Rajapakse’s Tamil Stooges Condemn and Reject the UN Report

by J. Abdul Majeed

(June 20, Sri Lanka Guardian) As pressure mounts on the Rajapaske regime following the UN Report, the regime has increased its pressure on its Tamil stooges to condemn the report.

Minister Douglas Devananda began May Day by taking busloads of his supporters who were supplied money and meals to accompany him Colombo. Not only did they participate in the anti-UN rally there, the Minister issued a statement that there had been zero casualties at Mullivaikaal. At the same time GA Jaffna Imelda Sukumar contradicted her own balanced statements from those dangerous days in May 2009 as GA Mullaitivu then that had earned her praise, to repeat the government’s propaganda.

Despite all these statements, members of the Tamil public who had lost relatives or regularly meet people who had lost hands and legs in Mullivaikaal were confident that the new Vice Chancellor of Jaffna who had given an interview to the Uthayan daily that there is no room for politics in her administration and as an academic was rooted in the tradition of loyalty only to the unadulterated truth, would not let down the people or the truth or her own word.

But at the last meeting of the Committee of Vice Chancellors and Directors (CVCD) the government as part of its lobbying presented a motion condemning the report. The new VC of Jaffna, who surely knows the report to be accurate, rushed across the island to Ruhuna in her brand new car gifted by the government to condemn the report without any inquiry into its accuracy. Unlike government officials who may be coerced into mouthing government positions, an academic has freedom of thought as a birthright. Why did a VC from Jaffna, a senior professor no less, so easily let down the truth and her rights as a professor? It is worthy of note that during the last presidential elections when a motion was brought forward to recommend President Rajapaksa for a second term, the VCs of Moratuwa and Peradeniya, to their great credit, refused to participate.

It is only now that the public is beginning to understand why Douglas Devananda went through some somersaults and hoops including playing the religion card to have Vasanthy Arasartnam appointed as VC. She is said to regularly accompany the minister to various meetings nowadays.

The next to bow to the government was by Kandiah Neelakandan, President of the Hindu Maha Sabha, who had openly and successfully canvassed that a Christian should not be the next VC of Jaffna. As if to repay a debt to the government, he too strongly supported a resolution at the Sri Lanka Bar Association condemning the UN Report.

It would seem that for Tamil leaders an old adage has come to life: The way of the King, that is the way for the people.