Fuel and fire: A Tamil homeland backed by 13-A

By C. Wijeyawickrema

"A Sinhala police officer cried when Tamil IDPs died in the camp."
"Sinhala doctors cried when a Tamil IDP child died in the camp."

Words of TNA MP Padmini Sidambaranathan in Parliament on July 7, 2009, she herself crying twice Which is the master?

(July 12, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" In the case of Sri Lanka, we can ask, "Which came first, Tamil separatism or the Sinhala Official Language Act?" This is a timeless question. The followers of "one language two countries, two languages one country" (the author of this statement later abandoned it) kind of philosophy, then or now, did not bother to ask such non-dialectical questions (In the 1930s and 1940s there was a fear that Sinhala language will have a natural death and there was a group propagating the idea that Sinhala was a Tamil language.

However, this "fear" was no reason for the People's Bank to send a reply to a Tamil student in Sinhala who completed the loan form in English without an English translation. I once had to help one such student to understand what was in the reply. It was stupid and sadistic. The useless officer and the supervisors should have been fired. Just like sending "SRI" number plated CTB busses to Jaffna correct administrative action by the government-one big set of firing-would have stopped lot of sabotaging).

Black-white Colombo elites

Who opposed the introduction of the territorial representation system and the universal franchise in 1931? Why did the Sinhala representative in the 1880s object to making Vesak a public holiday? Who opposed the preservation of the ancient city of Anuradhapura? Why did Gandhi ridicule those Tamil leaders in South India who could not speak Hindi? Why India made Hindi (a language spoken by about 30-40 percent of Indians) its official language? Why did Stanley J. Tambiah, a Christian, who forty years later asked "how can Buddhists kill?"(Buddhism betrayed, 1992) go to Thailand to study Buddhism in the 1960s when he could have done his sociology research on the rigid caste system in Jaffna? There is a group who opposes history (can we eat history?) because they do not want people to ask this kind of new questions.

A cesarean delivery of 13-A plus

At present a confusing situation is artificially and deliberately created by the pre-November 2005 anti-national groups in Colombo (ref. H. L. Seneviratna's essay in the Island newspaper on 11/9/2005 and response on 11/11/2005) by asking the old question of "How soon 13-A plus can be delivered to Tamil politicians," instead of asking a new question, "Which is the master, 13-A or the Tamil homeland myth in Sri Lanka?" This is a relevant and a reasonable question. It is not a SBC (Sinhala Buddhist Chauvinist) question. An analysis of who write about this old question and who talk about "group rights within a united-unitary state, it is clear that this is the same crowd who wrote about SBCs and on topics such as "this war is not winnable," Sri Lanka is a failed state," and "Sri Lanka is the abusive state in the world."

Pyramid of needs

The top priority in Sri Lanka today should be about how to help the Tamil IDPs and how to get rid of a culture of corruption and crime and not about 13-A. One out of the box approach should have been to bring down to Colombo areas and create IDP shelters in temples, churches, mosques and in willing private homes. The concerned citizens' groups writing to news papers could have organized things like that. If we use Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of human needs (A Theory of Human Motivation, 1943) most of Sri Lankans, not just the Tamil IDPs are at the lowest level of basic human needs. To quote from Wikipedia:

"Maslow's human needs are presented as a pyramid with human physiological needs at the base [more toilets in IDP camps?] and highest levels of aspirations at the top [Kumar Ponnambalam's Tamil aspiration demand]. At the base of the pyramid, at the lowest level are the physiological needs. These are the deficiency needs, most of which animals or even trees cannot live without.'

"Once these are met, seeking to satisfy growth needs drives personal growth. The higher needs in this hierarchy only come into focus when the lower needs in the pyramid are met. Once an individual moves upward to the next level, needs in the lower level will no longer become a priority. If a lower set of needs is no longer being met, the individual will temporarily re-prioritize those needs by focusing attention on the unfulfilled needs, but will not permanently regress to the lower level. For instance, a businessman at the esteem level who is diagnosed with cancer will spend a great deal of time concentrating on his health (physiological needs), but will continue to value his work performance (esteem needs) and will likely return to work during periods of remission."

