SRI LANKA: Still Drenched With the Blood of Ethnic Cleansing and War Crimes.

Tim King Salem-News.com-Mar-06-2013 

Ranking member of US House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee Congressman Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, does not know true definition of 'Human Rights'.

Ranking member of US House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee Congressman Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, approves of this crime and wants to give Sri Lanka yet another free pass for Genocide.

(SACRAMENTO, CA) - Salem-News.com is the only U.S. news agency that regularly covers the ongoing human and political tragedy in Sri Lanka. Up to 160,000 Sri Lankan Tamils were massacred in a Sinhala Buddhist led Genocide that culminated in May 2009, during the end of the country's long-running civil war.

It was a bloodbath of tears and raw flesh and human limbs hacked away from their owners; children screaming over the bodies of their dead mothers and fathers, endless damage to a population carried out purely in the name of injustice.

The campaign against the Tamil people carried out by the government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) is worse that any nightmare could replicate.

The U.S. government under George W. Bush knew about it and let it all happen.

Our articles have revealed the carnage, torture, rape and sex abuse that accompanied the government's campaign against the Tamil resistance known as the Tamil Tigers or LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam).

Their 'crimes' began with resistance to the GoSL's attempt to ban their ancient language and culture.

After 30 years of non-violent Gandhi style non-resistance that began in 1948, the Tamils finally were forced to take up arms in their own defense.

The Tamil Tigers were problematic in many respects, their use of child soldiers at the end of the war is highly criticized, but their manifestation was forced by the hand of this government so intent on eradicating them by any means possible.

When we began reporting these findings about war crimes, largely backed by photos and video clips recorded first by the besieged Tamils, and then by the victorious Sri Lankan Army, we learned one reason that the news remained contained inside this island nation, that is the mass elimination of journalists that Sri Lanka conducted.

Name after name of reporters and media employees filled our pages. As fellow journalists, we take this very seriously, and as a result have published several hundred articles as well as those I authored, (more 70 reports so far).

The coverage from our group has been so unique, that I was invited to be the Keynote Speaker last May in Baltimore for the largest national gathering of Tamils in North America, FeTNA (Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America) Conference in Baltimore, for the group's special 25th Anniversary Jubilee Event.

This tremendous honor should have gone to one of the numerous members of the major U.S. networks which have resources to conduct this type of reporting, or to somebody with the LA Times which has an eye for fairness and racism and religious persecution, certainly they all should have been fuming over the murdered journos, but instead it went to me. (Significant Honor With Tamils from Around the Globe for Sri Lanka War Crime Reports (VIDEO))

The waters surrounding Sri Lanka began getting hot one year ago this month, after a visit from Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights Maria Otero and Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert O. Blake, Jr. More pressure came from Stephen Rapp, the US President’s Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes.

Due to the shear number of civilian killings by the Sri Lankan Security forces, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution on accountability for these crimes and is about to review it in March 2013.

So what does the U.S. have to say about it?

Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Robert Blake said in 2011, that Sri Lanka could be hauled before an international war crimes tribunal if Sri Lanka’s own internal investigation did not meet international standards.

Their investigation is a joke to say the least, there was never any serious intention of coming to terms with its own deeds, Sri Lanka will not admit anything without practically having a knife at its throat. Other Americans literally snuggle up to the war criminals. It is a rotten smell that follows anyone who stands for Sri Lanka when the record so perfectly shows the ethnic cleansing that has come to define this place.

Ranking member of US House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee Congressman Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, recently visited with the leader of Sri Lanka, President Majinda Rajapaksa, who is most responsible of all with the GoSL for allowing the killing of tens of thousands of civilians, all in the name of creating an ideal Sinhala Buddhist nation. Men of his ilk love to use the word terrorism, because the LTTE used unconventional warfare as it had no choice, but the terrorism in this story is the worst possible form of State Terrorism.

Faleomavaega had the audacity to say that:

"The U.S. fails to mention not even one positive development for Sri Lanka. Such failures suggest that the United States is not being even handed in dealing with sensitive human rights issues across the globe."

Wikileaks cables revealed that the United States was keenly aware of the slaughter of Tamils in 2009. The Sri Lankan Army even bombarded the United Nations compound in the Vanni, where so many were mercilessly killed. Faleomavaega is concerned with all of the wrong things and his statement about human rights is nothing short of outwardly perverse.

I am so overly familiar with the images of little children hacked to pieces and heartbroken Tamil refugees and the stories of the white flag surrender/murders, the terrible rape and daily sex abuse of Tamil people, women, children and men, and the sickening terror campaigns carried out by the GoSL.

Today he "expressed his deep concerns over the double standards applied in the US foreign policy toward Sri Lanka."

