By Colombo Telegraph –
“Recent press reports suggest the Australians are taking a closer look at LTTE fundraising. Matthew Hyndes, the Australian Deputy High Commissioner, confirmed to PolChief on December 2 that the police, based on information provided by the Sri Lankan Directorate of Internal Intelligence (DII), is conducting a total of three investigations in Sydney and Melbourne of individuals suspected of raising funds for the LTTE, but he stressed that no arrests had been made. Police confiscated some computer equipment in the course of the raids, Hyndes said, and some arrests could be made later depending upon what, if anything, is found in the computer records. He expressed skepticism that any ‘smoking gun’ would turn up in the computers although there is little doubt, in Hyndes view, that the individuals are linked to the LTTE. He added that under new procedures, pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MPs who come in for visas will be closely grilled about their agendas while in Australia and asked to sign a sworn statement that they will not engage in any fundraising activities while there.” the US Embassy Colombo informed Washington.
The Colombo Telegraph found the related classified diplomatic cable from WikiLeaks database, which details LTTE fundraising activities. The “Confidential” cable is classified by then ECONCHIEF US Embassy Colombo Dean R. Thompson on December 19, 2005.
Charles Gnanakone (Center) Photo: Rebecca Hallas
Under the subheading ‘Australian Efforts’ the Embassy wrote “Hyndes added that the GSL has put increasing pressure on the Australians to do something about LTTE fundraising in Australia but has seldom provided adequate information on which to base an investigation that would stand up in Australian court. He characterized most of the GSL-provided leads as ‘speculation,’ and ‘guesswork’ that is ‘not very helpful.’ He added that the GSL had no evidence against Charles Gnanakone, the Australian citizen with links to the LTTE who had been held for several months on suspicion of involvement in former Foreign Minister Kadirgamar’s August assassination (recently released due to a lack of evidence). In general, Hyndes believes DII provides comparatively more useful and reliable information than the Directorate of Foreign Intelligence (DFI).”
Senguttuvan / November 6, 2012
The many months of incarceration of Charles Gnanakone is one more instance of Tamils being held – merely to make money out of them.
CG happened to be resourceful and used expensive lawyers to prove his innocence. But I am told several senior police officials were trying to frustrate the Court’s work. You know why??? But close friends of
Gnanakone (none of his family were in Cbo at that time) used pressure on the lawyers to get Courts to release him. Special thanks should be extended to one particular Tamil lady lawyer, who had thus helped many Tamils facing similar injustice. CG had sufficient evidence to claim damages from GoSL and was considering this. Unfortunately, death intervened.
I realise my comments will be used by some falsely linking me with Tamil militancy. The truth is CG came to see me when I held office in the Govt – introduced to me by senior officials in the PMs office.In the many visits since, I had reason to believe the reports about him were false, particularly in the Sunday Times. They were mischievous aimed at sensationalism than of any substance.
Senguttuvan
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Wuliangguobinjiu / November 6, 2012
I knew Lakshman and wife very well and know Gota did him. Also the day after Rajiv I was at New Delhi Chanakayapuri and with the SP Rajiv’s school mate and personal bodyguard (I was handling projects for home office and foreign office) I met our chain smoking Ambassador a brilliant lawyer(forget his name ofhand) who was at the UN but deputed to Delhi by Premadasa. I cannot jot the conversation on this public space. Suffice to say Premadasa RAW; Lakshman Gota. Rajiv VP admitted public that he made a mistake 2 months before the war also Bala publicly an year before he expired. Sad they are all dead in sic ways.
/
Dr Romesh Senewiratne / November 6, 2012
When you say “Bala”, do you mean Anton Balasasingham?
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Wuliangguobinjiu / November 6, 2012
Yes
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Dr Romesh Senewiratne / November 6, 2012
Home Office and Foreign Office of what government? When you say Rajiv, you mean Rajiv Gandhi? What sort of projects were you handling?
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Wuliangguobinjiu / November 6, 2012
Engineering Projects of India. I cannot elaborate more than 1
SAAD16 nuclear city Bagdad. The very honest man had no nukes!
