Sri Lankan Tamils & Palestinians: International Justice In The Dark?

By Amirthanayagam Nixon –

Eleven years ago, a resolution was passed in the United Nations (UN) regarding the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people and Palestine as a separate country.139 countries voted in favor of Palestine and nine against. 41 countries did not participate in the vote.

Many countries including European countries like India and Sri Lanka have accepted this in the UN Council. Nine countries, including the United States and Israel, voted against the resolution. Now, in the background of the active support of the United States in support of Israel, Hamas has once again launched a war against Israel.

The United States labeled the LTTE as terrorists who fought for the Political emancipation of the Elam Tamils in the north-east of Sri Lanka. The United States has also designated the Hamas movement’s army as terrorists.

Hamas Movement has the support of Muslim countries including Iran. But no country supports the LTTE. Even India, which is closest to the North-East as a Tamil territory, has no support for the LTTE. But the LTTE has only the aim of Political emancipation of the Tamils. So Hamas and Tigers cannot be compared.

However, the Western and European countries, including the United States, have labeled the Hamas movement as terrorists, and the strategy of completely destroying the Palestinian people’s position as a legitimate independent state through war is seen.

The question here is why the United States and Canada now say that a permanent solution for the Palestinian people is only after the destruction of Hamas. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Hamas is different from the Palestinian people. In other words, the Canadian Prime Minister expresses the view that Hamas is not fighting for the Palestinian people.

From Mr. JR Jayewardene to the present President Ranil Wickremesinghe, they said that the ethnic problem can be solved only after the destruction of the LTTE terrorists. They had made distorted propaganda to the international community that the LTTE did not fight for the political liberation of the Tamil people.

It is against this background that since the beginning of peace talks with the Sri Lankan government in February 2002, Sri Lanka has sought foreign support to destroy the LTTE. It can be interpreted that the Israel-Palestine war that has started now and the international attitudes towards it make this more public.

Addressing a debate in Parliament in January 2020, Mr.R. Sampanthan explained that the American Indian ambassadors had met him in January 2009 and asked him that after the LTTE was destroyed and the war ended a permanent political solution would be provided and that he should cooperate with it.

Mr. Sampanthan had expressed concern that he had believed in the promise of a political solution, but even after the passage of ten years, the solution had not happened and the American Indian governments had deceived him.

What does Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau say now that the Israel-Palestine war has started?

Last week, Trudeau said in Parliament that there would be a solution for the Palestinians only after the destruction of Hamas.

US President Joe Biden also says the same. But there was no condemnation of Israel’s attack on the Gaza hospital. However, Mr.Joe Biden has announced that he will donate one hundred million dollars to the victims of Palestine.

European countries have also announced that they will provide financial assistance. But European countries have never publicly condemned Israel’s attack on Gaza. On the contrary, they have gently told Israel that they should avoid killing people.

Western and European countries, which condemned the attack on Israel by Hamas on the 7th of this month, did not see the violations carried out by Israel on Palestine for more than three months. No condemnation.

As an extreme measure to counter these violations, Hamas also attacked Israeli civilians. So justice is covered up?

This war brilliantly demonstrates that political justice is in favor of the State of Israel and the geopolitical-economic orientation of Western and European countries.

In 2010, Mr.R. Sampanthan told Parliament that the Sri Lankan government’s 2009 war in the vast Vanni region was conducted without evidence.

Mr.R. Sampanthan also mentioned that all United Nations and International Red Cross offices from Kilinochchi were completely closed and all foreigners who worked there were invited to Colombo.

Mr. Sampanthan had also pointed out that when the offices were closed in Kilinochchi, the people who had gathered there cried and lamented not to leave them alone.

So Mr. Sampanthan had publicly demanded in Parliament that the Sri Lankan government should be held responsible for all the murders that took place in Vanni land without any evidence. But the Sinhalese rulers are yet to be held accountable. And American Indian governments have not yet touched their conscience.

late Ratnasiri Wickramanayake, who was then Prime Minister, had said in the Sri Lankan Parliament after the end of the war that the American and Indian governments had cooperated in the final war in 2009. The Prime Minister boasted that China had also helped. He thanked the international countries for their cooperation.

In such an approach, the Western and European countries are aiming to destroy the Hamas movement without noticing the attacks carried out by Israel on Palestine. India is acting with a dual stance on international issues including the Palestine issue.

Specifically India is operating with a double position in a way that is favorable to Western and European countries and at the same time in a way that suits the Russian-Chinese partnership. Similarly, India is taking a double stand on the issue of Elam Tamils.

So why do the Indian and Western European countries have the evil intention that the liberation movements should not grow into a conventional military? Why has the United Nations not condemned the Israeli government as much as it has condemned Hamas?