Speaking at the committee hearing on "The Rebalance to Asia: Why South Asia Matters", the congressman underscored that US should find a better way forward than using UN resolutions to improve its relationships with a strategically important country such as Sri Lanka.

He simply does not care about what happened to the people of Sri Lanka at the hand of their own government, I feel great sympathy for his constituents because with his representation, they don't stand a ghost's chance in hell of receiving any real advocacy, that is unless they represent big business interests.

Robert Blake's words have given Americans hope, Faleomavaega's words steal it. He actually wants a resolution pressing Sri Lanka toward responsibility in the United Nations to be killed. He deflects any responsibility for Sri Lanka in "the last months of the war"

He also defends Sri Lanka's borrowing of money from China. Faleomavaega is part of the problem, he is an unapologetic defender of ruthless war criminals, and he didn't have any regrets.

Blake spoke at the event also, but before he achieved his tiny amount of time to talk after the long boring time taken by Faleomavaega, he was interrupted by Rajapaksa's friend Faleomavaega again, who said to Blake:

"This is not in any way a personal attack on you in any way but I do want to follow up on the Chairman's questions and concerns about the situation in Sri Lanka. I mentioned the double standard we're applying in a sense of human rights. My question is, why is the most powerful country in the world picking on a small little country like Sri Lanka, the size of West Virginia?"

Audacity is the first word that comes to mind when listening to this man talk. When Blake finally was allowed to speak he said:

"At the very end of the war, what happened to those 10,000 to 40,000 civilians who were killed? I think everybody in Sri Lanka believes there needs to be closure on that question. And closure needs to be achieved by the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission process. It's a domestic process so it should have the support of the government and we hope that will continue, and that's the purpose of this resolution, but there needs to be justice Mr. Chairman for there to be closure. And there needs to be reconciliation between these communities and that's what we are trying to achieve."

Faleomavaega did everything possible to excuse the actions of a government that raped and hacked and bombed a civilian population into a total tragedy.

The primary agency that reported the attacks directed at civilians was the United Nations itself. In order to arrive at his conclusions, this so-called political leader has to dismiss a tragedy only rivaled in modern time by the Genocide against the Europeans during WWII, the Cambodians at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, and Rwanda.

Oh, there are more, but due to men like Faleomavaega, Americans don't know very much about it, they are like mushrooms, kept in the dark and fed shit instead of real information, real news.

They will not recover any time soon, in fact thousands will never recover from such a brutal government orchestrated massacre.

The GoSL called the civilians 'human shields' and that is complete fantasy, the LTTE may have crossed lines and used suicide bombs, but they existed to protect the Tamil population and did not use them as human shields.

Blake backsteps with the statement, "10,000 to 40,000 civilians" - as anyone who has studied the matter knows the number is far in excess of that, and well over a million Tamils are forever scarred by the event that robbed their dignity and families and friends and leaders and media personalities.

The Tamil civilians were actually routed into so-called "safe zones" and then bombed to smithereens, as revealed by the Channel 4 documentary series "Sri Lanka's Killing Fields".

Tamil Problems Continue Daily

Bishop Joseph Rayappu

According to the August 2011 article, Non-Aligned Movement Should Sanction War Criminals like Sri Lankan President, Sri Lankan Bishop Joseph Rayappu noted that 146,679 people were still not accounted for in the region. This is the basis for our use of the 160,000 figure.

So many Tamils were literally decimated along with their vital records, that no true accounting exists, the number in reality is probably far more than 160,000, when governments banter the 40,000 figure, they are giving the GoSL the ultimate reach around.

The Sri Lankan Government also restricted food and medicine for Tamils, resulting in large numbers of people dying from starvation and many of the injured bleeding to death. Then there is the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that swallows and envelopes this society.

In addition to the killings, thousands of Tamils have disappeared, Tamil women are continually sexually assaulted and raped, particularly if they or their families had any connection to the Tamil Tigers.

Large numbers of Tamils are imprisoned without trial and abductions are continuing to this day. Tamils are singled out to face these abuses simply and solely on account of their Tamil nationality.

The Sri Lankan Security forces, exempt from their crimes against Tamils, are almost exclusively from the Sinhalese community and the victims, other than the handful of Sinhalese who refused to endorse or participate in the war, are all from the Tamil Nation. That is not to say that Tamils don't work with the GoSL, plenty do, but those who stood united fell together.

Faleomavaega is a puppet for the Sri Lankan government, he hails from American Samoa, a place that has escaped similar tragedies. Consorting with Rajapaksa and breathing in his toxic lies is an unforgivable act and this man is dangerous to the future of peace and should answer for this bout of promotion for Sri Lanka's President.

I hope he sees the images in this article, or the ones listed below that are like a journey to hell for some who read them. You can also read the comments from loyal Sinhala Buddhists who make fun of the rape and murder victims like it is all some kind of joke.

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