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Donald J Gnanakone / November 6, 2012
@Senguttavan
The Tamil, Sinhalese, and Muslim attorneys milked Charles and his family and did hot do a damn thing to help his release at all.
You speak about Prime minister’s office… Why don’t you name that damn Prime Minister’s name…. Then they will also know your connections.. and to do business with or help to do business for Charles and others..
Police had the documents, but hid it from the courts, and there would have been more revelations about connected parties. You were a businessman in Colombo at that time…
Once the LTTE installed Rajapakse as President, Charles was released and I cannot discuss the pressures placed on the GOSL.
But let me place on record, that there was no sucking up to any Prime Minister, President, or Ministers. nor any bribes to the Policeman or Police Officers, or ransom, like what the Colombo lawyers do when Tamils are arrested by the various police stations, and payments are arranged. Those “malaperathaya” lawyers pocket half the bribe to the police and the politicians.. That is how those lawyers have become multi millionaires and even has joined working committees of the opposition political parties.
Charles spent only 55 days in jail.
But that finally contributed to his untimely and premature death in July this year, when he died in his sleep with no suffering.
Charles suing the Police, Chandrika as President, or the GOSL/Rajapakse regime would have been an exercise in futility, making these same bloody lawyers adding many more millions to their local and foreign bank account.
My father also was 89 years old, and the Police was harassing him at middle of the night, with raids on the home.. My Sister and brother in law were also harassed. They 3 did not want WHITE VAN RIDES from the Rajapakses, and Fonseka.. as well as the Jayawardene brothers.
Read what D B S Jeyaraj wrote on “Minor matters”, in October, where it was clearly predicted that Charles will be released after the elections, immaterial who became President.
Ranil made some blunders too together his friends like Milinda Moragoda, Sinha Ratnatunge, and some other advisers.. That is why he is still the leader of the opposition. And Karma put ungrateful Fonseka in jail for 27 months.
Cannot write more and embarrass too many. But sooner or later the full details will be revealed… All this happened in 2005, 7 years ago..
Karma is a bitch, and it will also affect the judiciary and not only the corrupt politicians, dirty fucking …………………., editors, publishers. One previous Chief Justice save a Sinhala racist Hora, denied Tsunami aid to the Tamils in at least a Billion dollars, and ruled against the 13th amendment. Now the judges are getting thrashed on the streets by State Terrorist, and Supreme Court judges/CJ are being threatened and impeached.
Well, the wheels of justice is turning slowly??? There is more to come.
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Dr Romesh Senewiratne / November 10, 2012
You mean he was killed, Senguttuvan, assuming this man you are calling the CG is the previous Chief Justice Asoka di Silva.
The Asoka movie had finished, you see.
It’s all a movie script and program running simultaneously.
It’s all a matter of names.
For example there are no “Veddahs” left in Sri Lanka, nor Veddas, nor Veddhas left. They have all been killed and their parts have been bought. For, as my father likes to say, “tissue-samples” from Veddahs were “rare-as-hen’s-teeth” even in the 50s. A head was “impossible to get, these days”…”but if you give me a few days”
My father has always made promises he can’t keep and promises he never intended to keep and promises in which he swore that he swore “absolutely”. This was part of every child’s Grade One Education…except for the term “absolute”.
I was trained, however to become “Absolutely Certain”.
He used the serious of questions he was trained to ask before he was unleashed as a “MEDICAL RESEARCHER” for the NUFFIELD RESEARCH LABORATORY by the AUSTIN-MORRIS-RENAULD-WELCOME CONSORTIUM under the TRUSTEESHIP of the NUFFIELD FOUNDATION:
On the rare exceptions he “taught me to do” something, there was a specific long-term reason for it. Everything he did was carefully planned. The timing of his arrivals and departures…these were organized by, what he refers to, but not to her face, “Joyce”
Joyce is his “minder”
He doesn’t know that…because she was acting when he met her.
