Demonstrating for the same reason – to save Tamil civilians

Author: Rover

It was a cold and windy day, in Washington DC on the 20th of February 2009, when I walked over with a couple of other folks down the streets, we walked down Pennsylvania avenue (where we parked our car) and turned onto 15 th street. On my right, I could see the White House, and far away the majestic Washington monument, the worlds tallest obelisk built to commemorate the first US president George Washington. My destination was between these two imposing structures – the Ellipse, an open park fringed with trees where the National Christmas Tree is located, and during the American Civil War where the union troops camped, but more importantly for my story, where we were about to counter-demonstrate against a ruthless terrorist organization, the LTTE.

I was reminiscencing – how could an internationally proscribed terrorist organization be allowed to demonstrate freely in the middle of the epitome of US governance. Was this a dream? Perhaps it won’t be the LTTE, it probably will be just Tamil people, concerned about the plight of the entrapped civilians, wanting to demonstrate against the LTTE to save the Tamils. This I knew was just wishful thinking, and in a corner of my heart I knew that it would be mostly the LTTE.

When I arrived at the Ellipse, it was divided by a broad fence into two halves, the Sri Lankan half and the “Tamil” half ((I use citation marks for a specific reason as you will see later), mounted police were actively keeping an eye for trouble makers; already a large group of "Tamil" supporters had gathered, and already I could hear their slogans through their loudspeakers. They had also got the prime spot, right in front of the State Building next to the White House. Predominantly Canadian and US flags were being waved about. No sign of LTTE flags. But the heat was on.

I watched a group Sri Lankans getting ready for the counter demonstration. I heard someone asking around… “do we have access to a loudspeaker?”; “no not yet, we’ll soon find one” came the answer – we were not that well prepared, at least on the loudspeaker front. Another man was preparing banners. One elderly gentleman had put in a lot of effort and had made a lot of banners; he must have taken at least a day preparing those. And they had some profound slogans. Even some of the ones we discussed on this blog! Another group had prepared the flags, Sri Lankan and the US flags – they were given around. We were ready to go!

A couple of Sri Lankans who obviously had no prior ability to run a demonstration started to lead the chanting. It was a feeble effort, rather depressing. These were probably gentle folk who worked in the nearby offices who were compelled to attend the demonstration in support of our country. Mercifully, soon a group of Sri Lankan youngsters with some spunk and with a little bit of cheer-leading abilities took over, and the chanting took a turn to better. One girl stood out from the rest. She had a high pitched voice, and it pierced all corners of the Ellipse. I started liking this. But still they were not really used to doing this sort of thing, it was obvious. Why should we be? Sri Lankans have better things to do than going all over US, demonstrating and being a public menace; we are not on welfare. In fact many people with Sri Lankan roots missed the demonstration because it was a working day, a Friday.

In contrast, the "Tamil" demonstrators were very good at chanting, they were professionals, I was told (and felt) that the same group attends all the LTTE instigated demonstration in N. America. Apparently around 40 buses had arrived, mostly from Canada, where most of the LTTE supporting idle Tamils who are on welfare live – a good population for the LTTE to exploit.

Curiously, I soon realized that both the Sri Lankans and their opposition were chanting to save the civilians! At least this was one of the major reasons. Why were we then chanting as different groups if we were demanding the same thing?! Perhaps there were no LTTE supporters here? My hope was soon shattered when LTTE flags were suddenly raised; there were 6 of them, and banners of Prabhakaran (wow!), the LTTE leader. So this crowd comprised of LTTE supporters, wanting to save the Terrorists who were entrapped by the Sri Lanka Defense Forces and not really the civilians.

Let me be clear. LTTE is holding Tamil civilians as a human shield, and would not let them go their way despite the Sri Lankan government providing a no-fire zone and safe passage. There was even a two day ceasefire to facilitate the safe movement of civilians, at a great cost to the army. But still, the LTTE didn't let the civilians go. LTTE was admonished severely by the UN for obstructing civilian passage. So it is now well known that LTTE wants to keep the civilians trapped for to further propagate their terrorist activities. So the guys demonstrating here wanted to save the LTTE instead of the entrapped civilians. Government's main goal on the other hand was to crush the LTTE militarily and save the civilians, both in short and long term.

By seeing the Terrorist flags, right in the middle of the US, I was disappointed. How could LTTE terrorists raise their flag in front of the epitome of US democracy? When the US government, itself plagued by the activities of terrorists, had given permission for the “Tamils” to demonstrate, how did the LTTE hijack this? Or were the LTTE terrorists given permission to demonstrate here? How could a proscribed terrorist group loaf around freely and chant against a democracy that is fighting the terrorists? Would anyone have allowed Al-Queda, shinning-path or Hamas activists to demonstrate here? But soon several Sri Lankans called some influential people and the flag-bearers were asked to lower their Terrorist flags.

Another poignant event occurred. A white American had gone to the LTTE side to ask a few questions; to get at the truth. One of his questions had been “why are you demonstrating here, I was in Sri Lanka when LTTE bombs went off and many civilians were killed”. The LTTE supporters had not liked this question and had asked him to “go away!”; he had retorted “this is my country, you can’t ask me to go away!”; the LTTE guys had said “this is our country too!”. After this guy came running into our half and got a Sri Lankan flag and started waving it vigorously about and joined us in our demonstration. Well, he actually went beyond our allotted space into the LTTE half and displayed the Sri Lankan flag! This act was poignant for me as at that moment, Bruce Fein, another American, but who was more interested in materialistic gains rather than moral considerations, was at that very moment with the LTTE supporters, but mercifully I did not see or hear what he was doing.

It was bloody cold, as I said earlier, and it was time to go home, I had been here for almost five hours and was half frozen, time to find a coffee shop somewhere and back to work. I walked away from the Ellipse, cold and hungry, and quite disappointed to hear my country being denigrated by a ruthless terrorist group. The last chants I heard that drifted across the frigid ellipse were made by an LTTE vixen screaming “Sri Lankans are cowards, killing innocent children!” and "let us end this genocide!". Since then I have been wondering how a terrorist group, that terrorized civilians to get at a political goal for 30 years, killing more than 75,000 people in the process, was able to demonstrate to "save civilians", in the grand Ellipse to the right of the White House.