Moves to revive separatist sentiments

By S. Akurugoda

(April 25, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) Responding to a query, as reported in the last weekend issue of The Island, the Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has said that Opposition political parties or constituent partners of the ruling coalition should not be allowed to engage in divisive politics.

Suppressing the separatist movement and tackling its propaganda apparatus should be a major part of Sri Lanka’s strategy against the LTTE, he said. The new government should go all out against any local element promoting separatist sentiments regardless of political consequences.

The government should be prepared to thwart a fresh attempt by separatists operating abroad to throw a lifeline to the LTTE. A section of the international community, he says, is bent on reviving the LTTE and giving it recognition.

Robert O’ Blake, the US Assistant Secretary of State, who was infamous for playing a vital role to oust Mahinda Rajapakse regime while he was in Colombo as the US ambassador has stated that the parliamentary election results as a severe defeat to the hardline Sinhalese nationalist parties who had opposed any kind of power-sharing with Tamils and with the Muslims.

As far as we are aware, the Sri Lanka parliamentary election result is a severe a defeat to the parties (such as UNF led by UNP and DNA led by JVP) who had joined with the extremists Tamil and Muslim parties ( headed by Sambandan, Rauff Hakeem and Mano Ganeshan etc who had close links with the LTTE separatist outfit) during the last Presidential election with the full blessing (possibly including financial support) of the very same elements, who were instrumental in seeking a regime change at any cost with a sinister motive of destabilising the country. In fact O’Blake was widely believed to be the hidden architect of bringing Sarath Fonseka onto the Presidential race to undermine the current regime. The result of both the Presidential and the Parliamentary election have also shown the strength of the peace loving people and delivered a strong signal to the colonial minded Robert O’Blake, Millibands and the like who still believe that there is something extra ordinary under their white skin and blue eyes.

Apart from the notable group of the so-called international community who is bent on reviving the terrorist outfit, the LTTE proxy local elements of the LTTE including the racial parties of the so-called minorities appear to start, once again, another round of disaster, this time under the slogan of ‘ensuring the rights of the minorities’. As the President Mahinda Rajapaksa proclaimed in his historic statement made in the Parliament on 19th may 2009, that there would no longer be divisions among minorities and majorities in the country on the basis of ethnicity but there would be two kinds of people-those who loved the country and those who did not. It is high time for these disastrous elements to learn how to live peacefully with those who love the country instead of reverting to the separatist sentiments.

In its election manifesto, TNA has emphasized the same old slogans of ‘right to self determination’, ‘areas of historical habitation’, ‘Tamils are a distant nationality’, ‘merger of Northern and Eastern Provinces’ etc, to revive separatist sentiments once again, for their own political survival. As the defence Secretary stated in his interview with The Island, these LTTE proxies may not have artillery pieces in their arsenal and their strategy will be different, but their goal will be the same.

Meanwhile, according to other media reports, SLMC Leader Rauff Hakeem is said to have had accepted an invitation from the LTTE proxy TNA for talks on working together in parliament in order to ensure the rights of the minorities are secured. The results of the Parliamentary election has shown how some of these cunning political parties have made use of the preferential/proportional representation electoral system to enter the Parliament to enhance their racial cries at the expense of the conventional UNP electoral voter base.

It appears that the politicians of our country have a very short memory compared to the rest of the world. Whenever a dispute is ended by military means, the winner will not keep room for the loser to revive its claims once again.

Military win of the Second World War is a victory over Nazi (the philosophy of the German National Socialist Party under the leadership of Adolf Hitler) and after the war, effective steps were taken by the winners for the elimination of all roots of Nazism. After the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971, fought over the issue of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), India kept no room for Pakistan, to claim its lost territory again. Similarly after the Vietnam War of 1975, the Vietnamese people kept no room for the US led allied forces to revive separatism again on the Vietnam soil.

Thus the winner, the Sri Lanka Government, should introduce new laws to meet security requirements and should go all out against any local element promoting separatist sentiments regardless of political consequences, as the Defence Secretary quite rightly pointed out, since the country could not afford to make way for terrorists once again.