It cannot be denied that ordinary innocent people in Israel have been killed in Hamas attacks. No one can support the violence of Hamas. But even crueler than that, the Palestinian people have been subjected to genocide for the past seventy years. Their traditional territories have been usurped. Palestinian economic resources have been expropriated and destroyed by the Israeli government. What is the international justice for these destructions? 

At one point the Middle Eastern countries were even willing to compromise with the US for the sake of the Palestinian people. Agreed to exchange oil resources and sign related agreements.

But Israel’s continued genocide against Palestine has made Middle Eastern countries reluctant to continue their relationship with the United States.

In 2012, the United States did not support the United Nations resolution for Palestinian statehood. However, Middle Eastern countries maintained relations with the United States.

The anti-Palestinian actions taken by Mr.Donald Trump, who came to office in the United States in 2016, had caused suspicion in the Middle East countries.

But the Mr.Joe Biden administration that took office in January 2020 should have fixed it. On the contrary, Joe Biden has strengthened Israel by carrying out all the activities carried out by Mr.Donald Trump in a soft move with the Middle Eastern countries.

Against this background, the war that has started in Palestine has cast doubt on all the international public bodies, including the United Nations and the Western and European countries.

Because the United Nations has made a mistake in the issue of Elam Tamils the UN Committee of Experts had publicly pointed out in the report published in 2010. The report accused the international community of not taking action to prevent the killing of civilians.

The Geneva Human Rights Council reports strongly condemned the killing of Tamil civilians. In an interview given to international media, the former Commissioner of the Geneva Human Rights Council, Navaneetham Pillai, accused the international community of failing to take action to prevent casualties.

But now, tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than one million displaced by Israel’s attack on Palestine after the attack by Hamas. The UN has not taken action to prevent it in the last three weeks. The UN is only issuing a statement asking people to protect themselves and avoid casualties. No constructive steps have been taken yet.

Why did the UN, which failed to prevent it when tens of thousands of lives were lost in the Vanni region, not try to prevent it in Palestine? Couldn’t we take a lesson from the report of the UN expert panel in 2010 regarding the final phase of the Mullivaikal war and prevent casualties in Palestine?

The Palestinian people are recognized in the UN So why is the UN simply watching the killing of Palestinians by Israel? So who is behind the UN Council?

Whose responsibility is it to answer these questions? This is the geopolitical-economic interest of superpowers It means talking about human rights and democracy according to their needs.

To facilitate this, the UN and the Geneva Human Rights Council provide direct and indirect cooperation to these powerful countries. It is from here that the background of the discovery of wrongdoing or deliberate creation of wrongdoing in the liberation movements should be looked at. What happened to the LTTE in 2009 should be examined in this context.

There is no such thing as terrorism in the world. It is these powerful nations that create it or cause it. But powerful countries like America tend to portray the liberation movements as terrorists and move to save the government against which those movements are fighting.

In particular, it can be observed that America is dealing with the state of Israel from a different perspective and the small country of Sri Lanka in the Indo-Pacific issue. India also acts as a background for this.

Because Indian state governments do not have proper powers. The Central Government of India is a type of unitary regime with constitutional powers. Therefore, India pressured Sri Lanka to enact a 13th Amendment Act for Elam Tamils similar to the powers in the Indian states, resulting in the Indo-Sri Lanka Treaty of 29 July 1987. Accordingly, the 13th Amendment Act was approved by the Sri Lankan Parliament in 1988 and incorporated as the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Unitary Constitution. But this is not a complete political solution. Tamils are concerned that India has offered an incomplete political solution to its regional interests.

Thousands of civilians have been killed in the war with the Indian Army in the North East against the incomplete political settlement proposed by the Indian central government. Women were sexually assaulted.

In 1987, the Indian Army attacked a Jaffna hospital, killing 187 civilians and some doctors and nurses. In 2009, the Sri Lankan Army attacked Kilinochchi and Puthukudiripu Mathalan hospitals in the final war on the vast Vanni region, killing tens of thousands of civilians.

But observing the cold war between the American Indian governments and the duplicity of the Indian government in international affairs, Sri Lanka rejected the international war crime investigation and completely distanced itself from the accountability. 

War crimes trial is the strategy to save Sri Lanka. Therefore, the Tamils are continuously demanding that an international inquiry should be conducted about the Tamil genocide. But no attention was paid to it.

So it is true that such a dangerous situation will befall the internationally recognized Palestinian people.

In other words, it is clear that if Hamas is destroyed, the Palestinian people will continue to be subjected to ethnic cleansing by the Israeli government, just as the promise of a solution will be made only after the destruction of the LTTE, and so far without any solution.

*Amirthanayagam Nixon worked as a journalist for 10 years in the Virakesari Tamil daily published in Colombo. He also held the posts of President Secretary of Tamil Media Alliance. Currently he is writing articles on contemporary geopolitical economy in several Tamil weekly papers. He also serves as a Visiting Media studies Lecturer at the University of Jaffna.

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