reach - august 2009

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AUGUST 2009 Vol - 18TYO - Canada

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It seemed like it would be like any other day, a day full of new experiences, laughter, and joy; a day to interact with other girls just like me; a day to meet new friends. What I never expected was that this day would end up being a nightmare to me, a day that will continue to haunt me until death, the day that I would lose my loved ones. The vivid images that run through my memory when I think back to that day, the sounds of artillery falling from the eerie sky, the cries and wails of children in pain; the thought just puts me through terror. That day, I survived, but the pain from that day remains engraved in my heart, and sometimes makes me think why God made me survive.

Why was God giving us this punishment? Why were 53 of my beloved friends brutally murdered three years ago? Why do Tamil children continue to suffer to this date? Why is it that a Tamil child cannot live a normal life? Is it because we are Tamil? Is being Tamil such a crime?

In Tamileelam these questions are asked by people of all ages. Each day these humans regret being born and wonder what unforgivable mistake they must have committed.

No human being should be targeted because of who they are, and definitely should not be put into a situa-tion where they wish to be non-existent. The Tamil Diaspora is proud of our ethnicity and is not willing to change it. Unfortunately, our brothers and sisters back home have become weary of their roots. We, as the

Tamil Youth have to embrace our nationality, and show our relatives back home how strong and united it makes us. We have to continue to water, feed, and love our roots, so that it will eventually blossom into an extraordinary future.

In Solidarity,TYO - Canada

History 3 - 45 - 1011 - 1213 - 1415

Youth CanadaWorld YouthYouth ReflectionsYouth Q & A

To work towards the enhancement of the

Tamil Nation and to provide an avenue

for the betterment of Tamil youth in canada

TYO

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HistoryHi

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y) Just War

This element of the relationship between violent and non-violent means deserves to be stressed because much of the debate about armed liberation movements centers specifi-cally on the morality of political violence. As Robert Taber puts it, “The decision to fight and to sacrifice is a moral decision. Insurgency is thus a matter not of manipulation but of inspiration” (1965:148). Regardless of their cultural diversity, people everywhere generally consider violence im-moral except under specific circumstances. The most gen-eral of these is that people must believe that they are living under conditions of intolerable oppression and injustice, and that all peaceful means of changing this have proven to be ineffective. When violence is reduced to the only effec-tive means a people have to pursue justice and end oppres-sion, it is likely to be defined by an increasing number as not only necessary but moral.Before armed struggle becomes possible, people must be convinced that the possibilities of peaceful struggle have al-ready been exhausted. This is something stressed by all the classic theorists of guerrilla or revolutionary warfare, and is summarized by Taber:We have defined guerrilla war as the extension of politics by means of armed conflict. It follows that the extension cannot logically come until all acceptable peaceful solutions - appeals, legislative and judicial actions, and the resources of the ballot box - have been proved worthless. Were it otherwise, there would be no hope of enlisting the popular support essential to revolutionary activity. If people are to accept the risks and responsibilities of organized violence, they must believe first that there is no alternative; second, that the cause is compelling; third, that they have reasonable expectation of success (1965:32).All national liberation movements start out by seeking to achieve change peacefully through dialogue and persua-sion. Almost without exception they find that this rout is foreclosed to them by those in power. When they turn to peaceful protest, it is often forcefully suppressed and they are jailed, tortured, and not infrequently massacred. They then take stock, and some begin to conclude that the only road to liberation, an end to their oppression, or any improvement in their situation, is armed struggle. It isn’t that armed national liberation movements reject dialogue. Rather, they have found that it is only through armed struggle that one day real dialogue with the oppressor will be possible.As long as the regime isn’t totally intransigent and there is the faintest real hope of progress - even very slow progress - through peaceful means, national liberation movements generally remain non-violent. But when the regime proves to be intransigent and oppressed people believe they have no effective peaceful means of achieving reforms or prog-ress, then the stage is set for the emergence of armed

struggle. The escalation to violence is therefore usually caused by unyielding regimes, and almost always it is the regime that strikes the first violent blow.In 1984, the World Council of Indigenous Peoples issued the following statement on armed struggle:Where there is no justice, there will be violence. We decry the need to resort to violence. Those responsible for vio-lence are not those who must resort to it as a last resort. The responsibility of violence rests upon the souls of those who deny justice. The resort to arms is justified, but only as a last resort, only after an appeal to reason is no longer available. But when a resort to arms becomes necessary, it should be done with pride and not with shame; it should be used with compassion and not with uncontrolled hate; it must be taken up always with a clear understanding that it is justified only for the sake of liberation of our people and not for the purpose of revenge or suppression of another person’s right to life and liberty and self-determination (cited in Burger 1987:59. Emphasis in original).Liberation movements become militarized when they discover that all roads to peaceful progress towards either reform or independence are blocked, and particularly when the regime reacts to their demands, protests and demon-strations with physical repression. After that, armed struggle is almost inevitable. And given the relative forces on the two sides, armed struggle means a guerrilla or “peoples” war. Guerrilla warfare is the means by which a militarily weaker force can defeat a strong enemy (e.g. the Vietnam War).

