Thinking about the “G”-word
by Michael Patrick O'Leary
This article appeared in Ceylon Today on March 16 2015
http://test.ceylontoday.lk/51-87480-news-detail-thinking-about-the-g-word.html
“’When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ ’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’”
The purpose of language is to convey ideas as succinctly and accurately as possible under the aegis of a common understanding. Definition is crucial. We must define our terms logically, sensibly and consistently if we are to have a productive dialogue – otherwise we are talking at cross-purposes.
Way back in the mists of last century, I worked in the child protection field. The NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) sent me a report alleging that 50% of girls and 25% of boys under the age of 16 in the UK had been victims of child sexual abuse. This was shocking news. When I analysed the raw data of the NSPCC survey, a different picture emerged. One is horrified at the idea of innocent children being raped. However, one might be less upset at girls encountering a flasher or hormonal boys seeking out pornography. The NSPCC’s definition of sexual abuse of children encompassed consensual sexual relations between teenagers below the legal age of consent and took in the use of obscene language. The NGO was pursuing its fund-raising agenda by propagating sensational statistics, which covered a wide continuum of behaviour. Reading the small print one could see that: “Sexual abuse takes many forms: explicit sexual talk; showing pornography; sexual touching; lack of privacy to bath or undress; masturbation; and sexual intercourse.”
The Northern Provincial Council of Sri Lanka passed a resolution alleging that successive national governments of Sri Lanka have been following a policy of genocide against Tamils in Sri Lanka.
What is genocide? The etymology is hybrid, coming from genos (Greek for family, tribe, or race) and -cide (Latin for killing). Has the entire race of Tamils in Sri Lanka been killed? Has there been any official plan or policy to exterminate Tamils in Sri Lanka? Is Humpty Dumpty a member of the NPC?
The word “genocide” did not exist until 1943. This does not mean that there was no genocide before that date. Many Irish people believe that Oliver Cromwell engaged in genocide. The ground for Cromwell’s actions was prepared under the Tudors in a manifesto written by the poet Edmund Spenser. In his “View of the Present State of Ireland” (1596), Spenser argued that starvation was the best way to control the fractious Irish. Spenser described how the starving Irish population would “consume themselves and devour one another”.
The Irish quite naturally resisted . Cromwell re-conquered Ireland with a death toll of possibly 40% of the entire Irish population. There was wholesale burning of crops and killing of civilians and many were sent to the West Indies as indentured labourers. A recent book, God’s Executioner by Mícheál Ó Siochrú, is a forceful restatement of the prosecution case that Cromwell’s campaign was genocidal. Cromwell’s programme achieved the almost complete dispossession of the Catholic landed elite. The native ruling classes were destroyed and replaced by the Protestant Ascendancy.
There was a plan. Hitler, Mengele and Baldur von Shirach might have learnt a thing or two from Sir William Petty (1623-87) – mathematician, mechanic, physician, cartographer and statistician – who devised a public-private partnership for “fusing science and policy”. Petty explored the idea of breeding the “meer Irish” out of existence by deporting 10,000 Irishwomen of marriageable age to England every year and replacing them with a like number of Englishwomen.”The whole Work of natural Transmutation and Union would in four or five years be accomplished.” Jonathan Swift wrote A Modest Proposal to lampoon Petty’s ideas. Swift suggests that impoverished Irish might profit by selling their surplus children as food for the rich.
Because of the famine that followed the potato blight of 1845, Ireland’s population fell by 25%. One million people died of starvation and typhus. It may be that dead children were eaten. Millions of Irish people emigrated over the following decades. Some 2.6 million Irish entered overcrowded workhouses where more than 200,000 people died. In his book Three Famines, Thomas Keneally, the Australian novelist who wrote Schindler’s List, quotes a contemporary observer: “Insane mothers began to eat their young children who died of famine before them; and still fleets of ships were sailing with every tide, carrying Irish cattle and corn to England”. The 1911 Census showed that Ireland’s population had fallen to 4.4 million, about half of its peak population. Broadcaster and historian Robert Kee suggested that the Irish Famine of 1845 is “comparable” in its force on popular national consciousness to that of the “final solution on the Jews,” and that it is not infrequently thought that the Famine was something very like, “a form of genocide engineered by the English against the Irish people”.
