Tamil MA residents protest the Sri Lanka report that the SFRC issued

[karynnj]

Ethnic Tamils in Boston protested yesterday in front of Senator John F. Kerry’s office against a report that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee released earlier this month that calls for friendlier relations between the United States and Sri Lanka.

Six months after the Sri Lankan army defeated a Tamil rebel army that had controlled the northern part of the island for decades, many Boston-area Tamils complain that the Sri Lankan government is still keeping more than 100,000 Tamils in camps for internally displaced people and not allowing them to leave. (The Sri Lankan government has pledged to close the camps next month.)

<snip>
But two Senate Foreign Relations staffers who traveled to Sri Lanka in November say that the United States must improve its relations with the tiny island nation, which is crucial to protecting shipping lanes in the region.

The report recommends resuming military training for Sri Lankan officials, reinstating the Peace Corps, and giving humanitarian assistance to all areas of the country, not just to Tamil areas in the north.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/12/22/tamils_press_kerry_over_sri_lanka_report/
(heaven knows why the article has a photo of Obama getting a swine flu shot)

Here is a link to the report, from the wonderful new SFRC site - that took less than 10 seconds to find!
http://foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/SRI.pdf It is far more even handed than the Tamils seem to suggest and addresses many issues. There is more of a focus on addressing reconciliation, rather than calling for war crime tribunals. (Note that the protesters are ignoring what the Tamils did to the Tamil Muslims and to the fact that the Tigers eliminated many potential more moderate Tamil leaders.)

My daughter spent 4 months in Sri Lanka living with 2 wonderful families - a Sinhalese Bhuddist family and Tamil Muslim family in Puttalam. Her independent study was on the refugees in the IDP camps and those who assimilated into Puttalam itself. Then, as in the report, some told her of wanting to return to areas they left nearly 20 years ago. She is incredibly busy now, but I will send her the link to the report.

Back in the spring, Kerry issued a statement on Sri Lanka that I thought was very fair. The Tamil diaspora has funded the Tamil Tigers - like many Irish American funded the IRA. They have also acted as an effective advocacy group in the west for Tamil issues. Back in spring, I posted links to the statement and the reaction and tried as best as I could to explain the background. It was in a post dealing with Israel/Palestine as well as it was before the AIPAC speech. Within it, I had links to the statement and the reactions of the Sinhalese. Given that, I think that the current report is excellently balanced and helpful - and it will get flack from the Sinhalese as well as the Boston Tamils precisely because both sides are completely polarized and think that they are 100% right.

(My post - if you want to see the links)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=273&topic_id=157134#157136