"The lower four layers of the pyramid is what Maslow called "deficiency needs" or "D-needs": physiological, safety and security, love and belonging, and esteem. With the exception of the lowest (physiological) needs, if these "deficiency needs" are not met, the body gives no physical indication but the individual feels anxious and tense."

Level one- Physiological needs (food, sleep, stimulation, activity) (Body needs)

"For the most part, physiological needs are obvious - they are the literal requirements for human survival. If these requirements are not met (with the exception of clothing and sex) the human body simply cannot continue to function. Physiological needs include: Breathing, Homeostasis, Water, Sleep, Food, Sex, Clothing, and Shelter."

Group rights and 13-A plus rights can wait for a natural birth (or a natural death due to promotion of individual rights). After all poor Tamils who did not speak English had to wait for 33 years to get their basic physiological needs covered.

Reasonable behavior

The Island newspaper is unique in providing a forum for public discussions on important socio-political topics (burning issues?) and the writers have an obligation to be reasonable in using this facility. Dr. Dayan Jayatilleke (DJ), a hybrid product of Sinhala-Tamil parents, a talented person, has every right to use any forum that he can lay hands on to promote his 13-A plus plan. But he has to be reasonable in what he writes and how he writes. As a person who wishes to be born again in a Sri Lankan village, in a peaceful country, I decided to challenge DJ's unreasonable statements based often on false data and a dialectic mindset (The Island, 6/22/2009). I raised eleven issues (The Island, 7/1/2009) and he answered none of them which was his prerogative. But, Instead, he wrote what villagers call, an undera demala and got it printed twice, first as a postscript (The Island, 7/2/2009), and the next day as a letter to the editor (The Island, 7/3/2009). I hope DJ will avoid this yanne koheda malle pol approach in future because it is intentional abuse of a privilege. It was Karl Marx who said that he was not a "Marxist." Any person who went to a Sunday Damma school could see the Buddhist Middle Path laced in the Mahinda Chinthanaya. There is no "Wije.. version" of it. If there is a DJ version he should let us know.

Unprofessional conduct

Knowing very well that Mahinda Rajapakse (MR), the "hawkish" presidential candidate won in November 2005 because of the hard work of JHU and JVP who have opposed the 13-A formula, DJ as MR's personal agent at the Geneva Sri Lankan Mission writes promoting his own agenda, stating that the views expressed were purely his personal opinion! Since there are no pure persons there cannot be pure personal opinions. DJ has past experience in the non-purity of people, like when he went to pay his last respect to a fallen war hero General Denzil Kobbakaduwa. People can be cruel but for DJ to think that he would be welcomed was a serious lapse of judgment.

DJ's behavior is unprofessional and unreasonable as MR's diplomat. He has been crossing the fine line or the rough line on a regular basis. In the past, he wrote about the "fault line" and the "clash of peoples" (Island, 7/27/2008). We all love theorizing and imagination and an inquiring mind. Then he began trespassing the territory of 13A Classic (Island, 8/11/2008). His 13A Classic, according to his own words, is a way station on the road to 13A plus and to the Indian "F" model. These writings, one by one, indicated a pattern reminiscent of the villagers' saying, diya-redden bella kapanawa (cutting one's neck using bath robe). His writings along with the 13A plus-related putting the cart before the horse kind of acts of some ministers put the president in an awkward situation, waking up some sleeping tigers. People cannot eat 13-A. Tamil terrorists are still shooting at soldiers. Nedumaran thinks Prabakaran is alive!

Repeating the same mistake of making dialectically logical conclusions based on false data (facts), and forgetting what he himself said an year ago about a ‘way station' DJ now says that those who think that 13-A is path to separatism are silly, because if that were the case Prabakaran would not have rejected it! Prabakaran rejected so many things-Northern Province on a platter for 15 years from CBK (and RP?), RPremadasa's so many irresistible deals, Oslo federalism with Ranil W's CFA 2002. Prabakaran and previously SJV Chelvanayagam lived and died in delusion. As SWRD once described: (Hansard vol. 31 (June 3, 1958) cols. 244-5) "[SJVC is surely] one of the most dangerous types of human beings in the world, quite in his own way sincere, in his own way an idealist, but having no idea whatsoever of reality and the practical side of things. Very dangerous people, such people are capable of deluding themselves completely, capable of deluding others too" (("S.J.V. Chelvanayakam and the crisis of Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism, 1947-77: a political biography" written by the late A. J. Wilson (1994), son-in-law of SJVC, page 10). This characterization applied very well to Prabakaran's character as well. I wonder if DJ is also at least a borderline case in this regard. Was this what Milinda Seneviratne was trying to tell us as DJ's Utopia (The Nation, 7/5/2009)?

