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TAMIL NATIONAL FORUM: 2007
From: Nagalingam
Ethirveerasingham, USA 1 December 2007
[see also Boycott Sri Lanka
Products and Services & Save Tamil Lives]
I commend Cholan's effort to get Tamil individuals and
families to boycott products from Sri Lanka. Such a
boycot was proposed by many before but nothing much
came out of it. Cholan's request is simple and does not
cost anything. It gives a chance for Tamils and
non-Tamils to show solidarity with the suffering of our
people.
Between September and November 2007 I crossed the
borders at Omanthai and Puliyankulam four times to and
from Kilinochchi. Each time I travelled to Vavuniya I
saw some women crossing the one-mile No-Man's land
carrying three 10kg bags of rice on their heads and
hands. The men tied the 10kg bags of rice on the
handle, the bar and carrier and wheeling the wobbly
bicycle through the checkpoints across the border. I
found out later that the bags of rice were taken to
Vavuniya to sell at Rupees 40 per kg which is the price
of one kg rice in Vavuniya and the South. The price for
one kg rice in the Vanni is Rs.28. The cost of one kg
rice in Jaffna is Rs.80.
The GOSL is now importing rice from other countries to
reduce the cost of rice and meet the demand. But it
would not allow the rice from the Vanni to be
transported by lorry in bulk to the South nor would it
open the A9 to transport food, medicine and other
essential items to Jaffna. While the GOSL imports rice
to reduce the price of rice in the South, the cost of
rice in Jaffna would still be higher than in the South
and Vanni thus denying the Tamils in Jaffna a lower
cost of living. Kilinochchi, with its Irranamdhu Tank
and other minor Tanks is not only self-sufficient in
rice and vegetables but it can also meet the demand of
the whole of the North. Kilinochchi is the Bread-Basket
of the North.
If the Tamil diaspora could stop buying items made in
Sri Lanka it will send a message to the Sinhala Nation
and the International Community that we are determined
to regain our rights.
From: K. Puvirajen,
Malaysia 29 November 2007
I read Annan Pirapaharan's Heroes' Day
Speech, Mr Pazha
Nedumaran's speech in Africa and about the
commemorations
in London. My name is Kandasamy Puvirajen. My
parents and ancestors originated from Jaffna,Tamil
Eelam. I have been keenly following recent events in
Tamil Eelam and doing as much reading up to get a
complete picture of the whole issue. I would like to
make just one statement to all Tamils in the world today,
to all Tamil loving people, to all people who love and
live the Tamil culture, wherever they are : - "
My dear bothers and sisters, if the people of Tamil
Eelam can be subjugated by chauvinist Sinhala
colonisers, then every other race will bully, suppress
and subjugate every Tamil in every other part of the
world. Our uppermost duty, out utmost Dharma today and
always is to unite and ensure that this bullying,
suppression and subjugation never happens. OM OM OM!!!
"
From: Srinivasan Varadarajan, Chennai,
19 October 2007
On Rajaji & One Hundred Tamils of
20th Century
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C.Rajagopalachari
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Vannakam. I saw your mail first and replied it
expressing my thanks. I saw the Tamil National Forum
only now. As I am new to your website, I had a little
difficulty in locating where the letters are
published.
I was pleasantly surprised to see you
publishing
the entire song "Kurai Ondrum Illai". It was so
thoughtful of you. Though everybody sings it, the song
rendered by Smt. M.S.Subbulakshmi stirs your heart
unfathomably. The first time I heard the song (as one
who knows nothing about Carnatic
music nor interested in it unless a Tamil song is
well sung) I was moved to tears, virtually crying. It
is strange because I am a non-believer. It happens
every time I hear Smt. M.S. singing that song. I used
to feel that it may be because of the sacrifices made
by the persons involved in making the song. M.S. has
contributed crores for charities and Rajaji left his
lucrative profession and very prosperous future for the
freedom movement. One Mr. Venkatraman has composed the
music for the song. I do not know anything about
him.
On the point of the
'unhealthy trend to idolise' I fully agree with
you. Since some letters have appeared in your esteemed
forum, which to my knowledge are not based on facts,
and are mostly based on prejudice, I had to highlight
how deserving Rajaji is and he was indeed a great
Tamilian and no idolising was intended.
Coming to "kula
kalvi thittam' (misnomer to the core), Rajaji was
talking about making our children learn
physical/manual/ technical jobs, apart from bookish
knowledge, even when he was the Governor of West
Bengal.
When he took over as the Chief Minister
of Tamil Nadu, the number of schools were few. There
was an urgent need to spread education to the maximum
number of children. The shortest way was to introduce
staggered hours in school, with two shifts - one
morning shift and one after noon shift. With no extra
cost, twice the number of children could be educated.
The teachers of course would have had to work
more.
The immediate question was how the
children will spend their leisure hours which would
become more than usual. Rajaji' s solution was that the
children will help and learn from their parent or from
their VILLAGE, their work.
Ma.Po.Si. and other followers of
Rajaji, visited various places to dispel the wrong
notions spread by the opposition and also Rajaji's
opponents in Congress. Kamaraj, a disciple of Rajaji's arch
rival Satyamurti remained neutral. While Rajaji was
asked to take back the scheme, he preferred to resign
saying that if he takes back the scheme and continues
in office, future generations will spit on his grave.
The only blunder committed by Rajaji was that in his
over enthusiasm, he introduced the scheme in that
current year itself with an ordinance. Had he waited,
prepared the people and brought the scheme in the next
academic year through legislation, the suspicions would
not have been there.
It is easy to call anyone especially a Brahmin a casteist
in the present times and accuse him of having "Sathi
Veri". If Rajaji was one such person, he would not have
done so many things that he did in his life.
'Prohibition' was introduced only to
save the innocent downtrodden people, whom he
considered as his own children from the clutches of
alcohol, which has and is destroying millions of
homes.
If Rajaji was a 'casteist', he would
not have persuaded an English principal to admit
Harijan boys in their schools, he would not have
appeared for a Harijan who was arrested for having
entered a temple. (Actually Rajaji violated Gandhiji's
instructions to all to stay away from their respective
professions, knowing fully well Gandhiji will approve
his act in the present context). Rajaji argued and got
a Dalit brother released. Gopala Krishna Gandhi, the
present Governor of West Bengal, has written a
beautiful article in the Hindu sometime back, narrating
this incident, wherein he calls the Harijan victim whom
Rajaji rescued as the (Maanaseeka) co-author of the
song "Kurai Ondrum Illai".
If Rajaji was a 'casteist', he would
not have refused when the residents of Agraharams
appealed to him to remove the Harijans posted to
release water for their area through Municipal taps.
When they threatened him that the elders will die,
without drinking water, he told them they can do as
they like, but he will not remove the Harijans from
that post. He would not have accepted Gandhiji's son as
his son-in-law. In fact Gandhiji sought the guidance of
some Vedhic scholars whether he being a vysya can get a
Brahmin daughter-in-law. (Only Gandhiji can do that).
There was absolutely no problem with Rajaji.
Rajaji has eaten from the hands of
Periyar's wife. For long years his cook was from the
downtrodden community. He was not wearing the religious
symbol on his forehead, like most other Tamil leaders
of his time. He was not wearing the sacred thread for
most years.
'Sathi Veri' is the weapon in the
hands of lesser politicians, who do not mind uttering
lies, who do not mind swallowing public funds, who do
not mind creating hatred and mistrust among people.
Anna joined hands with Rajaji in 1967,
and Kamaraj was defeated. Anna passed away
in 1969. The DMK regime became different. When in 1971
Kamaraj joined with Rajaji, it was too late.
I sometimes feel, that if Rajaji and
Kamaraj were alive today or in the 1980's the problems
faced by Eelam Tamils would have been over.
Using their all India status and statesmanship they
would have brought relief, respect and freedom to our
suffering Tamil bretheren (sondha sagotharargal).
Jaya Prakash Narayan while declaring Rajaji
Ninaivaalayam open in Chennai said 'Rajaji is the most
misunderstood man in recent Indian history. He is next
only to Gandhiji in stature. Believe this. I am a
non-Brahmin telling this and I am not a Brahmin'.