The War of the Flea 8: Dynamics of Guerrilla Warfare

Guerrilla war is revolutionary war, engaging a civilian population, or a significant part of such a population, against the military forces of an oppressive governmental author-ity (Taber 1965:17). Here, I want briefly to describe two elements important to an understanding of wars of national liberation - the relationship between the guerrillas and the people they are fighting to liberate, and the basic strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare.When we speak of the guerrilla fighter involved in a nation-al liberation struggle, we are speaking of a political partisan, an armed civilian whose principal weapon is not their rifle but their relationship to the nation people for whom they fight (Taber 1965:21). Guerrillas find their strength in their relationship to a discontented people, as “the spokesman of their grievances, the armed vanguard, as Che Guevara puts it, of militant social protest” (Taber 1965:28):[The guerrilla] can afford to run when he [sic] cannot stand and fight with good assurance of wining, and to disperse and hide when it is not safe to move. In the extremity, he can always sink back into the peaceful population - that sea, to use Mao Tse-tung’s well-worn metaphor, in which the guerrilla swims like a fish. The population, as should be clear

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by now, is the key to the entire struggle.Indeed, although Western analysts seem to dislike entertain-ing this idea, it is the population which is doing the strug-gling. The guerrilla, who is of the people in a way which the government soldier cannot be (for if the regime were not alienated from the people, whence the revolution?), fights with the support of the non-combatant civilian populace: it is his camouflage, his quartermaster, his recruiting office, his communications network, and his efficient, all-seeing intel-ligence service. Without the consent and active aid of the people, the guerrilla would be merely a bandit, and could not long survive. If, on the other hand, the counter-insur-gent could claim this same support, the guerrilla would not exist, because there would be no war, no revolution (Taber 1965:22-23).The essential nature of guerrilla warfare is that it repre-sents “the extension of politics by means of armed conflict” (Taber 1965:26). It is a form political warfare guided by po-litical rather than military considerations. As Mao Tse-tung stressed:“Without a political goal, guerrilla warfare must fail, as it must if its political objectives do not coincide with the aspi-rations of the people, and their sympathy, co-operation and assistance cannot be gained. The essence of guerrilla war-fare is thus political in character” (cited in Taber 1965:58).While bombs and bullets are the guerrilla’s physical weap-ons, the real lever is politics; the purpose of the war of national liberation is not to militarily defeat or conquer their opponents, but to create an intolerable situation for the government (Taber 1965:91).Ultimately, the oppressive government relinquishes its grasp not because its armies have been defeated in battle (although this may occur), but because the rebellious na-tion, through guerrilla warfare, becomes either too great a political embarrassment to be sustained domestically or on the world stage, or too unprofitable, too expensive, or too discrediting:The entire arsenal of revolution - guerrilla fighting, terror, sabotage, propaganda - is brought to bear in an effort to take the profit out of colonialism by demoralizing labour and impeding production, boycotting imports, inciting insur-rection, forbidding payment of rents to foreign owners, wrecking foreign industrial installations, and in every way increasing the cost of exploitation and of political control - the expense of maintaining the bureaucracy and the police and military forces that must be used to put down the rebellion (Taber 1965:91). . .The colonial power quickly becomes involved in a struggle that simultaneously blackens it before the world and inflicts financial losses that will soon be translated, at home, into political liabilities. The very efforts of a colonial power to end the struggle will only accelerate the process, for the more stringent the methods of suppression applied, the greater the hatred of the colonial population for the colo-nizers and the harsher the picture of oppression to be held up before the world (Taber 1965:92).

