Blood money speaks... (an essay)

Well things are little quiet here in the capital city but that is in the least a sign of how things are really in the country. For one having killed all those people in the North in the name of eradicating terrorism we are now responsible for thousands of people sitting in detention camps shelter-less and un provided for. where people die from simple gash wounds that get infested with worms and people who have diarrhea are just dumped together without even the most basic medical treatment(needless to go into all the other urgent medical emergencies). And you know it’s a crime. You know that this is unacceptable. And you wonder who’s going to take up these questions, questions based on our fundamental human rights. Human rights. No one says them here in this country no more. It’s become taboo. And a word that is, for some time now, censored actively by the Government. For all their might they seem to fear these simple basic codes of life that the world decided on some years ago. Come to think of it I don’t have too much of a problem with it I guess.Because you see i come from this war economy. Its inevitable in a country seeped in war for so many years. Corruption has become part of my nature. I actually make money out of this horror. Blood Money.

You may wonder why? Well because I tell you it’s necessary. Yes. For me to live my life comfortably with my family I decided to live this way. And i am not alone, there is a whole system being supported by people like me. And why should i fool myself and be idealistic? It’s been years since I had the chance to talk about what I really thought of our military policies and economic decisions (they just kill people for such loose-talk these days). The budget of my tax money and my fellow citizens is no longer in my hands. I am no longer an active participant, but a subservient in this country. We don’t need democracy now. We need what we have. Who knows from which impoverished, war torn village of the north another rebel group will manifest? Who knows how many young boys of our nation once belonging to the faction known as LTTE are still on the loose (exempt all the 13,000 young people who have now gone missing from the camps under the label of questioning and suspicion- they are being taken care of i guess), and a constant threat to national security.(forget the kind of paramilitary forces we run in the south)

It’s not like we are going to ask too many questions anyway. And it’s not like we will be allowed with the right to our life if we do talk about it I guess. And as long as we are not prepared to take the risk no one is. So why ask for democracy. Why pretend that this despotic rule is democracy? There is no harm. It’s only when we go to embellish our lies that we fumble. We must learn from our leaders how to state an honest untruth without any scruples. maybe one day they will come to take me away. Maybe. But then I know there will be no one to speak on my behalf.(especially since i was one of those people "bumping" those who started talking- don't blame me, your government payed me for stuff like that) But I am a true Islander. I believe that i have too many sins to be accounted for. But until then voodoo does the job for me.

At a time when we prepare to bring home the soldiers who have had to slay civilian brothers and sisters in this war, we are told that this country needs them like never before. We are now not only the "victors" who captured the Northern territory but are now the occupational army for years to come.What a grand master plan. But wait a minute our economy is suffering, what about the price hikes? how can we afford such a scheme to change the demography of the North and East so that Tamils can never call it there traditional homeland?(kill half move the rest- all of them are terrorists anyway our government says) How can we ensure that all our soldiers are given the best of benefits, since now most of them returned limbless and lifeless?

We don’t need the IMF money. How dare do these international forces (well except for the time they lent us arms and gave us machinery to fight in the north of our country) come here now and put terms of humanitarian assistance (how absurd) on to the money. We want no strings attached. If they can't give money like that We don’t need their help. We are getting money. You see we have the greatest hostage situation in the country. We have thousands of people literally kidnapped, no one knows what's happening to them, do you? These people are stuck in camps where they can’t leave... at least that's what we say out loud. But we aren't that unrealistic. If those distraught, traumatized souls can fork out about a million or so (depending on where they want to go to) then we will even arrange the ticket for them to fly to which ever country they choose (this falls in to our plan of move 'em or kill 'em) Well most of the times they can hardly afford to buy themselves food. You see we made sure they had nothing left that they could call as theirs. We hit them that hard and feel good about it too. But thanks to our years of discrimination and pogroms and the civil war… over time we have a growing Tamil Diaspora.Luckily for us not all of them are stuck in petrol sheds or waiting at tables earning small amounts of money to live by and negotiating visa requirements from their little rooms. Some of them were quite enterprising and did quite well after a lot of hard work i suppose. A group that is now willing to pay the ransom to help their desperate relatives. Flows of money that will help keep afloat our foreign reserves. Thus we can take care of ourselves. We know how Myanmar does it. We’ll do it even better. Just watch, wait and see. If you are alive that is.