CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

LTTE IS AN EQUAL THREAT TO THE WORLD AS AL QAIDA NEEDING EARLIEST AND TOTAL ELIMINATION.

A.A.M.NIZAM MATARA.

For the last 30 years Sri Lanka is embroiled in a chronic terrorist aggression aimed at forcibly segregating Sri Lanka and establishing a rogue State called Eelam covering 1/3 of its land area and 2/3 of its sea territory. This terrorist aggression has survived so far and continues to prevail due to external assistance as well as to internal help given by vested interests for political and economic reasons. Some in India mysteriously perceive that the Sri Lankan government’s military operation against the LTTE terrorists should be ceased and a federal solution should be announced instead. Recently there had been a spate of articles by many Indian writers published in Journals and Websites emphasising this false notion. This is a general but a concise response to such articles and particularly the one entitled “Lanka Turmoil: Threat to India’s Soft Underbelly” by Colonel Anil Athale (retd), the coordinator of Initiative for Peace and Disarmament, a Pune-based think-tank.

The present Sri Lankan crisis has its origin in the vicious divide and rule policy of the British Imperialist regime which left Sri Lanka in the hands of an anglophile urbanite elite class, when they left the country in 1948. During the last few decades of their rule, they systematically sowed animosity among the ethnic groups in Sri Lanka by denying the majority community its due share of representation in the State Assembly by appointing equal number of representatives from Sinhala elites and from the Vellala caste of the Tamil community despite the population ratio of Sinhala and Tamil communities stood 7 : 1. This created a false superiority in the minds of the Vellala caste of the Tamils (the landowning class of Tamils which oppressed others, the Karayyar, Thattar, Thatcar, Kollar, Vannar, Ambattar, Paraiyar etc., as low class Tamils). Also as a result of high disproportionate educational facilities a very high percentage of government jobs were offered to Tamil Vellala children and they also were majority in the major professions.

From 1948 to 1956 the Parliament of Sri Lanka constituted with MPs from the anglophile elite urbanite Sinhala and Tamil communities except for a few Marxist MPs. Almost all the Tamil MPs were Colombo based Vellala Tamils and they had no firm grassroot connection with the respective electorates they represented. Hence they used ethnicity as a means to maintain their hold on the electorates. It was vital for them to poison the minds of their electorate with the toxin of ethnic superiority over the Sinhalese, for their survival as Politicians. For instance G.G.Ponnambalam, the leader of the Tamil Congress claimed that Sinhala and Tamils in the island nation are equal and hence everything should be based on a 50/50 basis between Sinhala and others while S.J.V.Chelvanayagam, the leader of the Tamil Arasu Katchi (Tamil Governance Party) claimed that Sinhalese rulers are not big enough to rule the Tamils (Page 128, Tamil Nationalism 1947-1977 by A.J.Wilson). When the Britishers were contemplating on leaving Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) Mr. Chelvanayagam made a statement in Parliament in 1947 that Tamils belong to a distinct ethnic community and they have a right for secession and join an independent South Indian State.

Obsessed by this superiority complex and the misguided notion of right to secession, Sri Lankan Tamil politicians led the Tamil youth towards extremism and the illusory separate State of Eelam concept. In the late 1970s and in 1980s intoxicated by these wrong notions and hatred towards other communities in Sri Lanka, various groups mushroomed, some seeking the path through Marxist ideology and some others through extreme chauvinism to achieve the goal of illusory Tamil Eelam. These groups established contacts and relations with various groups and political parties in Tamil Nadu for patronage. LTTE, under the leadership of Veluppillai Prabhakaran was one such group which received the patronage of Mr. Chelvanayagam’s political party and the Tamil Nadu Chief Ministers Mr. Karunanidhi as well as Mr. M.G.Ramachandran.

Upon getting armed themselves and receiving weapons and other military training particularly in various Indian locations with the patronage of the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Mr. M.G.Ramachandran and assisted by the late Indian Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi, ideological and tactical contradictions among the groups surfaced leading to elimination of each other. Finally, the LTTE emerged as the most powerful armed group. In the meantime some groups realising the futility of waging an armed struggle gave up violence and embraced the mainstream politics. However, the LTTE upon emerging as the most powerful armed group, after the brutal elimination of other rival groups, serially massacred almost all the Politicians who belonged to the major political parties, The Federal Party, The Tamil Congress, The United National Party, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party etc. The number of Tamil politicians killed by the LTTE exceeds by several folds the total number of politicians belonging to other communities killed by them.

