Applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model in Gaza 4

~ The Koboi Project

A significant aspect of the Sri Lanka Genocide model (for an explanation of this term, see Applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model in Gaza 2) is the suppression of news and expression in the media. I will go into the similarities of censorship in the wars in Sri Lanka and in Gaza later but, in the present post, I would like to address a suppression I have just experienced on Facebook. My previous WordPress post, titled Applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model in Gaza 3, was originally headed by the image of a Tamil Elam flag. This is very similar to the LTTE flag but it is not the same; the difference being in inscriptions in Tamil and English. This difference is explained clearly on Tamilnation.org as follows, “The Tiger symbol of Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) created in 1977, was designated as the National Flag of Tamileelam in 1990 differentiating it from the LTTE’s emblem by leaving out the letters inscribing the movement’s name. The Restructure site explains further, “Yes, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam created and use the Tamil Eelam flag. It makes sense since they support the Tamil Eelam. However, not everyone who supports the Tamil Eelam supports the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The Liberation Tigers of Eelam supporters are a proper subset of Tamil Eelam supporters.”

When I re-posted my WordPress post on on Facebook, I received a warning about posting offensive material, and my post was blocked. I have also had many Facebook privileges removed for a period of one month as some kind of penalty. In this context, it is important to note that, while the LTTE is a proscribed organization and that it would be reasonable for their flag to be prohibited on Facebook, the Tamil Elam flag is different from the LTTE flag, and its display is permitted in many nations around the world that have prohibited the LTTE. Canada, where I reside, is a case in point, as here it is not only legal but also promoted by representatives of different levels of Canadian government.

The scene pictured above is of the Tamil Eelam National Flag Day being celebrated in Brampton Ontario in Nov 2023. Brampton Mayor Patrick Broey, who officiated at the ceremony at the town hall where the Tamil Eelam flags were flown, said, “Today and every day, we celebrate the resilience of the Tamil community and the contributions that Canadian Tamils have made in enriching our communities in Brampton and across the country. We will never forget the atrocities and human rights abuses of the Tamil genocide. We celebrate the resilience of the Tamil community.” Other government representatives who made statements of support on this Tamil Eelam National Flag Day include,  Shaun Collier, Mayor of Ajax;  Jagmeet Singh, Leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP); Ruby Sahota, Member of Parliament for Brampton North; David West, Mayor of the City of Richmond Hill; Iqra Khalid, Member of Parliament for Mississauga-Erin Mills; Shaun Chen, Member of Parliament for Scarborough North; Shafqat Ali, Member of Parliament Brampton Centre: Logan Kanapathi, Member of Provincial Parliament for Markham-Thornhill; and Elizabeth Roy, Mayor of the City of Whitby.

Image: https://www.tamilguardian.com/content/tamil-eelam-flags-fly-high-canada-and-uk

Image: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fzjmyfgv6buu51.png

Image: https://i1.wp.com/www.errimalai.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/ltte-flag-1.jpg

https://tamilnation.org/tamileelam/defacto/flag.htm

https://restructure.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/tamil-eelam-flag-versus-tamil-tiger-flag/

|https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/tamil-flags-flown-at-protest-legal-toronto

https://www.tgte-homeland.org/2023/11/18/tamil-eelam-national-flag-day-to-be-observed-around-the-world-on-november-21st-tgte/

Applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model in Gaza 3

~ The Koboi Project

As I have said in previous posts (see Applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model in Gaza and applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model in Gaza 2), I am having a sense of deja vu as I follow the recent events in Gaza. I am brought back to the state of psychic shock that I found myself in early 2009 as the short-lived Tamil nation of Elam came to its crushing end. In this post, I will outline the history of the formation of the de-facto Tamil state.

The island of Sri Lanka gained independence from the British in 1948 with the majority Sinhalese taking the reins of a unitary state which incorporated ancestral Tamil areas in the North and the East. After decades of discrimination and futile non-violent resistance, some Tamils organized to take up arms to wage a violent struggle. Indeed, in 1972 Velupillai Prabhakaran and others formed the Tamil New Tigers (TNT). In 1976, the TNT became the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) under the leadership of Prabhakaran. In July 1983 the LTTE killed 13 Sri Lankan soldiers in an action in the Jaffna peninsula, and this led to race riots in Colombo in which hundreds of Tamils were killed and thousands more were displaced. This was the start of a full-fledged guerrilla war referred to as the “First Eelam War.”