Kee mentioned the horror that is the benchmark for genocide in the 20th Century. There is no doubt that Hitler had long had a plan to exterminate all the Jews in Europe and he succeeded in killing six million of them. It is an affront to logic to give the name of genocide both to what happened to the Jews under the Nazis and to what happened to Tamils in Sri Lanka.
Raphael Lemkin (June 24, 1900 – August 28, 1959) coined the word “genocide”. Lemkin was a Jewish Polish lawyer who immigrated to the United States in 1941. He first used the word in print in Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation – Analysis of Government – Proposals for Redress (1944), and defined it as “the destruction of a nation or an ethnic group.”
By Lemkin’s original simple definition, it would seem obvious that many Sri Lankan Tamils are using the word genocide incorrectly and mischievously. Whatever heinous crimes may have been perpetrated against Tamils in Sri Lankan the “ethnic group” has clearly not been “destroyed”. According to the 2012 census, there were 2,270,924 Sri Lankan Tamils in Sri Lanka, 11.21% of the population. Sri Lankan Tamils constitute an overwhelming majority of the population in the Northern Province and are the largest ethnic group in the Eastern Province. The current Chief Justice is Tamil and Tamils occupy many senior positions.
Lemkin took an interest in the subject of genocide while studying the killing by Turkish forces of 1.5 million Armenians. In 1913, a triumvirate of Young Turks, consisting of Mehmed Talaat, Ismail Enver and Ahmed Djemal, assumed dictatorial powers and concocted a plan to create a new Turkish empire, a “great and eternal land” called Turan with one language and one religion. On 24 April 1915, Ottoman authorities rounded up and arrested some 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. There had been prior preparations. In fact, one argument for defining this as genocide is that it had been brewing for at least a century. In 1913, Turks disarmed the entire Armenian population. About forty thousand Armenian men served in the Turkish Army. In the autumn and winter of 1914, all their weapons were confiscated and they were employed as slave labour to build roads or used as pack animals. There was a very high death rate. Along the way, they were frequently set upon by Kurdish tribesmen, who had been given license to loot and rape. Kurds are seen today as victims of the Turkish state but they played a major role in the persecution of Armenians.
It is still dangerous in modern Turkey to talk about the genocide. Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk was accused of having violated Section 301 of the Turkish penal code, which outlaws “insulting Turkishness.” An optimistic feature in today’s Turkey is that many non-Armenians are prepared to speak out and many Kurds in particular are taking reconciliatory measures to atone for the crimes of their ancestors.
The simple definition of genocide – the attempt to exterminate an entire race- has been expanded to cover a continuum that undermines the usefulness of genocide as a concept. Tamils who support the NPC resolution say that it fits the UN convention of 1948. According to that genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group:
- killing members of the group;
- causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
- deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to bring about its physical destruction;
- imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
- forcibly transferring children of this group to another group.
To say that the whole GOSL campaign against the LTTE was a genocide against the Tamil people is just plain wrong. To say that genocide has been going on since 1948 is ludicrous. It does not help victims of real child sexual abuse to bump up the statistics by including minor offences. While dirty talk might be unseemly and inappropriate, it is not the moral equivalent of raping a baby. Action should be taken against sexual crimes and against violations of human rights. However, racial discrimination is not on a par with the extermination of a race. It does not help victims (Sinhalese and Muslim as well as Tamil) of the GOSL to pretend that Sri Lanka has had a Hitler or a Stalin or a Mao or a Pol Pot or a Cromwell or an Ahmed Djemal. (Although a successful Tamil businessman spoke to me vehemently in those terms about Dickie Jayewardene.)
Martin Shaw is a research professor of international relations at the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals and Sussex University best known for his sociological work on war, genocide and global politics. He is a frequent contributor to the website Open Democracy. I asked Professor Shaw about the question of genocide in Sri Lanka but he hedged and prevaricated. Commenters on Open Democracy have been critical of his writings on genocide. “What Shaw and his post-modernist ilk contend is that we should move in the opposite direction and expand definitions to points ad infinitum.”