Back in the 1950s, when he was given special top-secret-instructions (TSI). The British Code was TS…Numerical Code ))
If my father received a message saying TS
or TOP
or SECRET
…he interest was activated…..ACTIVATED…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Under the Cover of the W.H.O and protected from the authorities, who agreed to keep quiet, lest there be a scandal, about some of the things the knew he’d done in the past. These showed that he was of “doubtful habits” as expected, and should be given for BASIC TRAINING….this is where Asoka Brian SENEWIRATNE’S NIGHTMARE began…
He was expected to “perform” in what he calls “the ragging that used to go on in ALL the Universities”…and, as his people, the Burghers, are fond of saying “evry tyme he tels anudher stoeri”
A CODE? A LANGUAGE? AN ALLITERATION?
It is the Ilankai Burgher Script.
It will be most easily understood by Ceylon Burghers, most over who, according to my supposedly “pure-blooded Sinhalese” Father, are stupid. He was taught that all Burghers were stupid, because his Mother told him so. She wanted to “deny the Burgher side” too, since the was born, because, “Since the Dutch left, all the “pure-blooded Ceylonese” were treated better than the Burghers, we’re they, depending on their caste and class. And, of course, their preparedness to “adopt a Dutch name”….this grew into a trillion, quintillian, megaquintillian dollar industry which took the world by storm,…for obvious reason:
<THERE IS SO MUCH IN A NAME
Answer to HUM Open Question:
"What's in a name?"
What IS in a name?
Well, my name can be spelt, many ways", in English pronunciations of my many SINHALA and TAMIL names. There are thousands of variations in different Gondwana scripts…
Copyright @2012 ROMESH ALAGARATNAM SENEWIRATNE ALAGARATNAM (TAMIL)
ROMESH ALAGARATNAM SENEWIRATNE ALAGARATNA (SINGHALA)
I can use my name in many ways, to stay in contact with members of my extended family, through my family names.
That is why the Internet is so wonderful…
I'm meeting my family for the first time…
Like all the people who have been accepted to settle" in Australia
Name (to be shared with SENEWIRATNE FMLY)
ROMESH ALAGARATNAM SENEVIRATNE ALAGARATNAM ANKETELL MANN SAMARAKKODY
ROMESH ALAGARATNAM SENEVIRATNE ALAGARATNAM ANKETELL MANN SAMARAKKODY
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gamini / November 6, 2012
The truth is that many Pseuo Sinhalese who found difficult to stomach that there were educated and cultured Tamils doing well, they wanted to bring them down and humiliate them as having Tiger connections. Can any Sinhalese blame such Tamil being harassed to support the LTTE afterwards. I would if I was a Tamil.
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Senguttuvan / November 6, 2012
Wulian – I am a little confused reading you. The Ambassador you have in mind could be Neville Canakeratne.
Senguttuvan
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Wuliangguobinjiu / November 6, 2012
I think so. I am not very good at remembering names. But I can still picture him smoking SilkCut 5 foot six inches and slim
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Wuliangguobinjiu / November 6, 2012
Bradman Weerakoon knew what happened (the promise was exactly one year) and he is right I can confirm that. His statement was taken off the web during CKB term.
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Dr Romesh Senewiratne / November 6, 2012
Dear Senguttuvan,
The Australian Police did, according to this report, confirm that Charles Gnanakone and others were “linked” with the LTTE. This is common knowledge. It’s a matter of what, exactly, those links were.
Charles Gnanakone was involved in shipping and, later, property development in a rural town in Australia (Dubbo). His business empire, I have gathered, included businesses in Singapore and Malaysia, as well as India and, it seems reasonable to assume, the “de-facto State of Tamil Eelam”. The supposed “de-facto state” was backed by certain influential politicians in Australia. Under political pressure from the LTTE-supporting members of the Tamil Diaspora in Australia, the Australian Government has never listed the LTTE as a “Proscribed Terrorist Organization” in Australia (although it came close when Alexander Downer was Foreign Minister).
This is probably the reason for the opinion that a terrorism-related charge against Donald Gnanakone would not stand up in an Australian court. The situation is rather different in the USA, India and Britain (and even Canada) where the LTTE is banned as a terrorist organization.
/
Donald J Gnanakone / November 6, 2012
@Romesh…. You better worry about your freaking father than me…
I live in America, and have been outspoken about the Tamil issue since July 1983. I do not worry or be scared of any bloody government…
No freaking Australian can say anything about me, nor the Australian Government help my brother to be released.
