Morning Brew: Street Food, Songbirds and Blue Jays

"I've been loving the protests..."

Wow. Just... wow.

No probably 100% The lesson here is to give into whatever mob has the biggest display or force, society rules, or "laws" be damned.

I wonder how many hostages wouldn't have been killed if terrorists were just given their randoms.

I wonder how much domestic violence could have been averted if more women just did what was expected of them.

Right Joshua?

More Tamil protests coming? Piggly-wiggly approves!

I don't think it's "giv(ing) into" demands when the group is trying to stop violence. The protests were incredibly well organized and executed and kept a bloody civil war taking place far away in the news. Unfortunately, Canadian or American officials didn't seem to do much to try to stop the violence in Sri Lanka.

How many protests for causes go unnoticed in this city because they don't have that many people organized, are confined to an area that doesn't make the news or otherwise fizzle as soon as the demonstration is over? I may not be as active about the plight of Sri Lankans as I would be other causes, but, overall, I applaud the efforts to rally support and bring attention to a horrible situation.

The only useful thing Canada could have done was assisting the Sri Lankan government in eliminating the LTTE the same way they are doing with the Taliban in Afghanistan. My guess is we could have done it with less civilian casualties.

Still for now it seems like the people that started this war are gone.

I do not agree with your statement:
"The only useful thing Canada could have done was assisting the Sri Lankan government in eliminating the LTTE the same way they are doing with the Taliban in Afghanistan."

These countries have to sort out thier own problems before we come in and start throwing money around.

People/groups have scores to settle.

Now that its over, hopefully they can move on.

I think we actually agree.

My statement was meant to show that we can't do anything useful. I probably failed to illustrate that. I suck.

We could have easily helped stop the violence in Sri Lanka. Rigourous, pervasive investigations of the finances of all peple transferring money to Sri Lanka, all people with ties to Sri Lanka, and the most aggressive investigation of anyone who seemed to come close to violating the laws against material support of terrorism would have done wonders.

But the LTTE has infiltrated and bought off the Liberal Party and most relevant municipal politicians. So much fun living in a terrorist controlled state. Toronto belongs to Hamas, Babar Khalsa, and the LTTE.

Get a grip buddy.

True, a lot of the protesters were Tiger supporters. But there were just as much (and if not more) who were simply protesting against the humanitarian situation there. A lot of these people started protesting because people were being killed not in the hundreds, but in the thousands.

On a note of sarcasm, I love how people fail to distinguish between Tamils who support the Tigers, and those who don't; those who attended the more out of control protests and those who didn't. It's what the Government has been trying to do for all these years: Label all Tamils as LTTE supporters, and thus terrorists, and making their killing right.

The instant you start labeling all Tamils as terrorists, you are doing what is essentially the same as labeling all Afgans as terrorists for the actions of the Taliban.

As for the Tamils starting the war, perhaps people should read into the history of the conflict before taking such a hard political stance. This conflict arose as a result of discrimination and reduction of rights for the Tamils. It began roughly in 1943. Tamils protested against these restrictions, they lobbied politicians, all things that normal people would do in a diplomatic society. However, the restrictions of rights continued.

Where a Sinhalese person could get into university with a lower mark, for the Tamil to get the position, they would have to score much higher. Slowly other rights were taken away including fishing and cultivating rights.

This lead to the formation of a few small armed movements aimed at taking a harder stance against the government to change its oppression. In 1983, fueled by the murder of three government soldiers, the Sinhalese went on a riot killing thousands of innocent Tamils, none of which were affiliated with the LTTE who had done the killings.

The Government took no action, and for a time even denied it ever happened. Now with a situation like this, who will the Tamils side with? The government who has allowed the killing of innocent people for the wrong doings of another group? Nope... they took the side of the group who had claimed to be the sole representatives of the Tamil people.

Both sides have their hands dirty in this conflict. The recent end to the "War" will now only lead to an increase in "Terror" unless the government makes action towards resolving the differences of the past, and allowing Tamils to have equal rights.

