Twisted Tales of two alleged genocides – and Canada's claimed support for conflict prevention in Sri Lanka
Canadian High Commissioner
by Chandre Dharmawardana-July 4, 2019, 9:09 pm
David McKinnon, Canada's High Commissioner to Sri Lanka stated, on Canada's National Day, "Canada would continue to support conflict prevention efforts in Sri Lanka, where it has been seen how hate speech and media can entrench communal divisions". Meanwhile. back in Canada, successive Canadian governments have failed to understand how this very "hate speech" is being entrenched in Canadian municipal discourse and even in parliamentary proceedings by militant diaspora groups. They wish to replay the old ethnic animosities of their homeland in Canada, too.
This has been possible because of electorates where minority groups determine the "wing vote". Canadian politicians usually know little about Sri Lanka, and prefer to parrot what gets them the votes. Many candidates running for office in Canada believe or assume that all Sri Lankan immigrants in Canada are Tamils. They readily accept that a "genocide" of Tamils had occurred, and that most Sri Lankan immigrants are refugees from that "genocide".
The now defunct Northern Provincial Council (NPC) of Sri Lanka led by C. V. Wigneswaran declared in 2015 that all Sri Lankan governments since independence in 1948 had practised "genocide" against Sri Lankan Tamils (see: Island, Feb 2015, http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=119757). Sri Lankan political historians and jurists have largely ignored this, conveniently treating it as mere political rhetoric of extremists who even discourage inter-ethnic marriage and strive to create mono-ethnic communities subservient to them. But the Canadian Tamil Diaspora has taken up the drumbeat of a "genocide" back in Canada.
Canada's federal inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls released its final report with a verdict of "genocide", indicting Canada's policies since the times of Sir John A MacDonald. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accepted the findings of the report, while informally endorsing the claim of "genocide". The leader of the opposition, Andre Sheer contends that "Genocide" isn’t the right word to describe what was done to the Indigenous people. But was it right for what happened in Sri Lanka?
Canada is a signatory to the 1948 UN Convention on the Crime of Genocide. Following the federal inquiry report, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States wants an international panel to investigate the claim and activate justice indicting Canada.
According to the University of Wisconsin scholar William Denevan and collaborators, the population of native people in the early 16th century in North America may have been as high as 110 million. Of this, an estimated native population in Canada during Jacques Cartier's times could have been as high as 10 million. It dwindled to record lows in the late 19th century, and recovered partially. It now stands at nearly a million, or about 1.5 million on including Métiis and Inuits as well. That is, the native population has dropped by a factor of at least 10 in five centuries, while European numbers have increased exponentially. The record lows in the Native population of the late 19th and early 20th century resulted from deliberate Colonial policies. Sir John A. MacDonald's policy of starving First Nations to death to make room for European settlers, willful denial of health needs, residential schools, negation of treaties. It was a time when a "Good Injun was a dead Injun". More recently, during WWII, refugee Jewish ships were turned way with no qualms.
However, Canada turned a page with the quiet revolution in Quebec, and with leaders like Tommy Douglas and Lester Pearson making a difference.
And yet, in spite of all these well-known facts, Canadian legislators have been very cautious since a proclamation of a "Genocide" when Canada is at the receiving end is not in the plan. Casting stones at other is much easier, especially if there is political capital to be made.
Three Canadian municipalities, namely Toronto, Pickering and Brampton have rushed to cast stones and declare May 18 as the "Sri Lankan Tamil Genocide commemoration day". Furthermore, Vijay Thanigasalam (a provincial legislator) has tabled the "Bill 104: Tamil Genocide Education Week in Ontario". Clearly, inter-ethnic battles of their homeland are being imported to Canada by militant diaspora groups who work hand in hand with Canadians who know very little about Sri Lanka.
Demographics indicate a robust growth, rather than a genocide of Sri Lankan Tamils, a 12% minority. The Tamil population of 734,000 in 1946 (i. e. just before independence) increased to 2.3 million at the 2011 census, after the fall of the LTTE in May 2009. In addition, some 0.9 million Tamils have emigrated, with most coming to Canada. So the Tamil population has increased by a factor of 4.4., strongly exceeding the 3.5 factor of growth of the Sinhalese (the 72% majority) during the same period.
The majority of Tamil speakers live in the Sinhalese areas. According to CIA fact sheets, at most 5% of the population were under the Tigers. The RCMP and the news media in Canada (e.g., Stewart Bell, National Post, http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/01/21/documents-courts-seize-assets-from-the-world-tamil-movement/") as well as in Sri Lanka (e. g. see Shamindra Ferdinando's series entitled "War on Terror", The Island) have reported how Canadian Tamil organizations funded the Tigers who are proscribed as Terrorists in most countries even today. The columns of Tamil Journalist D. B. S. Jayaraj claim that the Tigers killed more Tamils than attributable to state terror. This view seems to be echoed by the writer Sebastian Rasalingam, and even by Mr. Chandrahasan, the son of the iconic Tamil leader S. J. V. Chelvanayagam. The latter founded the Ilanaki Tamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK) in 1949 claiming a part of Ceylon as the "exclusive homeland of the Tamils". The ITAK was never trusted by the majority community. It morphed into a full-blown separatist party that pledged military action in 1976, failing its attempts at a negotiated settlement with the state. The northern peninsula, with a mere 5% of the population was pitted against the military might of the state backed by the Sinhalese and the Moors, launching a set of armed conflicts now known as the Eelam wars that lasted for three decades.
Deaths during the Eelam wars struck all Lankan ethnic groups equally hard. The claim of "genocide" focusing only on Tamil deaths of a claimed 40,000 during the last days of the Eelam wars is currently under review by the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC). The Organization of American States probably wants a similar review against Canada, a main sponsor of the indictment against Sri Lanka.
The indictment before the UNHRC is contested by knowledgeable authorities including Lord Naeseby's British House of Lords investigation. Their estimates of casualties come to some 7,000, of which 5,000 are Tamil-Tiger fighters. Scholarly studies of wiki-leaks of diplomatic dispatches, studies by the American Physical Society of satellite images of shelling, the report of the Paranagama commission etc., indicate similar lower figures of casualties.
However, the municipalities of Toronto, Brampton and Pickering rushed to judgment to please ethnic pressure groups. The Canadian Parliament itself sponsored a sham hearing hosted by Garry Anandasangaree, where the event was announced with short notice, and admissions were controlled to voice the genocide story.
If a genocide of 40,000 occurred in the last weeks of Eelam IV, mass graves of 40,000 killed have to be somewhere. But even the NPC under Wigneswaran, who claimed a Tamil genocide, has NOT succeeded in demonstrating any mass graves. The Mannar mass grave, which was excavated with great expectations of providing some support to the NCP genocide claim fell completely flat. Radio-carbon data indicated that the skeletons were from a massacre during Portuguese times by a Hindu-Tamil chieftain who exterminated fellow Tamil converts to Catholicism. Furthermore, despite the claim that 40,000 were killed by shell fire and bombings and some 160,000 injure, but very few injured were found among the 300,000 held in the war zone when freed in May 2009.
A grave injustice is being committed by the Canadian municipalities in their rush to judgment about a "Tamil genocide". This contrasts strongly with the cautious approach of the House of Commons regarding the alleged genocide of aboriginal peoples. The good intentions contained in the Canadian High Commissioner's statement is unfortunately not being played out in Canada itself.
[The author is a Canadian and Sri -Lankan academic living in Canada, and may be contacted at chandre.dharma@yahoo.ca]
