Is Malaysia Backing Sri Lankan Tamil Genocide?


Sri Lanka’s government declared victory in May, 2009, in one of the world’ s most intractable wars after a series of battles in which it killed the leader of the Tamil Tigers, who had been fighting to create a separate homeland for the country’s ethnic Tamil minority. The United Nations said the conflict had killed between 80,000 and 100,000 people in Sri Lankasince full-scale civil war broke out in 1983.

A US State Department report offered a grisly catalogue of alleged abuses, including the killing of captives or combatants seeking surrender, the abduction and in some cases murder of Tamil civilians, and dismal humanitarian conditions in camps for displaced persons.

Human Rights Watch said the U.S. report should dispel any doubts that serious abuses were committed during the final months of the 26-year civil war. The report gains added significance since, during these five months, the Sri Lankan Government denied independent observers, including the media and human rights organizations, access to the war zone, and conducted a “war without witnesses.”

For this reason, some 50 people staged a protest outside the Sogo shopping complex in Kuala Lumpur and warned the Najib administration that they will not vote for Barisan Nasional if it did not vote in favour of the United Nations probing the war crimes in Sri Lanka.

It is an open secret that Malaysia goes into action mode only if those on the receiving end are Muslims. During the height of the Rwandan massacre between the Hutus and Tutsis, Malaysia turned a blind eye to this carnage as it involved Christians from both sides. The Malaysian government rather spent all its attention on the Bosnian conflict which was actually dying down at that time. Only when there were reports about Muslims getting caught in the crossfire did the Malaysian government spring into action in Rwanda only to come to the aid of Muslim Rwandans. So it must not come as a surprise that the Malaysian Regime won't do anything much for the Sri Lankan Tamils as they are non Muslims.

The protesters were from the Malaysian Tamil Progressive Team (Matsap) and several other NGOs.

“Vote for Sri Lanka and you will lose our vote. Our sentiments should be respected,” said Matsap chairman A Kalaimugilan during the protest.

He also justified the call for supporting the UN resolution that would be tabled on Friday on the ground that majority of the 1.8 million Indians here are ethnic Tamilians.

Kalaimugilan added that currently Asian countries, including Malaysia, were having sentiments to vote against the resolution simply because Sri Lanka was an Asian nation.

He warned the government of another Indian uprising akin to the Hindraf rally in 2007 if the sentiments of the Malaysian Tamils were not taken into consideration.

“Don’t make us rise again like we did in 2007,” he said.
Kalaimugilan also chastised the Najib administration for supporting a resolution in favour of Sri Lanka in 2009 shortly after Sri Lanka won the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

“If (Prime Minister) Najib (Tun Razak) was concerned about the Tamils, why would he support (Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda) Rajapakse then?” he asked.

In a related development, MIC, MCA, Gerakan and PPP sent a joint memorandum to the Foreign Ministry calling for the Malaysian delegation to vote for the UN resolution.

Another group led by Malaysian Indian Transformation Action Team (MITRA) handed over a memorandum to the High Commission of India, urging New Delhi to also support the UN resolution.

UN must investigate

Meanwhile, a group of non-governmental organisations today submitted a joint memorandum to the United Nations office here, urging the world body to investigate the war crimes of the Sri Lanka government during its offensive against the country’s Tamils.

The group led by Suaram president K Arumugam and Teluk Intan member of parliament M Manogaran handed over the memorandum to the UN representative Devendra Patel.

Also present were Charles Santiago, the Klang MP, Micheal Jeyakumar(Sungai Siput), M Kulasegaran (Ipoh Barat), A Sivanesan (Sungkai, Perak state assemblyman), M Ravi (Port Dickson Negeri Sembilan state assemblyman), town councillors and leaders from Pakatan Rakyat.

Speaking to reporters, Arumugam said the UN Panel of Experts (PoE) report on the issue stated that war crimes were indeed committed by the Sri Lankan military killing tens of thousands of Tamils during its offensive against the LTTE, which has now been disbanded.

“UN as an international body has an obligation to investigate the findings of the reports,” he said

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