Dr Rhadhika Coomaraswamy has been described as a brilliant scholar and there is no doubt that she is a doughty champion of human rights. She was the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict until 13 July 2012. She wrote in response to the NPC resolution: “some Tamil nationalist lawyer has suddenly woken up to the fact that if we use the “G” word then there is a legal case for a separate state. This of course is a delusion of theoretical lawyers… Accountability for war crimes and human rights violations is a completely different frame of action than the claim for a separate state”. She continued: “We as a community have had enough of all this name-calling- genocide, traitor, nation- all that is just unnecessary hyperbole at this time in our history. There are so many problems that have to be solved through discussion and dialogue that affect people in their everyday life”.
Dr Coomaraswamy argues that it is time to abandon the victim mentality that lies behind the NPC resolution: “Let us regain our self -respect and our self-confidence, stand tall, look our Sinhalese and Muslim brothers and sisters in the eye, start acting as their equals and begin to build lasting partnerships.”
Padraig Colman 
Yes, Cromwell had a plan, Hitler had a plan. Plain genocide. In fact, British practised the ‘scorched earth policy’ in Uva Wellassa, Sri Lanka. This nearly decimated the local Sinhala population. Sri Lankan Tamils since brought in by the Dutch for cultivation have only propagated. Why do they conveniently ignore the fact that more Tamils live happily in Sinhala areas of the country.
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Sri Lankan Tamils were certainly not brought in by the Dutch; for cultivation, or anything else. Sri Lankan Tamils have lived in Sri Lanka long before the arrival of any of the colonial powers.
the British brought in Indian Tamils from Tamil Nadu to work on tea plantations, but this ethnic group is distinct from the Sri Lankan Tamils.
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I know that, David.
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Padraig, you’re taking the two extremes ends of the spectrum. nowhere in the UN resolution on genocide is a minimum number given as necessary to establish genocidal intent. all that is required is that intent is established, either by commission or omission.
you may be correct in suggesting that it is wrong to allege that the entire GoSL campaign was genocidal; but the fact is, there was no single campaign, or action. rather, there was a series of actions by successive governments, and some of those actions are clearly genocidal. Black July 1983 is easily the most provable; a clear attempt to wipe out the Tamils in Colombo and other major urban centres in the south. some might argue that Sinhala Only was also genocidal in that it was an attempt to remove the Tamil language from public parlance, leading to the destruction of the language, and the eventual removal of one of the strongest distinguishing characteristics of the Tamil people. other actions can also be seen to have similar motives when scrutinised. if, for instance, it is provable that the GoSL used the final offensive not to wipe out the Tamils in the Northeast, as is often alleged, but rather to prune down their numbers, it would still be genocide. if it is proven that the GoSL was aware that the campaign would result in disproportionate casualties to the Tamil civilians, and took no reasonable measures to prevent it, either because they didn’t care, or because they saw it as a useful byproduct, that would also be genocide.
an example can be seen in the Bengal famine of 1943, when Britain stripped the region of food to feed it’s war overseas while callously ignoring the inevitable catastrophe in Bengal; because Bengalis were seen to be less important than the British. it is now classed as a genocide.
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“If, for instance, it is provable that the GoSL used the final offensive not to wipe out the Tamils in the Northeast, as is often alleged, but rather to prune down their numbers, it would still be genocide. if it is proven that the GoSL was aware that the campaign would result in disproportionate casualties to the Tamil civilians, and took no reasonable measures to prevent it, either because they didn’t care, or because they saw it as a useful byproduct, that would also be genocide.”
I always understood you to be arguing against this point of view, David.
“All that is required is that intent is established, either by commission or omission.”
Do you believe that there was this intent on the part of GOSL?
I see a parallel between the Bengal famine and the Irish famine. I have noted that some historians believe the Irish famine constituted genocide while others disagreed.
I simply do not believe that it is helpful to the cause of reconciliation to accuse GOSL of genocide.
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“I always understood you to be arguing against this point of view, David.”
in the sense, that i don’t believe those things happened, Padraig; so yes, i’ve argued against it. for instance, the Special Forces breaching of the LTTE bund on the northern side of the Nandikadal Lagoon in April 2009, and the subsequent evacuation under fire of the civilians there, points to a concern for the welfare of the Tamil population, and an attempt to avoid unnecessary deaths.
