Patriotic Sri Lankans gather at Global Sri Lankan Forum Inaugural meeting in Toronto

Onlanka News – By Janaka Alahapperuma

The Patriotic Sri Lankans gathered at Radisson Hotel at Toronto on 25^th of May for the inaugural meeting of Global Sri Lankan Forum. The meeting hall was decorated with Sri Lankan and Canadian flags all over the room, which expressed the true nationalist and patriotic sprit of the Forum.

In the welcome speech, Lenin Benedict said we have Sinha flags all over the place and we have Weerasinghe beside us to lead our forum, which was acknowledge by thundering applause by the audience as the Chief guest and the Co founder, Mr. Asoka Weerasinghe took over the stage to give his speech. The text below is the speech by Mr.Asoka Weerasinghe.

Friends of Sri Lanka, foremost I want to thank all of you for having accepted our invitation to join us this afternoon.

The text of the invitation was very clear…we wanted the like minded people who believed in a united Sri Lanka as one sovereign nation to get together to speak with one voice to hold back, to destroy, to nip in the bud all the corrosive forces within Canada who have been gathering like a storm cloud to break up Sri Lanka, to conduct a campaign of humbug to destroy the unitary state of Sri Lanka and establish another state within the sovereign Sri Lanka called ‘Eelam’.

I have made an observation that this Eelam sympathizers of Sri Lankan origin have grouped together as the Global Tamil Forum, as the Trans National Government of Tamil Eelam, as the National Council of Canadian Tamils and the Canadian Tamil Congress just to do that.  And that they have used their votes as the bait to hoodwink some Canadian politicians like Jim Karygiannis, Maria Minna, Bob Rae, Judy Sgro, Derek Lee, John McKay, Jack Layton, Patrick Brown, you name it as we all know the culprits, to support their destructive cause to provide oxygen to sustain the elusive dream of the separatist Tamils of their mythical Eelam.

But let me be absolutely clear, that Eelam has no place in Sri Lanka.  After 30 years of warring just to establish a mono-ethnic racist, Tamil state Eelam, we cannot afford another 30 years of warring and hemorrhage Sri Lanka some more and witness another 100,000 innocent people die, and watch a whole generation of Tamil youth, all under 14 years of age who will be forced to fight an adult war and get wiped out killed by bullets, while the children of the Tamil Diaspora who are seeking an Eelam  are kept away from the Sri Lankan killing fields and brought up in Canada in luxury.  All this is a No, No.

Let us at the Global Sri Lankan Forum announce to the Eelam sympathizers in Canada today, that there will be no room for separatism or terrorism in our Motherland.  And in the memory of the war heroes who gave their lives and those who are lucky enough to be alive, who gave back that island to their peoples, Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslims, Burghers and all other minority groups that we will support the government that has accepted the responsibility to protect and safeguard it  and its peace loving peoples and its proud freedom that they reclaimed from the  ‘Made in India’ Tamil Tiger terrorists and who were nourished by foreign countries like Norway, Britain and Canada.

Friends, today we are giving notice to all these separatist Tamils and their organizations and their parliamentary friends in Canada that we will oppose them, every inch of the way, which ever way they want to break up Sri Lanka, the island that nurtured them, fed them, gave them a free education and every opportunity to get on with their lives as good children of Mother Lanka.  But that we at the Global Sri Lankan Forum will not betray our Mother Lanka, who fed us, who educated us without letting our parents pay a single cent for it, and nurtured us during our formative years, that we will stand by her, and we shall stand tall for her and sing in unison – “O! Sri Lanka, we will stand on guard for thee.”

What should be clear in our minds is that the 30 year old Eelam war did not end on the shores of the Nandikathal lagoon on 18 May 2009, but the next phase of the Eelam war started there on that same day the moment their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was shot dead.  The battle grounds have been shifted from Sri Lanka to abroad and Canada has been turned into an Eelam satellite battle ground.

This is where you and I have a role to play.  We should get back to the Canadian trenches as we did since July 1983, and accept the challenge whether there is intimidation or no intimidation by the Eelam sympathizers.   We should get back to the Canadian trenches as we did since 25^th of July 1983 until the 19^th of May 2009, when the brave Sri Lankan forces wiped out the Tamil Tigers and accept the challenges of the Eelam sympathizers.  You bet, I will and that is why I gave my commitment to the two great patriots, Lenin Benedict, a Tamil, and Daya Hettiarachchi, a Sinhalese, who approached me with their vision to regroup as the Global Sri Lankan Forum to combat specifically the Global Tamil Forum and the Trans National Government of Tamil Eelam and the Canadian Tamil Congress.