A heart which has penned "Dhikkatra Parvathi" "Jasmine
Flowers", "Ardha Naari", that has translated Araththu
Paal in English and Gita in Tamil and the person who
moved for decades with the Munivar Mahatma Gandhiji was
above all these petty things. Caste was the weapon
wielded against him by some of his opponents.
He along with Nehru was one of the rare leaders who did
not allow anyone to erect his statue, during his life
time. He refused to write his auto biography saying one
will be forced to write lies. He rejected anyone who
approached him to write his biography, saying that 25
years after his death no one will be remembering him
and there is no need for a biography - the act of a
selfless man.
The last words that escaped his lips was 'I am happy'
when doctors asked him how he was feeling in his death
bed. They were the very same last words to his closest
friend Rasikamani T.K. Chidambaranatha Mudhaliar, in
whose house Rajaji stayed for weeks together for many
years. Not a single person from his caste has Rajaji
encouraged as his heir. C.Subramaniam, Ma.Po.Si.,
mi.pa.Soma Sundaram, Ayyamuthu were all his
shishyas.
Rajaji was a mortal, he had his shortcomings. He also
had enemies. He was a Congress man. He opposed Congress
in his later years. He called Communists his first
enemies. He opposed the DK and the DMK. He saw to it
that Chennai, then Madras, became part of Tamil Nadu
and not part of Andhra. He opposed Hindi in later
years. But all these were not for any selfish gains. He
stood by whatever he considered was good for the people
and the nation. And despite his enemies he stood heads
and shoulders above them. That is why all leaders from
Jawaharlal Nehru to Kalaingar and MGR
(the younger leaders at that time) respected him.
MGR with Rajaji
I don't want to enter into any
debate. I am not here to prove any point. I am
concerned with 'Thamizharin otrumaiyum, uyarvum'. I
find unlike in other parts of India or even South
India, Tamils are fragmented as Brahmin, Non-Brahmin,
Dalit, etc. The Non-Brahmins are further fragmented
into various castes. So also are the Brahmins and
Dalits.
Then there are the religious and
political divisions. In Andra, Karnataka or Kerala they
unite for a common cause. They don't exclude or abuse
anybody from their linguistic community as non- Telugu
or Non-Kannadiga or non-Malayalee. They never let down
each other.
When the late P.V.Narasimma Rao stood
in a by election, after becoming the Prime Minister of
India, late Mr. NTR did not field any candidate against
him to enable PVR , a Telugu son, to get elected and
continue as PM. PVR was a Brahmin, NTR was a Naidu; PVR
was a congress man, NTR was Congress' arch rival Telugu
Desam's founder leader. Can you expect that in
Tamilnadu? Mullai Periyaru, Paalaru, and Kaveri are
issues which bear ample testimony to what I am
saying.
If Tamils unite, not against anybody,
but per se, they can produce miracles which will
heal all their wounds and end all their woes; may be
they can become the nucleus of the world
community. Then the world will be Tamilnadu,
whether identified or not, whether recognised or not.
Nandri. Anbudan, Va.Srinivasan.
Response by tamilnation.org We published the entire lyric of
the song "Kurai Ondrum Illai", because apart from
anything else, we too have often been moved to tears to
hear Smt. M.S.Subbulakshmi's rendering of that
song. It is fortunate that her song may now be heard on
video in the world wide web [  Video: Kurai Onrum Illai - Ragamalikai ]
It was Arthur Koestler who spoke about the
self transcending AAH...! experience as
"an expression of a longing to enter into a
quasi-symbiotic communion with a person, living or
dead, or some some higher entity which may be
nature or a form of art or a mystic experience". To
Koestler this was a manifestation of the integrative
tendency in each one of us. You may watch a sunset and
almost merge with it and breathe AAH...! You may listen
to M.S.Subbulakshmi, lose yourself
in the magic of her song and almost feel transported to
another frame of existence and breathe AAH... - and
dissolve in tears of joy.
Said that, we thank you for having taken the
trouble to have written at length on Rajaji. We
ourselves have not found difficulty in recognising
Rajaji as one of the Hundred
Tamils of the 20th Century. We agree with you that
"...it is easy to call anyone, especially a Brahmin a
casteist in the present times and accuse him of having
'Sathi Veri'". And you are right to call upon the Tamil
people living in many lands and across distant seas to
unite, not against any body,
but 'per se'. We as a people have contributed
much to the civilisation of the world - and we,
as a people, have more to
contribute as well. Here the words of
Frantz Fanon at the Congress of Black African
Writers, 1959 on the
Reciprocal Bases of National Culture and the Fight
for Freedom are not without relevance "..It is at the
heart of national consciousness that international
consciousness lives and grows. And this two-fold
emerging is ultimately the source of all culture. "
From: M.S.
Thambirajah, United Kingdom, 17 July 2007
Dear Tamilnation - I can understand the
sentiments expressed by S. Varatharajan and I would
agree that no one should be excluded or discriminated
on the basis of caste. But in evaluating the
contributions of our leaders there is an unhealthy
trend to idolise them, especially those who are dead.
My particular point here is about Rajaji's proposal to
introduce education based on caste (the ancient
varnamsira murai) so that the so called lower castes
would be deprived of social mobility and the dominance
of the Brahmin caste would have been maintained. So
often this reactionary and caste mad ('sathi veri')
aspect of Rajaji is concealed, Eno theriyavillai.
Response by tamilnation.org We
agree that 'in evaluating the
contributions of our leaders there is an unhealthy
trend to idolise them, especially those who are dead'.
Many years in 1948, ago Wilhelm
Reich wrote in Listen, Little Man -
"They call you 'Little Man', 'Common
Man'; they say a new era has begun, the 'Era of the
Common Man'. It isn't you who says so, Little Man. It
is they, the Vice Presidents of great nations,
promoted labour leaders, repentant sons of bourgeois
families, statesman and philosophers. They give you
your future but don't ask about your past....I have
never heard you complain: "You promote me to be the
future master of myself and the world, but you don't tell me how one is to be the
master of oneself, and you don't tell me the
mistakes in my thinking and my actions...
... The Little Man does not
know that he is little, and he is afraid of knowing
it. He covers up his smallness and narrowness with
illusions of strength and greatness, of others' strength and greatness.
He is proud of his great generals
but not proud of himself. He admires thought
which he did not have and not the thought he did
have. He believes in things all the more thoroughly
the less he comprehends them, and does not believe in
the correctness of those ideas which he comprehends
most easily....
Your liberators tell you that that
your suppressors are Wilhelm, Nikolaus, Pope Gregory
the Twenty Eighth, Morgan, Krupp or Ford. And your
'liberators' are called Mussolini, Napoleon, Hitler
and Stalin. I tell you: Only you
yourself can be your liberator! This sentence makes
me hesitate. I contend to be a fighter for pureness
and truth. I hesitate, because I am afraid of you and
your attitude towards truth... My intellect tells me:
'Tell the truth at any cost.' The Little Man in me
says: 'It is stupid to expose oneself to the little
man, to put oneself at his mercy. The Little Man does
not want to hear the truth about himself.
He does not want the great
responsibility which is his. He wants to
remain a Little Man...."
From:
Srinivasan Varadarajan, Chennai 16 July 2007
Vanakkam.
1. The article on J.Krishnamurti was quite
good. The personal meeting and the quotations make
wholesome reading. Krishnamurti perhaps through his
teachings has shown us what could be the only way to
live on this beautiful earth. The divisions on account
of religion, nationality, language and colour have
destroyed human beings and still we are holding to
them. Thanks for the nice article.
2.Now coming to the list of
100 great Tamils, it is heartening to see the name
of Rajaji. He perhaps has done so much to the nation
should be ranking first among 20th century Tamilians.
In Kamaraj's words and in the words of Jaya
Prakash Narayan 'Rajaji is next only to Gandhiji in his
stature as national leader and in serving the nation".
Periyar EVR called him 'the leader in
every sphere of life he took part" and Kavignar Kannadasan called him
"Desasththai Eerththa Thamizhan"
He pioneered the freedom movement. He was the only
Tamilian among the 5 lieutenants of Gandhiji
along with Nehru, Patel, Azad and Prasadh. He was the
first to introduce prohibition. He was the first to
admit Harijan boys into schools, he brought reservation
for Scheduled Castes. He brought in "Aalaya Praevesa
Chattam" which enabled Dalits to enter Temples. He was
the first and last Governor General of Free India. He
was Gandhiji's conscience keeper. His short stories are
world class. His rendering of Ramayana and Maha
Bharatha into Tamil are treasures. His 'Kurai
Ondrum Illai" rings in every music hall today.
