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INDICTMENT AGAINST SRI LANKA
Censorship, Disinformation & Murder of Journalists
A Response to Dr.Peter Chalk
CSIS, P.O.Box 9732, Postal Station T
Ottawa, Ontario K1G 4G4, FAX: (613) 842-1312
Siva Muthulingasamy
London, 22 June 2000
".... in most cases the media present news
and events in a manner that not only agrees with the views of the powerful, but actually
supports their domination.... the maintenance of order is the key idea to be examined in
the media... in earlier times violence and the threat of physical force was used to
maintain order. But today control is pursued through very different avenues; most
effectively.... through cultural control, or ‘controlling the common
sense’....Repeated representations of ideological domains continues to define or
‘indicate’ culture, particularly for people who are heavily exposed to the
media… media often interpret and synthesise images in accord with the assumptions of
the dominant ideology’..."(The Media, Framing, and
the Internet - John Harrington) |
Dear Mr Chalk,
Re: Your article,
Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam's
International Organisation and Operations
- A Preliminary Analysis
I read with utter disbelief your article branding the LTTE as a threat to
the international community in Commentary #77. If you look
at countries where Tamils are living, you can see how law abiding and productive we are to
the host nation. We took to arms because the so-called
"International Community" looked the other way
when the Sinhala race went on a spate of government sponsored
pogroms against the Tamils. The tea
industry in Sri Lanka and the rubber industry in Malaya flourished and are still
flourishing mainly because of the hard working Tamils who work in them...
 If the Sri
Lankan state can bomb Tamil civilians from 15,000
feet and if the so called "International Community" chooses to ignore it...,
then can you blame the LTTE for sending a dedicated cadre to immolate himself in order to
inflict damage on the brutal enemy. This act seeks to take the fight to the enemies'
territory as well as get the "International Community's" attention to the
SL Government's atrocities.
I do not know who killed Rajiv Gandhi,
but let me tell you, he is one of a handful of men in the history of the world who turned his guns unscrupulously on the very same
people he ostensibly went to save...
If what you say is true, about the International scale of the LTTE's influence and
exploitation of the latest developments in Information Technology, satellite
communications, procurement of arms, shipping, propaganda etc, then would you not accept
that the LTTE is being run effectively like a multinational company from the jungles of
Wanni? If that is so, and given the massive Tamil support for them, do you not think that
the LTTE should be given the opportunity to run EELAM for the Tamils? ...
 We, the Tamils are suffering today, not ONLY because of the heinous deeds of the Sinhalese but also due to the appalling silence and hypocrisy of the
'international community'. Pogroms against unarmed Tamils by the Sinhalese starting from 1958 have been well documented and recognised by all decent people.
I was only 11 years old and living in Colombo in 1958, when my house was
like a refugee camp, full of my relatives whose houses had been burnt and looted by the
Sinhala mob, aided and abetted by the Buddhist monks while the so called
"international community" stood-by watching. Mr. Pirabaharan,
our beloved leader, was only 4 years old then, and there were no Tigers nor Leopards nor
Panthers around to be blamed but only Sinhala chauvinism... |
