The current offensive by the Sri Lankan government against thr Tamil Tiger or Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebel movement has trapped tens of thousands of refugees in a coastal strip still held by the rebels.
Sri Lanka’s military has been accused by human rights organizations of using massive firepower against the guerrillas that is resulting in civilian casualties. The comparison between Israel’s brutal attack on the Gaza Strip and its killing of over 1,000 civilians and the wounding of many thousands of others and the Sri Lankan assault on a three-mile long coastal strip controlled by the Tamil Tigers have been made by a number of observers, including Australia’s Green-Left Online in a May 2 article by Sean O Floinn & Emma Clancy: “A largely defenseless people struggling to survive and hemmed in on a narrow strip of land, facing indiscriminate air strikes, assault from gun boats and cluster bombs by a well-equipped army, conjures up the image of the recent Israeli invasion of Palestine’s Gaza Strip.”
However, there is more to the comparisons between Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip and Sri Lanka’s attack on the narrow strip of the Jaffna peninsula. In May 2000, a day after India refused to give Sri Lanka any military assistance in its war against the Tamil Tigers, Sri Lanka and Israel resumed diplomatic relations. Although the corporate media are focusing on Sri Lanka’s military assistance from China, little mention is being made of the island nation’s military links with Israel.
After the establishment of diplomatic ties between Jerusalem and Colombo, Israeli military technicians arrived to maintain Sri Lanka’s Israeli-made Kfir fighter-bombers and Russian MiG-27 aircraft and provided Sri Lanka with Dvora fast naval attack craft. Israeli arms and ammunition also began flooding into Sri Lanka.
Soon, Israeli military advisers and “consultants” were regular visitors to Colombo’s new Access Lanka Building, owned by relatives of Sri Lanka’s top military officers. Among Israel’s security exports to Sri Lanka was state-of-the-art electronic and imagery surveillance equipment. Israeli Air Force pilots reportedly flew Sri Lankan attack aircraft against Tamil Tiger targets on the Jaffna peninsula. Israeli military personnel were also reported to have taken part in Sri Lankan military attacks on Tamil units.
Due to Israel’s military assistance to Sri Lanka, Palestinians reportedly began aiding the Tamils in the 1980s. It is also believed that Israel’s Mossad recruited agents among Sri Lanka’s large contingent of foreign workers in the Persian Gulf Arab states. There were also reports that Israelis were also providing weapons and training to Tamil guerrillas in order to maintain a “market” for Israeli arms suppliers in the civil war-wracked island nation.
Read more...
Thank you for the informative post, or "dot" in your case.
ReplyDeleteHmm. Underreported security agreements with Israel, huh? Reminds me of MY government, Canada. It seems the standard operating procedure of the Anglo-American-and-beyond NaZionists (people who call hell "Zion")--or do they prefer to be called the "Coalition of the Willing"?--is to shuffle disposessed people from one place to another around the globe, twang the oh-so-reliable chords of ethno-racio-religio-cultural division, recruit desperate men-cum-mercenaries and gurgling sycophants to shore up the tyrant army, put arms supplied by Chinese, American, Israeli, British or Russian branches of the NWO corporation (financed in effect by the consumers and taxpayers of each subsidiary NaZion) and flick the "Run Program" switch. What I want to know is, will either the ubermeschkin alpha dogs who coordinate all of this, or the sheeple dog authoritarian followers, ever snap out of their zombie-borg boogie, or are we now into the future Orwell warned us of: A boot on a human face, forever. As Dr. Phil likes to say, "You can't solve a problem unless you know what it is." The trouble is, these RWA/sycophant types have a gift for thinking the problem lies somewhere else. To know what the problem is, read "The Authoritarians," a BRILLIANT (and highly readable) book available free online to understand the slippery slope of authoritarianism. Thankfully there is reason for hope (Chapter 7), if we can only reverse the downward spiral of manufactured fear and consent to tyranny. Keep talking to your neighbours, especially strangers.