Indian Prime Minister the late Mr. Rajiv Gandhi and almost all Sri Lankan Presidents and Prime Ministers made various attempts to bring an amicable solution to the Sri Lankan conflict beginning with Thimpu talks held in June/July 1985. Subsequent events have internationalised the conflict due to the LTTE becoming the most ruthless terrorist organisation in the world and its links with other terrorist organisations in the world, and due to its money laundering, fund raising, drug trafficking, arms smuggling and arms procurement activities throughout the world and failure of the Sri Lankan leaders to prevent interference in its governance by the international community.

The LTTE in its present form (the only terrorist organisation with a Naval Wing and a nascent Air Wing) is not only a threat to Sri Lanka but to India and many countries in the Asian Region. All attempts made by various world leaders including the late Indian Prime Minister Mr. Rajiv Gandhi failed due to LTTE’s rigid uncompromising stand and continued strengthening of its armoury with sophisticated weaponry under the guise of peace negotiations and ceasefire. It was due to these facts that the late Indian Prime Mr. Rajiv Gandhi is reported to have ordered Major General Harikiran Singh (Rtrd) to kill Prabhakaran. The need to eliminate Prabhakaran for the solution of the Sri Lankan conflict is commonly shared by many world leaders.

During the period covered by recently abrogated ceasefire agreement (22nd February, 2002 to 2nd January, 2007) it has smuggled over 20 shiploads of arms, significantly strengthened its naval power, smuggled light aircrafts and created an airwing, extensively expanded communication, broadcasting and transmission facilities, murdered several politicians including the late Foreign Minister Mr. Lakshman Kadiragamar (a Tamil gentleman), attempted several times to murder Minister Doughlas Devananda (another Tamil Politician), alleged to be involved in the murder of former Minister Mr. Maheswaran (another Tamil Politician), and have violated conditions of the ceasefire agreement over 7000 times within the five years of its existence.

Sri Lankan President Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse upon getting elected in November 2005, expressed umpteen times his willingness to arrive at a negotiated settlement and even to take an extra mileage of meeting Prabhakaran personally. The response he received was murder of many soldiers and innocent civilians through Claymore mines, a suicide attempt to murder the Army Commander, a suicide attempt to murder Minister Devanayagam, a suicide attempt to murder the Defence Secretary (President’s own brother) and an attempt to murder over 800 unarmed off duty navy personal in the sea. The President tolerated all these ruthless terrorist activities yet with the hope of persuading the LTTE for negotiations.

Ultimately the President was forced to take military action when the LTTE closed water supplies to over 1500 farmers affecting paddy cultivation in several thousand acres, as an attempt to pauperize them with the destruction of their paddy cultivation. Continuation of this operation has helped to liberate several thousand Tamil people who were under the oppression of the LTTE and liberate the total Eastern Province. These liberated Tamil masses are now contently settled down in their own habitations and live peacefully as citizens of Sri Lanka enjoying the rights and privileges being enjoyed by other communities. Very soon they will participate in elections after many years for electing their own representatives to Urban and Town councils in areas that were under occupation by LTTE.

There will be no solution to the Sri Lankan conflict as long as the LTTE prevails, since they do not want a peaceful solution as almost all their leaders cannot live in a peaceful atmosphere owing to the atrocities they have meted out on the innocent civilians. As it had been rightly said by the late Indian Prime Minister Mr. Rajiv Ghandi, Prabhakaran should be eliminated if there is to be a peaceful solution to Sri Lanka conflict. The latest FBI report that the LTTE is the "most dangerous and deadly extremist" outfit in the world testifies the need to eliminate this deadly extremist outfit at the earliest, and justifies the military operation of the Sri Lankan government. The innocent Tamil population being oppressed under the jack boots of the LTTE terrorists needs to be liberated soon enabling them to enjoy the fruits of freedom similar to other citizens in Sri Lanka.

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