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Rajaji introduced Hindi but he was the
tallest of Tamil Leaders while opposing Hindi
logically, risking his popularity in North India. His
new education scheme would have brought respect to
manual labour and technical skill and we would be
having world class technicians, engineers,
agriculturists. When he was living, he was living like
as saint and nobody perhaps except V.O.Chidambaram Pillai would have
sacrificed as much for the freedom movement. Dr
Ambedkar respected him and wanted him to become the
President. He could not become the President of India
because he was a Tamilian.
The false propaganda by DK and DMK is now taken as true
history and some of your participants have hurled abuse
against Rajaji and wanted to remove him from the list.
If they go through the events of 19th and 20th century
dispassionately they will know why Gandhiji, Nehruji, Kamaraj, JP, EVR and Annadorai respected Rajaji.
In my view anyone who speaks Tamil at home and outside,
or any one who speaks Tamil at home at least, any one
whose forefathers hail from Tamilnadu (and who still
considers himself as only Tamil) are "Senthamilars" and
any one who lives in Tamilnadu and speaks Tamil at
least outside home and considers himself a Tamil is a
"Desiya Tamil", and all these people are Tamils. For a
fuller explanation you may kindly refer to Jayakanthan's writings.
If you accept the British and Christian missionary's
Aryan invasion theory and exclude
Brahmins from Tamils, it will be a Himalayan blunder
first because it is not the truth; secondly because you
will have to miss the glories of Tamils such as
Agasthiyar, TholKappiyar, Kapilar, to U.Ve
Sa., Bharathi, RAjaji,
Ramanujam, C.V.Raman, Vishwanathan Anand and scores of
others.
No one community can be excluded
because every community has contributed to the glory of
our Tamil language and nationhood. Only a divisive
mentality has kept the Tamils at the receiving end in
many places and we have not got our share in anything
which we deserve on account of our potential. The
Bengalis are all over. They do not exclude Ramakrishna
Paramahamsa, Ravindranath Tagore, Sarat Chandra, Uttam
Kumar, Buddadeb Battacharya, Mamta Banerjee, Somnath
Chaterjee, to Sourav Ganguly because they are Brahmins.
For them they are Bengalis and only Bengalis.
"Ondru Pattaal Undu Vaazhve; Nammil otrumai Neengidil
anaivarkkum Thaazhve!
Nandridhu therndidal vendum; Indha gnanam vndhaal pin
namakkedhu vendum"
Response by tamilnation.org We
thank you for your comments, Mikka Nanri. We do agree
with your view that "no one community can be
excluded because every community has contributed to the
glory of our Tamil language and nationhood." Please see
also Caste & the Tamil Nation - Dalits,
Brahmins & Non Brahmins and comment by Dr.S.Ranganathan and
Response by tamilnation.org, June
2006
From:
Dr.S.Sampanthar, United Kingdom, 26 June 2007
 I found the book
* Half of a Yellow Sun Response by
tamilnation.org We have some understanding as to
why the book did touch you - as indeed it will many
Tamils from Tamil Eelam. The book note by
the The New Yorker (Copyright
� 2006) at Amazon.com is moving:
"Based loosely on political events in nineteen-sixties
Nigeria, this novel focusses on two wealthy Igbo
sisters, Olanna and Kainene, who drift apart as the
newly independent nation struggles to remain unified.
Olanna falls for an imperious academic whose political
convictions mask his personal weaknesses; meanwhile,
Kainene becomes involved with a shy, studious British
expat. After a series of massacres targeting the Igbo
people, the carefully genteel world of the two couples
disintegrates. Adichie indicts the outside world for
its indifference and probes the arrogance and ignorance
that perpetuated the conflict. Yet this is no polemic.
The characters and landscape are vividly painted, and
details are often used to heartbreaking effect:
soldiers, waiting to be armed, clutch sticks carved
into the shape of rifles; an Igbo mother, in flight
from a massacre, carries her daughter's severed head,
the hair lovingly braided."
From:
A Visitor from the USA, 10 June 2007
Re the Sunday Leader
Editorial of 10 June 2007 which I append hereto,
we appear to have at last a Sinhalese to have the guts
to call a spade a spade. But my question is where was
he when all this was happening? Is it just political
compulsion � his hatred for the
Rajapakses and his love for Ranil Wickremasinghe?
Response by tamilnation.org
No, it is not a matter of hatred for
Rajapakse and love for Ranil. It is more than that.
The international community is concerned that President
Rajapakse's action will strengthen the determination of
the people of Tamil Eelam to be free from Sinhala rule.
The international community is also concerned with the
China ward tilt of the Rajapakse
government. Sanmugam Sabesan said it right when he
wrote in வலியப்போய்
ஏமாறுபவர்களும்,
துணிந்து
வந்து
ஏமாற்றுபவர்களும்
on 15 May 2007 -
"..The international
community is concerned to secure a peace in the
island of Sri Lanka which will advance their own
political, economic and strategic interests. .. The
international community seeks a peace, which even
though it does not resolve the basic issues of the
Tamil struggle, is sufficient to
deceive the Tamil people into thinking that it
has - this is the position of the
international community..."
We have been there before
with the comic opera of the 13th amendment
which had the blessings of both the international
community and India. It was an amendment introduced by
a UNP government with Ranil Wickremasinghe as a Cabinet
Minister and his uncle as its head. There was a piece
written by a Tamil expatriate in the US many years ago.
It was entitled Bait & Switch. Here the bait is the
SLFP (District Council) proposals (which makes
everybody angry) and the switch is the toothless (and
even watered down) Vitharne proposals. Velupillai
Thangavelu was right to point out in Ranil
Wickremasinghe & the UNP on 8 June 2007 -
" (In January 2002)...
Prime Minister (Ranil Wikremasinghe said) 'We have
never accepted the homeland concept... the homeland
concept will never be accepted...We have always
clearly expressed our stand on this issue.' ... I
reiterate what I have been saying for many years - it
is slow death or death in instalments for Thamils
under the UNP. The SLFP is an open enemy. Mahinda
Rajapakse as president is unwittingly helping the
division of the country as today's expulsion of hundreds of
Thamils from Colombo to North and East
shows."
Barry Gardiner, UK Member
of Parliament spelt out the Ranil Wickremasinghe
approach to the resolution of the conflict when he
wrote on 2 January 2007 in Anton
Balasingham: Chief negotiator for the Tamil Tigers
-
"I recall telling Bala
(Anton Balasingham) a year before of (Ranil)
Wickremasinghe's boast to me: 'They (LTTE) want
government? I'll bog them down with government.'
The Ranil Wickremasinghe
approach was to deny the existence of a Tamil homeland,
and use the so called 'international safety net' to
'bog down' the Tamil Eelam liberation movement. The
Sunday Leader�s real concern is that
Rajapakse's actions and the failure to adopt 'the Ranil
Wickremasinghe approach' have together combined to
bring Tamil Eelam closer. The give away is that for the
Sunday Leader, even at this time, the LTTE continue to
be a 'bunch of terrorists'. Here, the Sunday Leader
may usefully pay attention to the words of Jeff Sluka
�
"... National liberation movements are not the
activities of small groups of isolated individuals,
though state authorities opposed to them frequently
describe them as such for propaganda purposes. They
are the struggle of rebellious nations against
foreign invaders .. To understand armed national
liberation movements, it is necessary to strip away
the camouflage terms and explanations that states use
to hide their true nature... Instead of identifying
them as patriots or freedom fighters battling
oppression and injustice and seeking the liberation
of their people, they usually refer to them as
"terrorists." Every nation people that
has resisted state domination or invasion has been
accused of being terrorists. But armed national
self-preservation or self-defense is not "terrorism"
or "banditry"...
oppressed people are not socially
stupid even when they are poor, hungry, or
uneducated. They understand only too well the social,
political, and economic conditions of their lives,
and, when the possibility to do so presents itself,
they are prepared to act to improve those conditions.
National liberation movements are one
of the most significant ways people do this..."
The Sunday Leader is
concerned that the actions of the Rajapakse brothers
will render the search for 'Moderate Tamils' futile.