In 1987 India brokered the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord and deployed peacekeeping troops in Northern Sri Lanka to enforce it. When the LTTE refused to disarm, a full-scale war between the LTTE and India. After incurring heavy losses, the Indian troops withdrew in 1990 and the Tigers took control of large sections of northern Sri Lanka, and the fighting resumed between them and Sri Lankan troops. This was the beginning of the “Second Eelam War” which ended in a truce in 1995, with the LTTE controlling one-third of all Sri Lankan territory and two-thirds of the island’s coastline.

The “Third Elam War” began with the breakdown of the short-lived truce in April 1995 and a brutal 6 year war ensued across the North and East of the island. It was during this war, that the United States declared that the LTTE was a terrorist organisation. This US declaration was made in 1997. It was followed a British declaration in 2001 and other nations then followed suit. This “third Elam war” ended in 2001 when a ceasefire was instituted through a Memorandum of Understanding which was formalized in the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement, made under the auspices of Norwegian mediation.

From 1984 onwards the LTTE set up a functioning government in the territory under their control. They ran a sophisticated administration comprising a judicial system, a civil police force, Human Rights organizations, health and education systems, a Bank, as well as radio and Television stations Periods of Sri Lankan military occupation not withstanding, this de-facto Tamil state was fully functional and was recognized by many global institutions; notably, the World Bank’s Sri Lanka representative made the following statement in 2005, ‘Given the fact that there is an officially recognized LTTE-controlled area, a kind of unofficial state, and since it is a party to the ceasefire agreement with the Government, the LTTE has the status of a legitimate stakeholder’. 

Note: This WordPress post was originally headed by the image of a Tamil Elam flag. I re-posted it on Facebook and was warned about posting offensive material and my re-post was blocked. In this context, it is important to understand that, the Tamil Elam flag (above) is different from the LTTE flag (the LTTE is a proscribed organization). For a detailed explanation please see Applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model in Gaza 4.

Images: https://naimnikmat.blogspot.com/2019/10/siapa-ltte-dan-mengapa-ltte-ni-tiba.html
https://koboiproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/78545-save_20191011_122638.jpg

The cronology presented above has been compiled from the following three articles:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-srilanka-war-timeline-sb-idUSTRE54F16620090518/
https://www.wionews.com/photos/a-timeline-to-tamil-tigers-37-year-marathon-struggle-against-lankan-army-for-separate-state-219592
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_Eelam#cite_note-sunday-42

https://academic.oup.com/isq/article/61/2/337/3078982?login=false

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01436590600850434

https://www.tamilguardian.com/content/tamil-eelam-flags-fly-high-canada-and-uk

Applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model in Gaza 2

~ The Koboi Project

So what is the Sri Lanka model of Genocide that is indexed in the title of this series of posts? According to Dr. Jude Lal Fernando, a renowned Sinhala peace activist, and scholar, the Sri Lankan Army’s overwhelming and merciless approach to destroying the Tamil Tiger (LTTE) insurgency, in which massive numbers of civilians were massacred in a manner that has been determined to be Genocide by Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal, has become a recognized counterinsurgency strategy. An article in the Hindu Students Council of North America states that according to UN reports, between 40,000 and 70,000 Tamil civilians were killed in the first five months of 2009 and that World Bank population data indicates that over 100,000 Tamils remain unaccounted for from these final months of the counterinsurgency. In July 2016, Dr Fernando suggested that this counter-insurgency model has been applied against resistance in Turkey, Israel, and Columbia. While DR. Fernando does not cite sources for this terminology, I find his lexicon meaningful. In my own reframing of this terminology, I mark the the disproportional of the killing of civilians, and posit that this is a strong indication that this killing was not simply a collateral consequence of the counterinsurgency, but an integral part of its objective. In short, Tamil civilians were not distinguished from LTTE cadre deliberately. In light of what is happening in Gaza today, there is no doubt that Israel continues to apply this model, only in the ongoing assault on Gaza, there is the added dimension of stated genocidal intent.

See Applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model in Gaza

See also the series of posts begining with On Being a Malaysian Tamil 1

Image: https://www.hindustudentscouncil.org/2022/remembering-the-mullivaikkal-massacre-in-sri-lanka/

https://www.ptsrilanka.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/ppt_final_report_web_en.pdf

https://hrdag.org/srilanka/

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/frances-harrison/one-hundred-thousand-peop_b_2306136.html

Applying the Sri Lanka Genocide Model in Gaza

~ The Koboi Project

I am a Malaysian who was born in Jaffna and although I identify unequivocally as a Malaysian, I recognize the Tamil struggle for justice and self-determination in their ancestral lands in the north and the east of the Island of Sri Lanka. After decades of non-violent struggle for justice was met with intransigence by the Sinhalese hegemons of the Sri Lankan state, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) emerged to wage an armed struggle for an independent Tamil state. Through a brutal conflict that ensued, the LTTE succeeded in setting up a defacto Tamil state. I have observed this violent Elam struggle which has involved terror and counterterror, from afar. I have felt its pain vicariously, through my mother’s responses to the experiences of her family. The LTTE reign ended in 2009 when their organization was completely destroyed by the Sri Lankan Army (SLA). In the crushing final battle of this War, it is estimated that between 20,000 and 100,000 Tamil civilians were massacred with impunity by the Sri Lankan Army. As I have followed the ongoing Israeli massacre of Palestinians in Gaza, I have been reminded of the genocide of the Tamil people by the Sri Lankan state.

