Musings of 1084

Statement of the Meeting Conveners is given below with the details. It is reproduced here as a measure of solidarity.

The Sri Lankan Government has time and again declared: “The war against LTTE has entered the final stage”. Notwithstanding the claims, what is clear is that the war has reached this “final stage” after the slaughter of almost half of the population of the Sri Lankan Tamils. There is not a single person who has not lost a family member, not a single family that has not been displaced from their homes. In fact they have been displaced several times over. Their homeland came under heavy aerial attack in 2007 when Sri Lankan Government unilaterally withdrew ceasefire and started its war ostensibly to annihilate the LTTE. People were forced to leave their homes and take shelters in the various camps. But did the Sri Lankan forces ever spare the camps?! Schools, hospitals and now the so called ‘no-fire zone’ too were not spared by the murderous Sri Lankan Government. Some independent reports confirm that the recent phase of war itself has perished around 70,000 Tamils. After 2 years the war still continues, violating UN resolutions and committing the worst genocide of our contemporary times.

Our role to stop this heinous war of genocide becomes crucial as India is the backbone of this war and has extended material, intelligence and political support to the chauvinist Sri Lankan state. India’s position on Sri Lanka has always catered to the interests of the Sri Lankan rulers due to the geo-political importance of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean. In turn, Sri Lanka had always been ambivalent/non-committal to the interests of Indian rulers. Hence the Indian rulers for a brief time supported the Tamil militant movement (for their own interests). Later they switched back to their original position after diluting and disarming most movements and sending troops to annihilate the only remaining force –the LTTE after the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan accord. This covert support to Sri Lanka became an open partnership in the period after the death of Rajiv Gandhi.

In this light the statement of Shiv Sankar Menon, “Sri Lanka and India has never been so warm, so close, and so deep,” puts in nutshell the present Indo-Lanka relations. India had provided Sri Lanka with radars, intelligence assistance, arms training and now with its own troops. Worst, doing all this while talking about saving the lives of innocent Tamils in Sri Lanka. India has not only been a partner in killing thousands of Tamils in the north of Sri Lanka but did not even condemn the killings of journalists both Tamil and Sinhalese, illegal detentions and torture, media censorship and the dictatorial rule of the SLFP regime.

The recent attack on April 06 of this year on the Tamil people has reached catastrophic proportions. Some independent reports fear that the Sri Lankan army used deadly chemical weapons, poisonous gas and thermo baric bomb – a bomb that uses a fuel-air explosive capable of creating overpressures equal to an atomic bomb in the war zone resulting in killing thousands of people. This information is to be verified by the international community. But the Sri Lankan Government is not allowing the journalists and independent international agencies to report from the Tamil areas. In this regard the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has come out with a statement expressing their anguish.

The suspected use of chemical weapons and nerve gas and flamethrower weapons reminds one of the days of the Auschwitz where the Nazis butchered countless number of people. The International Conventions have strictly prohibited such use of weapons and poisonous gases resulting in gruesome mass killings of combatants and civilians. It has also been reported that the Sri Lankan army is using cluster bombs which are banned in almost 93 countries in the world. And to escape from indictment on many counts from the international community against the use of prohibited weapons to human rights abuses, the Sri Lankan state systematically keeps international media and foreign aid workers out of the war scene. According to UN 1948 Genocide Convention, many of these acts clearly constitute as genocide and Sri Lankan state deserves to be termed as a war criminal and brought before the world court, if an investigation by competent International Team is held and such glaring criminal acts are confirmed.

In this context the continuous covert and overt support of Indian state to Sri Lankan Government is condemnable and is against the overall peace and stability in the sub-continent which it claims to be committed to. Only a people who can determine their own sovereign future without being coerced, mistreated, discriminated or oppressed can bring a lasting and just solution to the spectre of war and genocide that is beholding the sub-continent.

Public Meeting/ Convention
Venue: Speaker’s Hall, Constitution Club, Rafi Marg, Near Parliament Street, New Delhi

Time and Date:
2 PM,28 April 2009 (Wednesday)

Speakers:

A B Bardan, General Secretary, Communist Party of India (CPI)

Varavara Rao, Poet, Revolutionary Writer’s Association (RWA)

Arundhati Roy, Writer

N Venuh, General Secretary, NPMHR, Kohima, Nagaland

S A R Geelani, Vice- President, Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners (CRPP)

Justice Ajit Singh Bains, Punjab

Prof. Jagmohan Singh, Editor World Sikh News,

Prof. Ajit Bhuyan, Assam

Viduthalai Rajendran, General Secretary Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam, TN

Two Members of Parliament, Sri Lanka

Some more speakers are yet to be confirmed.

