Is the Sri Lankan Government grooming a new form of LTTE?

‘The outer perimeter barbed wire fences exist and the IDPs are not permitted move in and out of the camps, unless taken out to the Vavuniya hospital for medical reasons. We did not hear any complaints about these restrictions from the residents of these camps. The security concerns and safety of the refugees are yet paramount and the restrictions are acceptable to the inmates.’
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By Gaja Lakshmi Paramasivam

(August 08, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) I was dismayed to hear that GA Killinochchi, Mr.N.Vethanayagam has been arrested under terrorism charges. I have just returned from Puttaparthi in India, after reporting to Swami Sathya Sai Baba about my work in Sri Lanka. I was rarely in communication with outside world during this period and hence did not know of Mr. Vethanayagam’s arrest until the Tamil Diaspora informed me, on my return to Sydney, Australia.

My stay in Puttaparthi in that highly disciplined environment helped me consolidate the facts I observed with the experience I felt in Sri Lanka, in the Divine Environment that Puttaparthi is. The discipline helps our mind prevent external influences which then allows us access to our inner investments – and this to me is real Independence. We just give it different forms – with you seeing it as Sri Lanka and many Tamils seeing it as their Homeland – be it Homebush here in Sydney, Australia or Jaffna / Kilinochchi, there in Northern Sri Lanka. As per my self assessment - to me Independence is myself – strongly helped by Gandhi and led by my Spiritual Gurus Sai Baba of India and Yoga Swami of Sri Lanka.

I got to know Mr. Vethanayagam through my devotion to our own Yoga Swami, when we started losing access to our Yoga Swami family in Kilinochchi. If not for the help rendered by Mr. Vethanayagam, our distress and anxiety in relation to our Yoga Swami family would have been much greater. It is time that we the international branch of Yoga Swami Family help our Kilinochchi branch – which Mr. Vethanayagam is very much a part of. It is part of our Tamil Diaspora’s contribution in the Recovery and Development of Sri Lanka which as per your public expressions is very much in your plans for Sri Lanka.

Many Tamils expressed skepticism about your declarations that we were One Sri Lankan family. Not having interacted with you and/or those close to you, I had formed no subjective opinion about you as an individual. I had to therefore take you as the fruit of the biggest branch of our Sri Lankan family. LTTE leader Velupillai Prabaharan to me was the fruit of a smaller branch. I therefore took your words at face value and expressed my work as per those indicators and structures. The real value of our work is with us to give us Universal confidence. When we are natural we are universal naturally.

When your forces killed Velupiilai Prabaharan, I was saddened not because of the individual that he was but for the influence he had on a large part of our community. Once we become family, we have to see that person as part of the common family. To many Tamils Prabaharan was the shortcut to ‘showing’ independence. To many Sinhalese, Prabaharan was the threat to their comfort and luxury of majority rule in preference to merit based assessment. It looks as if Mr. Vethanayagam has been arrested on that basis rather than on merit based assessment.

Given that Mr. Vethanayagam was the highest ranking government officer in Kilinochchi, assessing him was the responsibility of Central Administration of your government. If they had been truly committed to their work, they would have discovered breaches of the law by Mr. Vethanayagam through ongoing Due Process. Given that they did not and Mr. Vethanaygam was still shown until last week, as the Government’s Agent to the People of Sri Lanka, we conclude that there was no evidence to charge Mr. Vethanayagam through merit based assessment and judgment. The only other official and moral avenue available to you was based on faith which as you would appreciate is the basis for reliable subjective assessment, judgment and distribution of costs and benefits.

It was on this basis of faith as Sri Lankan that I concluded that you were more right than Velupillai Prabaharan. As confirmed through my ongoing public reports, which have been forwarded to various parts of your government, I took the indicators by Lord Muruga at Kathirgamam that you were more just than Prabaharan in the last battle. As stated in my reports this was confirmed at the Kathiresan temple in Pettah where your offering of the beautiful picture of Lord Muruga of Kathirgamam hangs behind the altar. I sought genuinely and the indicators came through Divine Grace. I did not calculate on merit basis – because I am committed to Gandhi’s path of non-violence – at the physical and mental levels. Hence I needed faith and when the above indicators happened, I took them on the basis of our common faith in Lord Muruga – which I must say I did not have with Prabaharan and his followers, With the latter I did share the common faith in Independence. But at that time and place, that was not as strong as the common faith between you and I through Lord Muruga. Faith connects us automatically and hence we do not need calculated reasons.