The basic strategic objective of guerrilla warfare is not gen-erally the military defeat of the government; rather, it is to create a “climate of collapse” (Taber 1965:31) and reduce the government’s will to continue fighting until they are prepared to negotiate a settlement.State governments invariably respond to armed liberation movements with massive violence in an attempt to militarily defeat or suppress them. Because government forces find it extremely difficult to catch guerrillas on their own terms, they tend very strongly to make war on the civilian popula-tion - the “water” instead of the guerrilla “fish” that swims in it.Bernard Nietschmann (1987) has noted that wars of na-tional liberation are as dirty, vicious and destructive as any conventional wars between states - sometimes even more so. Civilians are often targeted by the state, who employ their security forces to kill or capture the guerrillas and crush civilian support. National liberation wars tend to be wars “without rules” or so-called “dirty wars,” fought without regard to international standards of warfare and treatment of civilians and prisoners. When state armies mili-tarily engage a national insurgency the warfare is euphemis-tically called “internal police action against terrorists,” which avoids international attention and the Geneva Conventions:No rules limit how state security forces may act against nation insurgents and their civilian supporters. Unshackled, state armies use genocidal tactics to stamp out resistance to state control: destruction of food supplies, eradication of communities, dislocation of populations into state camps or refugee camps in other states, killing of captured prisoners and wounded combatants, arbitrary and systematic arrest, imprisonment and torture to instill fear and submission and imposed military rule over entire regions and nation peoples (Nietschmann, 1987:13).Nietschmann concludes that regular genocide is often the state’s response to “irregular warfare.” Counterinsurgency specialists like to say that if you can’t catch the fish, poison the water. But, in effect, this is similar to pouring petrol on flames to try to extinguish them. State terror invariably only further alienates the civilian population and turns them towards the guerrillas. Guerrilla strategists are perfectly aware of this, and it is part of the basic dynamic of guerrilla warfare.

To be continued...

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TYO-Canada initiated The Education

and Empowerment Mission (TEEM) and conducted 8 workshops for the Tamil Canadian

youth, to provide youth with the skills required to be skilled leaders in the community. The workshops covered topics including effective communication,

networking and partnership, the history of the Tamil freedom struggle, team building, running an effective organization, project management, and the Canadian and international political systems. Workshops were

conducted by both Tamil and non-Tamil skilled leaders from the Canadian community.

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AUGUST 2009 Vol - 18TYO - CanadaYo

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This

year, marks the third year anniversary of the Sencholai massacre that took the lives of

53 Sencholai Orphanage children. On Friday August 14 Canadian Tamils came together to remember the children lost to the inhumane actions of the Sri Lankan Government. Tamils gathered at Dundas Square and walked to Nathan Phillips Square, carrying candles, with their mouths tied with black cloths. A

candlelight vigil was held at Nathan Phillips Square, where members from the youth

community delivered emotional speeches, poems, and

songs about the tragedy.

Sencholai Candlelight Vigil

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“Let Us Live” - Demonstration Yo

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Hundreds of Tamils carrying both the Canadian and Tamileelam flags chanted in front of the Sri Lankan Consulate on Friday August 21 to bring light to the Sri Lankan government’s false propaganda. This date marked the 100th day since 300 000 of our Tamil brothers and sisters were first put into torture camps. The Sri Lankan govern-ment stated that the Tamils would be released within180 days, upon which no action has been taken so far.

Canadian Tamils gathered in front of the Chinese Consulate to condemn China’s military and financial support to the Government of Sri Lanka on August 26.

Condemn China

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uth

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ada Free the Children – Free the

Concentration Camps

The Tamil community and the Tamil student body came together and protested in front of the Canadian UNICEF headquarters on Friday August 28th. More than 80 000 Tamil children are trapped in concentration camps back home, and UNICEF, being an organi-zation voicing for the children, must take action upon this. Tamils voiced this concern.

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CTSA 21st Annual Sports Meet

Canadian Tamil Sports Association held its 21st Annual Sports Meet event on August 22, 2009 at the York track and field stadium. Despite the drizzles throughout the day, the sports event was conducted continuously and successfully. CTSA holds this event annually to promote sports among the Tamil community. TYO showed their full support at this event.

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Tamil Youth Organization and the Canadian Tamil Sports Association, together, held their second annual Soccer Tournament at Silverspring Park on August 29. The Soccer Tournament was held in memory of Pon. Sivakumaran, the first student who sacrificed his life for the liberation struggle. Following a close semi-final match between Scarborough Rangers and Toronto Blues, Scarborough Rangers walked away with the cup, for the second time in a row.

Second Annual Soccer Tournament

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Black July was held in Sydney, Australia, to commemorate the Tamils victimized in the July riots of 1983. Thousands of Tamils were present at the event, to voice the atrocities that the Tamils faced in the past and still continue to face in Sri Lanka. Speeches were delivered by political representatives, including a member of the Socialist Alliance, and by members of the Australia Tamil Youth Organiza-tion. The event came to an end with a candlelight vigil.