But it would have its readers ignore the fact that it
was after all a 'Moderate Tamil' S.J.V.Chelvanayagam
Q.C. who declared to his people more
than thirty years ago -
"We have for the last 25 years made every
effort to secure our political rights on the basis of
equality with the Sinhalese in a united Ceylon.
It is a regrettable fact that successive Sinhalese
governments have used the power that flows from
independence to deny us our fundamental rights
and reduce us to the position of a subject
people. These governments have been able to do so
only by using against the Tamils the sovereignty
common to the Sinhalese and the Tamils. I wish to
announce to my people and to the country that I
consider the verdict at this election as a mandate
that the Tamil Eelam nation should exercise the
sovereignty already vested in the Tamil people and
become free."
And for the Sunday Leader
it all started with the SLFP Sinhala
Only Act in 1956. The Sunday Leader would have its
readers ignore the systematic colonisation of the Tamil
homeland by UNP Prime Ministers from D.S. Senanayake
onwards, the disenfranchisement of the Plantation
Tamils in 1948 and the imposition of the Sinhala Lion flag in
1951.
The Sunday Leader is right
to conclude that the pain that the Tamil people have
suffered and continue to suffer has served only to
consolidate their determination to be free from alien Sinhala rule. But it is
not enough to decry the actions of the Rajapakse
brothers. The Rajapakse brothers are doing nothing
which the K.M.P.Rajaratnes, the Bandaranaikes, the
J.R.Jayawardenes, the Cyril Mathews and a host of
others have not done in the past - disappearances & extra judicial
killings, rape
& murder, torture, war crimes,
impunity and censorship, disinformation &
murder of journalists. And the 1983 attack on the Tamil people was
presided over by a UNP Cabinet which included Ranil
Wickremasinghe as an influential member - and the
United National Party has yet to accept responsibility
for the gruesome attacks on the Tamils in Colombo in
July and August 1983.
That which the Sunday
Leader signally failed to do was to openly state that
the solution to the conflict lies in the recognition of
the Tamil homeland. That which the Sunday Leader
signally failed to do was to openly state that the
solution lies in the creation of an independent
Tamil Eelam which may then negotiate with Sri Lanka,
the terms on which two independent states may associate
with one another in equality and in freedom.
And Then They Came For me - Sunday
Leader Editorial June 10, 2007
Secular Sinhalese hung their heads in shame last week
as government storm-troopers rounded up the Tamil
citizenry of Colombo and herded them into busses, to
be taken to God knows where. Young and old, shy and
bold, they were equally affected: no one was spared.
Grandmothers separated from their grandchildren,
sisters separated from their brothers, diabetics
separated from their insulin. In scenes reminiscent
of the Final Solution, the Mahinda Chinthanaya swung
into action, leaving no one in doubt that Sri
Lanka�s is a government of the
racists, by the racists, for the racists. It is but a
short step from here to requiring Tamils to wear a
mandatory arm-band with a
�T� (in black, of
course) emblazoned on it.
No one knows how many Tamil people were bussed out of
Colombo last Thursday. Guesstimates varied from 200
to 800. The government, however, made it known that
�20,000 Tamils have taken up
lodgings in Colombo�, a clear signal
that more is to come unless the justices of the
Supreme Court (bless their hearts) continue to step
in and stop it. The government�s
claims that the deportees had always wanted to return
to wherever it was they had come from, but could
never find the bus fare, brings to mind the picture
painted by the Third Reich, of Jews stepping
voluntarily into the gas chambers of Buchenwald and
Auschwitz, arm in arm, gaily whistling Hava
Nagila.
In a sense, last Thursday must have come as a relief
to Sri Lanka�s minorities. The state
has now shorn off its whiskers and made it patently
clear that this is no longer a battle against the
LTTE, or even against terrorism: it is a battle
against Tamils. Ethnic cleansing has begun, and no
Sinhalese can be safe until the last Tamil has been
evicted from their midst.
For its part, the Rajapakse Administration, having
hidden behind a variety of colourful euphemisms all
this while, has finally come out in the open, calling
a spade a spade, a Tamil a Tamil: the Sinhala nation
can never be safe until the Tamils in its midst have
been evicted. In doing so, and deporting
Colombo�s Tamils thence, Rajapakse
has finally accepted the reality of Eelam, a Tamil
homeland in the north and east. It defies irony that
the first seed of Tamil secession has been sown not
by Pirapaharan, but by Rajapakse. Little must
Rajapakse realise that the insult and humiliation he
cast on those citizens (most of who, no doubt,
refrained from voting in the last presidential
election so as to secure his victory), would not
lightly be forgiven or forgotten. They
aren�t likely to turn the other
cheek. No one would be surprised if many of them
would in time to come number among the
LTTE�s suicide cadres, determined to
get even with the Sinhalese. In a move of almost
touching imbecility, the government has given the
cause of terrorism an unprecedented shot in the
arm.
It is only a sick and cynical society that can
countenance so brazen an assault on human rights and
look the other way. It is gratifying that all Sri
Lanka�s political parties, barring
the SLFP, JHU and CWC, vociferously opposed
Rajapakse�s action. No one knows
what brand of Buddhism it is that the monks of the
Urumaya profess to follow, but it is evident from
their action that it is not that advocated by the
Gautama Buddha. The CWC�s silence,
however, is more ominous; evidently a signal that
it�s leadership wishes to distance
itself from the cause of Tamil emancipation as a
whole. After all, if the upcountry Tamils were to be
emancipated, they�d be out of a
job.
The past two years have seen Sri Lanka slipping
inexorably into an abyss of intolerance. There is
about the Rajapakse administration a sick and
fathomless cynicism to which we run the danger of
becoming inured: blatantly false propaganda in the
state media; intimidation of the free media;
widespread abductions, disappearances and murders
with nonchalance bordering on the
blas�. So accustomed are we to this,
that we are no longer shocked by any of it. We take
it in our stride. In doing so, however, we need to
remember that each blow the Rajapakse Brothers deal
on secularism and liberal values is a blow against
each one of us individually. Our turn - your turn -
will come. And when it does come, who will speak for
you?
Last Thursday�s events bring to mind
the words of the German theologian, Martin
Niem�ller, who in his youth was an
anti-Semite and an admirer of Adolf Hitler. As the
Nazi grasp on Germany tightened in the 1930s,
however, Niem�ller finally saw
Nazism for what it was: it was not just the Jews
Hitler had it in for, it was just about anyone with
an alternate point of view.
Niem�ller spoke out, and for his
trouble was incarcerated in the Sachsenhausen and
Dachau concentration camps from 1937 to 1945, and
very nearly executed. His poignant pose-poem appeals
to those of us who might think that just as the
Rajapakse Brothers came for the Tamils of Colombo
last Thursday, they are unlikely ever to come for
us:
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out because I was not a
Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out because I was not a trade
unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
There are those among the Sinhalese who see the Tamil
question in terms of a military victory against the
LTTE. It defies reason as to how soon they have
erased from their minds our post-independence
history. Even the JVP accepts that we must accept the
Tamils of this country as equal citizens: they have
as much historic right to this land as the Sinhalese.
From even before independence, however, the Tamils
quite sensibly asked that the Tamil language be given
parity with Sinhala, and that the areas in which
Tamil was the predominant language spoken be
administered in Tamil. Then, in 1956, just eight
years after independence, the Sinhalese majority
fired the first shot, making Sinhala the official
language of the state, brushing aside the strenuous
objections of the Tamils.
The passage of the Official Languages Act by the
S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike Government in 1956 was greeted
with horror and shrieks of protest by the Tamils, who
were powerless to resist, given that they were
politically a minority. They were, however, deeply
wounded, evoking in the pen of one contemporary
critic of the Act the words of the poet John
Dryden:
I�m a little wounded but
I�m not slain;
I will lay me down for to bleed awhile,
Then I�ll rise and fight with you
again.
And it is that prophesy that we are living today.
Deporting Tamils from Colombo is not a solution to
the problem of Tamil militancy: it is yet another
cause of it. But then again, it seems unlikely that
the works of the poet Dryden adorn the bookshelves of
Temple Trees.
