"..We
continue to urge the Sri Lankan government to devise a
post-conflict political solution that will demonstrate to
Sri Lanka's Tamil population and the Tamil Diaspora that the
government is serious about political inclusion.... The
international community has started planning for the
post-conflict period and remains committed to returning
displaced persons to their homes as quickly as possible. The
international donor community in Sri Lanka has also agreed on
certain guiding principles for post-conflict donor
assistance..."
Comment by
tamilnation.org
US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton's
letter to US
Congresswoman Mary Jo Kilroy does not come as a surprise
to us. The US is simply following the policy which we said
it would follow - and we said it
18
months ago in September 2006 -
".. today, the US and India may
find common cause in 'weakening' the Tamil Eelam
struggle for freedom (and the LTTE) - but weaken it in
such a way that
thereafter each of them may successfully jockey
(against each other) for position and influence in the
Indian Ocean region. The 'weakening' in this context
means the isolation and annihilation of Velupillai
Pirabakaran and securing an LTTE under a 'reformed'
leadership... And it is this same international frame
which Sinhala Sri Lanka seeks to use to continue its
genocidal onslaught on the Tamil people."
We returned to the same theme,
three months ago in January this year -
"..The question is being asked by some:
why is the international community which was willing to
arm Sri Lanka and to ban the LTTE, unwilling and/or
unable to
prevent the genocide of Eelam Tamils? ... the
Tamil people are being taught that for the governments
of the so called IC, human rights and humanitarian law
are but useful instruments to advance their political
and strategic interests. ...the
international community will wait till Tamil resistance
is sufficiently weakened or annihilated before
it attempts to intervene 'on humanitarian grounds' and
in seeming response to 'world wide Tamil appeals'.
Meanwhile the IC will even welcome such world wide
appeals by Tamils as that will pave the way (and
establish useful contact points amongst the Tamil
diaspora) for IC's eventual intervention with
'development aid' with the mantra of not conflict
resolution but 'conflict transformation'..."
Again, we
said one month ago -
"..
Now that Tamil resistance has
been weakened, international actors who have armed and
trained Sinhala Sri Lanka's genocidal armed forces
believe that the time has come to respond to the
'humanitarian disaster' which they helped to create.
... the belated attempts that are
being made today expose not the humanitarian concerns of
the international actors but the strategic interests
that impel the international actors to act the way they
do.
After all the simplest thing that the
international actors could have done to protect the
Tamil people would have been to remove the ban on the
LTTE so that the capacity of the people of Tamil Eelam
to resist the genocidal onslaught launched on them by
Sinhala Sri Lanka may have been strengthened. The simple
and humane thing that the international actors could
have done was
not to taunt the struggles against terrorism with the
label terrorism
but to adopt a principle centered approach which
liberated political language and also helped to liberate
a people who have
taken up arms as
a last resort in
their
struggle for freedom from oppressive alien Sinhala rule..."
And so it does not surprise us that today the US
Secretary of State is open and frank in
envisioning the 'post conflict' scenario for Sri Lanka. It
also does not surprise us that Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton is silent on the question whether the so
called international community which she says is planning
for the post conflict period in Sri Lanka includes India or
for that matter China and
Iran who were
Sri Lanka's biggest aid donors for the year 2008.
According to TamilNet, 'Tamil circles' are
'wondering' about what is meant by ‘post-conflict’ and
by ‘inclusive political solution'. Simply put, 'post
conflict' means
'post genocide'. And 'inclusive political solution'
means that which the
Sinhala Buddhist ethno nation may offer to a
conquered people so that Sinhala Buddhist hegemony may be
secured in the island for the forseeable future within the
confines of a so called Sri Lankan 'civic nation/state' with
a Sinhala Sri Lanka name (which it gave itself unilaterally
in 1972), with a Sinhala lion flag, with an unrepealed
Sinhala Only Act and with Buddhism as the State religion.
We ourselves feel that 'Tamil circles' should move away
from the language of wonderment and openly (and
with the same frankness that Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton has displayed) address the geo strategic interests
of the US (& the tri laterals) in the Indian Ocean
region - geo strategic interests which has determined US
policy in relation to the conflict in the island of Sri
Lanka during the past several decades. To continue to ignore
the elephant in the room is to continue to live with Alice
in Wonderland. 'Tamil circles' should acquire
the courage to remind those whom they 'lobby' of the words
of Lila Watson of the Australian Aboriginal Group,
many years ago - "If you have come to help me, you are
wasting your time... But, if you have come because your
liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work
together."
"...Sometimes, the Tamil response to the
international community, takes on the
characteristics of the teen age girl's response in the
pebble story.
It seems that we avoid confronting the international
community for fear of provoking its ire. We avoid
seeking an open dialogue with the international
community on its own strategic imperatives and the true
rationale for its actions. We resort to subterfuge. We
say that our way is the 'anuku murai' - the diplomatic
way to 'approach' issues. We claim that this is
the effective way. But has this 'anuku murai' succeeded?
Again the result of not calling a spade a spade is that
we confuse our own people. We confuse our people by
leading them to believe that the international community
is without sufficient 'cleverness' to respond to our
subterfuge with its own subterfuge and advance its own
agenda. We confuse our people by leading them to
believe that all that needs to be done is to wake up the
international community to the facts and the justice of
our cause and all will be well. This is the limitation
of our discourse. It is a limitation that we need to
transcend. Diplomacy may be the art of lying without
getting caught but a struggle for freedom is not..."