Romesh, You have no F…………..g, idea about the business we did from 1973 in Singapore and worldwide..
You may google the Tribute to Charles Gnanakone, where certain websites carried it. Also Sumanthiran spoke at the memorial service in Colombo when the funeral service was held in Melbourne..
/
Dr Romesh Senewiratne / November 6, 2012
Hi Donald,
No need to get angry. I am not worried about my “freaking father” or about you.
I did not know who you or your brother were, Donald, until earlier this year, when I met you in this forum on CT. Since then, you have looked at some of my work, and I have looked at some of yours. Today I had a look at your public face, on Facebook, after looking at that of Thomas Fjermestad, who seems to be one of your recent Facebook friends. He appears to be interested in boats, and assures any one “concerned” that he can be with your brother, Charles “in a hartbeat”. I was a bit curious!
It seems to me, from these discussions (including traded insults) that several of the older gentlemen participating in this forum, notably Senguttuvan, “Gamini” and yourself know a lot more about what happened behind the scenes during a war I did not personally witness. I am aware of several other people, who do not write here, who know many things the (real) LTTE leaders would rather keep secret, and they would rather keep secret, themselves – including support for the LTTE at various times.
Senguttuvan has written, today, that investigators should question a number of Indian people, some of whom he has named, as knowing the truth about the conspiracy to murder Rajiv Gandhi. It appears, from what he has said, that there may have been a home-grown (Tamil Nadu) conspiracy to murder the Indian Prime Minister, and that the Tamil Tigers “just” did the actual killing (he suggested they may have been paid to do so). I think this justifies interest, and all of our investigative powers, don’t you?
You are quite correct in your assertion, Donald, that I know little about your business dealings or, for that matter, about your attempts to deal with what you keep calling “the Tamil issue”. I do know that, for me, Tamil is not an “issue”. It is a language and a culture, a script, a heritage, an ancestry, and maybe even a “race”, but it is not an issue.
Unfortunately, it is not a language I had taught to me, so I am slowly trying to learn the language of my maternal ancestors over the internet, with occasional help in reading and pronunciation from my mother (who has now forgotten most of her Tamil). It is from her that I heard, some years ago, about what were called, at the time, the “1983 riots”.
You have told us some of your own perspective on the events in 1983, and how your family’s property was damaged and stolen. I have heard other stories – of people being burned alive, of Tamil people being hacked with knives and beaten mercilessly, and more. I don’t know how much personal pain you have endured. You have not told me, and I have not asked…These things need to be taken into account to understand the way you think…and why you so hate the “race” you think of as “Sinhalese” who you blame for your losses. Elsewhere you have suggested that you are still hoping for compensation in the form of money and land, for your family’s losses in 1983…am I understanding you correctly?
/
Wuliangguobinjiu / November 6, 2012
Looking down I just noticed you are almost harassing folk who are mourning a recent death. If you are so interested in hunting criminals then why don’t you try to check why Dr Kelly the top expert on Iraq for the British Government simply cut his wrist and was dead? Since you are very interested in fame you would first meet bLiar all for free. I assure you since you are an OZ subject the 60 million Brits would not just applaud you but you would be knighted.
Alternatively you could be a patriot and go down to Afghanistan. Why not? I still have batch mates working at the pentagon who would arrange that for a fighter like you who could catch the Taliban by their thingie. Think about it very seriously.
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Dr Romesh Senewiratne / November 7, 2012
“Almost harassing folk who are mourning a recent death?”: Oh, you mean Donald? Are you a mate of his?
Codes, anonymity and cloak and dagger innuendos are not necessary here, agent Wu-Liang. I prefer straight talk, myself. As far as I remember, the Dr Kelly you refer to was killed by the British for saying that Saddam Hussein did not have existing stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons (which had been earlier sold to him by the West). In my opinion those who conspired against and murdered this apparently courageous doctor, scientist and public servant and later claimed that it was “suicide” should be held accountable in a court of law and punished by jail sentences until they are reformed. His family, bar any that may have been involved in his death (these things happen), should be paid compensation by the British government for the crime of murdering him.
