posted November 07, 2001 01:19 PM            

When it comes to news about "America's New War," I have been turning to the BBC. There are two reasons for my choice. The first is that the BBC coverage carries hardly any reports that reflect propaganda values or that "sell" the war as "America's War" and, as well, is reliably informative on world news that does not reflect solely America's interests.

The second reason for preferring BBC World news to CNN is there are no commercials anywhere on the BBC. This combination of reasonably objective coverage of the war blessedly free of commercials and program promos offers the viewer considerably therapeutic benefits while making him or her better informed and with a more balanced view of the war.

All this can be yours simply by touching the button marked + on the gizmo thing. This transports you, from channel 500 to channel 501, a nana-second's journey well worth the effort. Once there, you should soon begin to feel a better person.

In my experience, a man can lose his lunch while watching American television. Last Sunday, surfing the channels I came upon the Reverend Robert Schuler's church service and paused to hear an Australian visitor of undeclared denomination but higher calling, a deduction based on my own hunch since the man was wearing a cross round his neck over a mauve blouse. He appeared to be preaching. I heard him say he was from Australia and loved Australia as did the Lord; he went on to declare that he believed God really loved America even more because God had a special destiny for America. Those present in the church then broke out in thunderous applause indicating approval of this pastoral revelation. It is a phenomenon of today's televised religions that worshippers have often become converted to audiences. In my many years in pre-televised church attendance, I do not recall any time when the pastor's sermon was interrupted by worshippers clapping their hands.

So, this congregant soon departed Schuler's house of worship, fleeing the thought that America's war on terrorism had now become God's own war, destined by God to wage it.

I may have become overly wrought following the World Series by its not infrequent renditions of "God Bless America," which, alas, has replaced "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" as baseball's official anthem. "God Bless America" is, of course, properly an anthem, which is to say, a religious choral and a song of devotion and praise, even when sung by Kate Smith. "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" is none of these, but is about peanuts, popcorn and crackerjacks.

It seems to me, the U.S. administration, its spokespersons, apologists and CNN, in their efforts to keep the American people in a frenzy of patriotic fervour and appropriate readiness for battle, are wearing out the rest of us. Even while the administration warns of a lengthy war, pleads for patience and asks its citizenry to remain vigilant and on alert, it also keeps asking people to stand, or remain standing, or join in the singing of one or another of the anthems, or in solemn prayer, or in a moment's silence.

I fear there is a danger of the American people leaving their fight in the gym, as we say in boxing circles. But you can wave one flag too many, it seems to me when there are many serious and sobering matters in need of contemplation and comprehension.

This is, as CNN rightly informs, "America's War," or, as CNN frequently put it earlier: "America's New War." Before this one was begun, it had become the accepted wisdom of the next generation of war-fighters that one of the main reasons for the disastrous result of the war against Vietnam was the error in giving the media free access to the battlefield. Because the media told more of the truth than propaganda can endure, "America's New War" will be different. The struggle for truth will be over access, already limited. Information, then, must be mistrusted on sight since the truth cannot be confirmed by sources independent of the military or the administration.

Already, the fine hand of news management shows. While watching tonnes of ordinance fall from the sky to explode upon distant, invisible, alleged targets, we are also shown Northern Alliance forces (our guys) firing rounds of ammo into barren hillsides while journalists report this nondescript force is "testing its weapons" and will be engaging the enemy "within a fortnight." That would be on or before Nov. 16. Make note to tune in.

Film shot by a South African crew at a hospital on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border portrays the certain death of an infant child, dying from malnutrition and another child, hospitalized with shell fragments in its feet, then, a Swedish aid official, warning of the human disaster soon to engulf 100,000 Afghan refugees. CNN has a fixation on the bombing - although from a distance. The South African film, seen too close for either fantasy or comfort, was seen on BBC World, which is closer to the war. One wonders if America will even see it.

posted November 07, 2001 01:34 PM            

I am not sure how BBC operate financially, however CNN is part of publicly traded big corporation. They do everything to keep their share holders happy, keep their ratings high, and keep that cash flow going. If there is sufficient demand, they will work like BBC. It is possible BBC will follow CNN and show what people like to see rather than what people should see.

