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It’s not always a bad thing to be mad. It depends what you’re mad about. One
can be mad – as in angry – about various evils, which is a good thing. It’s good
to be mad at exploiters, enslavers, rapists and killers. Being mad has become
fashionable – saying something is “mad” means it’s really good in the
millennial lexicon.
There is also bad madness. In the Buddhist tradition these are greed, hatred
and delusions. I have regarded greed, hatred and delusions as forms of
madness since 1995, when I underwent a paradigm change in my world-view,
under the influence of Buddhism, Daoism, New Age and New Science readings.
This paradigm change motivated me to regard communication, curiosity and
play as instincts which could be used to stave off depression and dementia,
and that aesthetic development developed with experience along various
parameters or facets (such as harmony, tone melody and rhythm in hearing
and line, form, colour and composition in vision). I declared to my hostile
brother-in-law who was studying psychiatry that, in my opinion, Buddhism
provided a better model for psychotherapy than psychiatry does. I also
explored the theory that the pineal organ is magneto-sensory and responds, in
addition the earth’s magnetic field, to the magnetic fields created by the
electricity in the central nervous system. I was acutely aware of my paradigm
shift and wrote notes and recorded my theories on audiotape, discussing them
with my friends and family.
Most of my friends were enthusiastic about my ideas, but these were not
doctors – the doctors were in my family. My father, Brian Senewiratne was a
medical doctor in Brisbane, where he worked in private practice and the public
hospital system until he retired from most of his positions at the age of 84 (in
July 2016). My older sister, Shireen is a plastic surgeon who was at the time
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living with her boyfriend, Robert Purssey, who was studying to become a
psychiatrist and was employed by the Melbourne public hospital system. I had
moved down to Melbourne from Brisbane in 1988 to pursue my girlfriend Sue
Ellis and opportunities to develop my musical career as a guitarist and
songwriter.
I ended up working in solo general practice at the grandly titled Willow Lodge
Medical Centre, which was a small clinic built in the complex of the Willow
Lodge Mobile Home Village, a small village of about 1000 people who lived in
variously-sized mobile homes on little blocks of land that they rented at an
exorbitant price from a Queensland businessman, who also owned another
mobile home village in Queensland’s Gold Coast. He understandably chose to
spend more time in Queensland’s sunny climes. The Willow Lodge Village was,
I discovered, built on what was a caravan park established on a refilled toxic
dump.
When I was a child my sister would say that I was mad about butterflies. I was,
indeed, obsessed about one aspect of butterflies over all others – catching new
species of Sri Lankan butterfly to add to the collection I had begun in 1970,
when I was ten. I didn’t have mad beliefs about butterflies, but my sense of
values was disturbed – I wanted to catch rare specimens, which I would kill and
pin out carefully on sheets of polystyrene, keeping their wings open with strips
of cellophane. My family had learned this technique of preserving butterflies in
a museum style from my father’s long-time secretary Joyce Achong, a Chinese
laboratory technician from Trinidad in the West Indies who trained in London
with my father and later worked for him both in Sri Lanka and Australia. She
continues to be his secretary (which he spells with a capital S) and typist, as
well as the organizer of his patients and his schedule. It is Joyce who has the
Diary. The appointment diary. This has been the case since she moved to
Brisbane in the 1980s and became his receptionist and secretary. She is also
the mother of his third child and second daughter, Naomi – my father and
Joyce have been having a clandestine relationship since the 1960s, when he
was training in tropical medicine and she was a lab technician in London.
Joyce lived in our house with my mother, sister, father and servant man from
1970 to 1972, working at the laboratory my father built, with British funding
and support adjacent to “his” ward in the Kandy Hospital. That was how he
referred to it and thought of it – his ward. He treated it as if he owned it and
not the people of Kandy and Sri Lanka.
Brian’s Propaganda
I have just finished reading my father’s current propaganda book after several
decades of observation of his development and flaws as a propagandist.
Overall, father has not been a successful propagandist – his side lost the war.
Since the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in May 2009, my father has tried to
reinvent himself, distancing himself from the Tigers and denying that he
supported them; but then, he was denying that he was “for or against the
Tigers” even in 2006 and 2008, when he was actively lobbying, around the
world, for the terrorist organization to be de-banned, arguing that the example
of Northern Ireland and the IRA showed that banning a “militant organization”
and branding them as terrorists was counterproductive (“and bombs went off
in Fleet Street and all over the place”).
