Chris Alexander, MP: comments at Thai Pongal celebrations
2066 Kings Grove Crescent . Gloucester . Ontario . K1J 6G1
10 February 2013
Chris Alexander, Conservative MP for Ajax-Pickering, Ontario House of Commons, Ottawa
Dear Chris:
Wow!…Wow!!…Wow!!!…Chris, hold your horses, I am afraid you just crossed the line where angels fear to tread. And I did not know that you were part of the Conservative anti-Sri Lanka bashing Symphony that bashes my Mother Lanka unfairly- the others being Stephen Harper, John Baird, Jason Kenney, Patrick Brown, Paul Calandra, to name a few. But do you know Chris, all you Sri Lanka-Bashing Conservatives cannot hold a note during your “Song”, and you guys are out of step in your “Dance”, when you do your little Song & Dance routine about Sri Lanka at Tamil community gatherings and at International fora?
So you were invited by your constituency’s Tamil community Cultural and Academic Associations to celebrate their Thai Pongal, to give thanks to the bountiful harvest and abundant blessings, among them no doubt, the blessings that Canada adopted everyone of them, who found the greener pastures they were looking for away from where they called home, which also happens to be my Mother county – the beautiful, resplendent multi-ethnic and multi-religious Sri Lanka, the home of the 22 million gentle ‘who want to be left alone to get on with their lives’ peoples, and you graciously participated in their celebrations.
Into that celebration of thanking the Sun God for agricultural abundance, you sullied that gracious event by adding a few chords of the Conservative Sri Lanka-bashing Symphony. And you said; “At Thai Pongal, Tamil Canadians give thanks for a bountiful harvest and abundant blessings. They leave the past behind and open themselves to the new. Unfortunately, for four long years since the end of a protracted conflict, the government of Sri Lanka has failed to live up to this spirit. There has been no serious reconciliation and no accountability for alleged war crimes and mass killings. Even the basic rights continue to be denied to Sri Lankan Tamils. With the recent impeachment of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake, the Sri Lanka government has shown a gross disregard for the rule of law.”
This was a heavy bit of baseball bat slugging of Sri Lanka. So I was curious to find out who this man Chris Alexander was. Is he a Constitutional lawyer by any chance, I wondered; or does he know how to read and comprehend the English language? So I Googled your name Chris Alexander (politician). And this is what I found out about you.
You were born 14 days after I arrived in St. John’s, Newfoundland, to pursue my graduate studies in Geology-Palaeontology at Memorial University. You could read, write and comprehend the English language as you obtained a B.A, in History and Politics from McGill and a MA in PPE from Balliol, Oxford. And you were a bright award winning diplomat, but not a Constitutional Lawyer by any means. And that is why you seem to be confused about Sri Lanka’s Chief Justice’s Impeachment when you so blatantly expressed your ill founded understanding on the subject at the Thai Pongal Hindu celebration in front of 100s of your Tamil constituents.
But then Chris, what was the relevance of a Sri Lankan impeachment to do with a Thai Pongal celebration? It is as bad as telling these people at the Thai Pongal celebration the price of a pound of King Fish at Ottawa’s Lapointe’s at the Byward Market. It may sound strange to you, but it’s true.
Now that you made that deliberate statement, let me deal with it, as my life’s Mission in Canada is not to let anyone bash my Mother country – Sri Lanka, unfairly. And your statement at the celebration falls into that category of an “unfair attack on Sri Lanka”.
1. Chris, you said, ‘The Government of Sri Lanka has failed to live up to this spirit”. That is a load of piffle. The Government of Sri Lanka has being bending over its back to provide the Tamils in the north and east with a bountiful harvest since the war ended, with every opportunity in education for their young, new tiled roofed houses to live in, with clean water to drink, medical care and you name it, seed money for small businesses, opportunities to be employed in the police and armed forces, freedom to walk freely anywhere they want to, and not be worried whether they would step on a Tamil Tiger planted landmine and have their feet blown off, or Mothers having to wait at the door steps at 2:00 in the afternoon waiting for their children to come after school praying at they have not been kidnapped by the Tamil Tigers for their Baby Brigade, and these minority Tamils have it all.