Organised by:
Revolutionary Democratic Front and Delhi Tamil Students Union
Contact: Kalaiarasan -09968344662

Yesterday, Arundhathi Roy broke the inexcusable silence with her statement. Though I feel the statement sounds guarded and not so hard-hitting on the role of the Indian State, we can expect this would initiate the process of North Indian intellectuals coming out of their selective silence.

The horror that is unfolding in Sri Lanka becomes possible because of the silence that surrounds it. There is almost no reporting in the mainstream Indian media — or indeed in the international press — about what is happening there. Why this should be so is a matter of serious concern.

It is extraordinary that this concern has not travelled to the rest of India. Why is there silence here? There are no ‘white van abductions’ — at least not on this issue. Given the scale of what is happening in Sri Lanka, the silence is inexcusable. More so because of the Indian government’s long history of irresponsible dabbling in the conflict, first taking one side and then the other. Several of us including myself, who should have spoken out much earlier, have not done so, simply because of a lack of information about the war. So while the killing continues, while tens of thousands of people are being barricaded into concentration camps, while more than 200,000 face starvation, and a genocide waits to happen, there is dead silence from this great country.

It’s a colossal humanitarian tragedy. The world must step in. Now.Before it’s too late.

Arnab Goswami: Self-confessed rat

image courtesy: indiantelevision.com

We may try to understand, or refuse to do so, contributing to the likelihood that much worse lies ahead.

-Noam Chomsky in a short article that he wrote immediately after 9/11, on 12th September 2001

…Arnab Goswami, anchorperson of Times Now television, has stepped up to the plate. He has taken to naming, demonizing, and openly heckling people who have dared to question the integrity of the police and armed forces.

My name and the name of the well-known lawyer Prashant Bhushan have come up several times. At one point, while interviewing a former police officer, Arnab Goswami turned to the camera: “Arundhati Roy and Prashant Bhushan,” he said. “I hope you are watching this. We think you are disgusting.”

-Arundhati Roy, The Monster In The Mirror

What a simple one liner that was? We think you are disgusting. Arundhati Roy continues what does it mean.

For a TV anchor to do this in an atmosphere as charged and as frenzied as the one that prevails today amounts to incitement, as well as threat, and would probably in different circumstances have cost a journalist his or her job.

So, according to a man aspiring to be the next prime minister of India, and another who is the public face of a mainstream TV channel, citizens have no right to raise questions about the police.

But you know what, if am gonna forward Roy’s Article, i doubt how many will actually read. They will complain about its length. Arundhati Roy had to spent 10 long painstaking years in Bastis and streets of this country from sardar sarovar dam villages to nandigram to kashmir, where television cameras do not enter, to sense the pulse of the vast, voiceless people and come up with her opinions in long essays which is a mix of history and literary quality. If am not exaggareting, quite equal to volumes of marxian polemics.

But how easy it is for Arnab? We think you are disgusting.
why the contradiction?
why truth looks long and tiresome while lie is always short and easy to understand?

With the growing jingoistic hysteria and Times now acting like the mouthpiece of Organiser (Official Magazine of RSS), the atmospehere tells you something. It’s not going to be easy to speak the truth. It will cost you. not only that. Very less are willing to hear. assimilate and understand.

As you can see in the comments section to the Roy’s Article, many have angrily reverted back shouting, “What is your point finally Madam?” and in similar fashions. Her remarks are not only confusing but disturbing to them. They are not able to stand trouble makers like Roy and Prashant Bhushan, who has also written a magnificent yet laborious long piece. The same irate voices echo from the Television sets of Times now and from the editors table of India Today Magazine who cry ” Why and How we must fight now. “

Now this is where Fascism starts in its full phase.
The Voice is intolerant, loud and clear.
“Enough is enough.
Stop your non-sense. What I speak is the only truth.”
Convenient.
Simple.
easy to understand.
No Explanation Business.
We think you are disgusting.
But dudes, It happens. Truth is tough to understand and accept. There is no other choice.

I have given the Links of the Articles of Roy, Bhushan and Annie zaidi(yet another stinking person) below. pls spend time on reading them and ponder. The Links are dedicated to one and only self-styled au savior of this country, Mr. Arnab Goswami.

• The Monster In The Mirror
• Lessons From The Mumbai Terrorist Attacks
• Two points of madness