CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

Clutching at straws

Ramanie de Zoysa

One sure clue the LTTE is giving to the world about the faith they have right now on winning the “great Eelaam War” they waged on Sri Lanka – specifically targeting its unique and majority race Sinhala- is that as far as they are concerned the military assault is not likely to deliver Eelaam anymore. On the one hand LTTE “Peace Secretariat” has declared a unilateral ceasefire during the SAARC summit scheduled to be held in Colombo in a few days. This unilateral ceasefire is pretty obviously based on a mistaken belief on the part of the LTTE that the Sri Lankan Government will come to the party or will allow itself to be bullied by the international community to come to the party to join the charade so that the LTTE will get the much needed breathing space to figure out whether they are coming, going or standing still.

As reported in the Sinhala daily Lankadeepa day before yesterday the ever outspoken Defence Secretary Mr Gotabhaya Rajapakse has already put a dent in the LTTE hopes by declaring that Sri Lanka has is in no mood to get into any ceasefires with the LTTE at this late stage. Rubbing salt to the Tiger wounds by speaking the bitter truth Mr Rajapakse is reported to have said that if the LTTE wants to they are welcome to surrender and render themselves to a democratic process as has happened in the East. This position of the Sri Lankan Government has now been officially confirmed.

On the other hand, LTTE Diaspora is signalling that they are no longer prepared to waste money on the fighting unit holed up in Wanni losing cadres, territory and clout by the minute. Creditworthy punters world over are betting that the so-labelled ‘unwinnable war’ will be won by Sri Lanka before the year is out and that Tamil terrorism- Sri Lanka chapter will be defeated. The LTTE Diaspora have launched plan B- and B this time around stands for Bruce. Bruce Fein, the US legal mercenary who in fact criticised the Tamil Tiger terrorists in a couple of years ago is now working for them having struck the right price.

The new Sun god of the LTTE Diaspora is Bruce Fein while the sun god of yesteryear is rotting in a bunker in far away Wanni, ditched for all intents and purposes by the Tamil financiers and theoreticians living in the affluent West. Ditched also are the claims of genocide, discrimination and denied aspirations levelled against the entire race of Sinhala; the present day LTTE clamouring is all about “war crimes” a charge that has been lately designed for President Rajapakse, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse and the Army Commander Sarath Fonseka. Tamil Diaspora are smacking their lips at the news that the International Criminal Court is levelling charges against the Sudanese President Omar al Bashir and the former Bosnian Serb political and military leader Radovan Karadzic fancying that the Sri Lankan leaders can also be dealt a similar fate. While it is not yet known whether the ICC will be successful in getting convictions against Al Bashir and Karadzic given the hotly contested nature of the charges Tamil Diaspora will no doubt hang on to this straw of hope to keep them going through these tough times.

Media and paid servants of NGOs & INGOs

Signs of end to the ‘war’ have also rattled those who are earning money from war. The speed at which media mercenaries got hold of the Army Commander Fonseka’s latest comments made to foreign correspondents on 30 June 2008 is an indication of the desperation felt in these quarters of late. General Fonseka’s realistic comment that the LTTE, after being militarily beaten, may continue to function as an incessant guerrilla force for some time to come has been a mega size straw for those who were getting that sinking feeling that the foreign funds falling into their coffers as payment for destroying Sri Lanka might dry out soon. The Army Commander’s comment was picked up, stripped of its proper context and was immediately used by some media to paint a bleak picture for Sri Lanka. One of these writers, the ever morbid Tissaranee Gunasekera in her feature article in the Island newspaper of 13 July 2008 titled ‘War Forever?’ was one of the first in the rink to shoot off.

Army Commander Sarath Fonseka is reported to have said to the foreign correspondents that:

“Even if we finish the war, capture the whole of the North, still the LTTE might have some members joining them…. There are people who believe in Tamil Nationalism. The LTTE might survive another even two decades with about 1,000 cadres. But we will not be fighting in the same manner. It might continue as an insurgency forever. (BBC- 30.06.2008)”

An ardent proponent of the ‘stop the war’ clique and a frequent user of the term “unwinnable war” until quite recently, Gunasekera nowadays concedes that “given Mr Pirapaharan’s maximalism, the war against the LTTE is unavoidable.” However, in her article she demands that “…a negotiated settlement is both possible and necessary vis-à-vis Tamil Nationalism…. The only possible, workable antidote to Tamil Nationalism is the creation of a Lankan identity encompassing all ethnic and religious communities on the basis of equality and mutual tolerance. If we fail in that task, and if we try to respond to Tamil Nationalism militarily, the Lankan conflict will never end. And that is the future Sri Lanka can expect from the Rajapakses….the confirmation of this comes from none other than the Army Commander himself….. Going by the Army Commander’s words the powers be are ready for such a long term conflict. Perhaps a perennial conflict is their interest, because it will enable them to subdue political dissent using national security concerns.” (emphasis added).