Likewise, my feelings for Mr. Vethanayagam as part of our Yoga Swami family are much stronger than my feelings for the ex-LTTE combatant through whose directions your forces are reported to have arrested Mr. Vethanayagam. If indeed, your forces used the subjective method, then their actions would be legitimate only if their faith in ex-LTTE combatants is stronger than their faith in your own Administrative Service which did not punish Mr. Vethanayagam but continued to use him to provide facilities in the IDP camps.

If their faith in ex-LTTE combatants is stronger than their faith in Civil Servants – then whether you like it or not – you are grooming a new form of LTTE within your own forces. They are the same people with different form. That is the risk that comes with subjective powers – we become the persons we depend on. Given that your authorities are reported to have arrested another such leader – Mr. Pathmanathan, I conclude that these ex-LTTE combatants who are leading your forces, are automatically accumulating that punishment through the system of Karma and will receive their own punishments in due course of space and time – more time for your side and space for Tamils carrying on with the LTTE work from either side.

It is commonly accepted that the LTTE have been defeated. It would be wrong for your forces to take sole credit for it. The LTTE defeated itself by turning against its own people. By using the leftovers of the LTTE, you are developing a new and ugly branch of disloyalty within your own administration. What they do to their opposition today is what would have come back to their children if there had been no opposition. The system of democracy depends on Equal opposition, to deliver reliable and progressive outcomes. Otherwise it is important to use the open merit based assessment and leave it to wider public to make their own judgments and uses or remain silent and leave it to Natural Justice – so the punishment is endured in common,.

Unless therefore you have evidence to charge Mr. Vethanayagam through merit based assessment, or are disciplining him through your common faith, subjectively as an elder, it is important that you know that you are accumulating negative karma for your branch of our Sri Lankan family. I used that faith in deciding to use government facilities to provide Counseling Services to the IDP community which includes the authorities providing services at the physical level. If you and I are on the same side you would automatically return that faith which I believe did happen through the Ministry of Health officials who provided support through their subjective powers. On that basis, we are now planning on taking our investment in ‘meditation facilities’ along the North-South Paatha Yaathrai (Foot Pilgrimage) to Kathirgamam further – starting with the improvements of facilities at Yoga Swami centers in Batticaloa. These projects have the support of our Hawaii branch also. As you may know Yoga Swami was a disciple of Lord Muruga and we believe that Lord Muruga often responds to us through Yoga Swami form and Yoga Swami’s work.

We however, need to observe your government’s actions to determine for ourselves, the level of investment that would be ‘seen’ and therefore is on calculated basis to show reliable returns for our investors. The rest would be in common faith which would strengthen us within.

As shared with the trainee IDP counselors in Vavuniya, we see ourselves through various mirrors. Process of self observation is important in democracy. When we see ourselves through the outcomes of our work – we are independent of others. Hence the objective path in democracy – through Public Administration. When we see ourselves through family/community elders who are bound to us by common faith, we do not need objective outcomes but use the faith based subjective system through majority vote of the political path.

This observation when combined with our inner Truth about ourselves is our self assessment. It’s the parallel of mind which is a combination of physically observed with our inner Truth residing as our conscience.

In a nation that is not strong on objective merit basis – which is the case with most nations in that region, including India, one relies heavily on common faith to manage distribution of resources. During my recent stay at Pattaparthi, I felt deeply moved by the Grace of Divinity which happened continuously. Many Westerners who were yet to feel part of Indian culture seemed to have difficulty with both – the dirt outside the Aashram of Sri Sathya Sai Baba as well as the physical level discipline that was required by the Service Personnel who were almost a hundred percent Indians. I myself was ‘told’ by the Service ladies where to sit and which way to follow the queue. I did follow the orders as per my Hindu culture and if ever I felt hurt by any unjust ‘order’ I would be soon compensated by another Service person or would realize that following that order was better for me than the Due Process I was following as per my interpretation. THAT to me is the confirmation of a sacred area.