In 2006, shortly after the Rajapaksa family came to power and resumed what
was to be the final war to defeat the Tamil Tigers, my father was invited by the
Tamil expatriates in Toronto to give a sympathetic interview for Tamil cable TV
to an Indian presenter named Vijay Thamil Priyan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrzLF3Z-SQs
By Usha S Sri-Skanda-Rajah –
Usha S Sri-Skanda-Rajah
able to only scratch the surface of this larger than life personality that the
TGTE was honouring:
Dr Senewiratne’s commitment has not only been lifelong but remarkable:
In 1948 as a 16 year old schoolboy he protested at the
disenfranchisement and decitizenisation of nearly a million Plantation
“Indian” Tamils in one of the first Acts of the newly independent country,
Ceylon; in 1956, as an undergraduate in Cambridge University, he
refused to meet his uncle, Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike in
London who had changed the Official Language from English to Sinhala
Only because he felt strongly that it was discriminatory, unjust and
undemocratic; in 1971 he also strongly opposed the so-called
“Standardisation of university entrance marks” introduced for admissions
to the universities, obviously directed against Tamil-medium students
where Tamil students had to obtain a higher mark than the Sinhalese to
enter the University, stating that this was blatant discrimination in
education; in 1972 as a Senior Lecturer in Medicine at the Peradeniya
University in Kandy, he took up the cause of the Plantation Tamils again
when his aunt, Prime Minister Sirima Bandaranaike took no action when
her Sinhalese goons hounded out Plantation Tamils from their miserable
shacks and were dying on the streets of Kandy; in 1977, then in
Australia, he continued to challenge the Sri Lankan government under J
R Jayewardene accusing him of devaluing Parliament and setting up a
Presidential dictatorship and for circumventing the constitutional
safeguards that had been designed to protect the Tamils against the
“tyranny of the majority”; in 1983, after the massacre of Tamils in the
July 1983 pogrom, he published a book: “The 1983 Massacre –
Unanswered Questions” in which he held that the Jayawardena
government was responsible for this crime; in 1984, his publication:
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Romesh Senewiratne-Alagaratnam · 2:01:49 Brian Senewiratne's "books"
were not published in Europe and Australia as Usha claims. He prints runs of 5
to 10 books himself, using his local printer Bosco Ng who also manufactures his
propahganda DVDs in small runs.
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Romesh Senewiratne-Alagaratnam · 2:00:18 Brian Senewiratne was not a
professor at Peradeniya University. He was a senior lecturer and was refused the
professorship when he applied for it. This is one reason he came to Australia.
He has never been a full professor in Australia, either - he was an associate
professor at the University of Queensland but was stripped of the title in 2001.
The list of countries Usha mentions are the nations he lobbied for the LTTE in.
He has also never met Nelson Mandela, though the LTTE tried to arrange a
meeting. He did have a brief meeting with Desmond Tutu in 2008.
Manage
I did not slit Tamil throats or pull out the intravenous drips and throw out Tamil
patients from hospital, But there is a collective guilt, a collective shame,, when
members of one’s ethnic group behave like savages. The only ‘crime’ that the
victims had committed was to be born Tamil. For the first time in my life, I felt
ashamed to call myself a Sinhalese. An entire ethnic group was shamed by the
behaviour of Sinhala goons led by their masters in Dictator J.R.Jayawardene’s
government, and hoodlums in yellow robes who were desecrating the Buddha,
one of the greatest teachers of Peace the world has ever known. (My mother
was a devout Buddhist and her father a teacher of Buddhism and the author of
books on Buddhism).
Some 3,000 Tamil civilians died that week and their homes and property burnt.
Many more would have died had it not been for courageous Sinhalese, ordinary
decent Sinhalese, who risked life, limb and property to hide Tamils and save
them from certain death. Thank God for some decent Sinhalese. I have no doubt
that some of them tendered an apology to the devastated and petrified Tamils,
but the best apology was the shelter they provided at considerable risk to
themselves.
The news
I was already in Australia when the massacre occurred. All I could do was to
watch the horror on television. I watched with disbelief and disgust, that a
country which calls itself “Buddhist”, had scores of absolute barbarians, both
inside and outside Government.
I had a call from London. It was from one of the finest Sri Lankans, a Sinhalese,
I have ever met – Rt Rev Lakshman Wickremasinghe, the Bishop of
Kurunegala, The ailing Bishop was in London but said he was returning home
at once to be with his (and my) people, the Tamil people. He did; I wish I had
the courage to do the same.I have regretted it ever since. He visited the
numerous refugee camps all over the island to comfort the devastated people, as
Christ would probably have done. He visited a refugee camp in Akkarayan,
Jaffna, with Dr Luther Jeyasingham and a close friend of mine, the irreplaceable
Kandiah Kandasamy of the Movement for Interracial Justice andEquality
(MIRJE). After talking with the refugees he was discovered crying in a room.
When asked, he replied that from his conversations he had found that his family
had been closely linked with the violence. (The Bishop was the uncle of Ranil
Wickremasinghe, a Minister in Jayawardene’s government at that time and a
later Prime Minister, and a kinsman of J.R.Jayawardene, the President). The
Bishop died on 23 October 1983, a broken man. He never recovered from that
trauma.