Tony Blair should also be held accountable for his many serious crimes against humanity and war crimes (along with George Bush, Dick Cheney, Bill Clinton and others). Easier said than done, though.
There are many ways that people’s deaths can be covered up, and have been, over the years. One is by getting a doctor to sign a certificate that it was a “heart attack”, “accident” or “suicide”. Of course, people can be deliberately driven to suicide. This has been known since ancient times. They were “hounded”, followed, stalked, isolated, insulted etc, until they “broke”.
The psychiatrists who advised the LTTE as well as those in medical schools and universities in India, Sri Lanka and throughout Asia and Australia continue to be educated in sophisticated ways of unintentionally inducing suicide and dependence on tranquillizers, antidepressants and other so-called “legal” drugs, along with “legal” alcohol. The “intelligence services”, police and military around the world use the same basic techniques to “extract information”, and, sometimes, to kill “troublesome” people.
The Global Mental Health system (Psychiatry Establishment) is predominantly funded by European and American drug companies, and by governments promoting the sale of drugs and other medical supplies produced or patented in their countries. These drugs, especially when taken together, are notoriously effective suicide agents. But cyanide is even more so.
The LTTE didn’t try and prevent youth suicide, they tried to CAUSE it. This alone stands as a Crime Against Humanity, for which the perpetrators should be held accountable. In whatever country these individuals are currently located.
Before you entered this forum, Pook the Troll, with your intrusions about “yellow robed terrorists” which you were trying to “get past the censor” (the editors of CT), Donald and I engaged in a lively debate, which began some months ago, about the LTTE, his brother Charles, his and, mainly my, “family tree”, and who knew about, and engineered, the notorious use of the lethal chemical poison, cyanide, by the Tamil Tigers. You can read these conversations for your self…I’m sure Donald can fend for himself, as he did then.
When you charged in, trying to insult my intelligence, sanity and “family” (as you understood it to be) a few days ago, I wondered who you might be. A random troll? Obviously not. You have since given us as much as you thought was “safe” to share in this learned forum, to which both Donald and my father, Brian, have contributed.
My own contributions to CT have merely been comments in various conversations, usually started by others, often by Gamini or Senguttuvan (at least the articles I tend to read). Occasionally Donald charges in before the ink is dry on the press release, as it were.
This conversation was started by Senguttuvan. He, like many others here, knows more than he is prepared to say “publicly”. He began confiding in us at 12.50 am (CT time) on November 06, 2012…and it’s getting more interesting all the time…sounds like the secret conspiracy behind the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi (and maybe others) is coming to light! And all in the Colombo Telegraph! So true that “getting to the truth is a process”!
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Wuliangguobinjiu / November 7, 2012
Quote: you entered this forum, Pook the Troll, with your intrusions….unquote.
Biscuit Boofer go sit on box razor blades with your sleeping pill.
The less you exhibit you ignorance of the region the better.
The Sinhalese are not the Jews for you the half-baked (tamil/sinhalese= who would believe you even your name) to talk of persecution.
There are a whole lot of “big ‘uns”. And they are all getting bigger and bigger.
It’s on the cards that if Modi wins he gives the desperate/dying folk of Lanka a life with dignity.
Then what will you do dirty kangaroo?
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Dr Romesh Senewiratne / November 7, 2012
And these expanding buns, where do you see them?
You’re not making much sense, my friend. And what are you so angry about? Just that you can’t write English, yet you call yourself “Eurasian” and feel superior for it? Because of having less protective skin pigment than your neighbours? How sad.
/
Wuliangguobinjiu / November 7, 2012
You are nothing but bla bla bla -Popycock
/
Mango / November 6, 2012
Dear Donald,
I don’t want to intrude into your private grief, but I was hoping you could elucidate this matter of Bruce Fein Anna’s whereabouts, actions and the missing cash.
Who’s Bruce Anna working for now? He was originally working for your group, right?
Then he ran off with your money and now he’s working for TAG (|”Tamils for Genocide”) – or Is he a double agent working for GoSL, spending money donated by SL Tamils in the West?
