28 March, 2024

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The Cluster Bombs In Sri Lanka’s Paradise

By Roma Tearne

Roma Tearne

Ah! They have found some cluster bombs in Paradise and no one is responsible. No surprises here. Naturally the army will blame the rebel Tigers but hey, the rebel Tigers are dead so they cannot answer for themselves.
The consequences of Sri Lanka’s war live on and on untended while its children are maimed and destroyed. Young limbs, young minds, what amounts to the future itself, destroyed in a moment by those with power in their hands. While the world continues to sunbathe on the island’s sunlit beaches.

Years ago, as a child living in London, listening to the arguments going on around me, I used to hate the fact that I was Sri Lankan. I understood perfectly, even then, exactly what was happening in that dreadful country. Wasn’t it simple? Some Tamils, discriminated against for years, wrongly, resorted to violence in order to get their voices heard.
Thereby playing into the hands of majority rule.
For in those days the majority of Sinhalese hated the Tamils people without quite knowing why.
The words to describe this, as every child of ten knew, were, Prejudice and Discrimination.
From then onwards this Discrimination and Violence stalked the streets as government after government began to push the Tamils back from the capital up towards the north of this beautiful island.
The Dog that came to represent the Tamil people, got itself a bad name with which to hang itself, and Hey Presto! majority rule had the upper hand. Or to put it another way, the right to kill as many Tamils as possible in the name of anti-terrorism. It mattered not that many of these Tamils were innocent civilians. Who cared about the details. All is fair in love and war. Isn’t it? So that, as the lorryloads of white paint arrived at the capital to wash down its bloodstained, bullet marked walls, the phrase on the lips of  everyone was:
‘But the Tigers are terrorists, don’t you know…’
Yes, and the people who govern the country are murderers.

And murder, as the world knows, will out. Eventually.
So that in spite of The Great Whitewashing Programme other images are seeping and oozing out of the cesspit. Images that will not go away.
Of the dead,
The maimed,
The innocent,
The disappeared.
Children whose faces stare out from eternity pleading for recognition.
The truth remains that every single time a tourist visits the world’s ‘Number One Holiday Destination’, every time the uninitiated say that things are fine in Sri Lanka, the abuse, rape, murder and torture in that place is being endorsed.

Two children were killed last month. What were they doing? Trying to collect scrap metal to sell. Unaware they were touching an explosive device. Thus has innocence always been destroyed by grown men.

We in the West must remember that the real cost to life cannot be counted immediately after a war ends, but several generations later. Sri Lanka and its people, one hopes, will one day understand this, too.

*Roma Tearne is a Sri Lankan born novelist and film maker living in the UK. She left Sri Lanka with her family, at the start of the civil unrest during the 1960s. She trained as a painter & filmmaker at the Ruskin School of Fine Art, Oxford and then was Leverhulme artist in residence at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Subsequently she was awarded an AHRC Fellowship and worked for three years in museums around Europe on a project accessing narrative within the collections

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    There are large number of culster bombs in Iraq Agfgatains Libiya and Somaoli under USA invade.What about Vietnam Combodiya and Laos many NAPLAM BOMBS.You ever-never talk of such bombs had been used By US in such countries.If Sri lankan army used is wrong! Who FUNDED FOR HUGE ARMENT DEAL FOR LTTE.HOW LTTE BUY AIRPLANS? Who are produce of culster bombs?If any country or nation want to invegisation on A WAR CRIME YOU SHOULD TAKE WHOLE PACKAGE VILOATION OF HUMAN-RIGHTS DURING WAR SINCE END OF SECOND WORLD WAR IN 1945.That is better deal for UNO and Humankind of WORLD to be address real problem of WAR Crimes.Not only confined to Sri Lankan ,becasue you are BULLING AND DISCRAMANATION SAMLL COUNTRY LIKE SRI LANKA BY US EU UK AND INDIA under the name of WAR CRIME!

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      Hey,

      In regarding Sri lanka, you don’t want to compare with any country. it should not exists any cluster bomb if gvt said that they were not used.