Sri Lanka has produced two saints – Bishop Lakshman Wickremasinghe (a
Sinhalese In the South) and Bishop Bastiampillai Deogupillai (a Tamil in the
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North). When Bishop Lakshman called me from London, I said that we, the
Sinhalsese had to apologise to the Tamils. He said he would and he did. I
apologised to my Tamil wife.
The apology
In his final Pastoral Letter “A cry from the Heart” (15 November 1983) before
his untimely death, this is what he wrote,
“We must be ashamed as Sinhalese because what took place was a moral crime.
We are ashamed as Sinhalese for the moral crime other Sinhalese committed.
We must not only acknowledge the shame. We must also make our apology to
those Tamils…”
In a more private way, I tendered my apology. When the full horror of what
happened in that week of shame, dawned on me, I sat up one night and wrote a
long letter. In the morning I gave it to my wife – “This is an apology from a
Sinhalese to a Tamil”. I left for work.
When I returned she said, “I have read it. What do you want me to do with it?” I
said, “If the apology is accepted, you can throw it away”. She said she would
keep it. It was this which was later expanded, and published, with a Foreword
from that doyen of Australian Tamils, Sri Lanka’s most brilliant mathematician,
Professor C.J. Eliezer who was the Dean of the Faculty of Science in Colombo
where my wife and I were students in the 1950s.
In the expanded version Sri Lanka. The July 1983 massacre. Unanswered
questions, I held President Jayawardene and his murderous Ministers
responsible for a carefully planned and executed massacre of Tamils and the
total destruction of their economic base, which had nothing to do with the
ambush of 13 Sinhalese soldiers in the North.
I believed then, and even more so now, that unless the Sinhalese apologise to
the Tamils for the outrageous violation of their basic human rights over the past
50 years, there will be no peace, and certainly no peace with friendship,
between the ethnic groups in Sri Lanka – divided or undivided.
It has to be a genuine apology – not the bogus apology of my cousin, the former
President, Chandrika Kumaratunga, or using her political name, Chandrika
Bandaranaike Kumaratunga.. At a meeting to mark the 21st Anniversary of the
1983 pogrom, she declared, “Every citizen in this country should collectively
accept the blame and make an apology to the tens of thousands who suffered. I
would like to assign to myself that task on behalf of the State of Sri Lanka, the
government, and on behalf of all of us,all citizens of Sri Lanka to extend that
apology.”
As I said in my earlier publication, that is not an apology, it is political clap-
trap.“Every citizen” (that includes the Tamils – unless, of course, she considers
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settlement. He claimed that the North and East which had been merged under
Emergency Regulations in 1987, should be de-merged as the ‘Emergency’ had
lapsed with the peace accord signed by Wickremasinghe and the LTTE. On 1
October 2003, Elle Gunawanse launched the National Patriotic Movement,
accusing Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe of trying to divide the country.
What stops his arrest and trial? Nothing, other than the lack of will of the
political establishment to do so. There he is in all his glory, right in the middle
of Colombo,with his heavily blood-soaked yellow robes and none will dare
touch him.
There are others with a case to answer. There is one, in particular, a Minister in
Jayawardene’s government, who has much to explain. Let us call him “Minister
X” There were 72 Tamil political detainees in the Welikada prison in Colombo,
held there without charge or trial. On 25 July 1983. 35 of them were massacred
by Sinhalese prisoners in the jail. President Jayawardene, in a rare act of
responsibility, wanted the rest of the Tamil detainees to be immediately sent to
Jaffna prison. However, Minister Lalith Athulathmudali and ‘Minister X’,
opposed this saying that the Sinhalese would become further infuriated over
such a decision. It was obvious that Athulathmudali and ‘Minister X ‘ did not
want the prisoners taken away to safety. Surprise! Surprise! A day later (27 July)
there was a second prison massacre, and another 18 slaughtered. Of the original
72 Tamil detainees, only 19 were left.
The Sinhalese would now not be ‘infuriated’, since the job was ¾ done. Who
was Minister “X”? Find it out for yourself. There’s a bit of home-work for you.
Action
In January 2008, I was invited to New Zealand to address a special prayer
session in the Elim Church, Auckland. Rev Prince Devanathan, a soft-spoken
Tamil priest conducting the service said, “We have been praying and praying
for Peace for more than 20 years. But the more we pray, the further we get
distanced from Peace. That is the reality”. He then came out with the finest
words I have heard for years – “Prayer without action is dead” I’d say the same
about an apology. An apology without action is dead. It is this ‘action’ that I
have been trying to deliver in the past two and a half decades. The same holds
for protests. To protest, to hold a vigil, to remember the July 1983 massacre is
fine. But protests without action is dead.
