Slow Strangulation of Jaffna - A Bequest of Mahinda ( Jathika) Chintana

by- UTHR (J)

(December, 04, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) 10th December is Human Rights Day, celebrated the world over to rekindle the sprit of the UDHR. Apart from civil society and UN bodies, the Government too, though wedded to war as the all-encompassing issue of governance, would cynically make noble professions. These would have no meaning when its energies are consumed by the ethnic war driven by narrow nationalism. Its inevitable debasement of humanity and human dignity would further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis.

Even as this report was in preparation, the rising tempo of violence further affirmed our fears that war-like ideologies were gaining uncontested primacy on both sides, holding in prospect a bleak future for the people of Sri Lanka. Those advocating a military solution might feel vindicated by the intransigence of the LTTE and rationalise military setbacks as inevitable in war. The LTTE having irretrievably bound itself in suicide politics, would continue to plead the futility of a political settlement with Sinhalese governments bent on destroying the Tamils. Both sides would trot out seemingly logical arguments to back their stand. That is the tragedy of Sri Lanka. People, whether Sinhalese, Tamils or Muslims must bear the brunt of their “elected” or self imposed leaders’ callousness. The Sinhalese leadership, with their amnesia for recent history vie for power by degrading themselves and the country to a shambles.

The LTTE’s instinct in putting all its destructive genius into a relentless quest for Eelam runs counter to well founded arguments that it would come a cropper against local, regional and global realities. This instinct, in which Tamil nationalists feel continually vindicated, is one that sees the Sinhalese political leadership as permanently malignant, unable, even out of enlightened self-interest, to advance a rational political approach – one for which there are ample precedents around the world. In the hands of the LTTE, this instinct is bolstered by the confidence that even when rays of hope dawn on the Sinhalese political landscape, it could by strategic acts of violence extinguish this hope, by pushing the Sinhalese polity into a brutal reprisal mode. And thus the LTTE’s narrow nationalist instinct wrought the most dreadful suicide cult – a negation of humanity, vindicated and continually reinforced by the State.

This report epitomises the instincts and calculations of both, the State and the LTTE, which fuel the war in a heedless, desperate gamble with vanishing resources and manpower. The air attacks in the North, and daily killings do not evoke any sense of outrage among policy makers and Sinhalese ideologues. Similarly, the LTTE’s inhuman attacks, reinforcement of Sinhalese fears and the terrible price imposed on the people of the North-East, evoke scant concern among diehard supporters of Eelam.

The knee-jerk reactions of both camps are predictable. In response to the dastardly bombing in Nugegoda, the State began its usual indiscriminate arrests, treating innocent Tamils as criminals. Those having identify cards from the North or East are told they are not welcome in the South. The attitude of the Police is simple, ‘We have our orders and we don’t want you here’. Indeed, the Tigers again made their point that the North-East is the home land of the Tamils. The State again obliged the Tigers with its predictable myopia. What could one expect with advisors like DIG Kotakadeniya and the Rajapakse brood ruling the country under Jathika Chintanaya packaged as Mahinda Chintanaya?

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