THE Sri Lanka Army yesterday stepped up its murderous shelling of its so-called ‘safety zone’ in the Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal and Vadduvaakal areas of north-east Sri Lanka.
Lawrence Christy, the head of Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) Field Office on Monday put the death toll of civilians at more than 3,200 killed since Sunday evening up to Monday morning.
The Sri Lankan army is firing cannons, 50 calibre machine guns, artillery, mortar and Multi-Barrel Rocket Launchers into its ‘safety zone’.
Lawrence Christy has called on the International Community to intervene to stop the genocide and to provide food and medicine to the besieged civilians.
Meanwhile, the British Foreign Secretary David Miliband is co-sponsoring informal discussions in New York on the island’s humanitarian situation. While tens of thousands of Tamils are being murdered, the British Foreign Secretary talks, and talks and talks, on behalf of the British government. In fact, it is giving the Rajapakse regime more and more time to try to carry out its plan to liquidate the LTTE and murder as many Tamil people as possible.
No wonder the Sri Lankan government dismisses the calls from him and other diplomats for a ceasefire in the north – it knows that the calls will never be backed up by any action.
In fact, the British government was amongst the first to declare that the Tamil Tigers were a terrorist organisation – its crime being that it defends the Tamil people.
Britain’s refusal to take any action against the Rajapakse regime allows it to make the ludicrous claim that the Tamil Tigers are firing artillery and mortars at their own civilian population, something that only the insane will believe.
Yesterday the Tigers stated that ‘The LTTE categorically rejects any allegations by the Sri Lankan Government and its military that the artillery and shelling was carried out by us.
‘It is an indisputable fact that the LTTE has waged this three decade-long struggle for the liberation of the Tamil people from all oppressions by the racist Sinhalese regime. We will never ever turn on the very people for whose liberation we have lost close to 20,000 of our own fighters.’
The British government has not the slightest intention of taking any action against the Rajapakse regime, for the very simple reason that it is the guardian of the massive British investments in the island.
In fact, Britain gives every possible aid to the Rajapakse regime from training its solders and officers to facilitating the supply of Russian and Israeli weaponry and ammunition to its armed forces.
The US and the UK are opposed to raising the oppression and murder of the Tamils at the UN Security Council, and are supported by India, China and Russia, amongst others, who consider that a victory for the Tamil people would encourage national minorities everywhere to fight for their rights.
So the slaughter continues.
It is now high time for the British trade unions to intervene to act to stop the slaughter.
The trade unions must immediately carry resolutions in support of the right to self determination of the Tamil people and demand that the British government acts to secure an immediate indefinite ceasefire by the Sri Lankan army.
Trade unionists must join the daily demonstrations outside the House of Commons, and must call a national demonstration to support the Tamil people. The Tamil people must not be left to fight alone. The trade unions must join their struggle now!