Black July in SydneyW

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Norway Tamil Youth Organization organized and held a Black July event on July 29 in Torgallmenningen, Bergen. Despite the heavy rain, thousands of Tamils attended the event, to commemorate the victims of the atrocities that took place 26 years ago. Images illus-trating the riots of July 1983 and depicting the torture camps that Tamils are currently suffering in were displayed at the event.

Black July in NorwayW

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Cheran and Vishna, two outraged Tamil youth from the Australian Tamil community, walked a 300 000m walk-a-thon which started on August 10 in Martin Place, Sydney and ended on August 18 at the Canberra Parliament. The two youth demanded the Sri Lankan Government to return the Tamils back to their homes and urged the international community to place pressures on the Sri Lankan Government to end its atrocities. Each metre walked in this walk-a-thon symbolized each of the 300 000 Tamils suffering in the torture camps back home.

Walk-a-thon in AustraliaW

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For what?

All children on Earth are a gift from godSome have a sufficient life and others don’t

Some can only consider god as their parents

Vases are homes for rootless flowers,Sencholai was the home of young, orphan girls

Who thought these flowers would wither so soon?

Not only did they look after themselves,They were learning to serve others…

Who knew that a day so soonWould put an end to their hard work?

Skills were bombed,Hearts were crushed,

Confidence was killed,Dreams were buried,

Fear was born… in the hearts of the survivors!

People kill animals to fulfill hunger,People kill plants to fill their stomachs,

Is that not enough? Why are humans targeted?Why must children suffer?

Why? For what?

By: Sinthu

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In today’s technological society, the Internet is becoming one of the primary tools in creating communication among friends and family. It is used throughout schools, small businesses, and online shopping stores; simply put, almost everything we do today can be found and done over the Internet. To further emphasize this point, according to a comparative analysis of Internet users and non-Internet us-ers conducted by Statistics Canada in 2009, 82% of Cana-dians are active Internet users. Furthermore, as stated in the same comparative analysis, the reasoning behind such a large percentile of active Internet users (82%) is due to the Internet’s “easy-to-use” ability; convenience, in terms of shopping and chatting online; and wide range of academic resources. However, masked by the number of advantages associated with the Internet, individuals fail to realize its negative aspects: a decline in academic/job performances and possible occurrences of sexual-assault, as a result of meeting “online friends.”

Amongst these Internet users, it is today’s youth genera-tion who comprise 95% of the number of active Internet users in Canada, given that most males and females within this age group spend 1-4 hours on the Internet everyday. In turn, the majority of these individuals feet that the Internet was interfering with their school/work performances, as a result of spending an excessive amount of time surfing the web. Clearly, with the number of distractions found on the Internet, in the forms of games, social networking, and chat rooms, individuals are finding it harder to focus on school work when the temptation of “cyber-slacking” is an arm’s length away. Furthermore, the book, The Internet: the Impact on our Lives, mentions that 53% of high school students feel that they could do a better job in school if they did not use the Internet as a form of procrastination. Similarly, a poll taken by a career Web site, Vault.com, found that greater than 90% of the 1244 employees sampled surfed the Internet for information irrelevant to their jobs while at work. Thus, the negative effect of excessive internet usage on one’s academic/work performances is unfortu-nately existent.

Aside from negatively impacting the academic performances of today’s youth, possible occurrences of sexual-assault, as a result of meeting “online friends”, are also a sad reality of careless Internet usage. This aspect, however, has been shown to affect youth generations more so than adult gen-erations, in that individuals of today’s youth age group use the Internet primarily for the access of chat rooms, instant messaging, and social networking; access the Internet in the privacy of their bedrooms or study rooms; and, in some cases, have even planned to meet up with individuals that they had merely met online. Consequently, it is likely that sexual assault would shortly follow this series of events. Similarly, in a life-like example, 12-year-old Grace Johnson

was sexually assaulted by a 19-year-old she had met on the social network, MySpace.com. They had exchanged emails for six months, before she agreed to meet him at his apartment, where she was sexually assaulted shortly after. Thus, one of the reasons behind the sudden 33% increase in Internet-related crimes over the last year (Channel Web, 2009), is due to of the number of sexual-assaults that occur, as a result of meeting “online friends.”

Today, the Internet still remains as potentially dangerous and threatening to youth and younger generations. For example, as a result of the distractions that come from the many programs and activities available on the Internet, the academic performances amongst young Internet users are on the decline. Furthermore, Internet-based crimes are on the rise, as a result of the increasing number of young adults using chat rooms and social networks as a form of befriending “online friends.” All things considered, it can be learned that the Internet truly holds a darker side to it. It is, however, up to the youth generation of today to change such aspects from affecting the youth generation of tomor-row.