From 1956, the slide into the abyss was both steady
and inexorable. The Sinhala alphabet was introduced
for car number-plates, the national anthem was to be
sung only in Sinhala, the country�s
name was changed to the Sinhala name (in law, even
when spoken or written in Tamil) and, in a bizarre
diversion from secularity, Buddhism was awarded
constitutional precedence (�the
foremost place�) over any religions
Tamils might choose to espouse. So effective were
these devices in achieving their aims that Tamils
were almost totally purged from the armed forces and
reduced to trivial minorities in the police and
government service. Added to all that were the
anti-Tamil pogroms of 1958 and 1983, in which Tamils
were burnt alive, their shops and homes looted, and
the Tamils finally recognised the impossibility of
peaceful cohabitation with the Sinhalese.
Sinhalese people who laugh these off as trivial
pinpricks should imagine what life would be like were
the tables turned. What if the official language of
Sri Lanka were Tamil - together with the national
anthem, car number plates etc.? What if Hinduism was
constitutionally recognised as having
�the foremost
place� in our state? What if every
time you were stopped by a policeman, he addressed
you only in Tamil? How long would you tolerate that
before you looked to extreme remedies?
What messages were the Tamils supposed to derive from
this systematic assault on their heritage? They,
after all, saw themselves as having an equal right to
be Sri Lankan (or at any rate, Ceylonese), as the
Sinhalese. For 30 years - a generation - from 1948 to
1977, fought for their rights through purely
political means. But the Sinhalese just did not
listen and things got steadily worse, with, for
example, J. R. Jayewardene�s
infamous Constitution of 1978 and before that of
Colvin R.De Silva in 1972. Then, slowly, a minority
of Tamils concluded that parleying with the Sinhalese
was futile, and took to arms. It was the wrong thing
to do - but then again, it was the only thing they
could do to try to get the attention of the Sinhalese
government. Then, when they did that, rather than
recognise the frustration of the Tamil minority,
successive Sri Lankan governments chose to respond
with a bullet for a bullet.
In the last couple of years we have taken to bombing
the villages in the north that are thought to harbour
Tigers. One rarely meets a Sri Lankan, however, who
sees how utterly bizarre this is - bombing your own
people. When the JVP attacked Colombo, did the air
force bomb Akuressa and Hambantota, its strongholds?
What would people think of a government that bombed
Sinhalese? Yet, the Tamils are bombed daily as a
matter of routine, and not one Sinhala voice of
protest, be it ever so small, is heard. Now we seem
slowly to be discovering that there simply are too
many dissident Tamils (=
�terrorists�) to
kill: we are deporting them back to their
homeland.
Tragically for Sri Lanka, the Rajapakse Brothers have
neither the collective wit nor the wisdom - there
isn�t, after all, a university
degree among them - to see the struggle for Tamil
emancipation for what it is. Even if they did, so
steeped in Sinhala-Buddhist dogma are they that they
could never bring themselves to undo the original
wrongs that gave aid and succour to the cause of
Tamil militancy from 1956 to 1978.
Terrorism is horribly wrong, and there is no
gainsaying that the LTTE are a bunch of terrorists.
Moderate Tamils - if there could persist such a breed
after the events of last Thursday - may believe there
is yet hope. But they are a minority within a
minority, and for fear of the Tigers, for the most
part mute. Thanks to Sinhala intransigence, it is
only the LTTE that is left to negotiate with us.
And it is time those Tamils and members of other
minorities who sit on the government benches in
parliament searched their souls for their reasons for
doing so. What truck do they have with an
administration such as that presided over by the
Rajapakses? For their part, the Rajapakse Brothers
need even now to recognise that Tamil liberation is
not a question of law-and-order: it is a profoundly
political issue that demands calm, mature reason and
a genuine embracing of democratic values. By adopting
the gehuwoth gahannan (if you hit, then
I�ll hit) attitude he publicly
espouses, Rajapakse, as he has done from the
beginning of his presidency, is simply missing the
plot.
From:
Kenneth Welsh, USA 19 March
2007
Freedom is a matter of CHOICE.
We, the international community have seen people of the
little tiny nation of East Timor go FREE from
Indonesia; Bosnia go FREE from Yugoslavia/Serbia;
Eritrea go FREE from Ethiopia. Now the time has come
for the Tamil people of NorthEast Sri Lanka (Ceylon) to
go FREE. Let us not forget the famous saying William Jennings Bryan,
Nebraska�s well-known statesman and
politician - 'Destiny is not a matter of chance -
it is a matter of CHOICE - it is not a thing to be
waited for- it is is a thing to be achieved." Let the
Tamil people fight to FREE from the authoritarian-military-junta-style of the
ethnic majority of Sinhalese people.
From:
A Visitor from USA, 18 March
2007
Hard Talk &
Kathir
I like what you have done
with Kathir�s letter
to tamilnation.org.
To me tamilnation.org
comments were very
educational and thought provoking, including all the
links. I hadn�t seen Reuban
Nanthakumar�s article before. It is
indeed well researched and well written... I read a
lot these days, but I am not sure if it is making me
any wiser. The world seems static, with people (and
governments) doing the exact same things over and over
again, from the times of the Greeks and the
Romans! Bushism is a perfect example.
Response by tamilnation.org We agree with you that the
� The world seems static, with
people (and governments) doing the exact same things
over and over again, from times of the Greeks and the
Romans!�. But, it may be that it
only seems to be so. We comfort ourselves in the
belief that we have evolved from
matter to life to mind and there is nothing to
suggest that evolution stops there
� it is a continuing process. And if
life was involved in matter and mind involved in
life, may be there is already involved in mind,
something more. Be that as it may, we believe
there is emerging a critical mass of people in many
parts of the world who are asking similar
questions. Hopefully the views of persons such
as Margaret Wheatley will gain increasing acceptance
-
"..For many years, I�ve
been interested in seeing the world differently.
I�ve wanted to see beyond the
Western, mechanical view of the world and see what
else might appear when the lens was changed.
I�ve learned, just as Joel Barker
predicted when he introduced us to paradigms years
ago, that "problems that are impossible to solve
with one paradigm may be easily solved with a
different one... Leaders are those who help
others..
... We are all leaders, even without that formal
title. We are in communities, governments,
corporations, schools, universities, churches,
non-profits, NGOs, healthcare. We are very diverse,
yet our values unite us: We rely on human goodness.
We depend on diversity. We trust in life's capacity
to self-organize in sustainable, generous, and
interdependent ways. We live in many different
cultures and nations, and we express these values
in wonderfully diverse ways. Yet we each serve the
vision of a world where people can experience
themselves as whole, healthy, sacred, and free. In
all our different activities, we want to liberate
the creativity and caring that are common to all
people..."
And how do we secure that leaders who
truly serve will emerge? It seems to us that Dee
Hock, CEO Emeritius of Visa International was right
when he said -
"We live in extraordinary times. Around the
world we face systemic and deep-seated challenges
in virtually every field. At the same time, in part
because of these challenges, we are coming to see
ourselves, one another, and our home planet in new
ways. We have an unprecedented opportunity to
realize age-old dreams of abundance and recreate
our institutions in the service of all humanity and
life....A vital question is how to insure that
those who lead are constructive, ethical, open, and
honest. The answer is to follow those who behave in
that manner. It comes down to both individual and
collective sense of where and how people choose to
be led. In a very real sense, followers lead by
choosing where to be led. Where an organizational
community will be led is inseparable from the
shared values and beliefs of its members..."
(Dee Hock - The Art of Chaordic
Leadership)
Perhaps, Thangathurai said it all in
1983 �
�You must not run away
with the thought that our sole objective is to
establish Tamil Eelam. Tamil Eelam certainly
remains an objective because we have learnt through
bitter experience over the past several years that
it is only by establishing a State of Tamil Eelam
can Tamils live with self respect.
But our vision is broader than that. Our
vision is global. Wherever there is oppression,
wherever there is violation of human dignity,
whether in Africa or in Latin America, we are
prepared to link hands with the oppressed and the
under dog. When our vision is so global how can
it fail to take into account the future good of the
Sinhala people?
May I mention this. We will not stop at raising our
voices on behalf of those people. There is
nothing that prevents two neighbouring nations
living in co-operation. Even nations with
differing policies get together for common economic
good and for the purpose of common security. Does
that mean that those nations give up their
distinctive characteristics or sovereignty?
