“The LTTE not only destroyed the Tamil community in Lanka by the name of liberation, but also destroyed its culture, sports activities, effectiveness of regional laws/customs/traditions and the whole Tamil infrastructure. Today there is no material Tamil cultural contribution coming from Sri Lanka thanks to the LTTE. Unfortunately children of the large Tamil Diaspora have to dance to the tunes and beats of LTTE sponsored Ponku Thamil in the absence of their very own cultural productions.”
by Thomas Johnpulle
(October 22, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Racial Tamil political demands date back to 1918. Since then it grew and grew unhindered. Just four years later it was complimented by the more aggressive Tamil Elam concept. The concept of Tamil Elam was unveiled by Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam in 1922 at a ceremony held in the Peninsula after he fell out with his elder brother Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan whom he considered a traitor just because of his marriages. Unfortunately, Arunachalam died in 1924 leaving his project in less capable hands. However, the Tamil Elam demand and the racial political power demand conjoined in copulation. The product had chromosomes of both movements. The renewed demand was not only for Tamil Elam, but also for a Tamil-only Tamil Eelam.
It took well over 60 years to have at least part of the promised mono-racial, mono-ethnic land under a Tamil. This time it was Velupillai Pirapaharan, a school dropout and a mass murderer. The claim for Tamil Elam grew from strength to strength for the past 80 odd years. From innocent demands to election boycotts, from satyagrahas to public disobedience campaigns, from winning elections to winning battles it transpired as desired by all Tamil Elamists. Inhuman conduct of Sinhala thugs and short sighted conduct of a few national leaders in 1956, 1958, 1972, 1977 and 1983 fuelled their project. However, the project made a reversal for the first time in its history in 2008. The nature of this project has always been a forward movement only and it is almost impossible for the project managers to go in the reverse gear now although they are left with no further options.
When democratic means couldn’t achieve Tamil Elam, the project should have been abandoned. Instead, war, violence and terrorism were used to achieve it. Comically, sympathisers of Tamil Elam expected that their armed struggle will not be met with war, worse violence and worse terror. But when faced with matching warfare, they collapsed like a sand castle. Their ‘liberation struggle’ has brought forth untold sufferings and miseries to the Tamil community in Sri Lanka. Unfortunately for them their well-to-do friends and relatives in the Diaspora continue to support the LTTE in its evil project which consumes tens of thousands of innocents to produce results. Both LTTE leaders and sections of the Tamil Diaspora live in deep dungeons while horse-whipping the innocent, poor and helpless Tamils to do Kamikaze missions against their own life and property and against their community.
The Tamil community in Sri Lanka is in tatters not because of government action, but rather because of the actions of self-appointed Tamil liberators. Actually, if not for the Sinhala Buddhist majority governments in Sri Lanka, the Tamil community in Lanka would have perished long ago. Today more than half the Tamils in the island nation live in Sinhala majority areas. They have escaped LTTE clutches by risking life and limb and they refuse to go back to the north-east; they have established homes and businesses among the majority Sinhala community. But only the rich and moderately rich Tamils could afford to live in the luxury of multicultural neighbourhoods. Still a large number of Tamils cannot afford to leave Vanni owing to death threats, booby traps, war, poverty, the prospect of getting labelled as traitors and similar factors that are beyond their control. An even larger number has migrated to developed countries reducing the Tamil population in Lanka. Democratically this amounts to a reduction in collective Tamil political clout in Sri Lanka. All this because of one man who hijacked the Tamil community.
The LTTE not only destroyed the Tamil community in Lanka by the name of liberation, but also destroyed its culture, sports activities, effectiveness of regional laws/customs/traditions and the whole Tamil infrastructure. Today there is no material Tamil cultural contribution coming from Sri Lanka thanks to the LTTE. Unfortunately children of the large Tamil Diaspora have to dance to the tunes and beats of LTTE sponsored Ponku Thamil in the absence of their very own cultural productions. Alternatively they can wholly embrace Tamil Nadu cultural productions and lose their distinct identity forever.
Genocide successfully and completely committed and accomplished by the LTTE on Sinhala and Muslim communities in five districts (Jaffna, Mulaitivu, Kilinochchi, Mannar and Vavuniya) is monumental in annals of genocide in the whole world.
