Sri Lankan army ‘colonising’ Tamil lands

Sri Lanka’s Army Commander General Foneska’s statement on recruiting 100,000 new recruits has raised fears, in the minds of Sri Lankan Tamil Observer groups, of systematic colonisation of the Tamil lands in the North and the East by the Sinhala army.  This fear is becoming a pre-occupation with these observers, as they mull over the issue of peaceful settlement of Tamil issue.

At the third anniversary of International Tamil Centre (ITC), they said, “Instead of demobilisation of armed power, Sri Lankan government is going in for fresh recruitment drive. This is nothing but the reflection of the mistrust and unsafe conditions that exist for the innocent Tamils.” As the think-tanks tried answering what Next? After the fall of LTTE, Bruce Fein, former Associate deputy Attorney General and Counsel for the Tamils Against Genocide Group urged the Tamils groups to unite. He said: “We very badly need a sense of unity and co mmitment, we have to put aside the egomania and have to represent the issue united for the movement to be persistent.

We need a face to lead, we need unity now than ever before.” Burce Fein also pointed at the debilitating Tamil trait of infighting as, “If there are three Tamilians , there are 10 political outfits. This has to stop. We need to come together as a collected force, otherwise we are allowing the Lankan government to get away with the genocide.”

Dr Winston Panchat – sharam, Founder ITC (USA) president with a powerpoint presentation took the audience through the throes of torture and trauma of the innocent Tamils at the island nation. He said, “More than 50,000 Tamils were killed in Wanni and 13,000 are missing if you don’t call this genocide then what is genocide?