  • 0
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    Good arguments from our first commentator

    If others can do some crimes, then we will do ( war crimes and all actions against Geneva convention)

    If others can split the country ( Sudan), we won´t do

    If this country is too small, everyone sould shut his mouth.

    I think only a Sinalese Buddhist from Sri Lanka will be able to think like this in this world

    The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols

    The Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols are international treaties that contain the most important rules limiting the barbarity of war. They protect people who do not take part in the fighting (civilians, medics, aid workers) and those who can no longer fight (wounded, sick and shipwrecked troops, prisoners of war)

    http://www.icrc.org/eng/war-and-law/treaties-customary-law/geneva-conventions/overview-geneva-conventions.htm

    Blaming other nations would not help for our reconciliation

    Go through the whole convention

  • 0
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    Great article and well written.
    As for cluster bombs, the army at least is not denying that after 3 years of mine clearing by the MOD, one or two cluster bombs had escaped, and Sri Lanka remains exposed.
    Now the army says that it is not theirs because it was found in the LTTE areas unexploded after being dropped from the air. Fine, then fuller details of the manufacturer and the country of manufacture should be investigated and detailed. Instead of which the army is just claiming it is not theirs. A great opportunity for the army to expose and shame the LTTE that they were war criminals? Let there be an international investigation is what the Tamils are saying.

    But the Sinhalese are running scared of any investigations, because they very well know who the war criminals are…..Who the terrorist are. Who are the real murderers of civilians are!!!!!!!!!

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      The real muderers of the Tamil civilians are your cowardly sun god who used them as human shields. As the diaspora Tamils gave this sun god all the money and weapons (from the ill gotten money hoodwinking the Western countries to support and nurture your fraudulant activities in the West to which they conveniently turned a blind eye) you too as part of the diaspora Tamils have bllod on your hands. Don’t cover up your heinous and ruthless 30 year crime spree by blaming the Sri Lankan govt and buying up Western politicians and Western media organisations. You keep repeating the same lies so many times until these lies through repitition becomes the truth. Eventually, the world will see through your propaganda like they saw through the propaganda of Nazi terrorists.Until then you can carry on getting the support of Ken Livinston and the Labour party.

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    Well, I may agree with the broad guist of the article, on the lack of accountability and the acts of the war for which there is growing evidence and defensive denial. But just a few sentences seem a bit oversimplified, and irresponsible, no? I mean, “the majority of the Sinhalese hated the Tamils?”(or is she speaking about the way she saw things as a child? – but she does say she understood “perfectly”, even then …), and a Sinhala mentality of “the right to kill as many Tamils as possible?” (I mean, innocent Tamils were killed, sometimes maybe deliberately in the context of brutal war, but “kill as many Tamils?” – I don’t think that was ever a goal), and “dreadful country? (but she also calls it “the beautiful island” later).

    I do think we have to be careful with words these days when Sri Lanka is attempting to forge a delicate path to reconciliation which is looking more and more tenuous because of authoritarian politics and extremism. And it’s this kind of language that some groups may hold against otherwise well-intentioned sentiments, and as substantive as the essence of the message may be. I think we need to address the nationalist, politically-motivated systems that perpetuate injustice and violence, not denounce entire ethnicities and the entire nation, or oversimplify intentions …

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    Roma Tearne

    Thank you !

    What a brilliant masterpiece !!

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    The so called followers of Lord Buhdda, those who believe in Karma are scared of international investigations.

    The only thing they excel other than massacring innocent tamils is denying allegations…

    I have never heard in my life that Srilankan Army has accepted something even when an entire SL army company was sent back from Haiti for child Abuse.. and no investigation was done on that.

    I wonder whether these are the teachings of Lord Bhudda

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      Don’t just wonder. Go and learn the teachings of the Buddha and then practice. With this improved and developed mindset you can help your Tamil brothers and sisters in Sri Lanka & Tamilnadu instead of using all your ill gotten, human and drug traficked money (not to mention gun running, extortion and credit card fraud in UK and around the world)to buy Western journalists, media channels and organisation and politicians. Sri Lankan govt and the NGOs are looking after the war ravaged Tamil refugees while you spend all your ill gotten money on propaganda attacking the GOSL and the Sinhala Buddhists. Also, stop discriminating you own Tamils according to your CASTE system and treat the Non Tamil minorities in Tamilnadu with equal rights by allowing them to use their own language instead of forcing the Tamil language down their throats. So much for hypocisy and double standards. You arrogantly demand Tamil as an Official Language in Sri Lanka but deny the same rights to the minorities in Tamilnadu.