And let me be absolutely clear that the Global Sri Lankan Forum will in no way displace the other established groups like SLUNA  which Mahinda Gunasekera is heading and ‘Project  Peace for a United Sri Lanka’ which Asoka Yapa has been heading and I am a member of both groups and I will continue to be a member of both these groups and will be a spokesperson when ever they want me to,  and we shall cooperate with them and request them to reciprocate our willingness to work with them to blunt  and destroy the humbug of the new Tamil organizations like the Global Tamil Forum, the Trans National Government of Tamil Eelam and the Canadian Tamil Congress.  That will be the main role of the Global Sri Lanka Forum and nothing else.  And it will not walk on the toes of SLUNA and ‘Project Peace’ as they have a global view of the separatists issue taking on the International communities, organizations, politicians, and INGOs and interact with the patriots in Sri Lanka, et cetera.

The difficulty that I have is to figure out what these separatist Eelamists are thinking, when the Tamils who have stayed back in Sri Lanka want to live in harmony with the majority Sinhalese and live in peace with the other ethnic communities and these separatist Tamils domiciled in Canada who very likely will not return to Sri Lanka to live there want to destroy the intention of the ethnic communities who want to live together in harmony back in Sri Lanka.  What is this Canadian Tamil Eelamist fools thinking?

The difficulty that I have is to figure out what these Tamil Tiger sympathizers of the Global Tamil Forum, the Canadian Tamil Congress, the Trans National Government of Tamil Eelam are thinking when people like  ‘KP’ Kumaran Pathnanathan  the former arms procurer for the Tamil Tigers, now under custody of the Sri Lankan authorities along with nine other senior Tamil Tigers abroad has agreed to cooperate with the Sri Lankan government to rehabilitate the nearly 300,000 war-displaced Tamil civilians and help in the reconstruction of the war-ravaged northern province to give back the lives that were taken away from these people for 30 long years by the Tamil Tigers.  They have come out and said that their change of heart was because they had  ‘now begun to understand the ground realities’ and the Eelam has no place in Sri Lanka now or ever.

I have difficulty to understand these corrosive Tamil separatist groups in Canada who want to break up Sri Lanka when it is clear that they cannot and will not set up a separate state Eelam in Sri Lanka without the support of the Tamil people living there.  They detest the Tamil Tigers for having destroyed them and their lives and that they want to re-build and get on with their lives and live peacefully in harmony with rest of the ethnic groups.  What the heck are these separatist Canadian- Tamils thinking?   They are in their own little dream world.  All what I say to them is, dream on you fools, but you will never, ever get your Eelam as the Tamils living in Sri Lanka do not want it, and it is that simple.

And I tell to them that we at Global Sri Lanka Forum will tell you loud and clearly that there is no room for an Eelam in Sri Lanka and there is no room for terrorism again in Sri Lanka.

So in conclusion, let me request all of you to rally around these two men of vision, two brave patriots – Lenin Benedict and Daya Hettiarachchi, who have decided to take on the Global Tamil Forum, the Trans National Government of Eelam and the Canadian Tamil Congress, as the Global Sri Lankan Forum, as I have.

But let me also point out to you, that the Global Sri Lankan Forum will only be effective as a multi-ethnic force, so I call upon all my brothers and sisters of all ethnic groups, Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslims, Burghers and all others to get together as we owe it to our motherland, Sri Lanka, and tell her – O! Sri Lanka, we will stand tall on guard for thee.”

So please accept your place in the Steering Committee when invited, which in my thinking should be Toronto based, as the activities to break up Sri Lanka is really Greater Toronto Area centric and you all, I know feel their corrosive pulse and their intrigue.   Perhaps, I am wrong.  But I will let you all brain storm and come up with what is best for our Mother Lanka, as she needs our help right now.

And remember, all our actions will have to be within the norms of the Canadian law, of the great country that we have adopted as our home.

Thank you my friends and bless you for joining us this afternoon and accepting our invitation.

