BETA

A few days ago a bomb exploded in downtown Colombo. It targeted the Sri Lankan Army’s Special Forces. This explosion occurred on a busy main road during the evening rush hour, killing eight civilian bystanders and wounding more than twenty others, including six Army troopers. The majority of the victims were Sinhalese.

Within minutes of this sad and deplorable incident, the Sri Lankan Government and Sinhalese media blamed the Tamils for this crime.

Hence following this attack the Tamil populated neighbourhoods in Colombo were cordoned and swept by security forces. A large number of Tamil civilians were arrested for interrogation. Their crime? Well, they were all Tamils.

In the mean time the Secretary General of the Secretariat for Co-ordinating Peace Process in Sri Lanka (SCOPP) described the blast as a deliberate attack to cause civilian unrest in the Sinhalese South. What he really meant was that the angry Sinhalese may run amok and start a Rwanda like killing spree of Tamils. After all they did kill more than two thousand Tamil civilians in the infamous July 1983, didn’t they?

The official news portal of the Sri Lankan Government pleaded with the Sinhalese to keep calm, without giving vent to their anger and to look after the minorities.

Sinhalese Press urged readers to restrain from any violence towards those Tamils living among them.

For the Government in Colombo the violence that occurred was a god sent. Suddenly it could divert all international attention from the Tamil Northeast. It could augment its argument regarding its ‘war on terror’ and carry on with its inhumane war on Tamils.

Tamils of Sri Lanka continue to describe their situation as one of intimidation, institutional racism and impunity. They point out the past massacres of Tamils in the South such as in July 1983. Furthermore, the head of the Centre for Policy Alternatives think tank in Colombo describes the current situation in Sri Lanka as "it is like going back to the late 1980s and 90s. The culture of impunity is very similar".

In the mean time the continuous denial of the true picture of Tamil Northeast goes on. 

The Tamil Northeast of Sri Lanka is still a big group of imprisoned villages that is surrounded by heavily guarded Sri Lankan Army roadblocks. It is still a place where Tamil women in labour and the sick have to risk walking through fields for miles to get to the nearest hospital. They still give birth at Sri Lankan Army checkpoints and the critically ill still loose their lives en route to hospitals.

Just like in the 80’s and 90’s.
And these facts are ignored, just like in the 80’s and 90’s.

Few non-Tamils are capable of imagining what life is like in the Northeast: the almost universal unemployment, poverty, endless siege and humiliations of life. Young Tamils still have no reason to get up in the morning other than to face another day of joblessness and humiliation.

Just like in the 80’s and 90’s.
And these facts are ignored, just like in the 80’s and 90’s.

The international media states that Sri Lanka counted "four years of ceasefire" without war. But there is no greater lie than this. The quiet was only in the south. During this "ceasefire" hundreds of Tamil children were killed by malnutrition and preventable diseases, and almost no one bothered to report it.

Just like in the 80’s and 90’s.
And these facts are ignored just like in the 80’s and 90’s.

The Sri Lankan Air Force bombers continue to attack ‘selective targets’ in the Tamil North and the Sri Lankan Army too has intensified its artillery shelling there. Two innocent Tamils were killed in just one day this week in these attacks.

Just like in the 80’s and 90’s.
And these facts are ignored, just like in the 80’s and 90’s.

Delft (Neduntheevu) is the farthest and biggest of the inhabited islands off the Jaffna peninsula with a population of seven thousand Tamils. The majority of these islanders make a living from fishing. The Sri Lankan Navy’s camp there was attacked by the Tamil Tigers last week. Since the attack the Navy has stopped all economic and social activities there. The navy has taken control of all fishing boats thus stopped all fishing by the islanders.

Just like in the 80’s and 90’s.

The mass-circulation Sinhala dailies mentioned the situation in Delft as a security issue. They ignored the collective punishment of these Tamils by the Sri Lankan Navy.

This is how the Sri Lankan state’s national agenda is determined.

This has nothing to do with media critique; it's about the Sinhalese image.

A society that disregards loss of human life, caused by its own soldiers, is a tainted society. A society that conceals from its citizens vital information of these kinds is undercutting their sense of judgment. If people do not know, who will ask why? Scores of Tamil civilians were killed in Deep Penetration Unit (DPU) actions without the question being asked as to whether these missions were justified at any means, at any price.

This is a deliberate aim. It permits presenting the Tamils as the only guilty party, and it falls on fertile Southern ground.

That is how it becomes possible to speak of ceasefire and then claim that the Tamils disturbed it.

Further, the presentation of killing as such a marginal matter also sends a dangerous message to the Sinhala soldiers: there is nothing terrible about killing more and more Tamils.

Just like in the 80’s and 90’s.

The situation is further compounded when one examines the attitude of the Sinhala society towards its victims such as this week’s downtown Colombo bomb blast: there aren't many societies that immerse themselves in bereavement so intensely. What we have, then, is a dual morality: one counts only ones own dead, all the rest don't exist.

While, the Sri Lankan President’s supporter, parliamentarian and Buddhist monk Venerable Athuraliye Rathana Thera says "Japanese are from Japan, English are from England, Tamil is not a race in Sri Lanka. They have a separate country. They should not fight with Sri Lanka asking for a separate state instead fight in Tamilnadu".

Just like in the 80’s and 90’s.