See also the series of posts begining with On Being a Malaysian Tamil 1

Image https://thediplomat.com/2020/05/post-war-sri-lanka-fractured-and-unjust-for-tamils/

https://www.ptsrilanka.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/ppt_final_report_web_en.pdf

Remembrance Day Will Never Be the Same Again

~ The Koboi Project

When I wrote my reflection on the recent Remembrance Day controversy in the UK, I began by confessing that I have never worn the commemorative poppy. I have, however, always doubted my disavowal of this symbol and wondered if my rejection was, regardless of its genuine pacifism, ultimately disrespectful to those who had sacrificed their lives for their country. I am truly relieved to find Joe Glenton, a British veteran expressing views that are consonant with my own less experienced ruminations. Glenton underscores his withering criticism of both the fascistic posturings of the contemporary British establishment and the inherent hypocrisy of the celebration. He quotes Harry Patch who was the last survivor of the trenches of the First World War, “War is a calculated and a condoned slaughter of human beings. War has no use to anyone” and further, that “remembrance was nothing more than show  business.” For anyone new to this insight who is open to its heartfelt pacificism, Remembrance Day will never be the same again. 

Image: modified from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMw15R_eR9I&ab_channel=DoubleDownNews

Ethnic Cleansing by Expulsion or Extermination

~ The Koboi Project

“Our right to defend ourselves from extermination does not give us the right to oppress others. Occupation leads to foreign rule. Foreign rule leads to resistance. Resistance leads to repression. Repression leads to terror and counter-terror. The victims of terror are mostly innocent people. Holding on to the occupied territories will turn us into a nation of murderers and murder victims. We must leave the occupied territories immediately.”

This intervention in the form of an advertisement first appeared in the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz in 1967. It was inserted and signed by 12 members of Matzpen which was an organization consisting of Jewish and Arab activists who were committed to a socialist revolution in Israel, opposed to Zionism, and champions of Palestinian rights. Sadly, it’s warning about the escalatory causal mechanics of the Zionist/ Palestinian conflict seems prophetic in light of the horrific events of October 7th and what has ensued.

In the video below Moshé Machover, the document’s only surviving signatory explains that it was not a moral statement but a definition of a process. He says,

” … It is inherent in this process that it escalates because the victims of oppression resist and the perpetrator of oppression, the colonizer, can only find one way of dealing with this resistance and that is to increase the repression. Increased repression creates more resistance, escalates more resistance, and this is a dynamic process … it escalates…”

This escalatory process has led to what is happening in Gaza today, to what Machover describes in another interview as ethnic cleansing by expulsion or extermination.

Image: https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/ethnic-cleansing-in-the-current-conflict/

https://matzpen.org/english/about-matzpen/?mc_cid=c0f61aa411&mc_eid=c19c9f61fe

From the River to the Sea 2

~ The Koboi Project

” a) The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and is linked with the right to security and peace; therefore, Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.”

This is the first tenet of the Nethanhayu’s Likud Party’s original Platform statement of 1977. Any claim by Zionists that From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free is a call to genocide is disingenuous and obfuscatory. In 1942, European and American Zionist’s set forth the seminal Biltmore Conference Declaration which laid claim to the whole of the British Mandatory Palestine for their new settler colonial state –

“8. … The Conference urges that the gates of Palestine be opened; that the Jewish Agency be vested with control of immigration into Palestine and with the necessary authority for upbuilding the country, including the development of its unoccupied and uncultivated lands; and that Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth integrated in the structure of the new democratic world.“

Indeed, it is the Zionist version of From the River (the Jordan) to the Sea, that is founded on acts of ethnic cleansing, starting with the Nkabah of 1948 and continuing on through the last 75 years by way of sustained apartheid oppression, relentless settlement activity, crushing military rule, and murderous wars on civilian populations. It is Israel, that is an exclusive and exclusionary ethnocracy. Before the imposition of this Jewish state upon its territory, Palestine was a multiethnic, multireligious land of Arabs, both Christians and Muslims, Bedouins and Jews. There is nothing to suggest that either contemporary Palestinian national aspirations or the slogan uttered in this cause, is genocidal or hateful in any way. It is not a call for ridding the land of Jews. From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free should be understood in the context of the above declaration and the second tenet of the Likud Party Platform which explicitly refuses the establishment of a Palestinian State anywhere on this land.-

” b) A plan which relinquishes parts of western Eretz Israel, undermines our right to the country, unavoidably leads to the establishment of a “Palestinian State,” jeopardizes the security of the Jewish population, endangers the existence of the State of Israel. and frustrates any prospect of peace.“

While it must be acknowledged that a liberation slogan can mean different things to different people, From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free, when interpreted in its proper historical context, is simply a cry for freedom, across all the land, for all the people.