I urge you to act. To free the Tamil people to live with dignity, and safety in
their area of historical habitation – the North and East. I urge you to act; to act
to save the Tamil people from the Genocide, started in July 1983, and now
progressing at analarming rate. Like the Welikada prison massacre, it is ¾ done.
Act now. Tomorrow may be too late for the Tamils in the North and East of the
‘Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka’, as it likes to call itself."
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Romesh Senewiratne-Alagaratnam
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This was the second time I have rung my parents' house this morning. The first
time I asked "Hello Amma?" and my father, who had picked up the phone but
not answered it shouted to my mother, Kamalini:
"Camel, it's that bugger again. Do you want to speak to him?"
My mother came to the phone and I told her I wanted to discuss Winston
Panchacharam's book (titled Genocide in Sri Lanka) that my father made a big
show of "presenting" to Professor Ramu Manivannan at the TGTE's awards
night on Saturday 15 April. I watched it on the internet and was shocked by
what I saw. Since then, things have been falling into place and I realised that my
father has been collecting "war porn", short for "war pornography".
I saw some of his collection of photos when I accessed one of his computers in
2007, but didn't look at them in detail. They were graphic and disturbing photos
of dead people and I wasn't interested in looking at them. I had been asked to
use the computer to access my mother's emails for her, and didn't realise the
significance of the photos. Now I do.
My mother said she had "heard of" Panchacharam but pretended not to know
anything about the book that her husband had made a show of presenting to
Manivannan on Saturday. She is lying to protect him and I told her so. I told her
he had claimed on Saturday to have met Nelson Mandela, which she and I know
to be one of his many lies. "Maybe he did, I don't know". She does. She knows
that if he met Nelson Mandela he would have been boasting about it, rather than
boasting about meeting Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
I am sorry to people of Sri Lanka and also the Tamil community in Canada and
around the world for my father's behaviour, and not realising the full extent of
his crimes earlier. I am still discovering more and will keep you posted.
I have also contacted Ramu Manivannan, Usha Sri Skandarajah and
Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran asking that the copies of Dr Panchacharam's book
Brian Senewiratne gave them be forwarded to the University of Colombo, the
Peradeniya University and University of Jaffna for forensic study, which I am
prepared to be involved in.
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Romesh Senewiratne-Alagaratnam
Yesterday at 6:32pm ·
I would like to know how Dr Winston Panchacharam died, who his doctors
were and what sort of fatal disease he had. I would also like to know the source
of the photos in the book and how it was that Brian Senewiratne had all 5 copies,
if the book was intended for world leaders to act with urgency to save the Tamil
people from genocide. The text is likely to be disinformation if it is based on
what Brian Senewiratne told Panchacharam, but the photos are important
forensic evidence regarding the war in Sri Lanka.
It is outrageous and very suspicious that Brian Senewiratne has acquired control
of this material (the atrocity photos in the book) and is keeping it within his
close circle within the LTTE-supporting TGTE. I believe that it should be in the
hands of Sri Lankan police and forensics experts, and is important evidence
regarding war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Tamil Tigers.
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1Mohamed Zulfi
Two years ago Rudrakumaran awarded his friend Brian with a “Lifetime
Achievement Award” for which he travelled to the USA. He was awarded
a plaque signed by Rudrakumaran praising him for his “life-long
commitment and invaluable and dedicated contribution rendered to the
Eelam Tamil Nation in educating the Sinhala Nation and the international
community – in furthering the cause of human rights, human dignity,
gender justice and of the liberation of Tamil Eelam”. In return Brian
Senewiratne “awarded” Usha Sriskandarajah, who presented the TGTE
award back, with a copy of Winston Panchacharam’s book, titled
“Genocide in Sri Lanka”. He told Sriskandarajah that it was one of only
three copies of the book in existence.
bizarre practice (to pray in ones “closet” rather than make a show of
public prayer).
Eelaventhan, who is another geriatric TGTE boss (he’s 86, the same
age as Brian Senewiratne), wrote an obituary for Winston
Panchacharam on 20th November 2016, published on the Tamil
Sangam website, in which he wrote, in bad English:
“Besides he authored the book titled “GENOCIDE IN SRI LANKA” that
contains 185 pages published in the year 2010. For the point of view of
many readers the contents of the book was a masterpiece. This will be
cherished for generations to follow. In his introductory note he
addressing “ Your excellencies-Global leaders for the protection of the
vulnerable and those oppressed people by genocidal act. In his appeal
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for the global public opinion, Tamil Diaspora, and the dying race of
Tamils in Sri Lanka. He further states that the global leaders must act
quickly, and follow through, to protect the dying Tamil race in Sri Lanka.