We have to safeguard the collective good of this
island. If at any time in the future a common
organisation has to emerge which could withstand
the political and economic onslaught made against
third world countries particularly in the areas
surrounding the Indian sub continent, you can be
sure that Tamil Eelam will rise to lend its might
in all co-operative endeavours that will raise the
quality of life of the people of this part of the
world.�
From:
R.S.Kathir, USA 17 March 2007
Dear TamilNation:
I just got a call from a British (White) friend, whom I
had befriended back in the seventies when I used to
live in England. He asked: �What the
BLOODY HELL is going on there in your country; I
thought you were the BAD GUYS!�
He had just seen BBC�s
�Hard Talk� program
with Sri Lanka�s Foreign Minister
Rohitha Bollogama. Fortunately, the Tamil Canadian
had a link to this BBC interview, and I too was able to
watch it. I didn�t think that it was
anything different from what has been going on in Sri
Lanka for the last 20 years � the
government there (GoSL) putting a positive twist to
everything, and the Tamils continuing to suffer at the
hands of the Sri Lankan Army (SLA).
So I called my British friend back, and he said that
despite what I had told him about Sri Lanka, he had
until now believed what the British press has been
saying. To him despite our friendship, what he had
heard from the British Press and the British Government
was more believable! Now, after this interview, he
seemed to have a different take on this. He sounded
confused.He asked �Is it true
that� there are 200,000 civilians
displaced from their homes (by the SL army
actions)?�
I explained that it is true, and that this all happened
after the new President was elected in November
2005.
Then he asked: �Is it true that 20,000
refugees went to India by boat, and some had drowned on
the way?�
The questions went on and on, and I had to say
�yes� to every one of
them.
�3,000
Tamil civilians killed (by the SL
army)?� Yes!
�There are aerial bombings of (Tamil)
civilians?� Yes!
�The Government (GoSL) is
collaborating with a paramilitary group to recruit
child-soldiers?� Yes!
�Government soldiers murdered
(International) NGO employees?�
Yes!
These questions went on and on.
I had to finally say to him, �Go Google� on
�Sri Lanka Human Rights
Violations�, or visit the Human Rights
Watch or the Amnesty International websites. Or, look
at www.tamilnation.org/indictment/index.htm
He said he will do. I just felt the need to report this
to you. Hopefully, many more British people have
watched the program, and learned more about the events
in Sri Lanka.
Comment by tamilnation.org That BBC's Hard Talk
with Sri Lanka�s Foreign
Minister Rohitha Bollogama has opened the mind of
Kathir's British (White) friend to the truth is
welcome. And BBC Allan Little's comparison of the
President Rajapakse regime to that of Pincochet of
Chile was telling. Having said we may need to remind
ourselves of the not so independent role played by the
BBC in relation to the conflict in the island - one
instance that comes to mind is the well researched
study by Reuben Nanthakumar in BBC and its Flirtations with Sri
Lankan Propaganda. Again, when Pincochet was in
power he had the fulsome support of both the United
States and the UK establishment. Pinochet had after all
overthrown the left leaning Allende. At that time,
Pinochet may have been an 'abductor' but for both US
and UK he was 'our' abductor. 'Concern' for the human
rights of the Chilean people did not prevent US and UK
giving wholehearted support for the Pinochet
regime.
Today,
many may take the view that the hard talk that Sri
Lanka Foreign Minister Rohitha Bollogama was
subjected to had more to do with UK foreign policy and
with applying pressure on Sri Lanka to move away from
China (a la Hambantota etc) than
with concern about human rights and the plight of the
Tamil people. It may also have had something to do
with the British way of annihilating guerrilla
resistance as exemplified in the works of
Robert Thompson. [see also Sri
Lanka's UnwinnableWar, 1993]
The BBC was careful to
avoid any statement even remotely suggesting support
for the Tamil struggle for freedom from
alien Sinhala rule. During the past several years, the
international community has not been slow to repeat ad
nauseam the phrase 'legitimate aspirations of the Tamil
people' but they have been reluctant to recognise the
aspirations of the Tamil people as expressed by
Gandhian Tamil leader
S.J.V.Chelvanayagam and later freely expressed at the General
Election in 1977 as 'legitimate'. They refuse to
recognise the truth of that which Yelena Bonner (widow
of Andrei Sakharov) said
"The inviolability of a
country's borders against invasion from the outside
must be clearly separated from the right to statehood
of any people within a state's borders."
They refuse to recognise
the truth not because they have been misled or that
they do not see that which stares them in their faces.
They refuse to recognise the truth because the balance
of power in the Indian Ocean region is a matter of
critical importance for all three major players - US,
India and China, with supporting roles for UK, European
Union, Pakistan and others. It will be futile to
believe that the UK and the UK establishment will be
moved to act against that which they perceive to be
their strategic interests. The way forward is to make
these strategic interests transparent and open them
out for dialogue and discussion - and here the BBC may
hopefully play an useful role. At the same time, we
may want to remind ourselves of something which
Robert
Parry said in Price of the 'Liberal Media' Myth in
2003 -
"The notion of a
�liberal� national
news media is one of the most enduring and
influential political myths...the larger fallacy of
the �liberal media�
argument is the idea that reporters and mid-level
editors set the editorial agenda at their news
organizations. In reality, most journalists have
about as much say over what is presented by
newspapers and TV news programs as factory workers
and foremen have over what a factory manufactures.
That is not to say factory workers have no input in
their company�s product: they can
make suggestions and ensure the product is
professionally built. But top executives have a much
bigger say in what gets produced and how. The news
business is essentially the same... Some concessions
are made to the broader professional standards of
journalism, such as the principles of objectivity and
fairness. But media owners historically have enforced
their political views and other preferences by
installing senior editors whose careers depend on
delivering a news product that fits with the
owner�s prejudices. Mid-level
editors and reporters who stray too far from the
prescribed path can expect to be demoted or fired.
Editorial employees intuitively understand the career
risks of going beyond the boundaries..."
The BBC is an 'Independent' Corporation
whose Board is appointed by the UK Government and whose
funding is heavily dependent on UK Government
policy.
From: Revd.B J
Alexander [[email protected] ] 25 January
2007
On Human Shields
"...The guerrilla force is independent of the
civilian population, in action as well as in military
organisation; consequently it need not assume the
direct defence of the peasant population..."
The above quote inspite of its moral
bankruptcy fails to answer the question of the human
shield. Here is a quote from the Bilateral Donors' Report
released on Wednesday:
" A special security concern, also hampering
humanitarian efforts in the districts, is the report
that the parties to the conflict might be using
civilians and civilian installations as shields. For
example, the civilian and IDP population in Vaharai is
generally believed to be used by the LTTE as a human
shield against SLAF and Karuna operations. In the same
way, SLAF and Karuna camps tend to be located in the
middle of urban or otherwise populous areas, bringing
military activity dangerously close to IDP camps and
civilian areas."
The report was compiled by the embassies of the donor
countries in Sri Lanka on the basis of discussions with
field workers, both governmental and non-governmental.
Let's walk in the moccasins of Vaharai Tamils before we
philosophise in our own safety nets."
Response by tamilnation.org
Several matters arise in
the comments made by Rev.B.J.Alexander. And we propose
to address each of them in turn.
The first is Rev.Alexander's reference to the Regis
Debray quote in our comment in LTTE Avoids Battle of Attrition in the East
- B.Raman on 25 January 2007. Rev. Alexander quotes
a part of that quotation and concludes that it reflects
a 'moral bankruptcy'. It is true that Regis Debray said
that -
"...The guerrilla force is independent of the
civilian population, in
action as well as in military organisation; consequently it
need not assume the direct defence of the peasant
population..."
But Regis Debray goes on to explain why he says so
and it would have been helpful if Rev Alexander had
referred to the quote in full. -
"...The protection of the population depends on
the progressive destruction of the enemy's military
potential. It is relative to the overall balance of
forces: the populace will be completely safe when
the opposing forces are completely
defeated....... By restricting itself to the task
of protecting civilians or passive self-defence, the
guerrilla unit ceases to be the vanguard of the
people as a whole and deprives itself of a national
perspective... By choosing to operate at this
level, it may be able to provide protection for the
population for a limited time. But in the
long run the opposite is true: self-defence
undermines the security of the civilian
population.... limiting oneself to passive defence is
to place oneself in the position of being unable to
protect the population and to expose one's own
forces to attrition. On the other hand, to seek
for ways to attack the enemy is to put him on the
permanent defensive to exhaust him and prevent him
from expanding his activities, to wrest the
initiative from him, and to impede his search
operations..."