See also From the River to the Sea

Image: https://sd.keepcalms.com/i/from-the-river-to-the-sea-palestine-will-be-free-1.png

https://www.palquest.org/en/historictext/6723/biltmore-conference-declaration

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/original-party-platform-of-the-likud-party

Ceasefire Now!

~ The Koboi Project

Come on Justin,
nearly there son.
CEASEFIRE NOW!

Macron said it,
you can say it.
CEASEFIRE NOW!

Too late for some,
but not for others.
CEASEFIRE NOW!

Babies crying,
Babies dying.
CEASEFIRE NOW!

Come on Justin,
where’s your conscience.
CEASEFIRE NOW!

Just two words,
to stop the killing.
CEASEFIRE NOW!

You dont want no
part in war crimes
CEASEFIRE NOW!

Come on Justin,
you can say it.
CEASEFIRE NOW!


https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/13/headlines/french_president_emmanuel_macron_says_its_time_for_ceasefire_in_gaza

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/canadian-lawyers-warn-justin-trudeau-they-will-seek-genocide-prosecution

Mahathir’s Heuristics

~ The Koboi Project

Mahathir Mohamed, unquestionably Malaysia’s most successful politician and impactful leader, is still in the game at the ripe old age of 98. He is a strident anti-imperialist and an unapologetic ethnocentric nationalist who, in his heyday, was loved by Malaysians of all races. In fact, he is lauded in the Arab world and all across Asia for his outspokenness and statesmanship in championing regional causes. Equally, he has been despised and derided by all Malaysian communities, Malays included. He is not well-liked in the West and is even seen as an exemplary antisemite.

In a recent engaging and wide-ranging interview on episode 65 the Keluar Sekejap podcast, Mahathir showed that he has lost neither charm and charisma, nor his wile and guile. I learnt many things about the man in watching this episode attentively, but the most salient insight was into his political means. Mahathir is a man of many generalizations, essentialisms and simplifications. Key giveaways about his underlying approach are found in these ideas exposed in the interview-
1) Successful Malays are the exception proves the rule (12:22)
2) We have to characterize the Jews, not by the just minority, but in terms of the majority, who unquestioningly support Israel (1:58:36).

Indeed, his is a heuristic approach – a method of reasoning, problem-solving, and decision-making based on approximation. As evidenced by his career highlights and pitfalls, it is a method that can be efficient and effective, but that can also be prone to error, bias, and failure. Here is a list of what I suggest are Mahathir’s primary heuristics, each of which is presented along with some associated secondary generalizations –
1. Malays are Lazy (Non-Malays are industrious)
2. Non-Malays are Immigrants (Non-Malays don’t want to Assimilate, There is a communal zero-sum game, and The Malays are in danger of losing primacy on their Tanah Melayu)
3 The West is Imperialist (Malaysia should look East, China is not necessarily a threat)
4. Jews Rule the World (Jews are Zionists, )
5. Mahathir is always right (Anwar is unsuitable, Najib is unconscionable, Badawi is incapable, Mahathir does no wrong)

This is not a Religious Conflict

~ The Koboi Project

This is the Palestinian flag used in 1938 during the revolt against the British Mandate. As evident in the design, Christians and Muslims were represented equally in this movement. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), formed in 1964, was also very much a secular resistance movement and remains so to this day. It was only after the Iranian revolution in the 1980s, that Islamic groups like Hezbollah, and Hamas began to take the lead in the Palestinian resistance. Even today Christian Palestinians identify with their fellow Muslim Palestinians in the struggle against occupation. Framing the struggle in religious terms, as a struggle between Jews and Muslims is at best a misunderstanding, and at worst, it serves to divide Palestinian identity, rendering Palestinians more vulnerable to Israeli subjugation.

Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_flags

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/tricontinental-revolution/plo-and-the-limits-of-secular-revolution-19751982/8C0DC0B35609FF5F646B5B3037F262F1

https://www.deseret.com/faith/2021/5/20/22442290/dont-forget-palestinian-christians-israel-palestine-conflict-escalation-protests-bethlehem-jerusalem