Sri Lankan constitution provides for Buddhism to be promoted as a first religion and that automatically places preference to subjective powers, in addition to those facilitated by the system of democracy through majority vote. Whilst it does seem unjust in a global context, through merit based calculations, it is also an acknowledgment that majority Sri Lankans are driven by faith rather than merit based intellectual calculations. This was a reason attributed to your actions in removing foreigners from the war zone. But if you replaced western foreigners with eastern ones, then those of us living and governing ourselves through western system of governance have also been removed and therefore you have lost direct access to our faith based contribution. When faith based local subjective powers are stronger than the merit based global powers, our path to independence is through our local homes. Those of us who may ‘look’ Sri Lankan or ‘Eelam Tamils’ but are relying on resources outside those boundaries, are in real terms foreigners, whilst some of us who may ‘look’ foreigners would be real Sri Lankans if we work the system with the ‘internal’ resources, by adding ourselves to the system.

There are many public reports from Sinhalese as well as Tamils about their visits to the IDP camps. Both sides have written as if they were the UN – judging your system. To that extent they are foreigners, unless they have contributed to UN Governance through any avenue available to them. To the extent they endorsed the civilian without portfolio – they were providing faith based service. This is what I did, even though I contribute regularly with inner faith to UN Governance. Whether those who hold those positions recognize it or not – I get the value as per my feelings through the system of Natural Justice. To the extent we did endorse, you have the responsibility to accept our endorsement until you have a reliable merit based global system of assessment for this international issue.

One report says ‘The outer perimeter barbed wire fences exist and the IDPs are not permitted move in and out of the camps, unless taken out to the Vavuniya hospital for medical reasons. We did not hear any complaints about these restrictions from the residents of these camps. The security concerns and safety of the refugees are yet paramount and the restrictions are acceptable to the inmates.’

Factually speaking this report is wrong because as per my observations, inmates are allowed to go out on leave. Some take leave from their camp to go and see their loved ones in other camps. That is due to that inner power to which the authors of the above report seem to have not connected – possibly due to their hasty use of subjective powers.

As for restrictions being acceptable to inmates that is in direct conflict with my own assessment through direct observations. Majority are highly stressed at being kept in custody against their will. They see it as a curtailment of their freedom of movement. It is true that a large number did complain about LTTE atrocity during the last battle but keeping them in custody beyond their immediate need as freely expressed by them – would lead to the ‘form’ changing from LTTE to Government forces. Those who went to camps as part of that community and not as foreigners waiting to make and give benefits through this ethnic issue, would have naturally known the pain of imprisonment that these IDPs feel.

All ‘inspectors’ who assessed the physical conditions of the camps through their own subjective eyes are foreigners to the IDPs, in this faith based resolution – which is the only real solution available to current Sri Lanka. Some Sinhalese wrote and others said that the camps and the hospitals in Vavuniya are not too different to various poor parts of Sri Lanka’s South. These are facts as per my own observations. It is also a fact that Australia also detains many refugees until they we are ready to assess them through our Australian process – however slow it may be. The difference in both is the mind that connects the external to the internal. All these inspectors have therefore added their status to the government that has detained these IDPs. That was a facility for Humanitarian Services abused towards quick status. The government failed in this regard.

LTTE despite their commitment to freedom, failed due to such shortcuts – especially in amassing ammunition beyond their needs – by abusing the Tamil name. Anyone who collects money by using Tamil name, beyond the needs of their group – would defeat themselves to that extent. Likewise any government that hoards wins beyond its needs.

Mr. President, in conclusion I share with you my analogy of this through our system of marriage. Some of us choose the arranged marriage system with all its security and support. Others choose the ‘love marriage’ path – which is driven largely by the couple’s reality but without much family support. Your government is as per the arranged marriage system whilst the Tamil political system now follows the ‘love marriage’ system. It would be wrong to punish someone through the structured family system if you did not support their choice of independent decision and development of new branch.

In addition to our lawful responsibilities, we also have social responsibilities, especially in areas that are not covered by the laws of the land or areas in which we are disadvantaged by government policy. Until you have a clear system that separates the two it is important that you separate those who exercise subjective powers. That is your protection from doing wrong through these ex combatants who are a menace to society. The more you use them the weaker your forces would be. As we sow, so shall we reap. You are giving up the work of a civil servant for an ex-combatant who until a few months ago was a terrorist to you?

-Sri Lanka Guardian