It goes without saying that a perennial conflict is also just what the doctor ordered for the corrupt fringe of the Sri Lankan media whose pay packet inflates in proportion to the number of swipes they take at the Sri Lankan Government or the Sinhala Buddhists. While an end to the ‘war’ will make their services to the foreign master redundant, prospects of an insurgency forever would ensure that the calf is continuously fattened for years to come.

It is a pity that the Army Commander Fonseka’s remarks have yet again been twisted to achieve an unholy outcome that was all too obviously never intended by the General. When General Fonseka stated that “there are people who believe in Tamil Nationalism” I believe he was referring to the brutally insatiable appetite of the racist fringe of the Tamil ethnics whose end goal is nothing short of a mono-ethnic State. He was not, I believe, referring to the well-balanced Tamil population who have always viewed any issues affecting them without racist lenses and resolved any problems through normal democratic means. He was not referring to extraordinary citizens and true sons of the soil who rendered immense services to the entire country without any racial hang-ups and paid the ultimate price such as the late Foreign Minister Luxman Kadirgarmar and Minister Jeyaraj Ferandopulle. The Army Commander most likely did not refer to the likes of Vinayagamurthy Muralitharan and CM of the Eastern Province Pillaiyan, former LTTE members who have now eschewed violence and reformed themselves and are demanding “give us what Colombo gets.” In short these are not the types that anyone with an iota of grey matter expects will carry on an insurgency into the foreseeable future.

The Army Commander was, I am sure, referring to the rabidly racist Tamils such as the present hardcore LTTE fighters and some of their irreversibly brainwashed cadres, the LTTE financiers and theoreticians in the Tamil Diaspora and their younger generations whom they have also irrevocably brainwashed. It does not take a rocket scientist to realise that this particular strain of Tamil Nationalism has always been there as a cancer among Tamil ethnic pockets worldwide ever since the South Indian Cholas fought amongst themselves and killed each other and left a legacy of Statelessness for what could have been the ‘Tamil Nation’. There will always be a proportion of the Tamil race that will carry this cancer for years to come which is where the insurgencies and terrorist cells will survive to haunt not only Sri Lanka but also India and a host of other countries.

The inability or the unwillingness to separate Nationalism that is practised in a positive way by a bona fide Nation and Nationalism that is practiced by an ethnic group scattered all over the world as a minority in every country they reside who seek to create or invent an artificial Nation at the expense of someone else is a trademark quality of these analysts who preach a more diluted Sinhala Buddhistness for Sri Lanka. Tamil Nationalism is one of the most hardcore forms of communal fanaticism that exists in the world today. To say that Tamil nationalism in Sri Lanka is all about the need to be equal partners in power sharing in Sri Lanka is to pull the wool over ones own eyes. To say that Tamil Nationalism can be satisfied by “creating a Lankan identity encompassing all ethnic and religious communities on the basis of equality and mutual tolerance” is to completely deceive oneself. It is the very concept of being just another Sri Lankan that Tamils who took up arms against the Sri Lankan State has out rightly rejected.

The ‘Tamil struggle’ is not a struggle for equality but a struggle for power to govern themselves in an ethnically pure Tamil Dominion where resources are demarcated exclusively for Tamils. Furthermore it is an integral part of this Tamil Nationalism that this Tamil Dominion wherever it is installed will be the home of 80million Tamils worldwide and will fly the Chola styled Tamil Tiger flag at the UN. This is the very reason Tamil Nationalism in Tamil Nadu in South India is singing exactly the same song as the Tamil nationalists in Sri Lanka, South Africa, Canada or Europe.

Those Tamils who left Sri Lankan shores with highly portable graduate qualifications completely free of charges or encumbrances courtesy of the Sri Lankan State to reside in the affluent West only to send shiploads of deadly arms to be used against innocents in Sri Lanka did not do so because they were marginalised or victimised by the so-called “Sinhala Government”. These were citizens of this country some of whom were born complete with silver spoons in their mouths to University educated, high income earning and land owning class Tamil families who went abroad because they could. Ex- Attorney General Siva Pasupathy who had all this plus a top career as a civil servant now bats for Tamil Nationalism and the LTTE from Australia while drawing a hefty pension from the ‘Sinhala Government’. Scores of Tamil professionals educated and nurtured in Sri Lanka such as some tamil medical doctors in the UK are doing international arms deals to traffic arms cargos to Sri Lanka to butcher Sinhala children and mothers. Such blatant treachery does not support the theory of ‘poor marginalised Tamils driven to terrorism by the racist Sinhala’ but will support the theory of Tamil Nationalism that strives for a racist Statehood.

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