Saluting the Leader and Architect
of a New Tamil Nation
Prof. Dr. S. J. Emmanuel
26 November 2004
 "...The
liberation struggle of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, as unfolded during the last
fifty five years through various phases and fronts, has enriched the meaning
of liberation as understood by a people as well as help identify the
evil forces of oppression against which they have to struggle. It has
also made clear the price a people have to pay for their liberation in terms
of lives and property as well as identify the destructive resources of the
oppressive states and governments. These truths have been learnt once and
for all and embedded in the memory of the Tamil nation. Pirabaharan is not
only the present national leader standing up for his people against
oppressors and challengers, but also the unforgettable architect of a
leadership that established the Tamils of Thamil Eelam as a nation with
self-respect and self-dignity. We all salute him..."
[see also see also
புதிய தமிழ் தேசத்தை நிர்மாணித்து வழிநடத்தும் தலைவரை தமிழினம் பெருமையுடன்
வாழ்த்துகின்றது - பேராசிரியர் கலாநிதி பணி. எஸ். ஜே. இம்மானுவேல் and
and
For Pirabhakaran, Future Begins at Fifty; a birthday greeting from Sachi
Sri Kantha]]
1. Pirabaharan - A Hope For the Tamils and A Challenge for the rest
Tamils of Sri Lanka, living in Thamil Eelam and across the continents, are
honouring a man at his 50th. Birthday on 26.11.2004, because he has become the
challenging response to their agonies in the hands of the Sinhala oppressive
powers as well as their true liberator. While rising up like a giant against all
the forces of Sinhala political and military oppressions, he is not only a
formidable challenge to the immediate oppressors but also a stumbling block to
the self-interest and hidden agenda of the mighty who are aiding and abetting
this oppression. The type of military power he has built in defence of his
people and land, the type of infra-structures he has already initiated to
sustain his people, the type of unity he has shaped between the armed and the
political leaderships, the global solidarity of Tamils he has forged, � they all
speak eloquently of the force of leadership personified in this man. Hence the
liberation that he leads and the leadership that he wields are unique in many
ways and write new chapters in the history of liberation and leadership in the
world
2. Sinhala oppressions of the Pre-Pirabaharan times
He was born in a Tamil society already internal slaveries like caste system,
regionalism and an undue craving for dowries, for academic qualifications and
for immovable properties. Already on the eve of Independence, and many years
before his birth, had the Tamil leaders smelt the hidden agenda of the Sinhala
leaders to seize total power from the British and make Ceylon an exclusively
Sinhala Buddhist State. But these Tamil leaders by their background, education
and culture had neither the backbone nor the people�s power to cry foul and
oppose independence. They fell victims to the mischievous plans and pleadings of
the Singhalese and entrusted the future of the Tamils into the goodness of the
Singhalese.
Quick on the heals of the British departure, the Ceylonese Government went into
operating its hidden agenda of exclusive Sinhala domination � denying
citizenship rights to Tamils of Indian origin, state-aided colonisation of
traditional Tamil homelands and making Sinhala as the official language of the
country discriminating the Tamils in all aspects of education and employment and
development. The Tamil leaders, who visited their constituencies in the
Northeast mostly at election times were taken aback by the speed of changes and
their protests both within and without the parliament failed and fizzled.
Sinhala Mob-terror and State-terror made the Tamils run for safety and survival,
not one could stand up to that state-aided terror.
Educated and refined democratic leaders of the Tamils panicked. The world did
neither condemn nor protest the actions of a �democratic� government and its
forces. Pirabaharan was yet unborn and there was no militant opposition to the
rowdyism of the Ceylonese State!
3. Born and bred amidst Sinhala brutalities
The post-independence Ceylon with its mob and state-terror, with its cruelties
of burning Tamils, their properties and their treasured Public Library, with
raping of Tamil women and destruction of Tamil cultural symbols, that was the
context and cradle for the birth and growth of young Pirabaharan. His eyes and
ears and heart were wide open to the agonizing cries of his people. He grew with
a passion for freedom and a determined will to lead his people. Yet he waited
for his day, calculated his move and charted out his plan � though painful and
shocking to many, yet a beginning had to be made to call off the Sinhala
Buddhist brutality to a halt. Tamils had sent the message: enough is enough. And
the Sinhala South had woken up to this alarm signal!