As a privileged minority, these Tamils are far better than the minorities in Canada, where foreign qualified medical doctors drive taxis and carry bed pans at Senior’s homes, and foreign qualified accountants and engineers flip hamburgers at McDonalds, A&Ws and are Security Guards. And do you know what Chris? Our First Nation peoples would move heaven and earth to exchange places with these Tamils in the North and East of the island who were, once upon a time, subjugated to terror by the Tamil Tiger terrorists for 30 bloody years. I believe you visited north of Sri Lanka sometime back, and you have seen it all and let’s be honest, unless you were wearing a Made in Markham-Eelam Blinkers and refused to see it all.
2. Chris, you said, “There has been no serious reconciliation…” Now you are being an absolute joker! Come again, Chris. I think you should listen to Australia’s Deputy Leader of the Opposition Julie Bishop’s Press Conference on YouTube, on Sri Lanka after she returned from a visit to that island. Of the many things she touches the subject of “reconciliation.” An absolute flip-side from what you had said. It gave me the impression that Canada’s Chris Alexander and Australia’s Julie Bishop were from two different planets. The former from Planet Vindictiveness and the latter from Planet Truth respectively.
You should also listen to Britain’s Ian Paisley Jr’s, response in the British Parliament to MP Shobhain McDonagh who spoke ill like you on Sri Lanka, you will soon understand the inadequacies of your comprehension of the subject to the point that you will be ashamed of yourself. You should really have your lips velcro-shut if you are not going to be honest with the facts on the ground in Sri Lanka.
3. Chris you said, “…and no accountability for alleged war crimes and mass killings.” I believe you were absolutely right for once, as I assume when you mentioned “no accountability” you were really referring to India, Canada and Norway’s explicit aiding and abetting the Tamil Tiger terrorists to sustain their terrorist war in Sri Lanka for 27 bloody years; and the “mass killings “you were referring to that of the Tamil Tiger terrorists which were almost an everyday affair during the war years. Am I right?
“Why should India show cause on accountability for the alleged war crimes”, you may ask.
You were 15 years old when India in 1983 and until 1987 provided arms and military training and monetary support to Sri Lankan Tamil guerilla groups which included the Tamil Tigers. During that period there were 32 military camps set up all over India to train these Tamil guerillas. Initially, 495 Tamil Tiger guerillas including 90 women were trained in 10 batches. The first batch of Tamil Tigers were trained in Establishment 22 based in Chakrata,Uttarakhand.
The second batch including Tamil Tiger Intelligence Chief, Pottu Amman was trained in Himachal Pradesh. Tamil Nadu trained eight other batches of Tamil Tigers. Dhanu, the woman suicide bomber who assassinated India’s Rajiv Gandhi and her conspirator were trained in Nainital, India. And there were thousands of other Tamil guerilla’s trained in Indian military camps later.
After graduating these Tamil guerillas as terrorists by Indira Gandhi’s India, they were sent back to northern Sri Lanka in military fatigues, cradling Kalashnikov’s like babies and festoons of live bullets around their necks to destabilize Sri Lanka with killings, bombings and ethnic cleansing.
So Chris…you complained about accountability… so let India show accountability for aiding and abetting this Tamil Tiger war in Sri Lanka. Mainly the non-Tamil Sri Lankans were the victims as planned by the Tamil Tigers.
“Why should Canada show accountability in this war”, you may ask. To explain this is as easy as eating a masala-vade at the Thai Pongal celebrations.
During the Eelam war the most deadly Tamil Tiger terrorist transaction involved the purchase of explosives from the Ukraine. First a Sri Lankan Tamil in Britain set up the Euro-Ukraine Consultancy Agency with offices in Kiev and London. This company then negotiated with a state-owned Ukraine company Rubezone Chemical Factory for this purchase. A cheque for 7.5 million Canadian dollars was cut from a Canadian Bank in Vancouver in 1994, from an account of a Tamil to buy 10 tons of hexagon a plastic explosives like Semtex; 50 tons of trionitrotoluol (TNT) and a large quantity of electric timing caps and detonator cord. The deal included 345 tons of cement and a single seat sports plane which was dismantled before shipping.