He rightly says that “Justice delayed is Justice buried” . He further adds
that neglect of timely violence prevention is a sad legacy that has led to
genocide in several countries; from the holocaust to the massacres in
Uganda and Sudan. Millions of life has been lost. He continues in a very
appealing tone that “ smoldering genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka that
started insidiously over half a century ago culminated in several
coordinated massacres before , during and after the civil war.”
I would like to know how Winston Panchacharam died, who his doctors
were and what sort of fatal disease he had. I would also like to know the
source of the photos in the book and how it was that Brian Senewiratne
had all 5 copies, if the book was intended for world leaders to act with
urgency to save the Tamil people from genocide. The text is likely to be
disinformation if it is based on what Brian Senewiratne told
Panchacharam, but the photos are important forensic evidence
regarding the war in Sri Lanka. It is outrageous and very suspicious that
Brian Senewiratne has acquired control of this material (the atrocity
photos in the book) and is keeping it within his close circle within the
LTTE-supporting TGTE. I believe that it should be in the hands of Sri
Lankan police and forensics experts, and is important evidence
regarding war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Tamil Tigers.
Romesh Senewiratne-Alagaratnam
April 15 at 6:07pm
The TGTE, which still flies the LTTE flag and glorifies this criminal
organization, should be held accountable.
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Romesh Senewiratne-Alagaratnam I have been working against the LTTE in
Australia for more than 20 years. It is a big network.
2
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Ashani Lawrence Thanks .lv u.
April 15 at 4:10pm ·
ever since. His anecdote about Archbishop Tutu has changed with the
retelling, with him claiming that Tutu described the phenomenon of a
Sinhalese campaigning for the Tamils as
"amazing"/"wonderful"/"remarkable" and him replying, that "it is not a
Sinhalese issue or a Tamil issue but a human rights issue that should
arouse the concern of everyone who calls themselves a human being"
(again with minor variations). He implies that he is more ethical than
Tutu and tonight my father has compared himself with President Nelson
Mandela, with the claim that the difference between them is that he
hasn't been in jail for 25 years. He said not a word about Nelson
Mandela's achievements, other than that he was not bitter (which Brian
Senewiratne most certainly is).
After he received his "award" from his friend and biggest fan, Usha
Sriskandarajah, my father used his "acceptance speech" to promote his
"12 DVDs" which he said were for free and invited the audience to
contact him in the next day or two and tell him if they want "1,2,3,4,5 or
the whole bloody lot". He stressed that he was not trying to make a "fast
buck", and the videos were free (previously he complained that he
wasn't being paid enough for them and that the Tamils were "the
stingiest race on earth"). He then brandished his book (which he has
been flogging with updated versions since 2014) alleging an epidemic of
rape by the armed forces and urging that the United Nations invoke the
R2P provisions and send troops to Sri Lanka to stop "ongoing genocide
of the Tamils of the North and East".
Brian Senewiratne he said he had all 5 copies of this book, but it was no
longer available. He then explained where each of the five copies is
destined - to Usha Sriskandarajah (who he claimed is the greatest Tamil
writer alive today, to scattered applause); Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran
(boss of the TGTE); Ramu Manivannan who wrote another book alleging
genocide of Tamils; the Jaffna Library and - this was his applause-
seeker - the last copy to be put in his bank and presented after his death
to the "Library of Tamil Eelam when it is built in Kilinochchi". He stressed
that he said "when and not if", and received the applause he was
seeking, but only a bit compared to the old days.
I would like to know how Winston Panchacharam died, who his doctors
were and what sort of fatal disease he had. I would also like to know the
source of the photos in the book and how it was that Brian Senewiratne
had all 5 copies, if the book was intended for world leaders to act with
urgency to save the Tamil people from genocide. Of course, the only
genocide in Sri Lanka was that carried out by the LTTE.
Write a comment...
Two years ago, in a comprehensive article, ‘Sri Lanka’s Week of Shame - July 1983
massacre – long-term consequences”, I dealt with this blot on Sri Lanka which set
the stage for the division of Sri Lanka. This is still on the web
(www.tamilcanadian.com/pageview.php?ID=4260&SID=145)
(www.org/taraki/articles/2006/07-28_Consequences.php?uid=1866)
(www.tamilnation.org/form/brian/060723blackjuly.htm)
This year I will simply offer the Tamil people an Apology for what was done to them
in 1983, and even more so, for the increasing violations of their basic human rights
in the quarter of a century that has followed.
I did not slit Tamil throats or pull out the intravenous drips and throw out Tamil
patients from hospital, But there is a collective guilt, a collective shame,, when
members of one’s ethnic group behave like savages. The only ‘crime’ that the victims
had committed was to be born Tamil. For the first time in my life, I felt ashamed to
call myself a Sinhalese. An entire ethnic group was shamed by the behaviour of
Sinhala goons led by their masters in Dictator J.R.Jayawardene’s government, and
hoodlums in yellow robes who were desecrating the Buddha, one of the greatest
teachers of Peace the world has ever known. (My mother was a devout Buddhist and
her father a teacher of Buddhism and the author of books on Buddhism).