4. He stands up as a unique leader for his people
After three decades of his determined struggle, he has gradually won the love
and respect of his people the high and the low, the poor and the educated. Even
the cautious critics are converging in praise for his leadership. Though the
local enemies shudder at his name and label him with the worst of names, he had
won the attention of world leaders in a unique manner, as one who can change the
destiny of a country and its people. He never bent backwards nor stoop to
traditional ways nor connive with the powers that be. He relentlessly stood for
the declared cause of his people against the power of the mighty.
Initiating new and alternative ways to restructure a liberating people he has
become a challenge to the hypocritical and fallacious ways in much of our
socio-political thinking.
Hence for a better understanding and appreciation of his unique personality and
leadership, one has to at least scan through the political climate and context
of his times, the multi-facetted struggle the Tamils went through, the
Sinhala-failures which necessitated his unique leadership and the relevant
structures he has built for his people.
5. Tamils pushed to seek an alternative Leadership
Many decades of frustrating experiences within the Sinhala majoritarian
democracy that legalized anti-Tamil discriminations and used its Armed forces
with impunity to suppress and terrorise all democratic opposition of Tamils
paved the way for the emergence of new leadership that is both political and
militant vis a vis an oppressive State.
For the Sinhala masses and its leadership, which were beset with paranoid
fantasies of a Tamil domination potentially backed by Tamil Nadu, even the very
basic demands of the Tamils to live as equal citizens with dignity on that
island were interpreted as counter to their �national interests� namely, their
Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism. Any claim for Tamil birth-rights with regard to
religion, language, culture and land was interpreted as anti-Buddhist,
anti-Sinhala and anti-national and leading to separation or independence or
division of the island. Consequently the Sinhala majority, motivated by Sinhala
Buddhist national interests, used their full power and over-reacted with extreme
measures of bulldozing the parliament with anti-Tamil laws and used the Sinhala
Armed forces to put down all democratic protests with brutal force.
When non-violent and democratic protests of Tamils were met with more inhuman
laws and escalating brutal force, it was natural that the patience of the Tamil
people was pushed by humiliation to its limits and the anger of the Tamil youth
grew into seeking a militant response to the state-terror. It was this situation
of legalised discrimination and oppression of the Tamils in general, and of the
Tamil youth in particular, without any hope of a future with respect to their
education and employment, which pushed the youth to wrest the leadership from
their own �moderate fathers� and establish a politico-militant leadership.
6. Misunderstandings about the new leadership
Now many doubts and questions are being raised about this new leadership, which
the Sinhala people and their leadership indirectly helped to emerge.
An ignorance about the genesis and the causes for this new Tamil leadership
raises many questions and make it difficult for the majority Singhalese and its
Government to relate to, talk and handle with this new leadership. There are
many, Singhalese and even some Tamils, who think that this leadership has to be
militarily defeated, if not destroyed, and the Tamils 'liberated' from this
militant leadership. The Sinhala Governments have also tried hard, even using
under-hand methods, to get an alternative to this Tamil leadership. The
Government, side-stepping this leadership, offered attractive enticements to win
over some Tamil Members of Parliament who will slavishly support them and with
whom they can comfortably �do business� as in the past. Such Members were often
�labeled and exhibited� by the government as the democratic and moderate forces
from among the Tamils. Irrespective of the negligible or no support they had
among the Tamils, they were provided with plenty of money, ministerial posts and
other privileges and used �as mercenaries and show-cases of moderate Tamil
opinion� by the government. A non-Tamil-speaking man with only a Tamil name was
hired to be Foreign Minister to lead a mischievous propaganda tarnishing the
image of all Tamils and their militant leadership. But the majority of Tamils
have rejected them as betrayers of the Tamil cause. History will judge them.