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    Sensationalist garbage.

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      Well said. Tamils are renowned throughout the world for their sensational garbage and most of all their PROPAGANDA against the Sri Lankan govt and the Sinhala Buddhists. Why do they terrorise a tiny impoverished country like SL and kill thousands of innocent Tamils, Muslims and Sinhala people in the process demanding privileges (which they deny to the non Tamil minorities in Tamilnadu their homeland which is twice the size of Sri Lanka) and a second homeland (greedy beyond beleif to the hilt)which they are not entitled. Sinhala people only have one country but the Tamils greedily want to grab the this so that they could have a second state on top of the state of Tamilnadu they already have. Tamils are nothing but CASTE minded hypocrites discriminating their own Tamil people and they spent their ill gotten money through human and drug tarfficking and gun running to arm a meglomaniac who used Tamil civilians as human shields and used their children as child soldiers while leading a luxury life with his own children. Is there no limit to Tamil hypocricy and Tamil propaganda? Why don’t you ask Labour Ken Livingston to give a THIRD homeland in Trafalgasquare if he becomes the Mayor of London and while you are at it why not ask for a fourth homeland in Canada as the Canadian govt has eaten all your bullshit propaganda and therefore allegedly supports and nurtures your terrorist way of life.

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    Who drop those cluster bombs on helpless civilian’s heads ?

    Sri Lanka Army denies using the banned cluster bombs .

    If the LTTE used custard buns….oops I meant to say cluster bombs, pray tell us how they dropped them on the armed forces or civilians?

    Did they use space ships?

    Did the LTTE have MIGs and Kaffirs?

    Every time that evidence like this is unearthed, the Rajapaksa government and its sycophants get egg on their faces.

    After four years of hearings at the UN-backed special court for Sierra Leone in the Hague, the former warlord Charles Taylor was convicted on 11 charges including murder, rape, sexual slavery and enforced amputations.

    Let’s hope that the historic judgment against Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, now facing a lengthy term in a British prison, will set a precedent that heads of state, dictators and wannabe dictators can no longer consider themselves immune to international justice.

    Land mark rulings against monsters like this give oppressed people all around the world some hope.

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      Hey Sutra Ranjan

      Do not try to whitewash bllod sucking LLTE parasites. They deserved for the treatment that they got.

      Big bow for HE MR and Mr. Gota for eliminating these thugs from SL soils.

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    Remember the ‘Zero Civilian Casualty’ in the War?

    Rajapaksa sycophants business is as usual – ‘Valiant denial ends in shameless Acceptance’ !!!

    When will Rajapaksa ever learn that the truth cannot be hidden forever?

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    mr regime saved more children killing two last month defeating ltte british roma terani.

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    This cluster bomb theory has been proved to be a canard . An Indian Journalists who has been refused the visa for an extension in SL is the culprit for circulating this obnoxious story . Crazy people like Roma Tearne exists who will be ever ready to jump in to sensationalise such stories. The U N has denied this story.They had only asked for assistance for clearing up the landmines when the email sent was given a new twist . Roma has a reputation for jumping the gun from a long time .

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    To finish the terrorists even a nuclear bomb should have been used.These parasites should ask for a Tamil Elaam from uncle Karunanidi,There is no end to this nonsence of war crimes and bombs etc.We had a war and it is over and now shut up and get on with life,just because you are tamil does not mean others have to listen you your winging all the time .

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    Hi Nevil. You do not know what democracy is. How long would it have taken for LTTE to attack sinhalese civilians from air or otherwise and why they avioded it? Those who are massacred by cluster bomb also were under the same govt leadership and there were no protection given to those civilians by the regime.Could you see the difference. I suppose one have to be human to understand this and if it is your family in the receiving end you will sing a different chorus. Justice should prevail and those who did the crime should be accounted for.

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