Let all peace-loving Tamils unite

SENSELESS SACRIFICE: Ever since I side-stepped the deadly claws of the Liberation Tigers and escaped from my sleepy village on the outskirts of Killinochchi, I have been wondering how the LTTE could destroy its own people and yet create an eelam for them.

For the past four years I have been trying to solve this puzzle. It had to be either an eelam without people or people without an eelam. It could not be both since they were directly opposed to each other. Then slowly it dawned on me and the more I thought about it the more it frightened me.

Removing myself from the picture, I asked myself what I would do if I wanted to eradicate a minority community.

In order of priority, I noted these steps as it came to mind:

* I would choose someone from that very community to do the job. It would have to be an egoistic, ruthless person who would only profit personally,

* He would have to eliminate the leaders of that community.

* He would have to silence any collective voice in that community,

* He would have to eliminate the intellectuals and the thinkers in that community,

* He would have to destroy anyone else who would question his authority,

* He would then have to eliminate the women who would produce the next generation,

* And finally he would have to destroy the next generation itself.

In order to achieve this, I would canvass for international recognition for his "cause".

At the end of the exercise, it dawned on me that this was exactly what was happening in Sri Lanka.

Who was financing them? Surely, they were not sending money from Sri Lanka for their upkeep. Who was accountable for the millions of Dollars sent from western countries for the supposed rehabilitation of the Tamil people?

Was any of that money used for the "final war" as we were told. If so, how come his "fighters" did not even have footwear when they were sent to a certain death (evident from the many photographs).

Was it spent on building the FDLs or purchasing imaginary aircraft for the eelam air force. Are there any eelam mansions in western countries?

In short, where has all the money gone? Many questions... No answers. Would anyone dare to ask the Sun-god?

If this pattern continues, the end-result would be... no eelam and no people. So let us even now stop this senseless sacrifice and save these people before it is too late.

Let us reclaim our women, our children, our homes and go back to the life we enjoyed before eelam. Let us go to the village Kovil and partake of the Festival of Lights. Let us experience the Hindu New year with our loved ones as we used to.

Let us not eternally live in fear of our sons and daughters being abducted and turned into psychopathic killers.

After all, the Sun-god, his deputies and their master will all be destroyed when their house-of-cards collapses on them. This is inevitable. Let us make sure we are not in it.

Twenty-three years have passed and more than 64,000 people have perished.

So let us do what has to be done... now. Tomorrow may be too late. Let the peace-loving Tamils talk to the elected government and get rid of this lunatic.

"We have to repent in this generation, not so much for the evil deeds of the wicked people but for the appalling silence of the good people" - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

- Selva Gnanam, Victoria, Australia.