The way LTTE or any Terrorist propaganda works is like CNN. They show what LTTE Tamils like to see. However, they have created and brained washed some Tamils on what they should see.

posted November 08, 2001 12:47 AM            

Dealing with terrorism: historical antecedents?

Chandrika Kumaratunga readily talks with terrorists, but not Tamils, protests By:
Echidna

SRI LANKAN President Chandrika Kumaratunga's visit to London this week
was primarily aimed at securing exposure on leading Western media to lobby
foreign support for her efforts to destroy the Liberation Tigers. A public relations
company had been hired to pave the way. Whilst Kumaratunga is according to her
former ally and ballot box stuffing overlord, S. B. Dissanayake (now hurling abuse
from the opposition ranks) a pathological liar, some of her messages this week have
stretched reality to new limits. The most striking is her 'I am a victim of terror too' act
adopted whilst appealing for international support for her "war against terrorism." In
one particular twist, Kumaratunga has taken to juxtaposing a tirade against the
Liberation Tigers with the pious assertion: "Terrorism has already cost me a father, a
husband and one of my eyes."

What the President neatly forgets to mention is that her relations died at the hands of
Sinhala attackers. Indeed, in Sri Lanka, which the powerful Buddhist clergy rules by
proxy, her father's case is a bit of a social embarrassment: Prime Minister at the time,
Solomon Bandaranaike was shot dead in 1960 by a Buddhist monk overcome with
emotion on hearing of his plans to concede something or other to the Tamils. And
that was long before either the Tamil Tigers or for that matter 'the age of terrorism'
which began in the Middle East. However, the matter clearly left a lasting impression,
as Sri Lankan leaders ever since Chandrika included have taken to falling at the feet
of the Buddhist clergy at every available opportunity. Not so much negotiating with
terror-ism as lying prostrate before it, one might think.

The death of Kumaratunga's husband is another long running saga. For many years,
Chandrika has milked his killing for all its worth, squeezing out the sympathy vote and
using it as a powerful emotional weapon against the accused, the People's
Liberation Front (JVP), the insurrectionary Marxists who launched two abortive and
bloody revolutions, one in 1971 against Kumaratunga's mother, Sirimavo
Bandarana-ike, then Prime Minister and then in 1988 against the United National
Party (UNP) regime of President R. Premedasa.

Indeed when probed this week on how "the terrorists" the term develops its own
abstractness during the course of the interviews had killed her dear husband,
Chandrika mumbled about troubled times, state terrorism and 'a violent movement.'

Her discomfort was understandable. The erstwhile dastardly killers are now her most
important Parliamentary allies. And talk about negotiating with terrorists! Earlier this
year Kumaratunga spent several hours in repeated discussions with the JVP about
rescuing her collapsing government. In the end, the Stalinist JVP did prop the PA up,
but only after Kumaratunga agreed to fire half her ministers, cancel farmers' debts
and tell Norwegian peacemakers and the World Bank to go to hell. Concessions to
terrorism? Only this week, the last surviving leader of that culpable generation of
"terrorists" was allowed back into Sri Lanka from exile in London. Kumaratunga's
husband must be spinning in his grave.

posted November 08, 2001 10:13 AM            

This is in response to the letter by the President of Sri
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Lanka, titled “Sri Lanka Knows Terror”, and published, by the New York Times on October 26, 2001. I must tell at the very outset the letter is a cleaver attempt to tinker with the truth, turning the facts around. It is a letter to discredit the freedom struggle of the Tamils who have continuously been terrorized by all successive governments of Sri Lanka, ever since the British gave “independence”.

