Feb 10th 2009 – 10.30am following a past discussion with a friend who raised this controversy…
While dead LTTE fighters are commemorated in the “Great martyrs”/Maveerar day and to this day around 20,000 names has been published by Tigers, the Sri Lankan army causalities often gets hushed up.
While the Tigers voluntarily join and die for the cause, the Sinhalese soldiers join the Army mainly due to the pay check to sustain poor rural families – though I recognise the fact that some of them also ardently believe in the “We are Aryans and a lion race” rhetoric- based on the mythical historical Mahavamsa that has caused this bloodbath on the first place.
Having experienced the war first hand, the horrible attacks on hospitals and civilian targets in the Vanni region indicate to me a very high number of causalities in the Army.
What deal are they (soldiers and their families) going to get from Rajapakse? Already we are seeing demonstrations in Colombo where parents of missing soldiers want to know the fate of their sons given the lavish celebrations in the south of “the sweeping and victorious military campaign”.
The Government has brainwashed the South for 3 decades – censoring news of massacres and bombardments carried out in Tamil areas. Will their censorship of Army casualties and the raw deal handed out to the Army trigger the military rise against the Government?
The “democratically elected” governments for 3 decades have been unable to deliver peace since they never got the 2/3 majority that they needed to pass a resolution – that’s always been their excuse. Rajapakse has the support but is bent on a genocidal military campaign.
So, my friend asked “Given this deadlock, could a military government be good for the Tamils on the long run especially wrt international implications? What do we have to lose? Our areas are already under military control; there is no press freedom and for that matter, no respect for basic human rights and human dignity?”