The point that Regis Debray sought to make was that
a guerrilla movement, facing a vastly superior force in
numbers as well as in arms and resources cannot survive
if it resorts to the passive defence of a section of
the people to whose liberation it is committed. The
people will be protected only when the opposing forces
are completely defeated. 'Surprise' and 'freedom of
movement' are important resources for a guerrilla
movement intent on keeping its enemy off balance.
The following note on Regis Debray is taken
from the Wikipedia.
" In the 1960s Regis Debray was a
professor of philosophy at the University of
Havana, and a friend of Che Guevara as a
young man in the 1960s. He later wrote a book
entitled Revolution in the Revolution?.
This book critiqued the tactical and
strategic doctrines then prevailing among
militant socialist movements in Latin
America, and acted as a handbook for
guerrilla warfare. When Guevara was captured
in Bolivia, 1967, Debray (also in Bolivia at
the time) was imprisoned, convicted of having
been part of Guevara's guerrilla group and on
November 17 sentenced to 30 years in prison,
but was released in 1970 after an
international campaign for his release which
included Jean-Paul Sartre,
Andr� Malraux,
G�n�ral De
Gaulle and Pope Paul VI. He sought refuge in
Chile, where he wrote The Chilean Revolution
(1972) after interviews with Salvador
Allende. Debray returned to France in 1973.
Following the election of
Pr�sident
Fran�ois Mitterrand, in
1981, he became an adviser of the
Pr�sident on foreign
affairs. In this capacity he developed a
policy that sought to increase France's
freedom of action in the world, decrease
dependence on the United States, and promote
closeness with the former colonies. "
We ourselves do not dismiss Regis Debray's analysis
of the tactical and strategic doctrines of a
guerrilla movement, as reflecting 'moral bankruptcy'
or for that matter, as the musings of a philosopher
removed from the reality on the ground. We prefer to
regard Regis Debray's analysis as reflecting the deep
insights he had gained by his intimate involvement
both with Fidel Castro and Che Guevera.
The second matter to which we now turn is the
matter of the 'human shield'. Revd.B J Alexander says
that the 'Bilateral Donors' Report' makes allegations
about the use of human shields by the LTTE. The Donor's
Report says that
" the civilian and IDP population in Vaharai is
generally believed to be used
by the LTTE as a human shield against SLAF and Karuna
operations.."
A preliminary question arises: 'generally believed' by
whom? Did the Bilateral Donors themselves believe that "the civilian and
IDP population in Vaharai was used by the LTTE as a human
shield against SLAF and Karuna operations"? If they did
believe that, why did they not say so? Was it a matter of
diplomacy or a matter of uncertainty?
Revd.Alexander points out that
"The report was compiled by the embassies of the
donor countries in Sri Lanka on the basis of
discussions with field workers, both governmental and
non-governmental."
Who were these field workers? Who were the NGO's who
were involved and which governments funded these NGO's?
Again who were the 'governmental' field workers? From
which governments did they come from? The lack of
transparency concerning the interests that these 'field
workers' (and those who employed them) sought to serve
should lead us to adopt a cautious approach to the
correctness (and impartiality) of such reports.
There may also be a need to examine the strategic
interests of the embassies of the donor countries who
'compiled' the Report. These Bilateral Donors, may want
us to believe that they are good Samaritans concerned
simply to advance peace and secure justice. But are they?
Or is it that these 'Bilateral Donors' are those who have
for the past several years effectively funded
Sri Lanka's war effort?
Without foreign aid, Sri Lanka would not have been
able to continue its genocidal war
against the Tamil people - and it may well have
found the need to talk with
the people of Tamil Eelam on an equal basis and
structure a polity where the two peoples, the Sinhala
people and the Tamil people, may associate with each
other in equality and in freedom. And foreign aid has
been forthcoming because each 'aid donor' is intent on
securing its own strategic interests in
the Indian Ocean region - and this is true, whether
the aid donor is the US, the EU, India, Japan, or China. And Sri Lanka has sought to
use the political space provided by the countervailing
strategic interests of the US, India and China in the
Indian region (with supporting roles for Pakistan,
European Union and Japan) to advance its own interests
and acquire the military capability to subdue Tamil resistance to alien Sinhala
rule.
Again, what do the Bilateral Donors mean when they
refer to 'human shields' in the context of a guerrilla
war? The Donors Report expresses concern that LTTE camps
'tend to be located in the middle of urban or otherwise
populous areas'. Here, a legitimate question that may be
asked is: where is a guerrilla force supposed to locate
its armed cadres? Is a guerrilla force supposed to locate
its armed cadres in areas separated from the people so
that it may function like 'fish' outside the 'sea' or
amongst the civilian population who back them, so that it
may then function as 'fish' in the 'sea'?
Jean Paul Sartre's statement 'On
Genocide' at the Second Session of the Bertrand
Russell International War Crimes Tribunal on Vietnam,
held in Denmark in November 1967 may be helpful
-
"...Against partisans backed by the entire
population, colonial armies are helpless. They have
only one way of escaping from the harassment which
demoralizes them .... This is to eliminate the civilian
population. As it is the unity of a whole people that
is containing the conventional army, the only
anti-guerrilla strategy which will be effective is the
destruction of that people, in other words, the
civilians, women and children..."
If the guerrilla is the fish in the sea, then the anti
guerrilla strategy is to drain the sea. During the past
several decades, successive Sri Lanka governments have
followed the strategy of 'draining the sea', and have
deliberately directed their attacks on
the Tamil civilian population.
They have done so with intent not simply to kill but
also to terrorise those who they have failed to kill -
terrorise them so that the Tamil people may submit to
alien Sinhala rule, or become informers
and collaborators or move into 'refugee
camps'/'rehabilitation centres' in areas controlled by
the Sinhala armed forces.
Having targeted Tamil civilians and terrorised them,
Sri Lanka seeks to put a legal gloss on its actions by
alleging that the dead were 'human shields'. Some years
ago Tamil civilians who were killed by the Sri Lanka
armed forces were allegedly caught "in the crossfire".
The Chunnakam Massacre in 1984 was a case in
point. Today, in the context of Sri Lanka's long range
artillery attacks and aerial bombardments, the
'crossfire' cover up is no longer credible - hence 'human
shields'.
The Bilateral Donors strive to lend an 'even handed
feel' to their report by saying that "in the same way (as the LTTE), SLAF and
Karuna camps tend to be located in the middle of urban or
otherwise populous areas". Neither the SLAF nor the
mercenary Karuna group are guerrillas. For the armed
forces of a State to situate their camps in urban areas
may well be an indication that they seek to use the
civilian population as a 'human shield'. The 'even handed
feel' that the Donors give to their report brings to mind
the words of Richard Swift in the New Internationalist, in
Mind Games -
"The PR technique is simple
enough: minimise the human
rights abuses, talk about it as a 'complex' two
sided story, play up efforts at reform... If
possible, it is best to put these words in the mouth of
some apparently 'neutral' group of 'concerned
citizens', or a lofty institute with academic
credentials."
The Bilateral Donors may have enhanced their
credibility if they had condemned the war
crimes and the crimes against humanity committed by
Sri Lanka President Rajapakse and the forces under his
command. At the same time we recognise that they have not
done so not because they support
President Rajapakse. They have not done so because they
would prefer to use the threat of doing so to influence
President Rajapakse to toe the line of the so called
international community in the Indian region. It is not
that the Bilateral Donors are intent on furthering the
interests of the Sinhala people. The Bilateral Donors are
intent on using the conflict in the island to further
neither the interests of the Tamil people nor the Sinhala
people but to further their own interests in the context
of the uneasy power balance in the Indian Ocean
region.
The words of Sardar K.M.Pannikar, Indian Ambassador to
China from 1948 to 1952, and later Vice Chancellor,
Mysore University in Principles and Practice of Diplomacy, 1956
reminds us of some age old constants -
"Foreign Ministers and diplomats presumably
understand the permanent interests of their country..