The Co founder, Mr.K.V.I.Yasothara, a former member of the North Provincial Council, on his maiden speech, said this is a unique opportunity for all Srilankans to come to gather as a community to reconcile and rejoin together as one. He said, we must make use of this opportunity to bring all our people whatever community they belong in order to develop our country. As a Sri Lankan we should be proud to elect the first female Prime Minister in the world as a modern democracy than the west.. We also owe our country for the free education and health care provided to us being so called a third world country.  Poor visions of the past leadership were responsible for the last 35 years of communal division in Sri Lanka. The present leadership of the country has a clear and right vision to unite the country and our people, and so it’s our duty to support. The leadership has kept its mandate fulfilled by defeating Terrorism and brought peace and democracy to all Srilankans. We are the only one country and the first in the world to defeat Terrorism and to fight against the world ruthless terrorist in the world. Every Sri Lankan needs to be committed and cooperative with every Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim, Burger and Malay to promote the peace, rightness, non-violence with our community in Sri Lankan and in the Diasporas. “Ill informed and divided society never archives anything”. So we need to educate our youths towards the social harmony, culture and our tradition of Sri Lanka outside the country.

On the closing speech, Lenin Benedict also a co founder of the Global Srilankan Forum, explained the necessary why such a Forum is started, when there was few other Srilankan Diasporas still existed. He mentioned the real need of the hour is to bring all the Srilankan Diasporas under one umbrella, to defeat the false propaganda of the Terrorist Diasporas around the Globe. He stressed the need for the unity among all the existing Srilankan Diasporas to defeat the Global Tamil Forum and Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam, which has the backing of some foreign powers and has huge monetary resources. He said the ego of these foreign powers is how come a small tiny Asian island can defeat and wipeout Terrorism in its soil when these powerful nations could not do it with their mighty military muscle. He quoted it was only possible by a strong political leadership of the country that paved a way to crush Terrorism. He also emphasized the coordination and unity between the Srilankan Diasporas throughout the world, which he admitted that we lacked those things and are far behind the Terrorist Diasporas. He quoted some of the events organized by Terrorist Diasporas have a uniformity throughout the world such as Hero’s Day celebration, Ponghu Tamil and their other remembrances day. If we are a divided house, we may loose the political battle to the Terrorist Diasporas abroad he said. If we want to defeat the false propaganda of the separatist, we have to educate not only the local community we live in but to educate our own younger generation to counter the false propaganda of this terrorist effectively he mentioned.

He said the recent announcement for an advisory committee by United Nations, was not opposed by the Srilankan Diasporas in any manner, which was welcomed by the Terrorist Diaspora overwhelmly. In the same manner, when some actors of the Indian cinema avoided Indian Film Festival at Colombo, the Canadian Tamil Congress congratulated them. But the Sri Lankan Diaspora, fail to honor those who attended, especially actors like Vivek Oberai, Salman Khan.

Some say, we have to be loyal to the country we adopt, but one cannot be loyal to the country he live, if he is not loyal to the country he is born, Lenin Benedict said. It’s the duty of every Srilankan to safe guard the unity and territorial integrity of Srilanka and everyone should be proud to be a Srilankan. Once we get our foreign citizenship, we forget the country we were born and raised. A mother is always a mother and an aunty can never take the place of a mother likewise, the country we were born cannot be replaced by any other country we choose to live he quoted. He requested the gathering to support and stand together along with Global Srilankan Forum to achieve the goal of the forum for a United Sri Lanka.

Mr. Asoka Weerasinghe read the wishing messages sent by Hela Abhimana Foundation-Germany president and Global Sri Lankan Forum- European Union representative

Dr. Edward Perera, Global Sri Lankan Forum –France by Mr.Saman Mannapperuma, British Sri Lankan Forum- United Kingdom by Mr.Janaka Alahapperuma and President of Sri Lankan Diaspora-Switzerland Mrs.K.C.Udugampola.

The Global Sri Lankan Forum announced four executive member committee, as Mr.Asoka Weerasinghe as Director of International relations and Spokesman, Mr. Lenin Benedict, Mrs. Shanthi Satharasinghe, Mr.K.V.I.Yasothara.and Dr.Edward Perera.

The meeting ended with the National Anthem.