Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

29 March 2021

 

 

 

UNHRC  SITHAR

 

I was a bit upset to note the name of Australian Tamil Congress in the list of ‘Tamil diaspora groups banned’ by the Sri Lankan government. According to that report by the Daily Mirror:

[They have been banned under Regulation 4(7) of the United Nations Regulations No. 1 of 2012. 

The gazette notice issued to ban the organizations has been signed by Defence Secretary Kamal Gunaratne. 

The Government has also banned a number of individuals based in the UK, Germany, Italy, Malaysia and several other countries. 

Among those banned are GTF spokesman Suren Surendiran, who had been engaged in talks with then Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera and the Tamil National Alliance after the former Government lifted the ban on some of the diaspora groups. ]

In my yesterday’s article headed ‘SITHAR WITHIN  UNHRC’ I wrote as follows:

 

[Ms Arden would not have prevented that attack but she shared in the pain of the victims and thus developed the Energy to protect her nation from the attack of the king-virus. War and disease follow each other once we lose control. In Sri Lanka, the Rajapaksa government was able to prevent the attacks but lacked the capacity to control the virus. The vote at Security Council level would have been different to that of the Human Rights Council level for this reason. Pain at UNHRC would prevent the need for a vote at Security Council level. That would also help remove the proscription against the LTTE – provided Tamils also accept the pain on Equal footing. Then we would be Equal partners and do not need to go begging to India.]

 

Through my regular writings, I have been urging that the disciplinary action be on Equal footing. But no one seemed to have heard me. Some members of the Tamil Diaspora tried to ridicule me as being ‘bogus’. A Canadian Tamil wrote to me on 28 February 2021:

 

[Do not write rubbish and hide  facts for cheap publicity  Are you getting paid by the Mahinda dynasty from Chinese money 

Are there are no Tamils in Australia to take care of you  Thank god no lamp posts in Australia ]

If the groups promoted by such members of the Tamil Diaspora were to lead Sri Lankan Tamils, we would become a mercenary group. Wikipedia presents Mercenary as follows:

[A mercenary, sometimes known as a soldier of fortune, is an individual who takes part in military conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any other official military. Mercenaries fight for money or other forms of payment rather than for political interests. Beginning in the 20th century, mercenaries have increasingly come to be seen as less entitled to protections by rules of war than non-mercenaries. Indeed, the Geneva Conventions declare that mercenaries are not recognized as legitimate combatants and do not have to be granted the same legal protections as captured service personnel of a regular army. In practice, whether or not a person is a mercenary may be a matter of degree, as financial and political interests may overlap, as was often the case in all of history.]

A mercenary fighting as if s/he were fighting for ownership cause – is the parallel of an academic plagiarizing to claim others’ work  as her/his own.

Many members of the Tamil Diaspora have done just that. The ‘reasoning’ by the Australian Tamil Congress in the case of  ‘War Memorial issue at the University of Jaffna is as follows:

[The Australian Tamil Congress (ATC) strongly condemns the destruction of the Mullivaikkal Monument located in the University of Jaffna campus. This memorial pays tribute to the many thousands of Tamils killed in Mullivaikkal by the Sri Lanka state in 2009, and was demolished by authorities on 8 Jan 2021. This act has drawn criticism from around the globe with politicians from Canada, Tamil Nadu and the United Kingdom speaking out on the issue. Locally hundreds of Tamils have gathered to express their outrage. Students have begun a hunger strike in protest of the state’s denial of their right to memorialisation.]

This was totally opposed to my own feelings on this issue. According to ATC, educational  investment by Jaffna folks was completely overridden by wanting revenge against the Government of Sri Lanka which defeated the LTTE. My investment in Jaffna has been led by my sacrifices at various levels. Sacrifices go towards development of reliable structures that are common to many. Those with whom I have merged forces at the University of Jaffna would not have promoted armed war and therefore its victims above victims of armed warriors who seriously demoted our investment in the intellectual pathway. If LTTE was more important than academic leaders – then instead of the University of Jaffna, Tamils ought to have demanded our own Armed Forces as compensation for the policy of standardization implemented in 1972. Now, we Tamils are responsible for the militarization of the University of Jaffna.

To know the truth of the University as our own – we need to go into the nucleus of the University where the true sacrifices accumulate as Energy. This is not different to the power of an electorate nor the power of any region. Most Tamil Diaspora participants went into their own community politics in the UNHRC matter. They did not go into Jaffna University as if they were owners of the University. Despite being aware of my experience with the Australian University community, the ATC did not even ask how I felt. This then meant that my investment in Democracy at global standards naturally opposed their energy in the UNHRC issue. The result is that their wisdom in academic affairs would not be accessible to the community of the University of Jaffna.

This is a clever move by the Government of Sri Lanka led by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. It will take Selfish Diaspora Tamils a long time to recover from this blow. Dharma wins in its own quiet way. This time Dharma happened against the Tamil Diaspora due to the UNHRC including the LTTE as perpetrators. That was the work of the UNHRC Sithar who quietly communicated with the UN Security Council Sithar.