KARUNA’S PREDICAMENT

by R. Jayadevan

(December, 28, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Ever since Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan known as Col.Karuna leaving the LTTE, he has become a focal point in the news relating to human rights and political development in Sri Lanka. Col.Karuna’s breakaway from the LTTE was a major breakthrough for all those who opposed the LTTE and wanted his role to negate the LTTE altogether.

When Karuna left the LTTE, the Tamil Tiger media and campaign went on the massive onslaught against him portraying him as a crook, thief, womaniser etc., and this campaign laid the foundation for the turn of events for Karuna later. Karuna was one time considered as an angel by the very same goons who are now attempting to paint a bad image about him.

I have met Karuna soon after my release from LTTE captivity in Vanni in March 2005. I also had telephone conversations with him few times before meeting him. The nasty anti-Karuna campaigners including the LTTE and the anti-LTTE elements opposed to Karuna went to town following my public revelation about contacting Karuna. The gutter Tamil web media is carrying out a nonsensical campaign that I am the finance head and a mouthpiece of the Kauna’s TMVP. This does not come to me as a surprise, as every time I met someone like Douglas Devanada, President Rajapakse or V Anadasangaree, I am been subject to nasty campaigns by the LTTE and LTTE supporting goons.

As a liberal minded person, I want to see an end to the conflict in Sri Lanka and to durable peace achieved through peaceful means. I realise the need to engage with the wider views of the Sri Lankan society. Any effort to build bridges within various Tamil groupings in the acrimonious and threatening political circumstances is in fact a daunting task one could embark on.

I am quite prone to the type of campaign of the petty and paranoiac mindsets and am able to survive in the degenerated goony culture that has knuckled the society to the present appalling state. I and very many like minded are experiencing this harrowing experience daily. Hatred, venom and idiotic thinking are self seeking missions of these goons which are only interested in carrying out their obsessive hate campaign for standing against their conditioned mission.

The very same self seeking campaigners did not see any controversy when I helped Late Anton Balasingam to come to the UK in 1999 which led to the Ceasefire Agreement in 2001. I faced some problems when I went out of the way to help the ENDLF member Veeraiah Ramarajah who manages the Tamil Broadcasting Corporation when he was imprisoned in Switzerland. But these emerging gutter elements fear that I will be helping Karuna to come out of his present difficulties and in a systematic way are carrying out a campaign that I am an arm of the Karuna’s TMVP.

It is my position that Karuna or anyone to the matter is accountable for their conduct and they need to face the consequence of justice if they are guilty. The right thinking Tamil people must stand up and put forward the facts and ensure genuine justice is meted without being waylaid by the nonsensical arguments and charges put forward against to satisfy the anger of the hate mongers.

My brief encounter with Karuna gave me valuable insight into his side of the story to leave the LTTE. Further engagement could have helped to establish clarity on certain charges levelled against him, but I am sure any process that is expected to follow his detention will expose them adequately. On my part, if I can help expedite that process to get fair justice, I will stand up and do it without succumbing to the pressures from the goons that I am now prone to.

There are claims that Karuna will be charged for War Crimes. The International NGO’s too wants this to happen. I feel in a free and fair trial encompassing all aspects of War Crimes in Sri Lanka involving Karuna will be a unique situation to tell the whole truth from the time of his engagement in the so-called violent ‘liberation struggle’. If the judicial process isolate and bring in selective charges against Karuna, the whole truth about his engagement with the LTTE and its operational details together with issues involving his own leadership of TMVP will be sidelined.

The burden of Proof to justify a claim in a criminal court needs to be of very high degree. The international NGO’s have an uphill task of justifying beyond reasonable doubt that acts of Karuna amounted to War Crimes. Having followed the charges and counter charges against the TMVP by the international human rights NGO’s, unfortunately, they have not published any compelling statement/s to implicate the TMVP or its leader Karuna and in their statements so far they have only made hearsay accusations.

I was contacted by relatives and friends of alleged kidnap victims of the TMVP. In one case I was able to take up the matter personally with President Mahinda Rajapakse. On this case the immediate accusation was, it was TMVP that carried out the adduction for a ransom. When further inquiries were made, Colombo underworld was implicated in the kidnap. Lately, I received confirmation that the person abducted has been taken by the LTTE and that he had past dealings with them. The fate of the victim is still not known.

My inquiries with the TMVP confirm that they have invited the international Human Rights NGO’s to engage with them without simply pointing the accusatory fingers at them. They claim they are a break-way group from the LTTE and there are elements within who would have committed some crimes. Whenever specific complaints were received, they had dealt with them to the extent of discharging some members from the TMVP. They say they were facing some difficulties and these cannot be magnified as war crimes. One of the leading members of the TMVP told me that campaigns against them were very disproportionate and there is no reflection of the conducive climate they have created in the east by leaving the LTTE. He further said, if Karuna did not leave the LTTE the situation in the east would have been worst to contemplate and he would not have met with the undue hostilities that he is encountering now.

The other issue pertaining to the war crimes charges against Karuna is whether the charges will be brought against him from the time he was involved with the LTTE or since setting up his own movement TMVP in 2004. Whether British judiciary will be able to undertake a massive inquiry to look into the entire evidence of Karuna is worth considering. Any post 2004 charges will also have implications on issues relating to his involvement with the LTTE before his breakaway.

There are number of LTTE men who have successfully claimed political asylum with the proven record of serious human rights violations (war crimes) in Sri Lanka. The most intriguing of the campaign of the opponents of Karuna to nail him in the British courts is coming none other than from the LTTE quarters. These elements advocate a venomous position that Karuna should be brought to justice for war crimes. Their claims do not go beyond discharging their anger that he had betrayed the LTTE. They are failing to consider the consequence for the LTTE and the government of Sri Lanka, if Karuna is charged for War Crimes.

The other interesting fact is Late Anton Balasingam in is memoirs published in the UK has documented evidence of serious war crimes committed by the LTTE to the extent of implicating him in the war crimes. Though he is no longer in this world to be made accountable, his memoirs could play important part as evidence.

I for one like to see Karuna brought before the British justice system and he his given an opportunity to tell the ‘whole truth and nothing but the truth’. Whether an opportunity will be given to tell the ‘Whole Truth’ in view of the constrained circumstances to seek quick justice may lead to judicial decision on restrictive charges against him.

If Karuna reveals the names of those aided, abetted and contributed towards human rights violations, will they be facing international justice?