But no one can foresee clearly the effects of even very
simple facts as they pertain to the future. The Rajah
of Cochin who in his resentment against the Zamorin
permitted the Portuguese to establish a trading station
in his territories could not foresee that thereby he
had introduced into India something which was to alter
the course of history."
Surprising as it may seem to some, though we disagree
with JVP on many matters, we do agree
with the JVP in its stated policy of seeking to
exclude and/or minimise the influence of foreign powers
(whether they be from the West or the East) in the
island.
The third matter to which we now turn is Revd.
B J Alexander's invitation to 'walk in the moccasins of
Vaharai Tamils before we philosophise in our own safety
nets'. His invitation is understandable - and is perhaps
a measure of his anguish. Karl Marx too expressed his
irritation about philosophers when he remarked -
"Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the
world in various ways, the point however, is to change
it" Theses on Feuerbach, 1845
This was not very different from that which Aurobindo said
in Savitri -
"�truth and knowledge are an idle
gleam, if they do not bring power to change the
world�" - Sri
Aurobindo
However, today, many may regard Aurobindo as a
philosopher - and for that matter, Karl Marx as well.
Philosophy is not without relevance - it may help us to
get to the root of things. It may help us to see the wood
for the trees. We need both the sharp focus and the flood
light. Gramsci, the active Italian politician who played
a leading role in the Turin Factory Council Movement and
the formation of the Italian Communist Party and who was
imprisoned by Mussolini wrote in his Prison
Notebooks -
'Man does not enter into relations
with the natural world just by being himself part of it
but actively by means of work and technique. Further,
these relations are not mechanical. They are active and
conscious... Each of us changes himself, modifies
himself to the extent that he changes and modifies the
complex relations of which he is the heart. In this
sense, the real philosopher is, and cannot be other
than the politician, the active man who
modifies his environment, understanding by environment
the ensemble of relations which each one of us enters
to take part in it. If one's
individuality is the ensemble of these relations, to
create one's personality means to acquire consciousness
of them, and to modify one's own personality means to
modify the ensemble of these relations.'
Finally, we turn to 'safety nets' and the role of the
Tamil diaspora in relation to the freedom struggle of
the people of Tamil Eelam. The jibe is sometimes made
that living within the 'safety net' provided by the
Governments of their host countries, the Tamil diaspora,
by their actions are sending not their own children but
other Tamil children in Tamil Eelam to death. It is true
that the Tamil diaspora in whatever they say or do,
should be mindful of the fact they themselves have chosen
against putting their own lives
on line on the ground. Here it may be helpful to revisit
that which was said in Hypocrisy
and Expatriate Tamils some nine years ago.
"It is true that hypocrisy in
politics will not get us anywhere as a
community... But, is it hypocrisy to support a
struggle for freedom from alien rule, because you
yourself have not taken up arms or because your
children have not taken up arms?...
Does that mean that the thousands, in many parts of
the world, who supported Vietnam's struggle against
foreign occupation, were hypocrites? Or does that mean
that they should have stayed silent whilst the Vietnam
war and the carpet bombing by the US killed thousands
of young Vietnamese and devastated acres of
agricultural land - because their support may have
prolonged Vietnamese resistance?
Or was it the fact that their support, strengthened
Viet Nam resistance, and in this way brought the war to
a quicker end - and saved lives and secured freedom?
Or to take a more recent example, does it mean that
the millions who supported the struggle of Nelson
Mandela against a racist regime in South Africa should
have stayed silent unless they were willing to send
their children to fight in South Africa?
.... there are thousands upon thousands of Tamils
(in the diaspora) who have suffered in many ways for
the stand that they have taken to openly support the
struggle for Tamil Eelam - some have become asylum
seekers and refugees to escape the wrath of the Sinhala
government, others have had their families split and
they live in many lands as wandering nomads... Each
expatriate Tamil is an ambassador of the struggle for
Tamil Eelam. Each one has something to contribute to
that struggle, however small that contribution may
appear to him to be. Support for the struggle will not
prolong it - it will bring it to a quicker end and
secure the freedom of a people. "
Mao Tse Tung said long years ago that an armed
struggle is no afternoon tea party. And that statement
remains true to this day. We may want to revisit Laws of Armed Conflict? What Laws? and
the words in the British Admiralty note,
a hundred years ago in 1906 -
"
It must not be forgotten that the object of war is
to obtain peace as speedily as possible on one's own
terms, and not the least efficacious means of producing
this result is the infliction of loss and injury upon
'enemy' non-combatants...... The object of the
bombardment of [commercial] towns might be the
destruction of life and property, the enforcing of
ransom, the creation of panic, and the hope of
embarrassing the government of the enemy's country and
exciting the population to bring pressure to bear upon
their rulers to bring the war to a close....
Lastly, we have the
case of bombardments intended to cover, or divert
attention from, a landing. It is easy to
conceive that a bombardment of this nature might
involve undefended towns and villages, and it presents
perhaps the most difficult case of all from a
humanitarian point of view. At the same time, no Power
could be expected to abstain from such an act of war,
if it fell within their strategic plan.... It must come
under the category of inevitable acts
of war necessitated by overwhelming military
considerations. We could not give up the right
so to act, and we could not expect other nations to do
so.'. . . " (British Admiralty note on 'Naval
Bombardment of Coast Towns' printed for the Committee
of Imperial Defence in mid 1906, during the
preparations for the following year's Hague Conference:
continuation of CID paper 75B, in PRO, FO 88I/9328*
II.)
It is also right that we
attend to the words of Harry L. Stimson, US
Secretary of State 1929-1933 quoted, appropriately enough
by Hitler's Arms Minister, Albert Speer in Inside the Third Reich -
"...We must never forget, that under modern
conditions of life, science and technology, all war
has become greatly brutalized and that no one who
joins in it, even in self-defence, can escape
becoming also in a measure brutalized. Modern war
cannot be limited in its destructive method and the
inevitable debasement of all participants... we as
well as our enemies have contributed to the proof
that the central moral problem is war and not its
methods..."
We need to hold the seeming opposites together and not
ignore the warning by Rev. Martin Luther King in his
Letter from Birmingham Jail in 1963 -
"Over the past few years I have consistently
preached that non-violence demands that the means we
use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried
to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means
to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that
it is just as wrong, or perhaps
even more so, to use moral means to preserve
immoral ends."
The attempt by one people to rule another is immoral.
The continuing efforts of President Rajapakse
and the so called international
community (each in pursuit of its own ends) to perpetuate
the rule of the people
of Tamil Eelam by a permanent Sinhala majority within
the confines of a single Sri Lankan state is
immoral.
We take comfort in the knowledge that the so called
'international community' represents but a few
governments - though admittedly, they may have tremendous
military and economic clout. We take comfort in the
knowledge that this so called 'international community'
does not represent the vast majority of the peoples of the world who are themselves
struggling to be free from oppression. Marcus Aurelius was right to
point out almost two thousand years ago -
"Look back over the past, with its changing empires
that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future,
too."
The vision articulated by Mamanithar Nadarajah
Thangathurai in a musty court house in Colombo on 1 March
1983 (three months before he
was murdered by Sri Lanka authorities within the
confines of a Sri Lankan jail) remains true 23 years
later -
"... You must not run away with the thought that
our sole objective is to establish Tamil Eelam.
Tamil Eelam certainly remains an objective because we
have learnt through bitter experience over the past
several years that it is only by establishing a State of Tamil
Eelam can Tamils live with self respect.
But our vision is broader than that. Our
vision is global. Wherever there is oppression,
wherever there is violation of human dignity, whether
in Africa or in Latin America, we are prepared to link
hands with the oppressed and the under dog. When our
vision is so global how can it fail to take into
account the future good of the Sinhala people?
May I mention this. We will not stop at raising our
voices on behalf of those people. There is nothing that prevents two
neighbouring nations living in co-operation. Even
nations with differing policies get together for common
economic good and for the purpose of common security.
Does that mean that those nations give up their
distinctive characteristics or sovereignty?
We have to safeguard the collective good of this
island. If at any time in the future a common
organisation has to emerge which could withstand the
political and economic onslaught made against third
world countries particularly in the areas surrounding
the Indian sub continent, you can be sure that Tamil
Eelam will rise to lend its might in all co-operative
endeavours that will raise the quality of life of the
people of this part of the world."
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