Purpose of 13-A

The primary purpose of 13-A was to give official recognition to the hitherto mythical fact that there was/is a traditional Tamil homeland in the North and the East of Sri Lanka. Like the Section 29 of the 1947 Constitution, or the nefarious CFA 2002, 13-A was part of the agreement which restricted the sovereignty of Sri Lankan people. It was part of the humiliation Dixit and India imposed on a helpless president. There is no way Sri Lanka can come out of this mess other than by throwing it out by obtaining a people's mandate. Even if DJ, or any other person directly or indirectly made promises to any international entity to follow 13-A, they are trustees and not masters of the people. A new constitution must be developed with people's input and not by husband-wife teams of lawyers sitting in Colombo offices. Colombo is not Sri Lanka.

Un-Buddhist ideas of DJ

While writing this response which I promised to DJ via an e-mail, I saw DJ's reply to Milinda Seneviratne (The Island, 7/9/2009) in which DJ listed reasons for his bias for a 13A plus.

1. 13-A is already in place and does not have to be (re)negotiated. It has only to be implemented and Sri Lanka's military triumph would be politically reinforced instantly.

2. Tamil nationalism would be split between the hyper-nationalists who reject it and the moderates who accept and participate.

3. Tamil Diaspora would be divided.

4. The North-South gap would be bridged.

5. A renewed cycle of conflict would be less likely or possible.

6. The impressive weight of India in the world system would be solidly with us.

7. The international pressure on us would lift somewhat, our allies and friends in the international system would be relieved and vindicated.

8. External financing would be more readily available.

9. The anti-Sri Lanka global campaign would be severely weakened and the attempt to encircle Sri Lanka internationally would be defeated.

10. All these strategic benefits are obtainable right now.

11. The idea of Tamil Eelam can be defeated only by the counter-idea of reformed and restructured Sri Lankan state which may remain unitary but contains an irreducible autonomous political space for the Tamil people of the North and East. It cannot be defeated by the idea of Sri Lanka shorn of even the 13th amendment.

12. Armed Tamil secessionism can and has been defeated, but the politics of collective Tamil identity cannot be militarily defeated or suppressed; it can only be politically addressed.

13. If Sri Lanka had devolved power in 1957, 1966, 1981 (DDCs), 1984 (Annexure c) or 1986 (Chidambaram), there would have been no Indian intervention.

DJ is deluding himself by ignoring the purpose of 13-A discussed above. It was created to recognize a Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka. It even recognized that up to three provinces can decide to merge. Could it be the Central Province, Uva or the North Central? What DJ listed as item 13 above had happened under Colombo black-white rulers. Under them since 1832 two Ceylons evolved: (1) Colombo Ceylon of the English-speaking groups and (2) the Other Ceylon where poor and rural, non-English-speaking people of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim origin lived. In 1956 there was a jolt but no significant change. After 1977 a total reversal to pre-1948 era took place. After Nov 2005 and after May 18, 2009, the two Sri Lankas show signs becoming a unified Sri Lanka. In this new Sri Lanka children will be taught Sinhala and Tamil and they will be taught how to speak in English. This approach will take care of Tamil, Muslim and Sinhala collective identity issues.