Hence the majority Singhalese and their government, if they want a realistic
peaceful solution to the conflict and war, must make an effort to understand the
Tamil leadership, as a new and alternative leadership, without attempting to
destroy it. In the process of searching and reaching a true democratic solution,
this Tamil leadership will abide more and more by the genuine categories of
democracy and human rights. And in the same time and by the same process, the
Sinhala leadership will hopefully be liberated from their corrupt democracy,
mass and blatant violation of the human rights of a people and desist from
rowdyism inside and outside parliament.
7. Corrupt democracies demand alternative leadership
Many of the difficulties the so called democrats have in understanding the new
Tamil leadership are also due to their limited understanding of democracy and
leadership. By their education and upbringing they are enslaved in their own
pro-western and colonial ways of thinking. They tend to make absolute their own
forms of parliamentary-democracy as the one and only form of democracy. They
have no considerations for the corruption and the injustices happening within
those democracies. Democracy all agree is the best form of government we have at
the present time. But the different ways in which this democracy is practiced
leave much room for corruptions and injustices. Some of them have produced the
worst of dictators. Those who were brought up in the western schools of thought
often overlook the post-colonial developments and the new problems in the third
world. They read everything through their traditional categories of thought and
arrogantly pass judgments from their home ground about distant events and
realities. Hence a genuine effort is needed by all those who wish to understand,
accept and handle with leaderships emerging as a result of corruption within
democracies and failed-states.
The Sinhala majoritarian democracy, left behind by the British, has been
changing the constitution often to suit only the majority at the expense of the
minorities. It has failed to solve the ethnic problem within its parliament for
the last fifty years. It has tried to solve a political problem by resorting to
state-terrorism and reckless war against its own people. Thus it qualifies
itself for a failed-state. And it is in this climate of a lack of true democracy
and sincere leadership that an alternative leadership of the Tamils emerged.
8. Humiliation and Rejection of Tamil MPs
The art of governing has not been an exclusive privilege of the elite and the
college-educated. In fact such men have made some of the worst blunders in
history. In our own history and in our long experience of the struggle, we
Tamils have painfully learnt of some educated elites who have betrayed the Tamil
cause for their own personal profits.
Besides even the good Tamil leaders have undergone humiliation and frustration
within the Sinhala democracy. The post-colonial leadership fostered by the
British period of education and parliamentary system brought out highly
qualified and internationally recognized Tamils, mostly based in Colombo and
representing the Tamils of the Northeast. The least qualified of those could
only be a lawyer. With clarity and eloquence they expressed and argued for the
rights of the Tamils, but they were either ignored or heckled down to their
seats by Sinhala extremists. Thus there was no purpose served in sending
enlightened Tamil Members to the Parliament in Colombo. Even today one can see
the bad behaviour of elected Sinhala MPs within Parliament.
The present generation of Tamil youth who have taken up the leadership are
promising because they have had bitter experiences of the earlier leadership.
Let us not rush to make biased judgments about their style and competence at
governance. We welcome the so called educated arm-chair critics from the South
to look beyond their newspapers and see how well the LTTE, even in the absence
of basic facilities, is running a de facto government in Wanni.
9. Leadership emerging against State Rejections
Those in the South who refer to the LTTE as a rebel-child of the Northeast,
forget their own contribution to the emergence of such a leadership. Who
fathered such a leadership? Much more than the politics of the Tamil Congress or
the Federal Party, or the combined TULF, it was the adamant and arrogant
attitudes of the successive Sinhala governments and the oppressive and violent
actions of its Forces. These demanded a new leadership from the Tamils to face
the Sinhala army of occupation as well as to articulate forcefully Tamil
aspirations.
The Tamils were well known for their hard work, intelligence, obedience and
non-violence. Even in the face of repeated Sinhala mob and state violence, they
did not give up their non-violent satyagrahas as taught by Mahatma Gandhi. But
such non-violent and parliamentary protests were treated by the Singhalese as
weakness and more violence was heaped on the Tamils for many decades. When
Sinhala discriminations degenerated into violence, death and destruction and
even taking away their education and culture of which they were very proud of (
standardization and burning of the Public Library) the Tamil youth could not
accept any more the Sinhala violence. They were driven against the wall without
a future education, employment and culture to live by. They retaliated to
protect the land, the people and their heritage from State-terror.