These explosives bought with Canadian dollars in 1994 were used in a truck bomb to bring down the Central Bank Building on 31 January 1996, in the Fort in Colombo, which killed 114 and maimed for life another 1338 civilians. The same explosives were used to destroy the façade of the Buddhist Temple of the Tooth in Kandy, on 25 January 1998, killing 12 and injuring 13 others., As a result of these bombing all 34 million of us Canadians have a film of Sinhalese and Muslim blood staining our palms.
Furthermore, Canada has to show accountability for aiding and abetting the Tamil Tigers and prolonging that war for 27 years as our former High Commissioner to Colombo, Martin Collacott has rightly pointed out. For 13 Liberal governing years under Jean Chretien and Paul Martin, the Canadian Tamil Diaspora were allowed to collect 2 million dollars a month and stuff it into the Tamil Tiger war chest for 13 long years. And with that money they purchased sophisticated war weapons to kill my people.
And the last of the cruel three musketeers who supported the Tamil Tiger killings was the lutefisk eating Norwegian Vikings. And here is why they should be asked to show cause for accountability in that nasty, yet unnecessary separatist Eelam war in Sri Lanka.
While I could point out scores of reasons why Norway should be brought to book to show accountability in their aiding an abetting the Eelam war, let me share five with you.
a. Norway gifted six tons of high powered dual use communications equipment to the Tamil Tigers for their propaganda work to relay messages globally, to track Tamil dissidents opposed to their separatist cause, and getting at them eventually.
Indian Intelligence had said that this high powered communications equipment were used to monitor phone conversations of key Sri Lankan Government officials and military personnel, endangering the law and order situation;
b. Military training were provided by ex-Norwegian Special Forces to the Tamil Tigers in under water demolition techniques to help carry out attacks on port facilities and the Sri Lankan Navy at a location off the coast of Thailand;
c. Quoting official sources from the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, Ny Tid (New Times) newspaper revealed on November 27, 2005, that the Norwegian Government had handed 25 million kronors (Norwegian currency) to the Tamil Tigers during the last four years. In that particular year the Tamil Tigers were given 7.5 million kronors but the Foreign Ministry could not give details how the money had been used.;
d. Norwegian link in Tamil Tiger arms procurement was revealed when Eritreans reached an understanding with the Tamil Tigers in Norway.
The Norwegian government had helped the Tamil Tigers to establish a relationship with Eritreans which allowed the group to purchase arms, ammunition and equipment from China on Eritrean end-user certificates. These documents were needed to legally buy weapons. This tripartite agreement had been reached in Norway as far back as 2002-2003 when the Scandinavian countries were spearheading the Peace Monitoring Mission after the signing of the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA);
e. Norway funded the Tamil Tigers with millions of kronor on an annual basis through NORAD, one of the Norwegian Government ‘charities’. This is according to figures provided by the Tamil Tiger leader in Norway, Yogurajha Balasingham. He had openly stated that he was a member of the Tamil Tigers and that funds were collected in Norway and some of it were for Tamil Tiger military purposes.
And there you are Chris. Now you know the three cruel musketeers – India, Canada and Norway that prolonged this Eelam War in Sri Lanka, and watched millions of unarmed innocent civilians killed by the ruthless Tamil Tiger terrorists.
I know for a fact that Canada, which was once upon a time the friendliest Commonwealth sister nation of Sri Lanka is now her worst enemy and is after a pound of Sri Lanka’s flesh at international fora. Let’s be judicious, before you claw at Sri Lanka’s pound of flesh, lets claw at the flesh off India, Canada and Norway and seek their accountability for war crimes for aiding and abetting a bunch of ruthless terrorist serial killers whose victims were Sri Lanka’s innocent unarmed Sinhalese and Muslims, and among them were infants and pregnant mothers.