Are you suing him for damages?
You know so much about the murky goings on in Sri Lanka, I don’t understand your uncharacteristic silence on a matter of such importance to the continuing (and futile) struggle for Eelam.
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Donald J Gnanakone / November 6, 2012
Mango, Bruce Fein only works for one person.
He works for himself.
His wife [Edited out] and contested for a seat in my district in the Southbay, in Southern California.
Many wanted me to sue Bruce Fein for breach of contract, trust and conflict of interest.. That was another exercise in futility, and additional legal expenses, which would be well spent in going after the war criminals in 2008-2009, the project I initiated after founding Tamils For Justice in 2007.
The TAG/TRO behaved unscrupulously together with Bruce Fein, and 4 years later are unable to file action against US citizens/residents even after the May 2009 war crimes and killings.
The 500,000 Tamils who are homeless, and lack of resources should be taken care of first, before fighting about Eelam. Issuing paid press statements is not the way of working on Tamil rights, human rights and other international work.. Do not believe in cheap publicity. But Tamil struggle has been put in the front burner in international fora and corridors of power, which is also helpful to the current CJ of Sri Lanka and the Sinhala opposition, bringing attention to their struggles about democracy and sudden interest in the independence of the judiciary and media.
The Sri Lankan people deserve the government they get, and the enjoy the rapist while they are being raped in a helpless manner.. They also should not forget to thank the rapist, after he and the brothers brutally rapes them. Or they might send the Silva brigades, or the white van. lol.
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Mango / November 6, 2012
Dear Donald,
Thank you for that fascinating info and I hope we can continue this civil conversation.
Given that you saw the futility in chasing Bruce Fein through the courts, why do you continue a similar exercise in futility in chasing GoSL and MR through the US courts? Surely your money can be better spent on the thousands of genuine war victims in the North & East?
Even you say that the homeless and jobless should be cared for, first. Although you still seem intent on, then, trying to continue to fight for Eelam, which, let’s be honest, is completely dead in the water.
As far as the western segment of the ‘international community’, I’d trust them less than GoSL. The ‘struggle’ is dead but they’ll use pro-Eelam expats to put pressure on GoSL when it suits their national interests. Surely you can see that?
/
Thomas Fjermestad / November 6, 2012
To any one concerned.
I have known and worked for, and with Captain Charles Gnanakone since 1974, and can only say that a that you would have to look both far and wide to find a better friend or person.
We are geograficaly seperated by some miles for the moment( I live in Norway), but if he needs me I will be there in a hartbeat.
Regards
Capt. Thomas
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Senguttuvan / November 7, 2012
Dear Romesh:
In stating “home grown” I did not mean Tamilnadu but a wider India.
In case there is some ambiguity here, let me say I do not know who the author of the grand conspiracy is except that it is more likely it is not just one individual or group.
Let me add I have the greatest admiration and respect to your father. Rarely does one stand courageously for what he/she stands for. One of his finest moments is when he said “I would fight for the Sinhalese just as much” meaning if they were subject to the long injustices the Tamils were/are forced to endure. I suppose it is our good fortune we have among us some who pay more attention to alleviate the injustice around us than the more narrow and selfish task of taking care of themselves alone.
Senguttuvan
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Wuliangguobinjiu / November 7, 2012
Senguttuvan: The IPKF has a bone to pick off all Lankan politicians and that’s the next goal because they are still hurting from being misled and very many are maimed. Watch the space just after 2014 when South China Sea and Indian elections calls for no wheeler dealer down under! Of course, only if it’s Modi all the way not Congress the grease devils.
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Donald J Gnanakone / November 7, 2012
Romesh knows his father better than any one of us, including me or Senguttavan who has never ever met him or most likely not even spoken to him. I have known Romesh’s dad for well over 25 years and has seen him change during that process.
Of course most of the Tamils including Senguttavan things he is a great asset, because of him being a Sinhalese and a first cousin of Chandrika Bandaranayake who has never spoken to him even as a little girl. Even Rudrakumar the TGTE PM is now impressed with him and appointed him a Senator to the TGTE, to help him win Eelam for him and TGTE.