An oppressed people have the right to strike back at the oppressor with all
their might and with whatever means in their disposal. The oppressor has no
right to dictate or lay down rules as to how the fallen victim must react. Hence
the actions of the emergent leadership in its beginnings resorting to all
possible means - bank robberies and stealing of weapons - should be understood
as helpless victims resorting to counter-terrorism against a state-terrorism.The
people of the Northeast were never a chaotic mass without direction, purpose and
determination. They are not devoid of a consensus in ideology and suffering.
Their long suffering against injustices has bound them together as a people with
strong determination and stamina to stand up and face the forces of oppression.
The personification of this determination born out of long suffering to face the
enemy is the new leadership of the Tamils in the Northeast.
10. A Leadership consistent in their Aspirations
Whether one likes it or not the de facto situation is that the LTTE has emerged
to leadership, admittedly not through the parliamentary elections the South is
familiar with, but through an armed struggle against betrayers among its own
people and oppressive forces of the state. It has established itself,
(i) As the only group which has consistently articulated and still articulates
the genuine aspirations of the Tamils in the Northeast,
(ii) As the only organization protecting the People against the artillery
shelling and the aerial bombings carried out by the State.
(iii) As the only group that has sacrificed so many thousands of its cadres
for the noble Cause of Tamil freedom
(iv) As the only group that has set up the infra-structures (police, courts,
education, transport etc.) of governance for human life to continue
against all odds
And
(v) As the only group that has been acknowledged even by the elected Tamil
Parliamentarians as �the sole representatives of the Tamil people�
After a long history of Tamil attempts, marked by suffering and deaths at the
hands of Sinhala thugs and soldiers, and after so many agreements and pacts were
unilaterally torn up by the Sinhala Governments, after a series of deceptions
and broken promises, the Tamils have at last helped emerge a form of leadership
that the Sinhala Majority and its Government are finding difficult to deal with,
if not buy or win over. Until recently the Sinhala Governments either bought
over the Tamil leadership with some ministerial privileges, or pacts and
promises unfulfilled or kept them watering in their mouth and clinging to their
feet with a promise of sharing power in the future. But that is no more possible
with the present leadership.
Neither heavy loss of lives, nor military defeats, nor mounting criticism about
its moral conduct, nor international threats from major powers, nor the
temptations of power from the Sinhala government could wean away this Tamil
leadership from its aspirations and commitments. Sinhala Governments have
changed and their leaders have adopted varying tactics and offers, but the LTTE
leadership has stood firm on its ground for its ideals and commitments.
The convictions, consistency and firmness in aspiring for those goals do not
mean that they are closed for negotiation, dialogue and arriving at a just and
reasonable peaceful solution to the conflict. No. Not at all.
11. A principled Tamil Leadership
It is the long and frustrating experience of the Tamils that many things
promised, agreed upon and even gazetted by the Government were not implemented
by the army or the bureaucrats in Colombo. The Sinhala leadership when subjected
to the slightest opposition from extremists, has abrogated pacts or gone back on
agreements. A Sinhala leadership whose promises are again subject to the protest
marches and shouts of a few extremist elements, is not a leadership that can
handle agreements on behalf of people. And on the Tamil side too we have had
leaders who lightly gave into the temptations of power and privileges and
finally got nowhere. Hence this new Tamil leadership, conscious of the failures
of the Sinhala and Tamil leaderships, is determined to have a principled way of
action and do business with the Sinhala regime, not only for their own people
but also for the good of the whole country.
The Singhalese governments tend to accuse the LTTE of having betrayed their
trust and gone back to its warpath. They say that the LTTE must be exterminated
or weakened before any meaningful action is taken for the good of the Tamil
people. This argument of the Sinhala leadership only shows that they are
forgetting their long history of failures by going back on their word. Such
arguments only exhibits their helplessness to do business with a principled and
determined Tamil leadership.