This liberation struggle has killed at least 40,000 Tamils over the past 32 years since the LTTE leader himself killed a Tamil politician in 1976. This is more than 2.0% of the (North-East or Sri Lankan) Tamil population. As a nation, more than 80,000 have perished due to the armed Tamil liberation struggle which is around 0.4% of the population. It is clear that the Tamil liberation struggle has taken a heavier toll on the Tamil community as Hitler’s Aryan German struggle decimated the German race itself. Look at it another way. From 1983 to 2008, around 2.5 million people have died due to all causes mainly natural causes. This means the war was responsible for a little over 3% of the total deaths which is insignificant in the scheme of things. More people have died from road accidents and natural disasters than due to war. And more have died from suicides and homicides due to personal reasons than from the war in the past 25 years.
However, a different picture emerges when these calculations are performed for the Tamil community. At least 16% of total deaths of (North-East or Sri Lankan) Tamils were caused by the Tamil liberation struggle! Therefore although war was never a major cause of death in Sri Lanka, it has been a significant cause of death in the North-East (or Sri Lankan) Tamil community. Why can’t all the loonies and kamikazes who support Tamil Elam take a good look at these numbers? The answer is definitely not a ceasefire as we had many namesake ceasefires in which firing never ceased! Quite the contrary. For lasting peace, all LTTE fighters must be annihilated and emerging violent separatist elements must also be continually exterminated. This compromise is essential if all Sri Lankans devoid of race were to live their lives in full which on average, as estimated at birth, is much higher than all the South Asian countries. They will also have a higher quality of life which is also highest in South Asia. Given all these benefits of coexistence, only lunatics will keep on seeking a two-state solution.
A two state calamity is not a solution. It will disturb and decimate the now peaceful large Tamil community in Sinhala majority areas as it happened in the India-Pakistan divide, the Pakistan-Bangladesh divide, the Serbia-Bosnia divide, the Georgia-South Ossetia divide and many other attempted divides. The geography of the island nation doesn’t support it either as almost all the rivers flow into the North-East from other areas. The intensity of water wars in the region has been bloody fearsome and the best example is the Mavil-aru incident in Sri Lanka in 2006 which led to the most violent round of the Elam War.
What’s more interesting is the total and complete dependence of Tamils in the North-East on mainly Sinhala taxpayers elsewhere for their education, healthcare and public administration! Even part of their food supply has been continuously supplied by mainly the Sinhala taxpayers. Strangely, although the Tamil Diaspora screams foul about suffering Tamils in Sri Lanka they have not contributed a cent for their welfare; it is mainly the Sinhala taxpayers who still run hospitals, functioning schools and public administration in Vanni. Also Tamil Nadu comics have not bothered donating anything for the welfare of suffering Tamils in Vanni. So who are the friends in need (and friends indeed) of Tamils actually living in Sri Lanka? No wonder Tamils in the North-East who can afford the journey run to Sinhala neighbourhoods to establish their homes and businesses.
This coexistence has helped the Tamil community survive and the rest of the Sri Lankans live the way they always wanted to live. Today the Tamil community in the midst of the Sinhala majority has become an essential and indispensable part of the Sri Lankan nation as much as the isolated Jaffna Sinhala community and the Jaffna Muslim community were vital parts of the Jaffna community before they were subjected to genocide by the LTTE.
Tamils survived and flourished in Sri Lanka for thousands of years as they learned to coexist with the rest of the countrymen. And they still want it that way. Anyone who wishes to see the continuation of Tamil existence in Sri Lanka should shed the Tamil Elam demand and the racial federalism demand as well.
Also the Sri Lankan government should immediately halt the effort to bring about a political solution in a hurry. Political solutions cannot be created at military speed. They take time and involve days, if not months of brainstorming, analysis, study and modelling encompassing Sri Lankan patriots from all communities with Sri Lankan national interests at heart. No solution should be found to satisfy Tamil Nadu agitators and their deities in Vanni dungeons. And no political solution should reverse, tone down or ridicule any of the military victories achieved so far. In fact a successful political solution should compliment and supplement military victories in advancing the only viable solution to the ethnic problem which is ethnic integration. Even during war ethnic integration happened which is remarkable! This is the starting point of a wide solution. Therefore, there is no reason why it should not happen right throughout the country after the war, bringing all communities together everywhere.
Isolating ethnic communities is not the solution, but the problem; Tamil Elamists should better grasp this at least now. Their dream is over; it now rests in Mahaveer cemeteries scattered through their dreamland. When homicides couldn’t achieve it, they turned to suicides. At the end of the day only the dead have seen it and the living shun it. - Sri Lanka Guardian
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