Shenali D Waduge

BY  SHENALI WADUGE · 23RD JUNE 2024

It is surprising that UK’s Labor Leader being a barrister, head of Public Prosecutions as well as the head of the Crown Prosecution Service would issue speeches completely ignoring facts & evidence. We take his speech & raise some poignant questions that he & his Labor Party should seriously think about before making another sponsored speech in 2025!

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How does the Labor Leader know that tens of thousands of Tamils were killed”.

From what source is he quoting these numbers?

What is the evidence for these numbers? Are there names of the dead? Have their families filed police complaints, habeas corpus, logged their names in the Presidential Commissions appointed as well as the Office of Missing Persons or even with the OISL that the UNHRC appointed?

Can the Labor Leader produce these evidence before coming in public to make such loose statements sans proof.

Its now 15 years – there are no names of these dead, no one located any dead bodies & there are no skeletons to prove such a number even existed.

However, Sri Lanka’s Armed Forces did bring to safety 297,853 Tamils as well as accepted close to 12,000 LTTE terrorists who surrendered in civilian clothing which included 594 child soldiers who were given a Presidential Pardon.

Therefore, it is well & fine to give sponsored speeches – but the credibility of the Labor Leader is questioned when he makes statements without facts or evidence.

We would like to remind the Labor Leader that this statement is highly  uncalled for as he is making another sponsored statement to say that he aspiring to become the future leader of the UK Govt only stands with one community in another country. How fair is this?

Secondly, this sponsored speech completely ignores that the national army of Sri Lanka was waged in a military cum humanitarian operation not against the Tamil community but against LTTE terrorists who happened to be all Tamils. This does not in any way make all Tamils terrorists. In fact, the Labor Leader should do some homework to realize that LTTE killed more Tamils than they care to admit. The LTTE’s first victim was a Tamil (Mayor of Jaffna, Alfred Duraiappah in 1975. The LTTE’s second victims were Tamil policemen threatening them not to join the police service. LTTE killed Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister who was a Tamil. LTTE has killed scores of academics, moderate Tamil politicians, teachers, public servants who were all Tamil. We can present a list if the Labor Leader wants proof.

The Tamils who were against LTTE were just as victims as the non-Tamils that LTTE targeted.

Given that the Mullaivaikkal commemorations are to commemorate LTTE dead by their families, the Labor Leader needs to rephrase this statement to say Labor Party stands with the LTTE Tamil community”. We need to also kindly remind the Labor Leader that the UK continues to ban LTTE since 2001, wonder why!

As highlighted earlier, the Mullaivaikkal Commemorations are not to mourn Tamils killed by LTTE, nor Tamils from other militant groups killed but to commemorate ONLY DEAD LTTE, by the LTTE families and supporters of LTTE.

The Labor leader has all the freedom to commemorate terrorists – who are we to stop him!

It is advised to do some background reading before accepting to do sponsored speeches before becoming a joke.

While there is no proof of tens of thousands killed

While there have been no names to the numbers claimed to have been killed

While there were no dead bodies found, no mass graves & not even skeletons

We seriously need to ask who is the Labor leader actually commemorating?

As repeatedly mentioned above, Mullaivaikkal commemorations are for the LTTE dead.

So in making this statement, the Labor Leader is virtually saying his party is commemorating the LTTE dead – mourning terrorists! fine how do you do, this is, for a person aspiring to be the leader of the UK!

Naturally, the sponsored speech has to come with a punch line and this is the call for revenge by lobbying foreign entities & ensuring those that vanquished the LTTE terrorists were punished. It all started with the legally questionable UNHRC resolutions, the bias of the former UNHRC head who is also mourning Mullaivaikkal with sponsored speeches, joined by members of that 3 member panel who do not shy from presented LTTE dead as LTTE missing and none of the above are bothered to demand truth, accountability for those LTTE killed since 1970s. Does the Labor Leader know how many innocent people LTTE killed over the years, how many public buses were bombed killing innocent passengers, how many public places were bombed killing people who had done LTTE no wrong. How many villagers LTTE stormed into & mercilessly killed pregnant mothers, babies & children chopping them to pieces! How can any leader make such one-sided speeches, even if sponsored!

As for reconciliation – who reconciles with terrorists? Can the Labor Leader give one example!

It would also be good if the Labor Leader peruse some of the statements and evidence presented by Lord Naseby as he has a better understanding of what went on during the last phase of the conflict as well as throughout the conflict that those reading off sponsored scripts!

The previous points raised are relevant to ask the Labor Leader about why he doesn’t make a similar speech for those that the LTTE killed from 1975 to 2009? Does the Labor leader know how many this is? Does the Labor leader know who these people are & how they were killed by LTTE? Has the Labor leader ever spoken to these families & called for justice for them & questioned the violations committed by the LTTE? Or is the Labor Leader satisfied giving sponsored speeches for terrorists?

Again, we return to the question of who exactly the Labor Leader is standing with – the Tamils killed by LTTE or the Tamils supporting LTTE?

Given that this speech is a sponsored one, it is natural that the ultimate goal is revenge & to lobby foreign governments & politicians to punish those national army for vanquishing terrorists.

As for the Labor Leaders reference to the ICC, we would like to take the Labor Leader’s memory back to the bogus evidence” by US & UK that resulted in the humanitarian debacle in Iraq & while UK was accused of over 1200 cases of war crimes (2003-2008) the ICC refused to prosecute UK.

When UK troops were accused of war crimes in Iraq, how did the then UK Prime Minister respond? Theresa May, UK Prime Minister said that she was determined to protect the armed forces against any vexatious complaints”… she went on to say the men & women of our armed forces do an incredible job, often making huge sacrifices to keep us safe… we owe them a huge debt of gratitude….”.

In case everyone has forgotten – the British accountability into Bloody Sunday massacre took 38 long years!

So there went accountability & truth!

Need we remind the Labor Leader about how the Chilcot Report was also ignored by UK on the illegal war on Iraq. So this was how UK responded to accountability & truth.

If we are to further elaborate on truth & accountability how about atoning for all of the colonial crimes committed not only in Sri Lanka, then Ceylon but all of the territories that colonial Britain ruled over and all of the plunders that continue to adorn the British museum!  They say people in glass houses should not hurl stones and we can only ask the UK Labor Leader to refrain from accepting sponsored speeches to read off prepared scripts. Lobby for votes on matters that matter for issues relevant to UK and in the interest of UK citizens only.

Shenali D Waduge