The John Moore Show: Part One

John Moore: (of course bare in mind that he has a very strong husky domineering voice with plenty sarcastic undertones at most times)

"Supporters of Israel will often point to other situations in the world and say..okay, where is the outrage? And I think they definitely have a case as to what has been going on in Srilanka since 1948. But in the last couple of months the Srilankan government has effectively declared war on the Tamil Tigers, not that they haven't been at war since the 1970s. But they launched a campaign to drive the Tigers into a very thing wedge of land and to fight this to the end. And here is a quick history lesson, cause I realize, you know, not a lot of people have any idea what's going on. So I do this as a public service. Some body may accuse me of bias, but it's just to the best of my knowledge and the study over the last couple of years of the situation. The largest ethnic group of Srilanka comprises of the Sinhalese. They are about 80% of the population. There are various estimates about how many Tamils there are in the country. Figures of 5 and 10 % have been recorded in the past. But it's also instructive to note that since Srilanka gained independence about half of the Tamil population either left the country or have been killed. Tamil roots in Srilanka go back to ancient times but a large portion of the population was brought in from India by the British for cheap labours. So another colonial issue! But the hard-line amongst the majority population is that the Tamils have no business being in Srilanka at all. Why don’t' they go back to India. Sound familiar? Ya well, Palestinians, why don’t they just go back to Egypt and Jordon.

Srilanka gained Independence in 1948, and almost immediately the government ushered in laws that favoured the majority population and very soon it began to actively oppress the Tamils. Trying to suppress their language, suppress their culture. The hope was, and we tried this in Canada, we tried this with the natives, and the French speakers. It's been tried in many jurisdictions. The hope was the Tamils would say "screw this and if I really want to get ahead I'll just blend into the population and I will give up on my language and my culture and my kids will have a better future". Well, that didn't work and it didn't happen. Over the years, remember, this started in 48, the Tamils have been so beaten down, that they started to fight back like many groups do when they have been beaten down. This promoted the government, which routinely ranks as one of the most corrupt and one of the world's greatest human rights violators to crack down. They've been VERY successful branding the Tamil Tigers as terrorists, mostly because the Tamils have done some pretty terrible things! But bare in mind again, the world seems to love the Palestinians in spite of suicide bombings. The Tamils? Not so much.

The government has been engaged in an ongoing campaign to confine the Tamils to a certain geographical location. And they engage in and have since the 1970s in routine detention and torture and murder. Srilanka for example is one of the leaders in the world of enforced disappearances. That's known as, daddy goes outside, van picks up daddy, you never see daddy again. Shades of Panache? So in retaliation to the detention, torture, murder and disappearances, the Tamils have become more and more aggressive over the years. But because most people don’t' know what their complaint is, it has made it every easy for the Srilankan government to bran Tamil Tigers as merciless terrorists who bomb, kidnap, murder and who use child soldiers. AND they have done all of those things! The Srilankan government IS right now engaged in a systematic campaign to stamp out the tigers, this is a merciless military effort AND it is resulted in 100s of civilian casualties. AGAIN. The outrage at civilian casualties in Gaza. Where is the outrage here?I don't think I have to draw a real map or start doing tables, or pull down the big screen and pull at the pointer to illustrate there are tremendous comparisons between Israel and the Palestinians and Srilanka and the Tamils. But there is no....not only is there outrage, there is no INTEREST. Where is Sid Ryan on Srilanka? Where is OUR government on Srilanka? People would button hole the PM in a snap to ask him what he think of, or the foreign minister, to ask them what they of something happening in Palestine. But our government has not had to utter a whisper about what is going on.

I hope that gives you a bit of a map of what's going on and why at the very least, and you should note there are 200,000 thousand, because of the situation, there are lot of expatriate Tamils, and they're estimated to be 200,000 thousand right here in Toronto. Which is why the issue bubbles up. But they don’t get a lot of good publicity, because, given the record of the Tigers, who some people would see as resistance fighters, and others would see as trying to over throw the government. Now our government has joined others in branding the Tamil Tigers as a terrorist organization, and so they want to cut out the funding and they labeled the cause as illegitimate and any action they take as illegitimate."

"George is calling from Brampton.... "(to be cont'd).