US Ambassador for Sri Lanka Robert Blake's statistics related to Tamil National Strugle was questioned by an Australian Professor E.A. Selvanathan, who is regarded as one of the senior statistician in Australia and statistical text books authored by him are core recommended books for many post graduate courses in Australian Universities. Prof Selva said, "I am surprised to see such a poor quality interview given by an educated person representing the world's super power. As a senior statistician, I felt that some of the statistics you have quoted are misleading and uninformed in nature." Ambassador Mr Robert Blake was not available for comments.

Full Text of the Letter 

Dear Ambassador Mr Robert Blake,

I read your recent interview below you gave to Sunday Observer, last week, with a lot  of interest, but very disappointed.  Even though I don't agree with you on a majority of the things you said in your interview, I am surprised to see such a poor quality interview given by an educated person representing the world's super power. As a senior statistician, I felt that some of the statistics you have quoted are misleading and uninformed in nature.

First of all, the interviewers question was truthless. But your answer was even worse. You say that 95% of the Tamil people don't want independent homeland based on the discussions you had with some of your Tamil contacts. Any high school student would know how flawed it is to make such a statement about a Tamil population of a several thousands  based on a handful of Tamils you had communicated with when you don't even have access to the real people living in the North and East. Any statistics you present about the Tamil population should be based on a random survey of the actual Tamil population. Don't you know that from 1975, Tamil political party TULF (now TNA) contested in the North and East in every election stood on the platform of "gaining independence of the Tamil Eelam is the only solution to the Tamils issue in Sri Lanka" and Tamils voted overwhelmingly to the TULF or TNA.  In 1976, Mr Chelvanayagam resigned his KKS electorate MP position and created a by-election to prove that Tamils overwhelmingly support the Tamil Eelam solution and contested on the Tamil Eelam platform against a candidate who stood on the United Sri Lanka platform and won the 'free' election by vast majority of votes.  This is the people verdict. The recent election held in the Batticaloa province was not a free election. Innocent Tamil people were told that they must vote and also if their party did not win then theirs and their family's life will be in danger.

Ambassador, how can you hide this truth and say 95% of the Tamils want to live within a united Sri Lanka? Because of people like yourself with a very poor understanding of the history, problems and issues, we are having this much blood running in Sri Lanka. Please open up your heart and eyes and let the world know the Tamil peoples' verdict, instead of spreading misinformation.

Your statement that the Tamils and the Singhalese are living in harmony in Colombo is another watershed. Haven't you heard about the Black July (23 July 1983) riots when thousands of Tamils were butchered by the Singhalese thugs aided by the government and its armed forces?

Hoping you would respond to my concerns through a response.

Yours sincerely,

Professor E.A. Selvanathan, PhD
Professor of Applied Statistics
Griffith University, Australia