Some 3,000 Tamil civilians died that week and their homes and property burnt. Many
more would have died had it not been for courageous Sinhalese, ordinary decent
Sinhalese, who risked life, limb and property to hide Tamils and save them from
certain death. Thank God for some decent Sinhalese. I have no doubt that some of
them tendered an apology to the devastated and petrified Tamils, but the best
apology was the shelter they provided at considerable risk to themselves.
The news
I was already in Australia when the massacre occurred. All I could do was to watch
the horror on television. I watched with disbelief and disgust, that a country which
calls itself “Buddhist”, had scores of absolute barbarians, both inside and outside
Government.
I had a call from London. It was from one of the finest Sri Lankans, a Sinhalese, I
have ever met – Rt Rev Lakshman Wickremasinghe, the Bishop of Kurunegala, The
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ailing Bishop was in London but said he was returning home at once to be with his
(and my) people, the Tamil people. He did; I wish I had the courage to do the same.
I have regretted it ever since.
He visited the numerous refugee camps all over the island to comfort the devastated
people, as Christ would probably have done. He visited a refugee camp in
Akkarayan, Jaffna, with Dr Luther Jeyasingham and a close friend of mine, the
irreplaceable Kandiah Kandasamy of the Movement for Interracial Justice and
Equality (MIRJE). After talking with the refugees he was discovered crying in a 2
room. When asked, he replied that from his conversations he had found that his
family had been closely linked with the violence. (The Bishop was the uncle of Ranil
Wickremasinghe, a Minister in Jayawardene’s government at that time and a later
Prime Minister, and a kinsman of J.R.Jayawardene, the President). The Bishop died
on 23 October 1983, a broken man. He never recovered from that trauma.
Sri Lanka has produced two saints – Bishop Lakshman Wickremasinghe (a
Sinhalese
in the South) and Bishop Bastiampillai Deogupillai (a Tamil in the North).
When Bishop Lakshman called me from London, I said that we, the Sinhalsese had
to
apologise to the Tamils. He said he would and he did. I apologised to my Tamil wife.
The apology
In his final Pastoral Letter “A cry from the Heart” (15 November 1983) before his
untimely death, this is what he wrote,
“We must be ashamed as Sinhalese because what took place was a moral crime.
We
are ashamed as Sinhalese for the moral crime other Sinhalese committed. We must
not only acknowledge the shame. We must also make our apology to those Tamils…”
In a more private way, I tendered my apology. When the full horror of what
happened in that week of shame, dawned on me, I sat up one night and wrote a long
letter. In the morning I gave it to my wife – “This is an apology from a Sinhalese to a
Tamil”. I left for work. When I returned she said, “I have read it. What do you want
me to do with it?” I said, “If the apology is accepted, you can throw it away”. She
said she would keep it. It was this which was later expanded, and published, with a
Foreword from that doyen of Australian Tamils, Sri Lanka’s most brilliant
mathematician, Professor C.J. Eliezer who was the Dean of the Faculty of Science in
Colombo where my wife and I were students in the 1950s. In the expanded version
Sri Lanka. The July 1983 massacre. Unanswered questions, I held President
Jayawardene and his murderous Ministers responsible for a carefully planned and
executed massacre of Tamils and the total destruction of their economic base, which
had nothing to do with the ambush of 13 Sinhalese soldiers in the North.
I believed then, and even more so now, that unless the Sinhalese apologise to the
Tamils for the outrageous violation of their basic human rights over the past 50
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years, there will be no peace, and certainly no peace with friendship, between the
ethnic groups in Sri Lanka – divided or undivided.
It has to be a genuine apology – not the bogus apology of my cousin, the former
President, Chandrika Kumaratunga, or using her political name, Chandrika
Bandaranaike Kumaratunga.. At a meeting to mark the 21st Anniversary of the 1983
pogrom, she declared,
“Every citizen in this country should collectively accept the blame and make an
apology to the tens of thousands who suffered. I would like to assign to myself that
task on behalf of the State of Sri Lanka, the government, and on behalf of all of us,
all citizens of Sri Lanka to extend that apology.”
As I said in my earlier publication, that is not an apology, it is political clap-trap.
“Every citizen” (that includes the Tamils – unless, of course, she considers Tamils to
be non-citizens ) is not to blame for the 1983 pogrom. J.R.Jayawardene and his anti-
3
Tamil Ministers were to blame.
“Every citizen” is not to blame for the wholesale massacre of Tamils that occurred in
Jaffna in 1995. She, Chandrika Kumaratunga, President, Minister of Defence and
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, is to blame. Had she the courage and
integrity, she would have apologised to the Tamil people in the North for what she
did to them.