DJ's list above indicates that DJ is deluding himself and trying to delude others. The Mahinda Chinthanaya does not have to worry about anything he listed above. When the former president of India said that Buddhism provides solution to world's problems he did not mean dirty tricks, divide and conquer or Nixon, Kissinger or Machiavelli tactics. When the Buddhist American, professor Robert Thurman wrote a book chapter telling how American can create a better America using Buddhist approach he did not think of dirty geopolitics. The American Senator Fulbright did not suggest dirty tricks. We Buddhists do not want to interfere with Tamil thinking and Tamil plans for a Tamil country. All we say is that geography and history are against trying to create it in Sri Lanka. What Genral Sarath Fonseka recently explained was "that minorities should enjoy equal rights with the majority, but they (Tamil politicians) should not make unreasonable demands." Asking a Tamil homeland is an unreasonable demand when a homeland is there next door in Tamil Nad. Asking separate group rights is unreasonable when 60% of Tamils live outside the "proposed homeland" and moving south on a daily basis. Nobody interfered with their collective identity expressed in Jaffna, but what about the collective identity of the Sinhalese? Muslims, Christians, Tamils and Burghers have their own source regions or homelands. Sri Lanka is the only real estate for the Sinhalese. In Buddhist temples 20-30% of the sacred space is devoted to Hindu gods and goddesses. Tamils come from South India to worship at Kataragama. Sri Lanka should resurrect the train-boat link with Danushkodi. Sinhala women go to worship the Siva lingam in the ancient Siva Devalaya at Pollonnaruwa.

India followed the 13A path since 1935 and did a big mistake in 1956 by demarcating states on linguistic lines. The original 14 states are now at 28 and another 35 are on the "waiting list." No day passes in India without an ethnic/language clash. Indian people did not get empowered by these methods. Just like with the PC white elephant in Sri Lanka a new set of local politicians were added to the set of politicians in Delhi. What is important is to remove any chance that some political crooks can find to resurrect racism. Tamil politicians in Colombo gave private tuition to their children to learn Sinhala and prevented poor Tamils in Jaffna learning it free in government schools. The basic requirement here is not to allow any spatial unit created on the basis of language. As far as possible the unit should have a natural boundary, ideally a river basin kind. With this approach there will be units which will predominantly be Tamil or Muslim units. Yalpanam will be one such unit where there will be room for collective identity. Sri Lanka being a scrambled ethnic egg this is the only way people could be prevented from looking for ethnic escape goats and politicians trying to capitalize on it. In 1976 of the 160 electorates 157 had a mixture of Tamils and Sinhalese. APRC majority report wanted to build Tamil police stations to handle this scrambled egg!

The April 2007 SLFP proposals submitted to APRC indicated that people will be empowered at the Gram Raj level. This approach is economical, efficient, ecologically sound and ethnic-friendly. It allows room for group aspirations without disturbing ethnic harmony. This is beyond DJ's list on item 13 above and this is what all the countries in the world wanted to do. India selected it as Panchayathi Raj Institutes in 1993. There is no other real estate for the Sinhala Buddhists. They lived with local Tamils for 2550 years. They are capable of living in harmony again when there are no loop holes in the spatial demarcation of Sri Lankan political units for the white politicians, black-whites, Marxists, and a small group of Tamil separatists to try to put their dirty fingers in. Leaders coming out of such local units will be national leaders and not Tamil, Muslim or Sinhala leaders. Sri Lanka can have a Tamil Obama when a Tamil go to election platforms in the south and speak in fluent Sinhala. Nobody thought of the Tamil ancestry of SWRD when he spoke in so attractive Sinhala on election platforms. JRJ with his Muslim ancestry could not speak that well in Sinhala, still people trusted him!

Law and facts

Since DJ and other on the 13-A buggy cart start their journey ignoring some basic foundational facts, it is timely to summarize again how the real world handles homelands and separatist demands. The history of human society is a history of a small group of people controlling the rest by using habits and customs and raw physical power which later took the shape of laws in the book. No more law of the jungle! When during the Dutch occupation the punishment for destroying a cinnamon tree was death or when in USA a marriage between a white and a black was illegal it was new law of civilization. Those who are in control pass laws. Under the international law there are rules of law on how a country is recognized and rules on how UDI is also considered as part of that law.

