Sri Lankan Buddhist Mobs Call for Mosque Demolition

Sri Lanka's ethnic cleansing program calls for demolition of another mosque that suddenly is determined to be 'in the wrong place'.

See more photos of the Kalutara mosque here: aroundthenation.blogspot.com

(SALEM / KALUTARA, Sri Lanka) - Dozens of Buddhists held a demonstration today urging Sri Lanka's government to dismantle a mosque located in a Buddhist area. This, after mobs of Buddhist monks stormed the mosque at Dambulla last month.

Critics say it is simply another example of Sri Lanka's perpetual ethnic cleansing program that began with national independence in 1948. The Tamil Hindus and Christians have bore the brunt of the killings and oppression in Sri Lanka; now that the government has exterminated up to 160k Tamils, it is turning its attention toward the Muslims.

Pro-government press reports that the protesters marched peacefully through Kalutara town south of Colombo on Monday; however others who witnessed the group described it as another mob action.

The government says the mosque and a Hindu temple are located in the wrong place, and would be demolished and relocated. Muslim clerics and politicians have strongly opposed the decision.

An organizer of Monday's protest, Asoka Menikkgoda, reportedly said the government should safeguard Buddhism, the state religion, and not yield to Muslim pressure.

For people who know anything at all about the cold slaughter of the Tamil population, it seems the Buddhists have gone a thousand steps over the line protecting their religious values. They use tools like artillery, machetes, and rape, to enforce their ideals.

Never before the government war against the Tamils, have Buddhists been viewed as homicidal military maniacs and government terrorists, now millions see the former nation of Ceylon in this light.

In fact the Buddhist monks have been responsible for years of violence in this island nation. In the 1980's Sinhalese Buddhists led an arson rampage on Tamils because of a victory the resistance group in the north, the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) scored over Sri Lankan soldiers.

Americans in particular, should note that it was the U.S. government that made Sri Lanka's Rajapakse regime answer to war crimes in Geneva in recent months. It only amounted to a slap on the wrist, and has had no impact on reversing trends in this extremely violent place, where tourists are increasingly being murdered.

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Tim King in 2008, covering the Iraq War

Tim King: Salem-News.com Editor and Writer

Tim King has more than twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. In addition to his role as a war correspondent, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. Tim spent the winter of 2006/07 covering the war in Afghanistan, and he was in Iraq over the summer of 2008, reporting from the war while embedded with both the U.S. Army and the Marines. Tim is a former U.S. Marine.

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