Pathmanathan Pages

Introduction

Selvarasa Pathmanathan (KP) Blog , 8 July 2009

[see also Selvarasa Pathmanathan abducted in Kuala Lumpur, 7 August 2009
and Concerning KP - Nadesan Satyendra,  6 August 2009 ]
 

Greetings.

It is my opinion that it will be very useful to exchange some of my opinions with you through these pages. Through this exchange of views over the immediate future, I wish to share my views, feelings and thoughts and take in your opinions, advices, reviews and questions.

The reasons for this are many.

In the struggle for right to self determination of Eelam Tamil nation, we are at a crucial but important period. It is time to reflect on the path of struggle that we had adopted, learn the lessons through that experience and move forward on next steps based on these lessons.

Having understood the need to think collectively, I had earlier made known an email address to receive your opinions and advice.

I have received hundreds of correspondences to this address in the form of opinions, advices, reviews and questions. I took time to read these and found many of them to be extremely useful. I wish to thank those who took the effort to send in your opinions.

By reaching out to the people and communicating with them, I realised whole heartedly that there was a lot to learn.

I had also direct conversation with many in the past few days and had extended discussions and exchange of opinions as to the next steps in our freedom struggle. I spent several hours on the phone discussing these crucial issues. These meetings and discussions were very useful. I also realised the need to speak with many on the same issues reaching out broadly. I also felt that many who spoke displayed clarity and I was invigorated.

I also realised the importance of sharing of opinions with many who were not in a position to share opinions with me through direct means.

How do I achieve this?

In this advanced cyber era I soon realised that it was possible through a blog posting. This is why have I chosen to out to you using this method. The dimension of expressing opinions through political statements is very different to the dimension of distributing opinions through the web. It is not appropriate to release all opinions as political statements and notices.
The internet gives me an opportunity to be close to the people and exchange views. I was attracted to this form of communication because of the ability to be able to reach many quickly.

Still, I was hesitant.This is different to the tradition we have followed within our liberation movement. The role I play today is very different to the one I have played for over 30 years in our freedoms struggle. For a long period contact with people was not part of my work. These were the reasons for my hesitation.

However, in this period of many challenges, to move forward our struggle, I realised the need to reach out to our people and decided to post this section from today in English (08.07.2009) as Pathmanathan Pages. These pages will appear weekly, in Tamil on every Saturdays and in English on every Wednesdays.

Picture 1: On the occasion of Thalivar�s (Leader�s) wedding�

It is already 33 years since I joined in the Tamil freedom struggle. I have been a part of this struggle, joining forces with our leader since 1976. I have been a close support to him during very crucial periods. In 1984 when our leader got married, I had the good fortune to be his best man. This long association is indescribable by words. Through this long heartfelt relationship, I have followed our leader as an older brother, as a guide and as a friend. I have exchanged freely with him the things I felt were right or wrong and continued my role in pursuit of freedom.

Understanding the critical geographical and regional implications that our freedom struggle will encounter well ahead of time our leader had entrusted me with a strategic role that was critical to the struggle. As a result, even with other responsibilities at hand, I had to engage with the internationally dispersed Tamil Diaspora. In my journey of the freedom struggle, I had the opportunity to work for a short while closely with our senior leader Col. Kittu and our political ideologue Balasingham.

Picture 2: At �Kadalpura� boat with senior leader Kumarappa and other cadres...

The oath of affirmation I took with my leader and other military leaders after the heroic death of our senior leaders including Kumarappa and Pulendran still lives in me as an unflickering flame. In fact, I too should have been on the boat �Kadal Pura� that had carried Kumarappa, Pulendran and other cadres. On that fateful day, my leader had called me to travel with him and I had obliged. If not, I too would have attained martyrdom on that occasion.

The dreams we had shared of the future in 1989, in the jungles of Vanni together with Bala Anna and Col. Shankar are still alive in me. I have decided to publish some details of these relationships and activities that I had undertaken with my leader and with senior cadres from time to time in appropriate sections of these pages.

Picture 3: In the jungles of Manalaru with Thalivar, Bala anna and Shankar anna...
In 1995, the Sri Lankan forces had occupied the Jaffna peninsula that was under the control LTTE through a military offensive code named �Sooriya Kathir�. Our leader, a few senior military leaders and a limited number of cadres had decided to withdraw to the Vanni. A vast majority of the people lived in Jaffna too were displaced towards Vanni.

The people and the soil of Vanni took care of our leader and the displaced people. These people from Vanni became the support and strength for all the victories we achieved since 1996 and stood stead fast to face the challenges ahead.

The role of the Diaspora is an important one in the period after 1995. The work carried out in the international arena was directed by me in the period between 1996 and 2002. Prior to this, since the mid 1980s, I have worked hard amongst the Diaspora to establish the organisational structure that was needed to fight our freedom struggle by visiting them from house to house and country to country. The people who had worked for a long time in our freedom struggle and the early supporters know my role and involvement very well. Some Tamil people are confused about the identities of KP and Selvarasa Pathmanathan and state Selvarasa Pathmanathan is a new face but KP is an older, senior member. Please do not be confused; both KP and Selvarasa Pathamanathan are the same person.

In the period between 1996 and 2002, we were able to deliver 20% more than what was expected from our leader. It was heart warming to know that we too an important part for the proud victories that were achieved to the astonishment of Tamil Eelam nation and the world during this period.

After 2002, it was the wish of my leader to coordinate all activities from our home land. He felt the need for all leaders responsible to operate in close proximity to him. He beckoned me too. As I was getting ready to go, understanding the difficulties in mobility too well, he wanted me to be patient until he was able to make suitable arrangements for travel.

Bala Anna and Brigadier Tamilselvan took measures to organise my travel. The travel arrangements made through an international procedure was getting delayed due to some practical problems that were encountered. At this point I had asked my leader to give me permission to travel through my own arrangements. He forbade me and convinced me to wait until the right opportunity arose. As per my leader�s wish all operations were coordinated from our homeland. I waited for my leaders instructions while maintaining contact with him.

My leader must have felt that the right time had come; on the first day of 2009 he appointed me as the head of International relations of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. On the 12th of January that year he informed the world leaders that I will take responsibility, as head of the unit, for all future diplomatic moves, as the spokesperson and as the primary foreign relations delegate.

I wish to share with our people the letter and its translation that our leader had sent the world leaders.

There are two important statements in the letter that are noteworthy. Our leader had established a new department for international relations. This was the first time has our movement established an International Relations department. Our leader had felt the need to fill the gap that had been left after the demise of our political ideologue Anton Balasingham.

Prior to announcing my appointment, my leader had discussed many important issues with me in detail. He emphasised the importance of international support for the victory of our freedom struggle. We discussed the challenges associated with this in detail.

Many more details including the situation on the ground at the time of my appointment, the approach the international community had taken in this problem and the choices that were available in front of our leader during the final stages of the war will all be discussed next week (15.07.2009).

Please send forth your opinions that you wish to share to the email address below. I wish to publish some of these in this web site. Please inform me if you do not wish your comments to be made public.

The email address to receive your comments or opinions is: [email protected]

Thank you

Respectfully
KP