The blame for the massacres of Tamils does not rest on “every citizen” but on two
elite families – of S.W.R.D Bandaranaike (his wife and daughter), and of
J.R.Jayawardene and his cronies. To this can now be added another, more
murderous than both of the others, President Rajapakse’s and their supporters
among the ranks of the so-called Marxists, and the ‘crazed gentlemen’ clad in yellow
robes.
Tracking down the criminals
Nazi war criminals have been hunted down and punished (irrespective of their age),
50 years after their crimes. There is no reason that those responsible for the Sri
Lankan crime in July 1983, should not be hunted down and brought to justice.
Many of those who were responsible, J.R.Jayawardene and his hoodlum Minister
Cyril
Matthew, and his colleagues, and their thugs, are either dead or not traceable.
Others with blood-drenched hands are very much alive and readily accessible. One
is
Elle Gunawanse Thero.
hoodlum played a crucial role in the events of July 1983.. He was
the monk who whipped up the emotions of the crowd that had collected in the
Kanatte cemetery to bury the soldiers, and later fanned out to set fire to Colombo in
general, Tamil homes and businesses in particular.
He then led a mob down Cotta road, Borella, armed with a list of innocent Tamils
(obtained from the electoral office) who were to be wiped out. He was later seen at
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the Cinnamon Gardens police station, with a pistol visibly tucked in his yellow robe,
demanding curfew passes. He was the man in the passenger seat of a lorry (I had
the photograph), with hoodlums armed with petrol and kerosene, directing them to
the Tamil homes to be burnt.
Where is he now? Exactly where he was then – opposite the BMICH on Buller’s road
(now Bauddaloka mawatte). That was crown property where he, like many other
monks, had illegally squatted, building a small structure. With strong ties with
Gamini Dissanayake, Minister for the Mahaveli, this small structure was replaced by
an impressive one, with State funds and acknowledged his benefactor, calling it
“Mahaveli Maha Seya”. It was from here that the detailed pogrom of the Tamils was
meticulously planned and executed.
And now? On 15 January 2003, this virulently racist monk, launched the
“Organisation to Protect the Motherland” (OPM), to oppose the talks between Ranil
Wickremasinghe, then the Prime Minister, and the LTTE, for a federal settlement. He
claimed that the North and East which had been merged under Emergency
Regulations in 1987, should be de-merged as the ‘Emergency’ had lapsed with the
peace accord signed by Wickremasinghe and the LTTE.4
On 1 October 2003, Elle Gunawanse launched the National Patriotic Movement,
accusing Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe of trying to divide the country.
What stops his arrest and trial? Nothing, other than the lack of will of the political
establishment to do so. There he is in all his glory, right in the middle of Colombo,
with his heavily blood-soaked yellow robes and none will dare touch him.
There are others with a case to answer. There is one, in particular, a Minister in
Jayawardene’s government, who has much to explain. Let us call him “Minister X”
There were 72 Tamil political detainees in the Welikada prison in Colombo, held
there without charge or trial. On 25 July 1983. 35 of them were massacred by
Sinhalese prisoners in the jail. President Jayawardene, in a rare act of responsibility,
wanted the rest of the Tamil detainees to be immediately sent to Jaffna prison.
However, Minister Lalith Athulathmudali and ‘Minister X’, opposed this saying that
the Sinhalese would become further infuriated over such a decision. It was obvious
that Athulathmudali and ‘Minister X ‘ did not want the prisoners taken away to
safety. Surprise! Surprise! A day later (27 July) there was a second prison massacre,
and another 18 slaughtered. Of the original 72 Tamil detainees, only 19 were left.
The Sinhalese would now not be ‘infuriated’, since the job was ¾ done.
Who was Minister “X”? Find it out for yourself. There’s a bit of home-work for you.
Action
In January 2008, I was invited to New Zealand to address a special prayer session in
the Elim Church, Auckland. Rev Prince Devanathan, a soft-spoken Tamil priest
conducting the service said, “We have been praying and praying for Peace for more
than 20 years. But the more we pray, the further we get distanced from Peace. That
is the reality”. He then came out with the finest words I have heard for years –
“Prayer without action is dead”
I’d say the same about an apology. An apology without action is dead. It is this
‘action’ that I have been trying to deliver in the past two and a half decades.
The same holds for protests. To protest, to hold a vigil, to remember the July 1983
massacre is fine. But protests without action is dead.
I urge you to act. To free the Tamil people to live with dignity, and safety in their
area of historical habitation – the North and East. I urge you to act; to act to save
the Tamil people from the Genocide, started in July 1983, and now progressing at an
alarming rate. Like the Welikada prison massacre, it is ¾ done. Act now. Tomorrow
may be too late for the Tamils in the North and East of the ‘Democratic Socialist
Republic of Sri Lanka’, as it likes to call itself.
