Sri Lanka’s war is an INTERNAL MATTER

Dear Mr. Bob Rae,

You tell us that you are the Chairman of the FORUM of FEDERATIONS, and have attended most of the negotiating sessions of the so-called peace talks many times.

I wonder which side you represented or whether you were just an independent observer. In any case your history of the subject lacks much factual aspects to it-only broad brush strokes of partiality to the TAMIL TIGERS, and hence you are not a credible negotiator.
Having said that let me correct some of your facts. You leave the impression that Sinhalese is the official language of Sri Lanka- this is not true, with less than 10% of the population being Tamil, Sinhalese and Tamil are the official languages of Sri Lanka ,with English been the bridge language. If you look at India with 70,000,000 (million) Tamils living there it is not an official language, but only a provincial language. You also mention that the Tamils have limited access to the Universities and the civil service. This is again a very grave mistake on your part or purposely said to repeat the Tamil Tigers propaganda.

Let me again tell you some home-truths. When Sri Lanka was given its Independence from the British in 1948, a large proportion of University places (wellover40%) and civil service jobs in the higher echelons were in the hands of the Tamils. This as we all now know is the typical British “divide and rule politics”. But then the elected governments at that time, who represented a majority Sinhala population, did change this equation-even in the USA there is a quota for the Universities depending on the ethnic divide. I might not fully agree with this view, but those are the facts. May be the Sri Lankan Governments of the day could have done a better job of explaining to the Tamil folks the reasons for those changes. Mistakes have been made on all sides and we should try to avoid them, and treat all communities with respect, love and compassion.

Again you go on to say “… that they have never been able to find justice inside a failed state. The Tigers appear as the only public voice for the many grievances of the Tamil population inside Sri Lanka “Who says Sri Lanka is a failed State-if one look at the raw data in the SAARC region alone in spite of the 30 year Tiger Terrorist problem Sri Lanka is ahead of all those countries in all indices as human development is concerned- this cannot be an accident! Sri Lanka is ahead in life expectancy, literacy, infant mortality, GDP, and on and on. So Mr. Rae your accounts are all wrong. Nobody buy your propaganda-I guess you are singing for a few votes and many ill-gotten dollars, you and other members of parliament collected from the Tamil Diaspora by fair and foul means.

You have no idea that the Tigers do represent a small % of the Tamil population in Sri Lanka. There are more Tamils living in Colombo, than either Sinhalese or Muslims. There are 3 Tamil Ministers of State and 31 Tamil members of parliament. Please stop speaking the Tiger Terrorist Propaganda.

This war certainly is an Internal Sri Lankan matter, but let me remind you an Internal Matter in Canada, that we are all concerned about-The Aboriginal People of Canada-comprising of 3.8% of the population. According to some authorities “Canada is alleged to be in violation of the United Nations Genocide Convention that Canada signed in 1949, and passed through parliament in 1952.This coupled with the residential school system that forcibly removed aboriginal children from their homes and placed in Christian run schools has led some scholars to believe Canada can be tried in international court for genocide. (Restoule, Jean-Paul.”Aboriginal Identity”)

Mr. Rae look after your peoples in Canada and leave the Sri Lankans alone-it is an internal matter.

Thank you,

C.K.Fernando