May
05, 2003 Toronto. Hon.
David Kilgour Secretary
of State (Asia-Pacific) Ottawa. “Sri Lanka and Canada:
Expanding Friendships”
Dear
Hon. Minister We
write in response to the remarks you made at
the inaugural meeting of the Canada-Sri-Lanka Parliamentary Friendship Group in Parliament
Hill, Ottawa recently. To
begin with, we wish to commend your initiative to form a Canada-Sri Lanka Parliamentary
Friendship Group, albeit too late in the day. What more an important factor in the peace
process equation is completely missing! Right
from the beginning the Liberal government has taken a “hands off” policy in
respect of the two decades old armed conflict that ravaged the island. Our pleas to the government, including the Hon.
Minister, to mediate between the warring parties fell on deaf years. The Foreign Ministry
repeated ad nauseam “We will
facilitate peace talks between the belligerents if both parties jointly make a request.”
This was a charade by the bureaucrats in the Foreign Ministry to avoid facing the problem
altogether. It is because the Sri Lankan
government and the LTTE could not agree that we suggested third party mediation. Thankfully that role has now been assumed by
Norway. We owe a sense of gratitude to this Nordic country for its selfless and thankless
job as a facilitator. Not
only did the Canadian government refused to intervene, it also compounded the problem by
labelling the LTTE as “an organization engaged in terrorist acts.” In doing so
the Canadian government completely ignored the state terrorism and repression unleashed by
a racist government against the defenceless Thamil people.
In
October 1995 the Canadian government rubbed salt to the wound when it arrested
Manickavasagam Suresh on charges that "there are
reasonable grounds to believe he is or was a member of an organization engaged in
terrorism (LTTE) in terms of Section 19(1) of the Immigration Act. This despite the
fact that the Liberal Party while in opposition opposed tooth and nail the enactment
of Section 19(1) describing it as draconian. But the same Liberal party Immigration critic
on becoming Minister for Immigration lost no time in signing the Security Certificate
under the same Section which led to the incarceration of Suresh. He was treated worse than
a common criminal and at one stage he was kept incommunicado in a cold room! When he
was released on bail after spending 2 years behind bars, he was a shadow of his former
self having contracted the deadly TB while in custody. His lawful political
activities in support of the Tamil people’s national liberation struggle for the
right to self-determination under the leadership of the LTTE were construed as terrorism.
At the same time the
prosecution conceded that there was no evidence that Suresh ever committed
any crime either in Canada or Sri Lanka. The
lawyers appearing for the Ministry of Justice told the Federal court judge unashamedly
that Manickavasagam Suresh should be deported to Sri Lanka even if he faced torture or
even if his life was at risk. This was Liberal government’s perverted
sense of justice despite Canada being a signatory to the UN Convention Against Torture! Even today the Canadian government’s sterile
and unimaginative foreign policy remains unchanged. 1)
LTTE is still considered a “terrorist
organization” by the Liberal government; 2)
Thamil Canadians who support the LTTE are “potential terrorists” in the eyes of
the CSIS, the RCMP and the National Post; 3)
LTTE members/activists are not permitted to enter Canada. 4)
Thamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) is the only indigenous humanitarian organization
providing relief work in the war-torn Northeast. But
the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA) has denied charity status on the spurious
grounds that it is a “front organization”
of the Thamil Eelam Society/ WTM/LTTE! 5)
When Fr.Gasper Raj, former director of Veritas Thamil Radio based in Manila came to attend
a TRO function in Toronto on March 27, 2002 he was refused entry into Canada at the
Pearson International Airport by CSIS/ Immigration Officials. He was handcuffed, humiliated, denied sleep, very
shabbily treated and put on a plane next morning to the US! (Annexure 1). It was due to
his charisma as a priest in the service of God that Thamil Canadians came forward to
sponsor more than 1,000-orphaned children in Vanni. Strangely
we find that Canadian diplomats have no qualms or moral compunctions in shaking hands and
posing for photographs with real LTTE functionaries in the jungles of Vanni. Apparently, Canada is practising
apartheid internally but not externally! The Hon. Minister has said, “When there was very little outside aid reaching the North and
East, Canada was delivering about one-fifth of the humanitarian relief.” We are very skeptic about the Hon. Minister’s
tall claim and we invite him to back his statement with exact dollars given out for
humanitarian relief. The only funding
we are aware is the Canadian –Sri Lanka development funding to Sri Lanka through
South-Asian Partnership. But this did not exceed 12 million in any given year! Out of
that 90% was spent on projects outside the Northeast!
And not surprisingly there was only a solitary Thamil director on the SAP
board. However, if what the Minister says is a
fact then half-a million people in Vanni should not have languished and continue to
languish in squalor and disease due to lack of food and medicine. A report by an NGO said 90% of the children
suffered from third-degree malnutrition. And pregnant mothers gave birth to under-weight
babies! The travails and tribulations of people in
Vanni and elsewhere are still not over despite a ceasefire agreement in force for the last
15 months. The Sunday Leader columnist Frederica
Jansz who visited Vanni recently said inter-alia “Out
of a total population of 142,372 persons "the situation is desperate" as people
have no employment opportunities and as such, are living below the poverty line. He
maintained that more than 24,532 families depend on dry rations issued via government food
stamps. "Over 32,000 families in the Vanni live below the poverty line….”
The columnist added, “The shelters of many of these
people living in the Vanni can barely be even referred to as houses. They look more like
little play houses or even dog kennels with the tallest being a little over five feet in
height.” (Annexure 2) The
Hon. Minister has said “we are home to over 200,000 Canadians of Sri Lankan
origin, giving us the largest Thamil Diaspora in the world.. …. I hope that this
group can help all of Canada’s Sri Lankan communities to be positive forces in this
process.” Asking the Thamil Diaspora to be positive in the peace process is like asking the Pope to support the Catholic Church! The Hon. Minister is preaching to the converts! It can be even described as sanctimonious humbugging. As victims of a bloody war we have been insisting from the inception that a political solution must be found to the civil conflict. We have long agreed with President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s position that negotiation offers the best hope for durable peace in Sri Lanka. Today as in the past we are fully supportive of a political solution based on self-determination, justice and equality. It is the Canadian government, which frustrated our efforts and continue to do so by treating the Thamil Diaspora as “supporters of terrorists” and denying charity status to TRO. The Hon. Minister and his government may strike friendship with the Sri Lankan government, but that alone will not result in peace or progress. If the Canadian government is sincere in its commitment to peace, it should lift the ban on LTTE immediately. Your sterile policy of trashing the LTTE as a “terrorist” organization and a political outcaste is ludicrous, if not comical. It flies in the face of logic and ignores reality on the ground. In conclusion, if long-term peace is finally achieved it will not be due to the efforts of Canada, but despite it. Thank you.
Yours truly,
Veluppillai
Thangavelu Contact:
(416) 281 1165; (416) 261 9099; (416) 447 6314: Fax (416) 261 6547 Email-athangav@sympatico.ca |
