Rajapakse’s show cases, skeletons and show pieces

(November 09, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Whenever Rajapakse is pressured by the Indian Government and /or the rest of the international community to go for a political settlement, he goes for his showcase with skeletons in it, the All Party Representative Committee (APRC), a misnomer, pathetically headed by Dr Tissa Vitharana of the LSSP who has lost the last remnants of even his personal credibility among the Tamil intelligentsia. The APRC has no representation from the Tamil National Party (TNA) the major Tamil party in the parliament most representative of the Tamils and said to be a proxy of the LTTE and the most feasible avenue under the circumstances for any political discussion and negotiation; and also the major Sinhala opposition party the United National Party (UNP) the main Sinhalese party in the opposition.

The APRC as usual at Rajapakse’s instance will come out with the 20 year old provisions of the Thirteenth Amendment, which in 1987, was hurriedly brought together by the wily JR Jayawardene and Rajiv Ghandhi. Being dependent on his advisors, Ghandhi knew very little of the complexities of Tamil aspirations, their life and its ramifications. While the provincial councils provide for greater centralisation of power in the executive president than allowed in the principal provisions of the constitution, they do not have the power necessary to periodically regulate itself and be an instrument in the development of the political and economic life of the people. Just to take an example: rice cultivation the mainstay of Tamil sustenance is mainly dependent on irrigation from irrigation dams, the backbone of agricultural development. Any control over this aspect by the proposed Provincial Councils had been surreptitiously kept out and consequently the Tamil speaking people can be completely starved by the Sinhala polity in the centre by denying or restricting water to irrigate the rice fields in the Tamil areas.

With the Tamil people betrayed at every turn, the only movement that the overwhelming number of Tamils turn to are the LTTE. Rightly or wrongly, the future of the Tamil people is inextricably interwoven with the affairs of the LTTE. Whether we like it or not, this is the stark truth. The latest addition to Rajapakse’s galaxy of betrayers is Karuna Amman made a martyr and a member of parliament in his capacity as leader of the Tamil People’s Liberation Tigers (TMVP) to join the ruling coalition of the UPFA led by Rajapakse, purely for political expediency. We will not be surprised if he is made a cabinet minister. Karuna was a betrayer of the Tamil cause. A betrayer of any cause is always a betrayer as much as a scoundrel is a scoundrel. He can betray Rajapakse at any moment. Karuna was forced to defect from the LTTE not because of his canard that the LTTE were favouring the northern cadres in preference to those of the eastern province but because of his dishonesty and his lack of integrity in embezzling their funds and his inability to render accounts to the leadership. Integrity is said to be of paramount importance to the LTTE leadership. His treachery has finally helped the Sinhala polity including their justice system to drive a convenient wedge between the Tamils of the east and those of the north which would leave an indelible scar on the Tamil nation. He has already shown signs of being a permanent thorn on Rajapakse’s side, the price Rajapkse would pay for using Karuna as a convenient tool to recommend the progressive reduction of the powers of the provincial council of the east of which his rival Pillayan of the TMVP is the head.

The so called Tamil militants, now claiming to be mainstream political parties having betrayed the Tamil people, try their utmost to appeal to Tamil sentiments and aspirations with names of their parties bearing at least one of these terms: “Tamil”, “Liberation” “Tigers” and or “Ealam. The bottom line is that despite their hypocrisy, they realise that the Tamil people want Liberation from the Sinhala polity and they know where exactly the hearts and minds of the Tamil people lie. The LTTE has survived to be the only armed group that is a national liberation movement that the overwhelming majority of the Tamil people look up to. The difference between a Liberation struggle and terrorism is set out in Article 1 of Protocol, additional to the Geneva Convention of 1947: "An armed force is an "Armed group" as opposed to a "Terrorist Group" if it meets the following criteria: i. military operation, ii.organised command, iii. organisational capacity and iv. if it has control over territory". The LTTE satisfy all these criteria of being an armed group fighting for national liberation. If forty five percent of the Tamils are living outside of their northern and eastern homelands, as claimed by the advocates of a unitary system, they are doing it out of necessity and not by choice.

The Sri Lankan State fighting a guerilla organisation using high powered conventional and chemical weapons under the guise of fighting a war against terrorism decimating the innocent Tamil speaking civilians, on the run the whole time, by killing, maiming and starving them by the thousands is outright genocide pure and simple. With the setting in of the monsoon rains, thousands are expected to perish consequent to the irrigation dams destroyed by the Sri Lankan army letting the water inundate the area exacerbated by the flooding. Cholera will set in, and the Sri Lankan government will conveniently absolve itself of its responsibility for such deaths. With all the indiscriminate aerial bombings on civilian targets like schools, hospitals and homes, President Mahinda Rajapakse assures the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that his most undisciplined military in the world have been instructed to be precise and discrete in avoiding causing civilian casualties, at hardly a time suited to making jokes.


It will be recalled that in the year 1956 and thereafter, the Tamil people began to progressively lose confidence in the changing policies of the so called internationalist socialist parties progressively embracing the Sinhala nationalist ideology. At the 1956 general elections when SWRD Bandaranaike successfully campaigned for Sinhala only, the United National Party(UNP) that had promised parity of status for the Sinhala and Tamil languages changed over to Sinhala only, while the Trotkyist Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) and the Stalinist Communist Party(CP) steadfastly campaigned for parity of status, the predominant Tamil party the Federal Party under SJV Chelvanayagam told the Tamil people not to trust any party led by the Sinhalese whether they were internationalist or nationalist, for the Tamils at the end of it all, would be betrayed. Chelvanayagam was then thought to be chauvinistic. Unfortunately for the Tamil people Chelvanagams’s prophesy proved to be correct when the LSSP and CP capitulated in 1965 betraying the Tamil people.

Anandasangaree, now a prime showpiece of Rajapakse, has been metamorphosising from being a Trotskyist LSSP internationalist, into a Tamil nationalist (TULF) and now to being a prisoner of Sinhala chauvinism and the fascism of the Sri Lankan state. He is being peddled at international forums as a leader of the Tamil people supporting Rajapakse’s policies while his views on the policy of devolution are not taken seriously at all. He is to be seen and not heard. The provisions of the Mahinda Chintanaya advocating a unitary state are said to be cast in iron and irrevocable, as if all the other provisions of this humorous document devoid of any spirit, are religiously observed to the very letter.

Time and space do not permit us to talk about the other mercenary scoundrels like Devananda in parliament, the other Tamil exhibits who are often taken out to be shown to the international community, subject of course to visa restrictions appertaining the country concerned as being supporters of his chauvinist agenda towards the Tamil speaking people.

It is important for the well wishers of lasting peace amonst the international community to note that the government should negotiate with the most important players who enjoy the confidence and the respect of the Tamil people and not with show pieces and exhibits of Rajapakse.- Sri Lanka Guardian