Law is like the tip of the iceberg. The facts are the mass under the water. We call this evidence. Facts are used to interpret and implement the law (cinnamon trees should not be destroyed). Any given legal dispute is decided by using facts from eye-witness accounts to historical documents to patterns of human behavior. Thus facts can be acts of commission as well as non-acts (omissions). Not doing something can become a fact, evidence against somebody, some entity. This is how silence becomes approval. One can maintain silence in a given situation due to any number of reasons but in a court of law it can be used as a fact to prove that silence was consent. For example, GOSL rejected the four points in the Thimpu Declaration. But this rejection will become evidence of making such demand at that time, if and when a future Vartharaja Perumal wants to fight for a UDI or a separate country. This basic difference between law and fact and between acts and non-acts which can become acts, are crucial in understanding why 13-A backers today do not want to answer questions such as "Do you think that there is a Tamil homeland in the East?"

After finishing a 33-year old curse, the MR Administration has a duty on behalf of the thousands of Hasalaka hero mothers to avoid making the kind of blunders made by previous administrations. Each blunder, each non-act will be evidence for a case for Tamil statehood. There are some factors beyond the control of GOSL that must be considered before thinking of developing a home-grown constitution. In this regard the APRC is like a cyanide capsule that Adeline Balasingham (now living happily in London) distributed to teenage Tamil girls.

13- A thieves in Colombo

Historically, there were only three persons who truthfully accepted the true purpose of 13-A: (1) Rajiv Gandhi said in the Indian parliament that he had to force JRJ to accept it (2) Gamini Jayasuriya was the only person in the UNP to protest against it and leave, and (3) the sailor who tried to kill Rajiv Gandhi on the airport tarmac was also truthful even though he was wrong in his approach. No person in Sri Lanka in 2009 can bring lasting peace to Sri Lanka if that person cannot understand that the history and geography of the island (history is past geography) do not support a myth created by a separatist Tamil politician. "You cannot legislate against geography" (The Island, 2/22/2006). Tamil people and the other people must all be empowered not via 13-A, but by creating a language-blind spatial demarcation units. And Tamil group rights (aspirations) are still possible under a language-blind path without destroying peace and harmony in the entire island, sooner or later, when the present actors are dead and gone, just like JRJ, Mrs. B, RP and AnuraB are all gone (ref. F marriages and water wars, Ceylon Daily News, 9/13/ 2006; Language-blind regional development units, The Island, 10/25/2006).

D(evolution) and decentralization of power

13-A backers use the two words "devolution" and "moderates" all the time but avoid the word "empowerment." They want devolution offered to "moderate" Tamil politicians and not empowerment of Tamil people. The only Tamil public figure who indicated an open willingness to abandon 13-A path was Col. Karuna (give us what Colombo gets) and he will become a born-again Tamil homeland backer again if the humiliating 1987 Indo -SL (RG-Dixit-JRJ) pact is given a new leaf of life under the unofficial Dayan J version of the Mahinda Chinthanaya. There should be dialog on this topic and there is no reason to act in a hurry. Politicians give the term devolution a twisted meaning to suit their selfish interests. In a tiny island like Sri Lanka it should mean decentralization of governmental power and not several regional powers. Taking the government to people by making it closer to them was the purpose behind creating nine provinces from the original five. Creating new districts (Gampaha, Killinochchi) and new AGA divisions by the central government are based on this principle of allowing more access. During the RPremadasa rule GSN units were increased from 4,000 to 14,000! These can be rearranged or merged to fit in with ecology-base Gram Rajya units. Unlike the previous blunders the 13-A plus once given will be a point of no return. No military can unravel it.

In Sri Lanka, devolution was a concept over one hundred years old (ref. An alternative to the devolution dilemma" move the capital to Raja Rata (The Island, 4/21/1998). Any regional division based on language will bring in ethnic tension back in to all the regions in the island. This has been the lesson from Belgium (where three-part split after 150 years became a real possibility), Scotland (where devolution is to be replaced by a separate country, just one more election away), Northern Ireland (where religious tensions are buried not dead) and in India (where the 1956 linguistic demarcation of state boundaries keep on adding fuel to more and more separatist units). It is worth noting that under the devolution path the late Neelan Thiruchelvam wanted the Indian "F" model in the merged N-E Province but not the Pondicherry sub model (devolution inside a devolved unit like in Tamil Nadu to accommodate Muslim and Sinhala enclaves).