Chris. You had wanted accountability….for mass killings. Yes, and so do I. Not just during the last five months of the war but right through the 594 months of the war, like:
*On 30 November 1984, the mass killings by the Tamil Tigers at the Dollar and Kent Farm, when these bastards crept in to the adobe farmers huts in the indigo dark morning and hacked to death with machetes, and shot and killed with Kalashnikovs 62 unarmed civilians who were fast asleep including women and children; like
*On 14 May 1985, when the Buddhist devotees in white were meditating under the sacred Bodhi Tree at the sacred city of Anuradhapura, these Tamil Tiger bastards in commando fatigues drove in trucks and sprayed bullets at them killing 120 including children and wounded another 85. It is very likely the AK47s and live bullets that they used may have been bought from the Canadian dollars collected by the Tamil Diaspora in the Greater Toronto Area through extortion, drug trafficking, passport forgery, human smuggling, et cetera. Let’s have the accountability of this mass killing before you go after the pound of flesh of the Sri Lanka Government;
* On 2 June 1987, it was 7:15 and a sunny early morning, when a bus carrying 31 Buddhist monks, 30 of them were novice monks was moving along the main road close to the village of Aranthalawa in the East on its way on a pilgrimage from their temple in Mahavapi to the Kelaniya Raja Mahavihara, when it was ambushed by 20 armed Tamil Tiger terrorists in commando fatigues and ordered the driver, P.G.Samarapala to drive the bus into the nearby Aranthalawa jungle. After the bus came to a full stop these Tamil Tiger bastards went on a rampage, attacking the monks with guns and chopping them with swords and shooting some of them with machine guns turning saffron robes into tomato- ketchup red. Three monks managed to escape to tell us the story. This is one of the worst massacres that call for accountability before you Conservative politicians claw like hungry vultures at Sri Lanka for a pound of its flesh for alleged war crimes seeking accountability. Who knows the machine guns and AK47s may have been bought from Canadian dollars collected by the Tamil Diaspora through fund raisers, extortion, drug trafficking, selling forged passports, ATM scams, mainly in the Greater Toronto Area. Without demanding accountability of such massacres through out the 27 year war, anything selective like that of the last five months of the war won’t cut mustard with this member of the Conservative Party (C11255047). Not a snowball chance in hell, Chris;
*The Aranthalawa massacre prompted one of the escaped young monks to give up robes, a story that you ought to know, as you have become a sponge-like sucker of the Toronto Tamil stories and nothing else. And here is mine! And I am a Sinhalese.
One of the three monks who escaped this massacre was the 21 year old Ven. Mahiyangane Dhammajothi Thero. He was born in the hamlet of Hasalaka to a farming family. He was the second son of S.G.Babanis and S.G.Juliet. Witnessing the brutality of the Tamil Tiger terrorist massacres persuaded him to disrobe. He felt that the community had to be defended before it could be educated in the Word of the Buddha. He left the Order with the blessings of his teacher and Chief Thero. He joined the army. He was attached to the Sinha Regiment’s Sixth Battalion as a rifleman. On the sleepy night of July 10, 1991, some 500 Tamil Tiger cadres surrounded the Elephant Pass garrison. He was one of the 600 soldiers tasked to defend this gateway to the Jaffna peninsula. The Tamil Tigers attacked, perhaps with weapons bought from Canadian dollars allowed by the Canadian Government to be stuffed into their war-chest by the Tamil Diaspora mainly living in the Greater Toronto Area and some, perhaps, from your Ajax-Pickering riding, and the soldiers defended. What was extraordinary about this Tamil Tiger terrorist attack was that a bulldozer covered with armour plate’s chockfull of explosives rumbled like an Ankylosaurus armoured dinosaur towards the camp’s southern entrance. None of the soldiers were prepared to confront this threat, except for one. The gunfire and explosions would have been deafening and disconcerting. The young man from Hasalaka was calm however, perhaps because of his meditation training having been a monk. He took two grenades and ran towards the oncoming tank, took hits from bullets fired at him, climbed the ladder of the armoured bulldozer and tossed them inside. The tank exploded. The assault ended and young Lance Corporal Gamini Kularatne died. There is a statue of this hero now standing at the junction of the Hasalaka village junction. I made a special trip to meet him in this statue form, and I felt good to know that the Sinhalese people like me had identified this young Sinhalese hero who took on the 500 Tamil Tiger terrorist insane brutes head-on, single handed. And that morning, I felt good gazing at this statue and bowed my head for a minute in silence in respect of this young Sinhalese hero. And he made me feel good to be a Sinhalese.