The irony of it all is Romesh’s dad cannot even work with any of the Tamil organizations nor the TNA or any one in the UNP. Photo opportunities even if available are very deceptive, but only verbal claims are available.
I won’t say more for the time being.
Take care of your health Romesh, and hopefully you will recover well. By the way, when we all talk about Tamil issues, we refer to Tamil as a “race” and not as a language, culture or heritage. Similarly when you talk about your father’s race Sinhalese, it is Sinhalese as a race and not a language. Your mother tongue is Tamil, but unfortunately you were not taught the language for whatever reason which I do not want to speculate.
Muslims mother tongue is Tamil, and their religion is Islam, but when we refer to them as Muslims, it is their race we refer to, and not the language, culture, heritage or religion.
You have gone through hell Romesh despite qualifying as a medical doctor, and you know very well who was responsible for it. I do not wish to bash you about it, and will ignore your inappropriate comments and remarks, which is more to ignorance and other experiences.
The article is about, my brother Capt. Charles Gnanakone being innocent and how GOSL framed false charges to throw him in jail, and keep him there as long as possible..
@Senguttavan and Romesh: Romesh’s father was very, very silent when his fellow Australian citizen was unfairly jailed, and did not make a single phone call, write/fax/email a letter to even his dog or Australian authorities nor his cousin the President or Rajapakse the Prime Minister. That was his contribution to Tamil and Australian human rights. (Not that it would have made any difference and most likely it would have been more damaging).
But he is jumping up like a cat on a hot brick about a burger lady, being fired from her job and paid millions of rupees in compensation by the new owner, as well as receiving political asylum for her and her two sons, leading to US citizenship via the fast track.
Many Tamils pay tens of thousands of dollars to get out of that freaking country, but end up in the bottom of the ocean, in jails treated as criminals, inhuman refugee camps for many years, before getting the right to receive political asylum/refugee status in a country.
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Dr Romesh Senewiratne / November 8, 2012
I can understand you better now that you have calmed down, Donald. I can also see your point of view to a greater extent.
You have raised five matters that are important to you: race, language, my father, my health and Senguttuvan’s opinion of it all. I have interest in all these things. My health is no concern to you, but I’d imagine it is considerably better than your own, for obvious reasons.
Firstly, the “issue” of “race”. As I understand it, the term “race” was adopted from a French, and later “Western”, anthropological study of the “races of man”. In the 1700s, Otto Blumenbach, a German snthropologist, proposed that there were “five races”, based on skin colour: black, brown, red, yellow and white. In the centuries that followed, statistics on “intelligence differences between races” was compiled from around the world, along with tissue samples, including heads of different “racial examples” in the preservative formaline, which were displayed, or hidden away in the storerooms of British, French, Austrian, Spanish, German, Belgian, Swiss and Italian museums.
The different skin colours represented, to the international followers of Blumenbach’s classification, a metaphorical race between the German examples of the race types: the “Ethiopian” (“black”), “North American Native” (“red”), the “Malayan” (“brown”), the “Chinese” (“yellow”) and “Caucasian” (“white”) races. A race both physical and mental. This was when began the scientific race to prove the “superiority of the white race” and competitions between different universities in Europe to show, using “IQ tests”, why their students should be “rated” higher than other universities/schools/colleges/nationalities/races. Saying someone had a “low IQ” became a common insult along with terms favoured by Winston Churchill, chosen from the eugenics lexicon for “degrees of mental retardation” – idiot, moron etc. These soon became colloquial terms of abuse.
More recently, the term “unprofessional” has come to mean “reprehensible”. This reflects the emergence of a distinct “professional class” in the British caste-system, which they called a “class system” – the upper class, middle-class, lower class, upper-lower class, upper-middle class and so on. When I lived in England I was indoctrinated to believe that I belonged to the “upper-middle class”. My mother told me, later that my father’s family were “Govigama Caste” and that hers was “Vellalah Caste”, but I had little knowledge of the caste system and less interest in it.
