Shenali D Waduge

Prabakaran had a grouse but that grouse was against the Tamil caste system of which he was a victim. This explains why his first victim after he formed the Tamil New Tigers in 1972 was Tamil Mayor Alfred Duraiappah gunned down in 1975. Circumstances made him a pawn of geopolitics & turned him into a mass murderer after he & scores of other Tamils were secretly trained, armed & funded by India in India to start a guerilla movement, passing the separatist bid in Tamil Nadu to Sri Lanka. Prabakaran became leader having eliminated the leaders of the other Tamil militant outfits. He & his outfit eventually became adopted as a western geopolitical pawn following the assassination of Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. Every high-profile assassination LTTE undertook had a geopolitical goal to it in particular the manner that LTTE eliminated the cream of the high caste/class Tamil society.

To understand the nature of conflicts in the Third World, history has to be revisited, in particular the colonial divide & rule policies. Caste system that existed for centuries before colonials arrived never became a political issue, but it was turned into one by the colonials who realized how they could manipulate the caste system to their advantage. It was the Dutch who turned a non-entity Vellala caste out of Malabars in South India to a supra caste in Sri Lanka & gave to them the mantle of leading Tamils.

Colonials intentionally positioned Catholic schools run by missionaries in North & minority areas, converting them, giving them English education & nurturing a mentality of superiority over their own & all others. The same was done to the Sinhalese. This supra class of converted & English educated & English speaking became the elite in Sri Lanka.

It was this Tamil high caste/elite who requested colonial Britain to encode the caste system prior to independence and who sailed to UK in 1957 to beg the UK Privy Council to repeal the Social Disabilities Act passed in 1957 by PM SWRD Bandaranaike. It is important to read this Act for it enabled Tamil low castes to gain education in schools for the first time & permitted them to enter kovils & restaurants which was denied to them because of their caste. So, who were discriminating whom? Tamils were discriminating against their own. When the University quota system was introduced, it was the same elites from both Tamils & Sinhalese who objected because universities were to induct students from remote areas who did not belong to their caste/class & their quota was being reduced. This was the sole reason for their objections.

When Prabakaran took up arms, he neutralized the caste system. The high caste Tamils stood silent because their goal was a separate Tamil State which they wanted to rule their own people – they viewed Prabakaran as a means to obtain their goal. The Tamil version of ITAK constitution makes this objective clear. Realizing this, Prabakaran eliminated each one unceremoniously.

What Prabakaran could not control was the manner that the West manipulated the situation using the Church & faith-based NGOs & mouthpieces who came out to campaign on behalf of the LTTE through the years. Systematically, they took over decision making even dictating how Hindu LTTE were to be buried with tombs & not cremated as per Hindu customs. How & why Hindu Prabakaran agreed to such remains unanswered. Morever, there were no Hindu spokesmen for LTTE, whether in Sri Lanka or overseas it was either Catholic fathers or Catholic laymen which included the columnists, NGOs heads, civil society heads, who continue to unashamedly support & promote LTTE separatist ideology & became the LTTE spokesmen. Even the orphanges in the thick jungles of the Vanni were run by the Church. Father Emmanuel hailed Prabakaran as a freedom fighter, he compared Prabakaran to Jesus Christ, he called LTTE soldiers of Christ”, & called LTTE suicide bombers as martyrs of the Catholic Church” & called himself Moses”. It is these entities that wish to change the Constitution to remove Article 9 & it is they who harp on the term secular” for that is the camouflage for West’s pawns to control nations.

The Church was/is a tool of Western geopolitical goals in Third World nations during colonial rule & continues under neocolonial rule.

Clearly, the reality is that these geopolitical lobbies are angered that their 30-year investment ended abruptly in May 2009 with the defeat of not only LTTE but the deaths of Prabakaran & his entire leadership hierarchy. The present witch hunt which began with the UNHRC resolutions, to the calls by the same columnists & lobbies for accountability” is to avenge that defeat & waste of investment.

There is no need for Tamils to join this bandwagon especially the Tamil Hindus.

This does not mean that they should align with Hindu India’s Arkhand Bharath goals either. Tamils should now decide whether they wish to be 100% part of sovereign Sri Lanka.

Another question for Tamils to ask themselves is whether Tamils would be living as they are now if Prabakaran & LTTE were alive? Would they be living in the present peaceful atmosphere that they are now living in North & East & rest of Sri Lanka?

How many Tamils continue to remember what the North & East looked like before 2009 & what it looks like now. Apart from the Tamils that supported LTTE the rest of the Tamils lived in fear some continue to live in fear in UK & especially France where LTTE knife gangs and extortionists still demand ransom from them and many have had their hands chopped off! The fear of some Tamils who live in UK, Europe & even Canada is not prevalent among Tamils in Sri Lanka. We see only hired pocket groups & hired politicians wailing for their dollar supper.