Firstly I would like to refer to a particular statement in her letter, which is definitely calculated to deceive the international community, and wrongfully bring hate to the Tamil people, and its freedom struggle, and further to justify the cruel measures of the successive governments calling it ‘Tamil terrorism’. She says, “Terrorism has already cost me a father, a husband and one of my eyes”. That is a very mischievous statement. It is obvious when someone with no back ground knowledge, reads the above statement will appear, whoever was responsible for blinding her eye is also responsible for the death of her father and husband. She wanted to make it look as if all are the work of a single person or group. It is very clear that she is trying to play with words so that it will be misinterpreted by the vast majority, who have only a hazy understanding of the conflict, and will go with the idea that LTTE was responsible for every thing.

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Sri Lanka State Terrorism

The present discourse on terrorism is very much manufactured and sustained by economic, political and social forces in the contemporary world so as to create a particular kind of world order. These forces invariably represent the interests of dominant capitalist classes located in advanced capitalist countries which are very much tuned to seeing the full expansion of the capitalist forces of production.

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The actual fact is, a Buddhist monk shot her father in 1960, and was sentenced to death by court. Her father died in no way different to President John F. Kennedy. Then the LTTE was not in existence. The Leader of the LTTE was merely a 5-year-old child! Her husband was killed in 1988, but the LTTE had no involvement in his death. Her husband had cordial relationship with the LTTE, and it was the JVP who were accused of carrying out the murder. Subsequent in an interview to the BBC on the October 29th, on direct questioning she clarified the truth.

The Tamil militancy started only in the late seventies, after long drawn out political and non-violent measures failed to bring any relief to the suffering Tamil people. If she can say that killing of a husband is terrorism, then how will she describe the mass killings in the 1958 anti-Tamil riots by the Sinhalese thugs aided by the government? How will she describe the anti-Tamil riots in the 1977, also instigated by the government incurring many deaths? How will she describe the killing spree led by the police in the International Tamil conference held in Jaffna in the early seventies? I can give you a big list of what the Tamils had to face at the cruel hands of successive governments long before Tamils started to fight back. Can she recall any “terrorism” by the Tamils before the seventies? No she can’t, as there was none. It was Government/Sinhalese terrorism against the Tamils.

It is obvious extrapolating from her own statements, though she gave a subtle twist, the Tamil militancy or what she calls ‘Tamil terrorism” is the natural result of persistent denial, harassment, and terror meted out to the Tamils over long periods of time. The Tamil resistance movement or Tamil militancy was born in the 1970’s and became quite active only in the 1980’s especially after the July 1983 anti-Tamil riots which too was organized by the then government. Even President Kumaratunge has acknowledged before, as to who were behind the 1983 anti-Tamil riots. So it should be clear that militancy of the Tamils was a natural result of the government terrorism and the so-called ‘terrorism’ by the Tamils, especially by the Tamil Tigers, is in fact could only be termed, ‘counter-terrorism’ at worst, as a response to governments own acts of terror.

While condemning the Tamil Tigers as terrorists, and appealing worldwide against terrorism, the Government continued its own terror unabated. If she says killing of her father “terrorism”, then what will she say about the rape and murder of schoolgirl, Krishanthi Kumarasamy and her entire family save one in 1997? What will she say about the murder of Koneswary, a married woman, who was killed after being raped by exploding a grenade in her private parts in 1997? What will she say about the mass graves in Jaffna? If she says killing of her father “terrorism”, then what will she say about the mass murder, including that of a 5-year-old child in Mirusuvil, a village in the Jaffna district? The child's corpse had both knees and ankles broken and his stomach pulverized -indications that he was tortured before his throat was slit. What will she say to the families of the missing persons, who were arrested by the government security forces, and thereafter reported missing and presumed murdered? Then what about the scores of indiscriminate bombings killing instantaneously many lives and destroying property, which includes houses, schools, temples and churches? Aren’t all these also “terrorism” by President Kumaratunge’s own standard? Who in fact was responsible for all these and more? It was the Sri Lankan army of course.