So Chris, I don’t think you knew this story but now you know, as you seem to be one of the out of tune singers and out of step dancers of the Conservative parliament’s anti-Sri Lanka bashing Symphony turned vultures who are after a pound of Sri Lanka’s flesh.
But here is my Mission, Chris. No one, not even Chris Alexander of Ajax-Pickering is going to hurt my Mother Lanka unfairly as I have decided to sing “O Sri Lanka, I shall stand on guard for thee in Canada.”
4. And finally, I want to double up my comments on the last two comments that you made at the Thai Pongal celebrations. “Even the basic rights continue to be denied to Sri Lankan Tamils. With the recent impeachment of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranaike, the Sri Lanka government has shown a gross disregard for the rule of law”.
Chris, here’s my response to your first one – “Even the basic rights continue to be denied to Sri Lankan Tamils,” you said.
I wish you had elaborated what these “basic rights” are that are being denied to the Sri Lankan Tamils. If Chris Alexander, the award winning Canadian diplomat has not been able to decipher and acknowledge that by eliminating the Tamil Tigers by the Sri Lankan soldiers on 19 May 2009, gave back the ‘basic rights”, their ‘Right-to-Life” to 22 million Sri Lankans which included all the Tamils, which was hijacked by the Tamil Tiger terrorists for 27 bloody years, then this Chris Alexander, the award winning Canadian diplomat who is still bludgeoning Sri Lanka unfairly, who failed the litmus test of honesty, should not be taken seriously. This guy Chris Alexander, the Conservative MP for Ajax-Pickering I pronounce today, is an enemy of Sri Lanka, who is after a pound of flesh of my Mother Lanka, and a Life Member of the Canadian Conservative anti-Sri Lanka bashing Symphony. And that is my conclusion Chris about you. You may not like it, but that is how the cookie crumbles. At least I am honest.
As for the second comment, I wanted to know whether you were a Constitutional Lawyer as this ‘impeachment’ is wrapped around Sri Lanka’s 1978 Constitution. I am not a Constitutional Lawyer either, but I tried to read around the subject objectively and then be judge and jury. My conclusion is quite different from yours. May be because our comprehension of the English language is different, as you being a product of McGill and Balliol (Oxford) and I a product of London, Swansea and Memorial.
Added to that you already have a negative mind-set to go after a pound of flesh off Sri Lanka’s back as a supporter of the Greater Toronto Area Tamil separatist cause, and I am not. And I never have been a supporter of the Tamil Tigers, nor their proxy Tamil Tiger groups in Canada and never will be, in a fervent respect for the Sri Lanka’s rural youth who sacrificed their lives, limbs and blood to deliver a unitary Sri Lanka for the next generation of Sri Lankans from the fetters of the devilish and sick foreign supported Tamil Tiger terrorism.
Chris, I know where you are coming from on the “impeachment” issue. The Times Colonist of January 15, 2013, says as a headline, bylined Mike Blanchfield, “Harper tells Sri Lanka to reinstate chief justice after “politicized” dismissal.” “We call on the government of Sri Lanka to respect the country’s constitution and the independence of the judiciary and change course immediately” Harper said in a statement.
So, Chris, you had no choice but to toe Conservatives’ policy on Sri Lanka and follow your boss or your nomination for the next election will be in serious jeopardy. Right, Chris? I understand the nasty game of politics, domestic and international.
I am glad Prime Minister Stephen Harper mentioned the words, “We call on the government of Sri Lanka to respect the country’s constitution…” And I wonder whether Prime Minister Stephen Harper has already heard from Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa, telling him, “Prime Minister don’t be such a bully being so bombastic, pompous and arrogant trying to teach me about my country’s Constitution, and teach me how to suck Canada geese eggs. Why don’t you jump into Rideau Canal’s winter icy waters by the locks behind the parliament as it might shake up and brighten your knowledge of our Constitution and wished that you never spoke?