Black Pebbles & White Pebbles
'Tamil circles' should stop persuading themselves that it
is because of their 'lobbying skills' that the international
community has been moved to act in the conflict in the
island. They should recognise (and openly
recognise) that the 'international community' is
concerned to
further its own strategic interests in the Indian
Ocean region and it is for for that reason that the
international community actively encourages (and
is intent on creating the political space
for) such Tamil 'lobbying' - as a way of channelling and
influencing these 'Tamil circles' to serve the interests of
the international community. 'Tamil circles' should
acquire the courage to pay heed to the words of Sri
Aurobindo many years ago -
"Our appeal, the appeal of every high souled and self
respecting nation, ought not to be to the British sense
of justice, but to our own reviving sense of manhood, to
our own sincere fellow feeling - so far as it can be
called sincere - with the silent suffering people of
India. I am sure that eventually the nobler part of us
will prevail, -
that when we no longer obey the dictates of a veiled
self interest, but return to the profession of a
large and genuine patriotism, when we cease to hanker
after the soiled crumbs which England may cast to us
from her table, then it will be to that sense of
manhood, to that sincere fellow feeling that we shall
finally and forcibly appeal."
Admittedly this is no easy task. Even the great
Subramanya Bharathy (who sang Acham Enbathu Illaiye)
when confronted with the prospect of prison in 1918 wrote to
Lord Pentland, the Governor of Madras -
OM SAKTHI
District Jail, Cuddalore
28 November 1918.
To His Excellency Lord Pentland Governor, Fort St. George
The Humble petition of C. Subramania Bharathi.
May it please your excellency.
It has been more than a week now since I was arrested at Cuddalore on my
way from Pondicheery to Tinnevelly which is my native district. After many
loyal assurances on my part as your Execellency may well remember the Dy. I.
G. (CID) was sent by your Excellency's Government a few months back to
interview me at Pondicherry. The Dy. I G after being thoroughly satisfied
with my attitude towards the Government asked me if I would be willing to be
kept interned purely as a war measure in any two districts of the Madras
Presidency during the war.. I could not consent to that proposal, because
having absolutley renounced politics I see no reason why any restraint
should be placed on my movement even while the war lasted.
Now that the war is over and with such signal success to the Allies, I
ventured to leave Pondicherry, honestly believing that there would be
absolutely no difficulty whatsoever in the way of my settling in British
India as a peaceful citizen.. Contrary to my expectations however I have
been detained and placed in Cuddalore District Jail under conditions which I
will not weary your Excellency by describing here at any length BUT which
are altogether diasgreeable to a man of my birth and status and full of
dangerous possibilities to my health.
I once again assure your Execellency that I have renounced every form of
politics, I shall ever be loyal to British Government and law abiding.
I therefore beg of your Excellency to order my immediate release. May God
grant your Excellency a long and happy life.
I beg to remain
Your Excellency's most obedient servant.
C. Subramania Bharathi
Said that, we believe that the people of Tamil Eelam have
paid a heavy price for the failure of 'Tamil circles' to pay
heed to the words of
Mamanithar Dharmeretnam Sivaram six years ago in 2003 -
"..Today it is clear beyond all reasonable doubt
that India and the US-UK-Japan Bloc are trying to influence and manage
Sri Lanka's peace process to promote and consolidate their respective
strategic and economic interests... Any foreign force can have its way
in a country only if its people are divided, politically obfuscated and
are irredeemably sunk in political stupor. The creeping
intellectual/political barrenness in the northeast should be stopped
without further delay. LTTE officials too should stop making pedestrian,
boringly predictable utterances on public forums and, instead, make
every endeavour to stir the people's reason, intellectual curiosity,
their sense of community, their imagination and their intellectual
fervour. This is the only way forward to decisively break the vicious
circle of political obfuscation by which our people are deeply but
blissfully afflicted today... From 1983 to 86, it was taboo among Tamils
to
propagate the truth
that India was exploiting their cause to gain a foothold in Sri
Lanka. The few who dared to speak about India's hegemonistic designs
were admonished not to be too rash lest we provoke Delhi's ire and cause
a disruption in the weapons handouts by the RAW....The price the Tamil
liberation movement as a whole had to pay for not educating the people
about the
truth of India's intentions was high. At this juncture, even a
doddering dullard would find the deja vu inescapable...The Tamil
nation cannot afford to make the same mistake again... "
The failure of LTTE officials to stop making 'boringly
predictable utterances on public forums' (even after the
peace process ended) and their failure to 'make every
endeavour to stir the people's reason, intellectual
curiosity, their sense of community, their imagination and
their intellectual fervour' has contributed to the
'political obfuscation by which our people are deeply but
blissfully afflicted today.'
And to those Tamils who ask in despair: what shall we do - the
answer must be that first and foremost, all our actions must be
founded on a full understanding of the
international dimensions of the Tamil Eelam freedom struggle.
There are two ongoing conflicts in the island of Sri Lanka. One is
the conflict arising from Tamil resistance to
permanent
alien Sinhala rule within the confines of a single state. The
other is the conflict arising from the balance of power between US
(tri laterals), India and China
in
the Indian Ocean region. It is only on the basis of a full
understanding of that international frame that 'Tamil circles' in
the Diaspora can contribute in a meaningful way to secure justice
and freedom for their brothers and sisters in Tamil Eelam. Here the
words of Sri
Aurobindo
some hundred years ago may be helpful -
"..It is a vain dream to suppose that what other
nations have won by struggle and battle, by suffering
and tears of blood, we shall be allowed to accomplish
easily, without terrible sacrifices, merely by
spending the ink of the journalist and petition framer
and the breath of the orator..."
In this day and age, we may also add that it is a vain
dream to suppose that what other nations have won by
struggle and battle, by suffering and tears of blood, we
shall be allowed to accomplish easily, without terrible
sacrifices merely by recourse to the computer, to
emails and to the world wide web (- and that includes
tamilnation.org
as well).
