they can be used by the ltte as a propaganda tool

government of sri lanka must make it clear that british mps do not have power here. only people who should have power here are sri lankan public and their democratically elected representatives. and as i said before they will not give up certain bigger things even if they give up small things in the face of alleged attempts at control

some sri lankans (sort of parasitic individuals who did not find anything objectionable in amnesty internationals' disgusting campaign against sri lankan cricket) to whom all things foreign (esp if white skinned foreign) are literally god given, will no doubt object to that. however sri lanka is not an oligarchy run by english speaking pseudo elite whiners. this is a functioning democracy. as such it would reflect public's view on such interference

pro-actively turning the propaganda on its head
all that does not mean gosl should reject the british mps out of hand. instead sri lankan government should if possible try to turn this attempted ltte propaganda effort on its head.

sri lankan government should demand that if mps are allowed to visit, they should agree to be covered fully and transparently by all media even in ltte controlled areas, and that mps and media have free access to ordinary people there. gosl should demand that representatives of non ltte parties (tamils as well as non tamils) be given equal opportunity to make their case if ltte representatives are given a hearing here or in britain.

sri lankan government's aim should be to bring out the reasons why terrorist ltte should not be part of any power sharing solution as long as it remains armed and uses its current methods. it should point out why ltte cannot be considered a representative of tamils in sri lanka. ltte claim to be such rests solely on oppression of tamils and physical elimination of any alternative democratic tamil leadership. after all if anyone is really concerned about human rights in sri lanka they would not have any option but to support the defeat of ltte. gosl should also point to the clear double standards exhibited by the british mps if they engage is any sort of moralizing on behalf of ltte.

above all sri lanka should confront them with ltte atrocities and methods in all their documented and grisly details. if they are here on good faith they would realize the truth if they are not they will be exposed for what they are.

it is only by aggressive pro-active engagement that hypocrites like keith vaz and his ilk can be exposed and discredited. going on the defensive won't work here, anymore than in the battlefield.

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update

here (1, 2) are details from uk parliament's committee on standards and privileges about corrupt dealings of keith vaz mp referred above. clearly he is uk's answer to mervyn silva. curious how peaceniks and terrorists appeasers always prefer such people. remember how mervyn silva and all the leading sri lankan peaceniks organized a pro appeasement protest march and rally that ended in fisticuffs? on the other hand it is not all that surprising. corrupt people probably like to hang around each other.