“Ah! By the way, I am told that you are in trouble with your First Nation’s peoples with your obligations on their Treaty Rights incorporated in the Canadian Constitution since 1982. And your Supreme Court’s declaration imposing on the federal government, “a duty to consult” with them before making any changes to the obligations flowing from the Treaties.
“And in case you missed this being your arrogant self, you need to know that a vital piece of the rights of the Sri Lanka’s minority Tamils enshrined in Sri Lanka’s legal system, the Theasvalamai Law – has guaranteed the century old land and other social rights to the Sri Lankan Tamil people, are still untouched. This bit of information, I thought I should pass on to you, in case you go on in a tangent, when excited trying to bludgeon Sri Lanka again.”
Chris, now to the “impeachment”: of the former Chief Justice which you said that the Sri Lanka Government has shown a gross disregard for the rule of law.
Here’s my story as I understood it, without parroting what the foreign dollar-awash NGO mandarins, losing politicians, and her lawyer side-kicks’ anti-Sri Lankan government voices said.
The present Sri Lanka’s Constitution of 1978 replaced the 1972 Constitution to create a new order which derived its power from the people to strengthen and consolidate the power of the “de Gaullist” Executive with a mixture of constitutional strands drawn from the American, French and Indian models. This constitution stands with 18 Amendments.
The Article 107(3) of the 1978 Constitution – the supreme law of the land – had given parliament the option of judging the conduct of judges accused of “misbehavior or incapacity” either “under a law or by Standing Orders”. Thus the Parliament has a choice either to compile a law or Standing Orders with regard to impeachment procedure.
This Standing Order has been operational for 30 years, since 1978. And the method to present an impeachment motion is set out in the Standing Orders.
According to the Constitution an impeachment motion should be signed at least by one-third of the Members of Parliament. The charges should also be mentioned in it, a procedure which is basically to educate Parliament about charges. Thereafter, the Speaker should direct the investigation to a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) according to the Standing Orders. Chris, in this instance, which you have pooh-poohed the procedure, unfortunately for you and Prime Minister Harper, the procedure was followed to the “t” of the Sri Lankan Constitution, and was duly done.
So what has been yours and Prime Minister’s Harper’s problem?
The former Chief Justice challenged the authority of the PSC to judge her on 14 allegations accusing her of misbehavior. She also mounted a legal challenge arguing that Parliament had no authority to judge her. But it was common knowledge, even a Grade 8 Civic student would understand that Article 107 (3) of the Constitution – the supreme law of the land – had given parliament the option of judging the conduct of judges accused of “misbehavior”, which is what she was accused of.
Following her challenge, the Supreme Court informed Parliament that the proceedings should be stopped until the hearings of the case before the Court of Appeal is concluded. As far as I saw, there is not any room for any interference by the Supreme Court in keeping with the Constitution. The Court of Appeal has no jurisdiction to interpret the Constitution either, period.
It is clear, that under the Constitution’s Article 107 (3) has specific obligations how parliament remove judges from the posts.
The proceedings were done according the Constitution, and in my eyes there was no hanky-panky, and my dear Conservative, you are out of order when you accused the Sri Lankan Government of “gross disregard for the rule of law” in their procedure to remove the former Chief Justice from her position. You are wrong, big time, Chris. And so is your boss.
Chris, there was one thing my dear Mother taught me when I was a child. “Putha (son)” she said, “if you have nothing good to say about anyone, then keep your mouth shut.” That was good advice Chris, and I’d like to pass my Mother’s wisdom to you – “just keep your mouth shut unless you are honest enough to say some thing good about Sri Lanka, and give that island’s Peace a Chance. She deserves it.”
And for yours truly, Asoka Weerasinghe, my mission is to sing “O! Sri Lanka Matha, I will stand on guard for thee on Canadian soil,” every time I find some Canadian trying to bludgeon you, unfairly. You bet, I will.
Sincerely,
Asoka Weerasinghe