“Do you believe that there was this intent on the part of GOSL?”
if by this you mean the final offensive, no, i don’t believe so. but i do indeed believe that such intent was there in July ’83 and during previous pogroms.
yes, reconciliation is difficult while there are accusations flying about, but it’s hard to imagine that reconciliation will come about while a perceived injustice remains unaddressed.
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I think Tamils would be better served by examining real grievances still existing today and calling them by their proper names. Perceived injustices have to be addressed but it seems to me just an unnecessarily provocative waste of time to talk about “genocide” going on since 1948.
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Hi Padraig and David,
I couldn’t agree more with Padraig’s last comment ……..BUT the use of the G word has become part of the Sri Lankan Tamil political lexicon for gaining advantage in possible future talks on devolution ….Getting it deleted from that lexicon is virtually impossible although making an attempt to achieve better definition of the word and thereby encourage greater focus and specificity in its use is a praiseworthy move. But a dangerous one! Once people get a liking for using verbal knuckledusters, they strongly object to having them confiscated, especially by nosey foreigners!!
My recollection of the first sustained use of the G word by Sri Lankan Tamils was over the accidental deaths of 13 (was it ? maybe a few more or a few less) by the collapse of loosely and poorly connected electric cables (erected it should be noted at very short notice by non-risk-averse Jaffnese electricians) on a windy January night that immediately became infamous in Jaffna history. This was the night of the IATR conference which had been declared illegal by the then PM, Mrs Sirimawo Bandaranaike, Despite the injunction of the executive head of the GoSL, the Conference went ahead with the main speaker having been sped across the Palk Straits from Tamil Nadu in one of the outsize motor boats used by VVV smugglers (the most famous scion of that vilage being of course Pirabhakaran) to suddenly appear on stage of the Jaffna town Stadium to rapturous applause.
Mrs B. being informed of the illegal entry of the Tamil scholar in question into Sri Lanka ordered the Mayor of Jaffna, Alfred Duriappah, an SLFP supporter, to close the stadium and allow the unlawfully arrived speaker from Tamil Nadu to be arrested for evading immigration controls. This event caused pandemonium in a town already on edge; packed with people, partly in carnival mood with a “we thumbed our noses at the GoSL in Colombo ” insouciance but also anxious and awaiting some inevitable incident of revenge. There was panic as word of police action spread and a crush both inside and outside the Stadium. Poles holding precariously balanced electric cables started to heave over and fall as crowds stampeded hither and thither, anxious to return somehow to the safety of their homes in villages a distance away.. The sad but almost inevitable result was that some cables snapped and went flailing about in the wind and a knot of fleeing and wholly innocent civilians were electrocuted. The next day the G word appeared in the Jaffna newspapers and on the lips of the pro-separation Tamil politicians.
That was 1974. It took a while for the scion of the smuggling clans of Velvedditthurai, Pirabhakaran, to plan and execute the assassination of Alfred Duryappah in the forecourt of a much revered Hindu temple. That was the LTTE’s first great bit of “propoganda by deed” (and how similar to IS/ISIS/ISIL was their effective use of propoganda — are all terrorist organisations using the same manual written by Vera Zasulich?).
The use of the G word by Tamil politicians had become quite de rigeur by 1977 when I attended a meeting in Wellawatte addressed by Eelavantham, among others sympathetic to the LTTE, EPRLF and other Tamil groups advocating violence to achieve separation. Expatriate Tamils in the US and elsewhere had meanwhile lobbied the UN and other bodies, using the G word to get noticed and citing the IATR “killings” as a key part of their evidence. So long before 1983, the G word was a well-worn bit of Sri Lankan Tamil political currency.
“Aney, aiyo!! ” Like Radhika Coomaraswamy, I too hold my head metaphorically in my hands and say “No, naeae, illai…this cannot be the way !!”. Surely, two communities sharing a homeland (since time immemorial) should conduct negotiations with greater maturity? Mutual respect and tolerance; an understanding of each other’s political constraints and advantages is surely not too much to expect from such long-standing relatives……for these two communities are most definitely related by history, language, cultural fusion, intermarriage, ….and like all relatives composed of both friends and foes….?
But perhaps it is too much to ask.. of both communities………and so the mutual name-calling will go on and on, each community hugging its misery and cause for hatred close to its chest like a beggar its sores. And we unfortunate spectators are left only with cliches for company
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Jane, thank you for taking the time and trouble to read and comment. Thank you for those examples of the misuse of the g word. It seems to me that no possible good can come from saying “genocide” when what is meant is “grievance”. Let us get our g words correct.