Hi Nimal
I wanted to ask what you thought of the self-published book my father gave you.
I'm also trying to find out how he came to be in possession of all 5 copies of
Winston Panchacharam's book.
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FRI 6:29PM
I would like to know how Winston Panchacharam died, who his doctors were
and what sort of fatal disease he had. I would also like to know the source of the
photos in the book and how it was that Brian Senewiratne had all 5 copies, if the
book was intended for world leaders to act with urgency to save the Tamil
people from genocide. The text is likely to be disinformation if it is based on
what Brian Senewiratne told Panchacharam, but the photos are important
forensic evidence regarding the war in Sri Lanka. It is outrageous and very
suspicious that Brian Senewiratne has acquired control of this material (the
atrocity photos in the book) and is keeping it within his close circle within the
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2:16PM
Hi Nimal
i have long held suspicions that my father, Brian Senewiratne, was responsible
for the 'Black July' events in Sri Lanka. This suspicion is based on several
factors. 1. Before 1983 he was complaining about 'Colombo 7 Tamils' and
"sleeping Tamils" who were not interested in involving themselves in his
separatist war. 2. The research work he did in Sri Lanka from 1969 to 1975
when he ran a British-funded (by the Nuffiield Foundation) laboratory adjacent
to "his" ward at the Kandy Hospital. Details have been published over the past 2
years on the Holistic University of Jaffna and HUB Forensics Facebook pages.
3. The fact that he left Sri Lanka in 1976 (the beginning of the war) and only
returned once - a brief visit in 1983 immediately before the violence erupted. 4.
His first self-published "book" that launched his career as a propagandist for the
LTTE was titled "The July 1983 Massacre - Unanswered Questions" (which had
a foreword by one of the adademic bosses of the LTTE, Professor C Eliezer in
Melbourne) 5. His history as a supporter of violence by the JVP while he was at
the Peradeniya University and access to guns (he was a "shooter") 6. This article
on his own "blog", written in 2003, and published on the "Brian Senewiratne
pages" blog (which is maintained by the LTTE in London) - I have published
the piece in full on my page.
HI Nimal
I also wanted to knwo how much Brian Senewiratne and Usha Sriskandarajah
are paid to act as senators for the TGTE. I believe you are the 'finance minister'
of this organization
Bring a best solution without division of sri Lankan for Tamils I will support
Remove the sinhala army from Tamil area. Reverse the colonization the I am
ready to find the solution with in the srilanka
What about encouraging more Tamil youths to join the Sri Lankan Armed
Forces and police and encourage patriotism for Sri Lanka, rather than be
divided by race? An identity of Sri Lankan Canadians, as well as Tamil
Canadians implies patriotism to Canada. This should be encouraged in Sri
Lankan Tamil youth in Canada. There is a difference between Sri Lankan
Australians, Tamil Australians (many of whom are Indian) and Australian
Tamils (who regard themselves as Tamil first and Australian second). I see
myself as a Sri Lankan Australian (though I was born in England) and have
lived in Australia since I was a child. I regard myself as having both Singhalese
and Tamil ancestry and heritage. I also regard Sri Lanka - all of Sri Lanka - as
my 'homeland'. My mother tongue, though, is English.
I think that the first step in "truth and reconciliation" needs to be truth and
honesty.
There is la lot that needs to be done for Tamil people and culture in Sri Lanka,
but it is better to work with the government than against it. I am learning Tamil
and Singhala myself - at the age of 57. It's never too late to start. (I did learn
some Singhala as a child, but had forgotten it, and my mother never taught me
Tamil, though she knew the language).
I have read that the British name for Lanka, 'Ceylon' was taken from the
Chinese word for the island, translated as 'Zeylan' by the Dutch. In the
Ramayana it is called "Lanka" without the honorific "Sri".
The British hated the new name because they can't say the sound "Shri". A lot
of Anglicised Tamils also resented the name and I too was affected by it to
some degree. I was used to identifying my self as a "Ceylonese", and it took me
some years to accept the identity of "Sri Lankan" rather than "Ceylonese".
I didn't know that the Tamil political leadership objected to the car number
plates having the Singhala letter "shri" on them in 1972. I liked it, and think
they were being silly. I love all the Singhala letters for their rounded, organic
shapes and Tamil letters for their refined aesthetic and elegance. Both scripts
should be taught to all the children in Sri Lanka, and the TGTE could help with
this. Multilingualism is the enemy of the monolingual British and the best way
of countering divide and rule policies and strategies I can think of.
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Id like support from the TGTE for the Holistic University of Jaffna (HUJ) and the Holistic
University Network (HUN).