How can she appeal world wide as a crusader against terrorism, “I am calling on my fellow Commonwealth leaders to unite in condemnation of terrorism, and cooperate in its eradication…” while she continues to dish out terror to the Tamils. What a real hypocrite a pretender and a liar. They are hollow appeals merely to get the powerful nations to do their dirty work for them, especially when America after its recent tragedy is now thinking of ‘elimination of terrorism’ in the global perspective. She is attempting get advantage of the situation, to get help directly to eliminate the only resistance the Tamils have, and succeed in their utopian dream of having a pan-Sinhalese Sri Lanka. The successive governments, over the years, have been able to accomplish it to some extent. Many Tamil villages have been destroyed and Tamils driven out by force by using terror and colonized by Sinhalese. One such village was Manal Aru a Tamil village. Manal Aru is a Tamil name, renamed by its Sinhalese equivalent Weli-Oya, by an extra ordinary gazette notification dated 16th April 1988, when the Tamils were chased and resettled with Sinhalese. These facts can be verified by anyone. Trincomalee is another town which saw similar mass scale government sponsored colonization, which reversed the demographic representation of the population.

Whenever the government is put on the spotlight regarding any of the killings committed by their forces, they first try to deny the incident or blame the LTTE for it. Still when cornered with facts, then they have the habit of denying responsibility, and reply that they were committed by the criminal elements in the forces, in their own individual capacity and not orders from the government or the forces high command. Soon thereafter, the government steps in quickly to transfer the accused out, aiding the escape of those involved. In a rare event if the case comes for hearing then the case too is transferred out making difficult for the witnesses to travel, and see the case collapse. None of them was so far was brought to justice, except in the case of those involved in the murder of Krishanthi Kumarasamy, as there was compelling evidence and heavy International pressure brought on the government. The security forces and the thugs are able to massacre Tamils with impunity. If the government cannot accept responsibility for all these, then LTTE too could similarly deny responsibility on any of the civilian killings. Fortunately for the government, they have the access to the media, other governments, international forums, and above all have the ‘official’ seal to stamp on any document of lies to be accepted as the truth, which unfortunately the Tamils are denied.

It is clear who the real terrorists are. It is the Government of Sri Lanka (what ever the party in power). Tamil Tigers is in fact a militant movement fighting for the liberation of the Tamils. The Tamils had won a clear mandate for a separate state (Eelam), based on the general election results in 1977. Even this time, all the major Tamil parties have united forming an alliance and clearly endorsed the Tamil Tigers as the sole representatives of the Tamils in their election manifesto for the December 2001 elections. So let there be no doubt, the Tamil Tigers are a liberation movement, fully supported by the Tamils.

Most Tamils are law-abiding citizens. Tamils definitely do not condone any form of terrorism. Tamils will support America in its endeavor to "eradicate 'terrorism' where ever it may be", provided America adopts a fair definition of ‘terrorism’. If America or the UN is to exempt established countries from being labeled as ‘terrorists’, merely because of it’s privilege of being a state, then Tamils will not support. That does not mean Tamils support ‘terrorism’, in the contrary we do not want to support someone having double standards. But in fairness to all, if the USA or UN, judges all by the same standards, irrespective of being a state, or otherwise, then Tamils will. Thus if countries too have been found guilty of terror then they too must be included in the list of “Terrorists”! It is most unfortunate that LTTE have been listed as a foreign terrorist organization for their resistance, when the real terrorists are at play!! In many cases of the so-called ‘terrorism’ is in fact ‘counter-terrorism’ in response to ‘state-terrorism’. The freedom struggle is usually labeled ‘terrorism’ by governments to mislead the international community. Many countries like Sri Lanka are indeed trying to use ‘terrorism’ as an excuse to crush minorities. So we Tamils cannot support America / UN at present, when they have a very biased definition of 'terrorists / terrorism'. After all Tamils too are human beings and too need to be protected from terrorism (by the state).