--Thagsana Rangarajan, Woburn C.I.

The Internet’s Impact on Today’s YouthYo

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Questions??? Ask Your PeersMany questions exist among our youths regarding many issues that are affecting our everyday lives. Therefore, we have decided to introduce an “Ask Your Peers” section in our e-newsletter, to assist the youth in overcoming their concerns. Youth needing answers or clarifications can send in questions to [email protected] by the 20th of each month with the subject “Ask Your Peers.” We will keep all of your questions anonymously. Your questions will be answered in the following issue.

How has UNICEF been involved in Sri Lanka?

UNICEF is an organization that advocates for the rights of children as well as voices for equality rights for women. Although UNICEF functions without any form of discrimi-nation, it puts the most disadvantaged children at the top, especially children who were affected by violence, exploita-tion, war, poverty, and disabilities. Being such an organiza-tion, during the civil war in Sri Lanka, UNICEF expressed concerns and condemned the LTTE for its use of child soldiers. In February 2009, UNICEF, hand in hand with the Sri Lankan Government, launched the “Bring Back the Chil-dren” campaign, a campaign that will put an end to child re-cruitment in military activities and work to release children already recruited (UNICEF, 2009). As an organization with a mission to serve the children, UNICEF acted upon the issue of child soldiers.

However, UNICEF has failed in its actions over the past couple of months. While the Government of Sri Lanka car-ried out a systematic genocide against the Tamils, UNICEF failed to speak up. Ten thousand children were inhumanely murdered by the GoSL in its attempt to wipe out the Tamil race. Currently, 80 000 children are suffering in the torture camps controlled by the Sri Lankan Government. When so many children’s lives are at stake, there cannot be a valid reason for UNICEF’s inaction. But we can’t simply wait for UNICEF to take initiative; we must urge them to do so. As the Tamil Diaspora, we have the responsibility to speak up for our people. Our children are the leaders of tomorrow, and we must ensure that their lives are safe so that Tamils will be able to prosper in the future.

How is TYO different from CTYA?

Tamil Youth Organization (TYO) is an organization formed with a specific mission, different from the mission of Canadian Tamil Youth Alliance (CTYA). TYO functions as a network among youth both nationally and internationally. It strives to promote awareness about the humanitarian situation in Northern Sri Lana, and carries out projects aimed towards enhancing the lives of the Tamils both in Canada and in Tamileelam. CTYA functions a little differ-ently. The major distinction between TYO and CTYA is that TYO is a single organization, while CTYA is an alliance that comprises many youth organizations from various sectors, functioning to serve the interests of all the Tamil youth in our community. CTYA has five councils: arts and culture, athletics, education and career empowerment, human rights advocacy and Tamil nation development. As the broadness in the five councils suggest, CTYA attempts to embrace Tamil youth from various areas, unite them, and work with them in their own field of interest.

Overall, TYO works towards the enhancement of the Tamil nation and the betterment of the Tamil community. CTYA works toward providing a front to preserve the Tamil heritage, strengthen the social, economic and spiritual growth of Tamils, and build networks between the Tamil youth and the Canadian society.

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Guidelines:o All submissions must be in English

o You may create your own title for your work

o Written work should be within 750 words (or 2 pages letter sized), 12 pt font (Times)

o Can be written in any form (article, research essay, poem, story, etc.)

o Include your name, contact info, and University/ College/ High School (If applicable)

o Submit before SEPTEMBER 25th, 2009

o Must be e-mailed to [email protected] with the subject ‘Reach-SEPTEMBER 2009’

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We appreciate all of your time and effort.

TYO - Canada

WRITEFor the beautiful moments

For the tragic timesWith your heart and no regrets

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Join TYOOur doors are always open to new members that are looking to make a difference for Tamils around the world.

As an organization with the interests of Tamil youth at heart, TYO provides opportunities for Canadian Tamil youth to network, contribute, and develop their skills in various areas as well.

Interested in getting involved?

Please contact us at [email protected] visit us at www.canadatyo.org

Speak OutAs Tamil youth in Canada, we have the ultimate duty of educating others, as well as ourselves of the suf-fering of the Tamil people. Understanding is crucial. And with understanding comes awareness, the most essential step in the path to progress.

Ignorance is not a bliss.

• Stay updated with recent news

• Write to your local politicians

• Attend rallies

• Enlighten non-Tamil peers

• Write a poem, articles, essay

• Research, understand and recite

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reach - august 2009

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