Can’t celebrate suppressing our own people.

by Dr. Vickramabahu Karunarathne

(May 29, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) We are dead against the government marking so called Victory Day with celebrations. Even during the time of the war we spoke against it. This war only subdued an insurgency of youth of this country. If it was waged against an invading foreign power then we could think of celebrations. But no right-thinking person can celebrate the crushing of an insurgency by the youth of this country. It is the vengeance of the poor oppressed people that develops into an insurgency anywhere whether in the north or the south. Tamil insurgency was a result of brutal suppression of Tamil people. An insurgency in the south that the government of the day crushed outright was that of the JVP, launched in the early 1970s. No one proposed to celebrate it; then why celebrate the crushing of Tamil youth?

During the north-east war over 100,000 Tamil people perished while 30,000 Sinhala soldiers too gave their life. Over 100,000 people from both sides were also injured and scores of others ended up being disabled. Over l00000 women on both sides are widows while thousands of children are suffering. People can only grieve over it and they cannot do more than that as they are helpless. Even if you look at it from the perspective of the Sinhalese community, there is no tangible reason to mark this bogus Victory Day with celebrations. They should think of thousands and thousands of Sinhalese who died during the war. This is also the case with the forces; they must think of the misery of war.

All religions advocate survivors must grieve or pray and should not celebrate it in the manner that this government does. The government resorts to this kind of cheap exercise in a vain bid to hold on to their fast receding popularity among the people. What they should have done even at this time, was to genuinely address the grievances of the Tamil people; instead of wasting precious time and money on Tamashas. The biggest problem to day is that this government is least interested in what they should do to seriously to tackle issues plaguing this country.