“Surely, two communities sharing a homeland (since time immemorial) should conduct negotiations with greater maturity? Mutual respect and tolerance; an understanding of each other’s political constraints and advantages is surely not too much to expect from such long-standing relatives……for these two communities are most definitely related by history, language, cultural fusion, intermarriage, ….and like all relatives composed of both friends and foes….?”
Is it too much to hope for? Depressingly, it probably is.
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More name-calling Jane!!!http://telegraph.lk/news/tamara-seeks-to-sue-mangala/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TelegraphSriLanka+%28Telegraph.lk%29
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but what if there has been indeed genocide? should it be just brushed aside? why does it have to be an either/or situation? you see, a lot of Sinhalese today continue to believe that there are no grievances, and this often stems from a perception that no injustices have been visited on the Tamils historically. the acceptance of culpability for past atrocities might be a good way to make them recognise that things have to change.
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David, I have always had a problem with hypotheticals. That may be why I failed so many civil service promotion boards. I am not a great fan of counterfactual history. What if Hitler had won the war? What if it had been De Valera who was assassinated at the age of 31 and Michael Collins had lived to be 92? Would Ireland have been a better place? Probably, but who knows and is it worth thinking about? Your “what if?” is particularly puzzling to me. “but what if there has been indeed genocide? should it be just brushed aside? why does it have to be an either/or situation?” We are talking about a period from 1948 to the present day. There is no room for “what ifs?”
Is there genocide in Sri Lanka today? Was there a plan to exterminate Tamils going back to 1948?
Genocide should not be brushed aside as the Turkish state has tried to do. It is encouraging that some Turks have been brave enough to bring the Armenian genocide into the open. It is also encouraging that Kurds living today, although they share no guilt for the crimes of their ancestors in 1915, are making positive steps of reconciliation.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/05/century-silence
Should Sinhalese living today apologise to Tamils for the horrific events of 1983? They were not responsible and many Sinhalese courageously helped Tamils. Should the UNP apologise?
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you misunderstand me, Padraig. it isn’t a hypothesis. if someone has been murdered and there is evidence to suggest that it was premeditated, that isn’t a hypothesis. it is a logical possibility based on existing evidence. it may be a theory, but it isn’t a hypothetical one. the alternate history theory of Hitler winning the war is a hypothesis because it isn’t based on actual events. we know that Hitler did not win the war because evidence exists that he did not.
my use of “what if” wasn’t in the context of “what if it had happened?” but rather what do we do about it if it has indeed occurred, as the evidence seems to indicate.
i didn’t say there was genocide today, but evidence indicates that genocide has indeed occurred at several junctures in our history.
i believe you’re making the same mistake that many at the two extremes of the spectrum of debate take; in that they see the war/conflict as a single event rather than a series of events. so the Tamil nationalist hardline takes the position that since the state oppressed the Tamils, the Tamil militant separatists were in the right, and the Sinhalese hardline takes the position that since the defeat of the terrorist LTTE was just, the state was in the right. it is nowhere near as simplistic as that.
instead, if we break down the conflict into, let us say, loosely, the post-independence period (1948-1971), the Second Republic (1972-1978), Indian intervention (1979 -1991), the stalemate (1992-2005), the final campaign (2006-09), and the post-war period (2010-to the present), a much clearer and factual picture emerges in which we can examine the governments during that specific timeframe, their policies and actions, and that of the separatists. in that context, the fact that there may be no genocide today has nothing to do with the organisation of Black July than does the Tiger use of human shields have anything to do with Sinhala Only.
genocide is a crime, and its definitions are clear. under those definitions that crime has been indeed committed several times during our recent history. that is my opinion based on what i see as the facts. now, having accepted that such a crime has been committed, do we decide to overlook it and deny its victims justice in the name of the greater good? there is certainly an argument for it, and i think it should be listened to. however, when one denies that the crime ever took place, one polarises the debate and progress — and indeed reconciliation — is unlikely to occur. or do we take action in the name of justice in the hope that that will advance both progress and reconciliation? there is an argument for that, too.