What Tamils especially those who were child soldiers & young men & women indoctrinated to join militancy must now wonder is what did they gain & what they have lost.

What should they demand from India for secretly training them, arming & funding them to wage a guerilla war against Sri Lanka to prevent self-determination in Tamil Nadu? With increasing Church presence & Church influenced politicians & filmstars, it is only a matter of time that bid will commence in TN too.

How many Tamils were killed by Indian peacekeepers.

How many Tamil women were raped? Where is the accountability.

Shouldn’t Tamils be demanding accountability from India?

How many Tamils were killed as a result of differences between various Tamil groups since late 1970s, early 1980s – what would they have become had they not died in vain.

How many Tamil low caste & poor children were kidnapped & turned into child soldiers. How many died during gruesome training, or were killed trying to flee or inside torture chambers as punishment?

What are the international conventions & treaties LTTE & Adele B who trained children to kill & commit suicide, committed. What kind of a nurse would be so cruel as to teach children to kill others & kill themselves?

Do these former LTTE not want to file case against her & seek damages not only from her but the LTTE fronts too?

How many Tamil children were swept from their homes or orphanages run by Churches, denied parental love, denied their childhood & youth, especially their right to education & freedom?

Why don’t’ they seek compensation for this crime?

Why don’t lawyers come forward to appear on behalf of them for these are the human rights violations that should gain international attention.

No child should be kidnapped, denied the love of parents, denied education, denied childhood to be trained into a mass murderer & also be taught to commit suicide biting a cyanide capsule.,

How many young girls, women or even boys were sexually exploited?

Of the living former LTTE – how many have thought what they could have become if they had not been indoctrinated to kill? Essentially, many talented Tamil LTTE child soldiers, women & men could have become doctors, accountants, engineers & many more career avenues if they had not been trained to become killers.

Shouldn’t they now be seeking damages & accountability from those who manipulated them while they lived happily overseas making money & sending their children to ivy league schools & universities. Now to maintain their sham show, with heavy accents holding foreign passports & happily living in Western capitals, they are continuing to fool the Tamils in Sri Lanka about a bogus homeland just to keep alive the LTTE kitty which only they are now enjoying.

Most of the fronts now presenting themselves as representatives of the Tamils did not exist when Prabakaran was alive, including the entity whose leader calls himself a utopian President”. Many of these new representatives” would have met their waterloo had Prabakaran been alive which is probably why they set up their entities only after his death.

How big has the LTTE kitty become & how much of that kitty is being shared with the former combatants & their families (living & dead)?

What we annually see is LTTE fronts hiring a handful of people/politicians to do pocket protests simply to fill the record books.

During hayday of LTTE, Janes Intelligence claimed LTTE annual profits was some $300m (2004) – this was after spending for arms, ammunition, & the welfare of LTTE combatants. Without that expense, former LTTE & their families who are not privy to this post-2009 kitty must wonder who is enjoying this money? Look at the homes of some of the LTTE front leaders/families, the luxury lives they lead & back in Sri Lanka, how are former LTTE & their families living? This is what Tamils need to wonder, not fall prey to the traps set by LTTE fronts abroad who are flaming the homeland” card & bogus human rightsgenocide” slogans only to keep alive their fundraising and justify their existence but more importantly enjoy the funds that are in the LTTE kitty.

Tamils must not become bait or prey or pawns to them by falling for their anti-Sinhala slogans.

The list of crimes LTTE is accused of is well documented. Enough of reports have been written internationally. Yet, these very entities did nothing against the LTTE.

More importantly, the LTTE fronts holding genocide” memorials for LTTE (pretending to show the world it is for Tamil civilians” never spoke against LTTE child soldier recruitment, never spoke against Tamil women being used as sex slaves for LTTE fighters, never spoke a word against forcible recruitment of Tamil children?

Isnt it odd that these LTTE fronts are only after the defeat of LTTE screaming about genocide” & human rights violations” when they forgot the human rights of Tamil children & Tamil women who were inducted into LTTE by force?

The greater damage to Tamils has been done by LTTE & LTTE fronts than by the Sri Lanka Armed Forces. They saved 297,853 but how many Tamil children lost their childhood as child soldiers, how many Tamil girls were prostituted for sexual favors? Why have LTTE fronts not stopped these crimes to their own people?

This proves that the LTTE fronts are selfish & their genocide” and fake concern for Tamils in Sri Lanka” & demand for war crimes” accountability” is only to continue the LTTE kitty & enjoy the perks using a call for a bogus Tamil Homeland” to which they would never settle in & in all probability since they are living on Western shores they may be hired as pawns for West’s geopolitical goals in Sri Lanka/Asia.

Shenali D Waduge