Empowerment

13-A advocates do not talk about empowerment of people. Instead politicians talk about devolution because they can get new jobs, life-time retirements, help their relatives etc. The best form of devolution of power is giving decision-making powers to spatial units as small as possible (human scale, Small Is Beautiful). The control from Colombo should be minimized and locals should be allowed to run the show locally. In India, this has been the Panchayathi Raj Institutes. In Sri Lanka, it should be village councils re-demarcated to follow natural boundaries as far as practicable. Within such natural boundaries, group rights are possible without providing any "incentives" to think of separatism. For example, I know that in Panadura, there are at least three areas with Muslim settlements (enclaves): Totawatta, Sarikkali mulla and Eluvila. If these areas are wards or hemlets within larger ecologically bounded village councils or urban areas what would prevent them promoting their own group rights? If Yalpanam is a new province based on a river-basin based re-division of Sri Lanka, then village councils in that area, which will be Tamil majority, can form a higher level Yalpanam spatial unit to celebrate Hindu festivals or to decide not to make Vesak a public holiday within that unit. The important point is that those Tamils in the South as well as Tamils living in the north understand that the unit is not created as a language-based unit. This is the difference between 13-A approach and a language-blind approach. If a Tamil unit decides to ignore Vesak despite the fact that there are some Buddhists within the unit, then that unit will soon learn that a Sinhala unit or a Muslim sub-unit (Oluvil?) could follow the same path depriving Hindu celebrations to Tamils. This is how democracy can work at the grass root level with spatial checks and balances (ref. APRC and the bioregional vision (The Island, 2/25/2009).

Who is a moderate?

13-A advocates and some white politicians hide behind an idea called the moderates. They say extremists are unreasonable and undemocratic people. But who is a moderate is time and place depended (contextual). An extremist in the past becomes a moderate today depending on changed circumstances. Israel's Arial Sharon was an extremist who promoted illegal settlements in Palestine lands. After 30 years he decided to remove these settlements and he was called a moderate. The settlers who wanted to kill him, suddenly became extremists! Because there are new extremists, an old extremist idea does not become a new moderate idea. In Sri Lanka federalism-separatism was considered an extremist position by the majority Sinhala people. Simply because a terrorist group wanted a separate country by force does not make the others in Colombo who continue to ask the "F" solution moderate Tamils. This was the logic behind both Sinhala and Tamil concerned citizen groups (ref. Professor Rajan Hoole's human rights award (The Island, 10/16/2007); A ‘concerned' group of Sri Lankans and the kamatha test (The Island, 3/7/2009); Concerned Tamil citizens and the Karuna paradigm (The Island, 5/23 and 5/25/2009).

White politicians in a flat world

I consider DJ writing from Geneva and other "moderates" writing from Colombo on "group rights" and "human rights" as appendages of the white politicians in failed democratic capitalist countries in the west. Just like those days they came with NGOs then called the Hudson Bay Company or the East India Company, they are now hiding behind NGOs called R2P and TI. They created the UN to continue colonialism and UN agents displayed a clear bias toward white politician's hidden agenda. In the case of Sri Lanka in 2009 white politician's agenda became UN-HR peoples open agenda. As mentioned in my previous reply to DJ, three world forces work in combination with one goal: to create more tension and conflicts in the world professing democracy and peace to make former colonies unstable and vulnerable. To give just one simple example of this truth: there is a bomb-making factory in rural Oklahoma in USA and if bombs cannot be dropped on some country or cannot be sold to rival fighting groups in some country, the bomb factory workers will be unemployed!

Corruption triangles

Remote-controlled colonialism operates with corruption triangles. At the village level the triangle consists of the NGO-local politician-AGA (GSN). At the national level NGO/INGO-ministers-officers. Some white politicians will work over-time to promote racial tensions not because they have Tamil block votes to be captured in their electorates but because of the three inter-connected processes taking place in the Flat world (made flat by computer technology). They are: (1) Clash of civilization (superiority of western-European sets of values), (2) Christianization of Asia (to make them more civilized and ultimately religiously save them) and (3) exploitation of the Third world resources using free trade as a trade mark.