while i too find it commendable that many Turks are taking action to reconcile themselves to their Kurdish brothers and sisters, we both agree that it would have been far better if the Turkish state had addressed the issue at a national level. it is also easier for them, since they are much further removed in time and generations from 1915 than we are from 1983. how would it have been if instead of Nuremberg, we had individual Germans simply trying to make amends? would the Jewish people have felt more reconciled towards their former oppressors?
many Sinhalese living today were also living in July 1983, so yes, i think they should apologise if they feel collectively responsible for that genocide — which i believe they are. were the German people not collectively responsible, even though many Germans risked and lost their lives in order to save Jews and other “untermenschen” from the camps? but for apology to come, one must first accept culpability. most Sinhalese do not accept that culpability, just as many Germans did and do not; which is why Nuremberg was necessary in order that justice could be seen to be delivered. an apology from the individual Sinhalese will ring extremely hollow without a process of justice for the crimes of the past.
and no, grievances cannot be transposed for genocide simply because it is more convenient.
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just to make things clear, i am not saying definitively that the Sri Lankan state has committed genocide; but the pogroms in particular fall into the criteria of genocide, according to IHL. it remains to be determined whether the state itself is responsible, or whether elements within certain governments are responsible. either way, the issue must be addressed.
as for the Sinhalese people, i believe that such atrocities could not have been committed without their implicit or tacit support, collectively. i used the German people as an example because there is a strong parallel between Europe’s historical antisemitism which opened the door for the Nazis to carry out the Holocaust, and the historical Sinhalese racism against the Tamils which still exists today.
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What is historical Sinhalese racism against Tamils? Sinhala people had fought with tamils in the history. But that is against a tamil invader. If Sinhala people had historical racism against Tamils what makes them to make a Tamil their king and accept him as their leader not once but several times? Why did Tamil Buddhists came to SL looking for refuge during religious persecution in South India in the history? Would tamils come had there was historical Sinhalese racism against Tamils?
Sinhala – Tamil relationship has been of invader-invaded nature. That is not because of any racism against Tamils, but purely contempt for any invader.
This issue is actually centered on a debate on history.
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Sach, i mean the institutional racism practiced against the Tamil people by the Sri Lankan state, during our post-independent history.
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But david institutional racism is not the so called historical sinhalese racism against tamils…or even genocidal.
Lets think about the institutional racism part.
It is true Sinhala language was made the only official language in 56, civil servants were required to pass a sinhala proficiency test, isnt this the ‘institutional racism’ that many allege?
But what many forget is Tamil had a regional language state while it was not treated as equal to Sinhala….why? The reason was Sinhala was recognised as the native language of the island while Tamil was not. Isnt that true?
Sinhala was the only langauge that was developed in SL, and the language of the people in this country for millenia. And still the language of the majority. So isnt it unfair by the sinhala people’s side to make their langauge equal to a language that is essentially foreign?
So isnt this again about history and a history debate?
And much has been said about Banda Chelva pacts, and Banda has been vilified for tearing it. Ok. why did Banda reject it? Did not chelva try to keep north and east tamil dominated via the pact and stated that Tamil’s homeland is N and E?
So again this is about history…
Though you are unaware, there are records of Dutch bringing labour from TN to settle in wanni area. And about 30% of the people in wanni are actually internal migrants from estate area. I remember DBSJ mentioned it. There are agreements between Kandyan king and Dutch, English over trinco and batti….
Therefore the historical claim of tamils is bogus…..
As a sinhalese I think we are facing what Palestinians faced. People are transported by colonials, made up a history to validate a homeland…..
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Sach, whenever there is a scientific discussion on the environment and its flora and fauna, there will always be some nutjob who questions the theory of evolution and demands that the evidence be brought forward and proven to his/her satisfaction as if it has never been done before in the past century or so. your comments on Sinhalese oppression of the Tamils is similar. so rather than having this discussion stumble on this hurdle like so many others and be detracted off into a debate on the fundamentals of the Sinhalese-Tamil conflict that has been widely accepted by all but a small ignorant group, i will leave you to believe whatever you wish. there may be others who have the time to waste engaging you on this topic, but frankly i can’t be bothered. life is too short to be wasted trying to explain that the world isn’t flat and the moon isn’t made of cheese.
if you are interested, just hit Google and all the information will be there for your analysis.
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