Part II -H. L. D. Mahindapala

An objective analysis of northern politics will reveal that internal peninsular forces were directed and manipulated by the ESJV’s not to liberate the Tamils en masse, irrespective of caste distinctions, but to retain their feudal, colonial and casteist powers. Caste in Jaffna was the most oppressive force that turned the peninsula into a brutal gulag for the low-castes who could not escape the jackboots of the ruling Vellahlas. Throughout the feudal and colonial periods Jaffna remained a prison house for the non-Vellahlas who had to suffer the indignities  imposed by the casteist ideology manufactured by Arumuka Navalar to maintain and perpetuate the supremacy of the fascist Vellahlas. Jaffna had no respite. Casteist fascism of the Vellahlas was replaced only by the equally racist fascism of Velupillai Prabhakaran. Only the liberation of Jaffna by President Mahinda Rajapakse gave Jaffna for the first time a democratically elected body, free from casteist and racist fascism.

 Clearly, the English-educated Saivite Jaffna Vellahlas reacted the way they did in  1983” not so much because the Tamils were attacked en masse but mainly because the pockets of the ESJVs residing in the suburbs of Colombo (like Wellawattam) were subject to attacks by the mindless mob. The lower-class/caste Tamils had faced similar attacks in Colombo and elsewhere before and that did not provoke the reaction of 1983”. It became  ‘Black July’ because ESJV elite were targeted on a large scale for the first time.

 In other words, the mistake of the Sinhala mob was in attacking the Tamil elite. If the soldiers retaliated in kind in Jaffna 1983” would not have had the explosive impact that followed. It would have passed off as another incident in the long-drawn war. Mark you, this is said not to defend to violence of the lunatic fringe of the south. ICES has a moral right to highlight the atrocities of 1983”. It has a moral right to say NEVER AGAIN” to 1983”. But why has ICES not painted Prabhakaran with the same brush and mobilized the people of Jaffna never to give birth to another mass murderer from the womb of Jaffna? He committed more crimes against the Tamils than all the other forces put together. Tamil leaders have confessed that Prabhakaran had killed more Tamils than all the others put together.

 Of course, some Tamil moralists have protested against Prabhakaran in passing, in an odd sentence or two. But  neither the ICES nor the other allied NGOs had launched a concerted attack against northern violence on the same scale as they did against southern violence. On the contrary, they were in the business  of concocting excuses for northern violence.

 These ideologues pursued a selective approach to target only violence of the south without presenting a commensurate attack on the violence of the north. This ideological rationalizations kept Prabhakaran alive and kicking. The NGOs too wanted him kept alive as a bargaining chip for harvesting more money from  their paymasters in the West. Prabhakaran alive was worth millions to them.

 It is true that Radhika Coomaraswamy did name Prabhakaran for forcibly recruiting under aged children at the UN. But that had the effect of only a rap on the knuckles with a wet paper towel. The UN allowed Prabhakaran to carry on violating even the agreement signed with Olaru Ottunu, one of the predecessors of Coomaraswamy. The State Department and The New York Times, which have falsely accused Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) of being the only nation to join the company of Syria and N. Korea in rejecting UN resolutions, did not count the contempt with which Prabhakaran kicked the UN out of his political calculations as an institution of no consequence.

 Prabhakaran was able to act arrogantly and intransigently with confidence because he was assured of the backing of the leading NGOs, the Catholic Church, hired academics and the bleeding-heart liberals of the south who were ever ready to manufacture excuses for his war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law. What more proof is needed than the example of the Catholic Church running deep into Prabhakaran’s territory with the hijacked statue of Holy Mary? That is the equivalent of cassocked moralists in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church saying Amen” to the deadly genius” of the Tamil mass  murderer.

 When Tamils kill Tamil on a mass scale the Tamil moralists in Tamil-controlled Churches, or Tamil-controlled NGOs like the ICES hails it as a sign  of deadly genius”. When the Sinhala masses go on the rampage ICES goes all out to extract last the drop of blood to claim victimhood – the common cry of all Tamil politics. Prabhakaran and his violence succeeded on a large scale only because the English-educated Saivite Jaffna Vellahla elite ideologically justified the unrestrained Tamil militarism as the only means to achieve Eelam. Human rights were used only to tie the hand of the GOSL. Tamil moralist got their rights from the barrel of the gun.  

 They did not want Prabhakaran’s violence to fail because they had pinned all their hopes on his brutalities to achieve their elusive Eelam. So they had not only to justify Tamil violence but also to make it look like a legitimate liberation movement, even though they knew that Prabhakaran had no intention of liberalizing  his quasi-state to establish a democratic liberal state like in the south. He survived only by the sword. He hated his Tamil rivals more than the Sinhala enemies. He began his political career by eliminating his Tamil rivals. He never gave up his politics of eliminating his Tamil rivals who refused to follow him even in his dying days. He shot the fleeing IDPs seeking refuge in the arms of the Security forces.

 In between Alfred Duraiyappah, his firs scalp, and the fleeing IDPs he also blew up Radhika Coomaraswamy’s loving guru, Neelan Tiruchelvam. Prabhakaran’s tactic of sending suicide bombers was too expensive for the Tamil community. It cost two Tamil lives to kill one single Tamil : it  killed the killer as well as the targeted Tamil. But the lives of Tamils did  not matter to Prabhakaran or to the Tamils. The more he killed the more he was admired by the Tamils. The flow of funding  from the Tamil Disapora depended on the number of human beings he  killed : the more he killed the greater the flow of funds to his coffers to kill more.

As for Prabhakaran Tamil lives were worthless if they stood in his way. Prabhakaran’s genius” was in killing his fellow-Tamils more than the others. Is it Coomaraswamy’s admiration  for her latest  genius” that keeps her silent on attempts to deify the mass murderer with statues in Jaffna?  

The 33-year-old Vadukoddai War is a sad tale of the moral failure  of our intellectuals to stand up to the evil that was staring their faces. There were even converts to Christianity like Neville Jayaweera who urged the old boys of St. John’s, Jaffna to Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.” They had no qualms about invoking Christian blessings to strengthen Tamil violence. They were only worried about Buddhist violence as if only Buddha preached non-violence.