The index industry (e.g., failed state index) and R2P agents help accommodate the three movements using dollar bills. They got into a crisis mode after the collapse of the system of capitalist democracy in 2008-2009. If the collapse of the Berlin Wall was the first end of history, this collapse of the Wall Street wall was the second end of history. The Western white politicians must create more trouble spots for them to survive. This is the plain and the naked truth. If a Tamil-Sinhala clash is alive in Sri Lanka, sooner or later, USA, UK and Canada can have two embassies each in the island! Unfortunately hybrid products like DJ serve s as their cat's paws, knowingly or unknowingly.

Christianization of Asia

The separatist paradigm in Ceylon did not begin as an issue of collective identity. It began in the 1920s by the actions of two Christian Colombo Tamils (SJVC and GGP). The poor Christians have nothing to do with this. Funny thing is evangelists spent millions in rural Buddhist or Hindu villages but the poverty among Christians in towns is ignored! Christian soldiers fought to save Sri Lanka. But on any given problem in Sri Lanka one can see an organized-establisment Christian ghost behind it. Lasantha Wickramatunge who acted as a double or multiple spy agent was an organization Christian. Most NGO mudalalis are Christians.

13-A has become an unexpected vehicle for the corruption triangles and for the three world forces mentioned above. 13-A plus in Sri Lanka is an ideal vehicle to create instability in Sri Lanka. The report on unethical conversion of Buddhists to Christianity (ACBC, 2009), on page 192, at paragraph 833, has identified these three forces and describe vividly how they run the business.

Tamil country with a UN seat

DJ's list above does not cover the demand by world Tamils for a separate country. How is he going to tackle that? There is an entity called the world federation of Tamils which fight for a Tamil country with a UN seat. This is not an organization limited to Sri Lankan expat Tamils. Attempts to form it in the Fiji Island or in Malaysia failed and Sri Lanka became until May 18, 2009 a juicy target. With remnants of Prabakaran's 30 year-old world net work rising to raise its head again those Tamils in Colombo Sri Lanka will work with outside forces to take group right to its logical conclusion of a group country. Therefore, 13-A which is official recognition of a Tamil traditional homeland in North and East should not be accepted as a method to promote group aspirations of Tamils in Sri Lanka.

The link between Tamil separatism in Tamil Nadu and Tamil separatists in Colombo will always be there. Tamil Nadu politicians will always find some topic to stir the racial pot if the spatial unit created was based on language. It can be water allocation in times of drought or discrimination in allowing dealing with foreign investors or the Kachchativu Island or illegal fishing. If 13-A set up is continued there will come a time that even a loud fart would become an issue for conflict because in Tamil Nadu there will always be politicians waiting to catch it. Nedumaran still believes that Prabakarna is not dead! These are perennial issues in the Indian devolution system today. There are demands to create two more states out of the present Tamil Nadu, making it three states.

DJ says that MR can solve the Tamil collective identity issue because he has the political capital. Tamil collective identity is not an item MR can handle. Gandhi, Nehru and Indira could not handle it. What MR can do is to provide reasonable spatial space for the JaffnaTamils in Sri Lanka to celebrate their festivals etc without them thinking that there is "Sinhalization," a fear created by SJVC. Nobody is there to talk about the collective identity of the Sinhala Buddhists. Actually Sinhala Buddhists themselves do not talk about it.

Unlike the other religions where life is linear, in Buddhism life is cyclical. After death one does not go to a holding-tank to be resurrected at a later time. Everything in the world is impermanent. The Middle Path is the path to follow. Buddhism is 4NT+8NP (four noble truths and the eight noble- path). For people, whose lives are woven around such formula, collective identities are not matters of life and death. Only a handful of university professors and Marxists following western models talk of collective this or that, and then thrive on the instability so created. Five hundred years of colonialism was nothing but humiliation of Asian, African and South American cultures. Sri Lanka has begun a reversal by return-humiliation. The French foreign minister got it. A Canadian MP got it. Even the mighty America's some politicians got it. Yes, Sri Lanka can! It can live without begging at foreign embassy gates or IMF corridors. Sri Lanka can be an example to other poor countries struggling to come out of humiliation trap they inherited from colonial rule (it is trap which creates their own corrupt politicians). The sooner DJ shift gears from a 13-A plus delivery man's role to an anti-humiliation activist (Castro follower) the better for him and for the IDPs and other poor Tamils in Sri Lanka.

-Sri Lanka Guardian