Don’t the Sinhalese people know about the Buddhist monks in the North-East seizing the traditional lands of the Tamils and setting up Buddhist temples against the law? So far no Sinhalese public has condemned the injustice being done in Tamil Pradesh in the name of Buddhism. There is no news about this in the Sinhala and English media.
Sinhala and English media only highlight the illegal activities of Buddhist monks or court injunctions against the activities of Buddhist monks. In other words, those news are based on the tone that Buddhist priests and Buddhism have no place in Tamil areas.
Why are Buddhist temples and Buddha statues in Tamil territories where Buddhist Sinhalese people do not live? Where are the funds for building Buddhist temples coming from amid the current economic crisis?
It is clear that all these are planned and directed with the aim of eliminating the theory of the homeland of the Tamils and establishing the entire island of Sri Lanka as a Buddhist Sinhalese territory.
The Thirty Years War is the main reason for the current economic decline. Sinhala politicians understand this. But instead of telling the truth to the Sinhalese people, they are inciting racism. Production should be increased and the export economy should improve.
International Monetary Fund loans and aid from the US, India, and China governments alone are not enough to build Sri Lanka’s economy. It will plunge Sri Lanka into irretrievable debt.
Therefore, through the permanent political solution that Elam Tamils want, the natural resources in the North East should be developed and the productive economy should be increased.
Thirty years of continuous war made it convenient for the Sinhalese rulers to engage in corruption and abuse of power. Even after May 2009, corruption continues in other forms. Sinhalese people should understand this.
But the mainstream Sinhala English media and Sinhala politicians do not reveal the facts to the Sinhala people.
Some Sinhala and English news websites are revealing the fact that the non-presentation of a permanent political solution to the ethnic problem is the cause of all the current crises in Sri Lanka.
Certain Sinhala academics and some Sinhala alternative media have condemned the aggressive activities of the Buddhist clergy. However, they are a very small proportion of the total Sinhalese population of the island of Sri Lanka, so it will not be enough to create a proper understanding among the entire Sinhalese population.
Many Sinhalese politicians do not want to speak against Buddhist priests. In particular, the government has remained silent on Buddhistization. Many Tamil parliamentarians are accusing the Sri Lankan parliament that the government, especially the Sinhalese politicians, is behind these activities.
But they blame the government and the Sri Lankan army and maintain relations with the government through the back door. On the contrary, none of the Tamil parliamentarians are ready to take to the streets and fight. Addressing parliament with heroic fervor. But the Tamil parties are not ready to conduct continuous moral struggles in a democratic way.
The Sinhalese settlements that started in 1949 with the Kalloya Settlement Project in the Eastern Province of Amparai district continue to this day in the North East.
The project was somewhat hampered by the intervening thirty years of armed conflict. But since May 2009, today fourteen years of rapid and well-planned Sinhalese settlements are taking place.
The American and Indian governments, which provided arms and financial aid to the Sri Lankan government during the war, do not ask for justifications about this to date. The Chinese government does not need to seek justice from the Sri Lankan government regarding the Elam Tamils.
America and India have been giving full cooperation to the Sri Lankan government even after May 2009, showing and pretending to support the Elam Tamils. But the Chinese government has not lied about supporting the Elam Tamils and has been giving cooperation only to the Sri Lankan government very honestly.
The biggest concern of the Tamils is that the Tamil National Parties have not devised any mechanism to gain the political emancipation of the Elam Tamils using the contemporary geopolitical economic interests and rivalries of the dominant countries.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe, former Minister Late Mangala Samaraweera, Sri Lankan Ambassador to India Milinda Moragoda, Sri Lankan Ambassador to America Mahinda Samarasinghe, and Professor G.L Peiris are the best diplomats for the Sinhalese people.
Regardless of the parties they belong to, they act with one voice in matters related to the political liberation of Elam Tamils In other words, they are working very subtly in maintaining Sri Lankan Unitary State to strengthen Sri Lankan nationality.
But Tamils do not have good diplomats like them. They claim to be Tamil political representatives and only pay more attention to electoral politics.
Like the Sinhalese political parties, they should form a mechanism and engage in activities related to political emancipation and Tamils homeland development of the Elam Tamils with a united voice. But Tamils do not seem to have any such processes.
On the contrary, they are only devising election strategies to increase the number of members for their respective parties in the next parliamentary elections.
It is different that the Tamil people did not accept the Thirteenth Amendment Act as a political solution to the ethnic crisis. But the funny thing here is that many Sinhalese politicians do not want to fully implement even the Thirteenth Amendment.
It is a well-known fact that there is no place for economic progress and peace on the island of Sri Lanka until the Sinhalese politicians are freed from the Buddhist Mahavamsa mentality.
There is no alternative that the Sinhalese people can understand what is happening in the North East if the truth is expressed in a non-racist manner
*A. Nixon Senior Journalist, Lecturer in Media (Former president of Tamil Media Alliance)
