Planting Pandas in the Land of Tigers?

(SALEM) - In its ever expanding world chess game, China is spending US$ 100 million (Rs. 13.2 billion) for army welfare projects initiated by the Sri Lankan Ministry of Defence, Colombo media reports.

I guess that the endless cases of journalists disappearing in white vans and tourists being raped and murdered in Sri Lanka have really put a damper on that aspect of the country's economy. It became so bad recently that travel warnings were issued to Europeans planning to visit Sri Lanka. So now Colombo will take Chinese communist blood money to make ends meet, that's just great.

Of course the loss of other economic advantages like GSP Plus (EU's generalised system of preferences) aren't helping with dollar flow, so now these two scandalous governments are going to up the ante and plant a communist military system in the area most people familiar with the Tamil Diaspora know as Tamil Eelam.

Sri Lanka allowing China to build a military base in the former Tamil Tiger stronghold... isn't that a little like Hitler subletting a Warsaw Ghetto apartment to Slobodan Milosevic?

The Chinese communist government has a long history of Human Rights abuse, and it not only backed the Khmer Rouge Genocide of millions of Cambodians, it also gave political refuge to a piece of garbage named Pol Pot who orchestrated the notorious death camps and killing fields. Cambodia has never recovered, thanks to this terrible history of the 1970's.

It was the military forces of Vietnam, after beating the U.S. in a protracted war, who marched into Cambodia and kicked the pants off of the Khmer Rouge and sent those they did not kill packing.

Then China attacked Vietnam in retaliation for stomping the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese communists embarrassingly defeated the Chinese Army which invaded Vietnam! Most Americans do not know this important history.

It took about forty years for Sri Lanka to assume that same position Pol Pot in Cambodia had taken, as a mad, Genocidal killer of its own citizens. The war crimes against the Tamils in the north of Sri Lanka between 2005 and 2009 (they didn't stop or end with those years, they are simply the bloodiest) were just as cruel or worse, as those in Cambodia. Sri Lanka President Majinda Rajapakse didn't kill as many as the Khmer Rouge animals, but they did manage to eradicate as many as 160,000 Tamil Hindus and Christians.

This announcement comes at a time when western nations and India are asking the government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) to ratchet down its military interests in the north and east and help establish a less dangerous country, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards at this stage in the game.

Sri Lanka already won its 30-year war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). It used war crimes and deception to carry out the highly illegal act of 'Total War' and did terrible things like allow the rape of female Tamil Tigers; murder of combatants with white flags, and tens of thousands of civilians who were told to enter 'safe zones' and then bombed and maimed to death.

Yet in spite of this terrible recent history lessons remain unlearned, it seems Sri Lanka is more determined than ever to amplify and even diversify its military presence.

China is paying US $1.5 million (Rs. 198 million) to 'modernize' the Defence Services College in Colombo for children of security forces personnel and the police. There are no allotted advantages for the Tamils, just the Sri Lankan Sinhalese Buddhist military which was used to slaughter them.

It was also announced that the GoSL has signed an agreement with China to buy six MA-60 aircraft at US$ 105.4 million (Rs. 13.8 billion), in a deal that is yet to be made public.

Sri Lanka is thumbing its nose at the world and rubbing salt in the wounds of its victims, who again, are also native to this island nation.

Tamils deserve equal rights and instead they get Chinese military bases in their occupied homeland.

A Chinese delegation will arrive on 15 September to visit Hambantota and the Northern and Eastern provinces.

They will also visit Chinese-funded ventures including road construction projects, and I hope they last longer than the shitty roads that the Chinese built in Kabul, Afghanistan, they hadn't made it a year before they began to fall apart.

Tim King has more than twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. Tim is Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. His background includes covering the war in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, and reporting from the Iraq war in 2008. Tim is a former U.S. Marine who follows stories of Marines and Marine Veterans; he's covered British Royal Marines and in Iraq, Tim embedded with the same unit he served with in the 1980's.

Tim holds awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing from traditional mainstream news agencies like The Associated Press and Electronic Media Association; he also holds awards from the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs; and was presented with a 'Good Neighbor Award' for his reporting, by the The Red Cross.

Tim's years as a Human Rights reporter have taken on many dimensions; he has rallied for a long list of cultures and populations and continues to every day, with a strong and direct concentration on the 2009 Genocide of Tamil Hindus and Christians in Sri Lanka. As a result of his long list of reports exposing war crimes against Tamil people, Tim was invited to be the keynote speaker at the FeTNA (Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America) Conference in Baltimore, in July 2012. This is the largest annual gathering of North American Tamils; Tim addressed more than 3000 people and was presented with a traditional Sri Lanka ‘blessed garland’ and a shawl as per the tradition and custom of Tamil Nadu

In a personal capacity, Tim has written 2,026 articles as of March 2012 for Salem-News.com since the new format designed. Serving readers with news from all over the globe, Tim's life is literally encircled by the endless news flow published by Salem-News.com, where more than 100 writers contribute stories from 23+ countries and regions.

Tim specializes in writing about political and military developments worldwide; and maintains that the label 'terrorist' is ill placed in many cases; specifically with the LTTE Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, where it was used as an excuse to slaughter people by the tense of thousands; and in Gaza, where a trapped population lives at the mercy of Israel's destructive military war crime grinder. At the center of all of this, Tim pays extremely close attention to the safety and welfare of journalists worldwide. You can write to Tim at this address: tim@salem-news.com. Visit Tim's Facebook page (facebook.com/TimKing.Reporter)

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Srivan August 29, 2012 12:30 pm (Pacific time)

Well said Tim. What you have said is what is well known. The decimation of Tamil civilians already started in 1983, if not from 1958, and continued unabated into 1994 and after a one year pause from 1995 to 2001 when the entire north and east was subjected to continuos aerial day and night bombardments and shelling. To be accurate the International Community sold arms and armaments worth tens of billions of $ to the government! Still the Tigers withstood and emerged only partly scathed while the military suffered a "defeat". Then came the 2002 to 2005 so-called Peace Process which resulted in both sides secretly arming themselves although there was no open warfare. The 2005 election brought the Rajapakse regime to power with the JVP on the basis of 'back to war' and they won handsomely. This time the war effort was supported by China, Russia, Pakistan and India too which sent ground support teams. The year 2009 saw the induction of WMDs including napalm, kerosene bombs, cluster bombs which were rained on to civilians and LTTE herded into so-called "safe zones" and the results were catastrophic in terms of human losses. Those who survived were also shot brutally if they were Tiger suspects. So were the Tiger leaders with white flags. The UNSG overflew the area the day after the massacre and described it the as the most apalling he had seen anywhere. After that silence from him until a Special Panel apppointed by him came forth with a most damaging report against the government on human rights and humanitarian rights of the fallen. What had taken place was far more brutal than what even the Khmer Rouge did in Cambodia to their own citizens.

The UNHRC is as you will be aware painfully dealing with the subject amidst blatant denials by that government which has a longsstandig record of abject lying on race and religious matters and seeks cover under "sovereignty" which belongs to the "people"! At the bottom of the issues are language, race and religion and impunity under cover of PTA to implement genocide against other races and religions led by intolerant monks and devious politicians.

The future seems so dim and unpredictable. China is filling the void at aiding and supporting genocide as it has done in Tibet!

Tim King: Thank you Srivan

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