Northern Episcopal Vengeance
Durand Appuhamy
(Courtesy for The Island 15th January 2014)
Catholic bishops, Rayappu Joseph of Mannar and Thomas Saundranayagam Jaffan with LTTE Tamil Terrorists.
It has been alleged that two northern Catholic bishops, Drs. Rayappu Joseph and Thomas Saundranayagam, have accused our security forces as having used cluster bombs and chemical weapons during the last phase of eelam war 1V.
As for cluster bombs, The Island newspaper of the 11th Jan revealed to us that it was the US Pacific Command that urged our Air force to acquire Cluster bombs for “unarmoured area targets” in 2002. The government, however, refrained from acquiring any cluster bombs. If it had acquired them, the ever-so inimical US would have by now revealed details of this transaction. Further all mine clearing units to date have not reported the discovery of any cluster bombs. Alan Poston was a supervisor of mine clearing operation in the north. He was originally the source of a rumour that a cluster bomb was found by the mine clearers. When confronted he denied the rumour and also averred that he had not made any such statements on this issue.
The use of chemical weapons is another big canard. If this had happened, there would usually be some surviving victims with dire breathing difficulties and burnt injuries. Those patients would seek medical relief. In the east medication was supplied in Pulmoddai under the supervision of ICRC where Indian military/medical personnel treated the wounded. Those doctors would surely have diagnosed chemical poisoning and would have reported it to the ICRC. No such reports have been unearthed to date. Further the Tamil doctor Shanmugarajah was one who moved with the forced migration of LTTE’s human shield from place to place and erected many makeshift hospitals and provided emergency surgery and emergency medical treatment. In a recent detail statement of his work in a Sunday newspaper he did not make any reference to any patients with injuries from chemical attacks. Thus the conclusion is that the bishops were engaged in vile and vicious propaganda to discredit the country and its security forces in the eyes of their gullible clients.
According to the recently published electoral register of the Northern Provincial council, the number of voters for Vavuniya was 94,367, for Mannar 72,420, for Killinochchi 68,589 and for Mullaithivu 52,407 and for Jaffna 426,703. The above figures prove the absurdity of the bishops’ allegation that our army killed 140,000 civilians. Can you even imagine how a population far larger than the population of Vavuniya was decimated by the army? Where is the gas chamber that incinerated them? Where is the burial ground of those imaginary victims? Could an army engaged in a non-stop mortal combat risking life and limb, be in a position and have the time to divert soldiers to this ghastly job of killing civilians?
So what motivates these bishops to malign our country? I can only speculate. I think it is simply revenge. They find it difficult to accept the military defeat of the LTTE.
This, in my view, is thoroughly scandalous and unacceptable, even though they would argue that they are seeking justice for the victims. Even in this case where is the justice for the victims exhumed in Mannar in the neighbourhood of Bishop’s house? Where is the justice for the victims in the plane shot down in the Mannar Sea? I am not surprised that Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith had rightly disowned the slanderous accusations of the two anti-Sri Lankan bishops. They are still in the era of the Hebrew Bible which advocated “an eye for an eye!”
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