There is propaganda from both sides, and with the lack of free media in the region, unfortunately people are either heavily biased to one side or another; Including people who are just now learning about the situation.

Tamil people (the moderates at least) are asking the international community for the following:
* Free access to international media
* Free access to humanitarian organizations
* A UN investigation into human rights violations conducted during the war

Now please tell me those are things that Canada cannot ask. The US has asked for it. The EU has asked for it. Australia has asked for it.

Here is a quote from the Times Online:

"“The EU calls for the alleged violations of these laws to be investigated through an independent inquiry. Those accountable must be brought to justice.”

The UN says that 7,000 civilians were killed in the fighting between January and May 7. Health officials in the area said that more than a 1,000 others were killed since then."

Now the result of this call by the EU?

The victory also prompted angry demonstrations against Britain, which has voiced concern at the plight of civilians during the last stages of the war. More than a thousand Sri Lankans protested outside the British Embassy in Colombo, pelting it with rocks and eggs and burning an effigy of David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, and throwing it inside the compound.

S. S. Moulana, 40, an anti-British protestor, told The Times: “The UK has pretended to be our friend, but it helps the LTTE [the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam] terrorists by asking for the UN to take action against Sri Lanka.

“We now know our real friends are Russia and China. And they are members of the Security Council so we don’t need the help of the West.”


Somewhat disturbing isn't it....

Again, both sides have their hands dirty in this conflict. It is time for the cooler moderate heads to prevail, and to save the innocent lives of (currently) the Tamils, and in the future (unless this conflict is resolved) all Sri Lankans.

For more information, and hopefully a more level headed (hopefully) view of the protests:
http://tamilprotests.ca

Good to see the LTTE Propaganda/spam machine is hard at work. Don't forget to copy/paste & post to every other blog on the sphere. Oh crap, you already did that! Carry on.

Please see Diane's post. You might throw some feel-good stuff in your post but it reads to me as extremely skewed. Copy/paste & post on multiple blogs/news wires, alongside an extremely skewed history lesson will obviously have some people conclude you're spreading propaganda. You can count me in that camp.

If fingers keep getting pointed either way (as you do in your history lesson, which only gives one side of the story) then maybe each side will be more susceptible to reach an accord.

Discussion of the issue is obviously needed, but let's not purposely leave out the LTTE's ethnic cleansing of muslims or Eelam War IV in which the LTTE "closed the sluice gates of the Mavil Aru reservoir and cut the water supply to 15,000 villages in government controlled areas"

Anyways. I feel the Tamil community themselves have spoken on this issue, with at most 15% of the Tamil population of Toronto actually attending these protests.

In terms of the copy and pasting, I have posted what I have typed on BlogTO, and Torontoist. There was a similar debate going on there, and I realized that many of the points I typed still apply to that discussion. Anywhere else that you may see what I wrote was not typed by myself and I am actually unaware of anywhere else that someone has copied and pasted what I wrote.

I would have to agree that you do make a valid point regarding my bias. It occurs because I am Tamil, and naturally I would like to point out the side of the issue that many shun or tend to throw out the window. I do point out the reasons for the Tamil's side of this conflict in my original post. I would not argue with Diane's post either, as it too points out valid things from the other side.

The war is essentially "done". But there are many amends that need to be made. There are still many civilians in the internment camps without adequate food, water, shelter, and medical supplies.

Unfortunately, unless the government starts to improve these situations, the resentment among Tamils will only grow and already high tensions will simply increase.

The issue is that the LTTE was not created out of thin air. It was created due to a situation that polarized people. Even if the LTTE is militarily destroyed, there is still fear that they will now resort to their more conventional terrorist tactics. It is quite an unfortunate situation.

Unless the government starts to open up and do things like allowing free access to media and humanitarian aid, it is highly likely that they will do nothing more than foster another generation of violence.

In my personal opinion, unless they are trying to hide something, what problem is there in allowing free access to independent humanitarian aid and the media?

Just my two cents as a Tamil.