I now realise that divisions according to caste and class played important roles in the war in Sri Lanka, including who funded and directed the war – as we all know, the global political headquarters, and residence of the mastermind behind the LTTE operation, was London. This is from where the myth of the persecution of the “Eelam Tamil Diaspora” and the “Genocide of Eelam Tamils” was spread, internationally, by the propagandists of Anton and Adele Balasingham’s prospective “Socialist State of Tamil Eelam”.
The British used “race differences” as a political tool in their divide-and-rule strategy, as they did “class” and “caste” differences. The “Tamils” were said to be “members of the Dravidian Race”, while the Sinhalese were members of the “Aryan Race”. The Aryan race, to which the “Brahmins” were also said to belong, was regarded, by the Germans, as the same “race” as themselves, and therefore “superior”. It was their take on the racist eugenics “science” that was exported by the British University System (notably Cambridge) to its colonies (including Canada, Australia and Sri Lanka). It was also exported by the British University System to the USA and, later, to Germany.
In Germany, eugenics later provided the “scientific” rationale and “arguments” for genocide of “degenerate races” under the Nazis. Dark-skinned, nomadic Eurasians, historically persecuted as “gipsies” (Gypsies) were rounded up and killed, along with the “Jews” and supposed members of the “Semitic Race”.
In Australia, the “science of race” took a different, but related, path. Here, the Indigenous people were regarded as “more primitive” than the Aryans, Dravidians and “Hindoos” (as the British eugenicists of the 19th century liked to call the fairer “North Indians”). The light-skinned members of the Brahmin caste were regarded, by the eugenicists (including Francis Galton himself), as being vastly “superior” (culturally, linguistically and racially) to the “Dravidian race”. They were near the top of the hierarchy, while “Veddhas” and “Australian Aborigines” were right at the bottom. These are anachronistic prejudices that remain all too common.
In my studied opinion, Donald, the issues of race and language lie at the heart of the war in Sri Lanka. When it began, what has come to be seen as a “thirty-year-war” was frequently called an “ethnic conflict” in the Western press. On the rare events that it “made the news”. This was said to be a “racial conflict” between two “ethnic groups” or “race” – the Aryan Sinhalese and the Dravidian Tamils. This was not,however, the truth – it was war-perpetuating propaganda.
Donald, you have said that when you think of Tamil you think of it as a racial issue, rather than a language, culture or heritage. This is your issue, not mine. Thinking in terms of “race”, rather than language, culture, history, identity, heritage or even ancestry is, by definition, “racism”.
I have, as you can see, some interest in race, the history of racism in science and, to a lesser degree, politics. I know much more about racism in Australia than I do about racism in Sri Lanka. That’s why I am exploring, with CT readers and commentators, including yourself, Donald, the racial and linguistic aspects of the war in Sri Lanka.
The contributor who goes by the nom de plume of “Native Vedda” frequently mentions modern DNA studies and the light that modern genetics and the Human Genome Project can shed on our shared ancestry, as members of the human race. He tries to present the same references, over and again, about modern DNA studies he says, in effect, “proves” the stupidity of both Sinhalese and Tamils. He is trying to be as insulting as he can to both “races”. That’s what racist “agent provocateurs” do. They try and provoke racism, wherever they find racial harmony. They constantly accuse others of being racist, and keep bringing “race” into the conversation, but deny that they, themselves, are racist.
“Native Vedda” delights in insulting both “Sinhalese” and “Tamil” people as “stupid”, but denies that he is racist. He also, while pretending to be a member of Sri Lanka’s Original People, claims, at the end of each message, that he, too, is “a bit thick”. I do not believe he is “a bit thick”, nor do I believe that his is actually a native Veddha/Veddah of Sri Lanka, who used to be called the “Veddahs of Ceylon”. The derogatory comments he showers other commentators indicate that he is, what is known in Internet parlance, as a “troll”. What you might call a cyber-agent provocateur.
You, on the other hand, Donald are a real man. A real human being who I can have a civilized, public, discussion with. I am even prepared to discuss my father, within reason. I am also prepared to help you identify any people who may have been involved in specifically targeting the businesses of your family in Colombo to get the war ball rolling in 1983.
Romesh
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