12. A politico-military Leadership with a parliamentary wing
The Governments, during the first three decades of the ethnic conflict used
their Armed forces to put down democratic Tamil opposition in the Northeast.
Later the same Army was empowered by the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act
to act against Tamil militancy with impunity, thus increasing the role of the
Army in the ethnic conflict. At present no real political solution can be found
without the government heavily depending on the Armed forces. Tamils know by
their own experience how the Army personnel have their own agenda and disagree
with their own government. They react even against gazetted government decisions
e.g. lifting the economic embargoes against the Tamils in 1995. This power
conflict between the government and its armed forces will remain a hindrance in
arriving at any true and stable solution. Against this situation, the politics
and the military force of the Tamils are harmonized as one politico-military
leadership of the LTTE, with a parliamentary wing in the Tamil National alliance
(TNA).
13. A Leadership undeterred by false propaganda of the Government
The Government of Chandrika was bending backwards to justify its �war for peace�
against the Tamils. International propaganda was intensified by her Foreign
Minister to get the Tamil expatriate organizations banned as �front
organizations of the LTTE�. Slogans like �Let's have a war as a way to Peace�,
�Let's liberate the Tamils of Jaffna from the terrorist activities of the LTTE�,
�We wanted Peace, but the LTTE asked for war'', �Our War is against the LTTE and
not against the Tamils'' � such false statements were used lavishly even by the
Sri Lankan embassies to demonize and tarnish the good name of the Tamils and
their struggle. But such malicious propaganda never weakened the Tamil
Leadership nor lessened their commitment to the struggle. On the contrary, the
Tamil leadership survived all these false propaganda and the Tamils of Tamil
Eelam have grown in their togetherness, sympathy and solidarity. And LTTE have
reached the status of being accepted, even by other elected representatives of
the people, �as the sole representatives of the Tamil people�
14. A Leadership not gloating in mere military victory
An adamant and prolonged refusal on the part of the Sinhala majority and its
successive Governments to accept the true situation about the Tamils in the
Northeast and their contemptuous disregard for the LTTE leadership have resulted
in Government's desperate option for escalating war. Though leaders like
President Premadasa have told the Singhalese people repeatedly that there is no
victor in this war, yet the people without counting the loss of life and
property, cry out for a war-victory that will quench their thirst for power. The
majority are so excited, angered and affected by certain setbacks in the war
that they think only of war-victories to wipe out the LTTE and keep up their
pride.
The shameful defeat of the government forces, as it happened in LTTE's Operation
codenamed �Leap of the Tiger'' wakes up the Government only temporarily to its
senses. Even the dead bodies of Sinhala soldiers, from very poor families,
returning home in plastic bags did not make an impact for good on the power
hungry leaders in the Capital. The LTTE in spite of its resounding military
victories offered unilateral cease fires to the Government. But the latter
arrogantly refused to reciprocate them. Dead bodies of Sinhala soldiers
unaccepted by the Government on flimsy grounds of deterioration were burnt with
military honours by the LTTE. This shows clearly the deep commitment of the
Tamil leadership to fallen soldiers as against the Sinhala military which
bulldozed to the ground the Cemetery of the fallen heroes in Kopay. Shame!
15. Tamils aim at a cleaner Parliamentary Democracy
In recent times the Tamils have seen a new brand of democracy and democratic
elections emerging in the �democratic south� as well as in Army-controlled areas
of the Northeast. The Sinhala political parties have in recent times, after the
Wyamba elections, appeared to have woken up a little to the shameful corruptions
inhibiting their elections and governments, but hardly anything has been done to
remedy it
Tamils value and respect democracy as practiced in some countries of the western
world. But from the cruel experiences they have had with the Sri Lankan brand of
democracy, they are not enamoured of it. The present Tamil leadership is a de
facto leadership of the Tamil struggle and is not in a hurry to embrace a pseudo
democracy imposed by the Sinhala South. Looking at the level of corruption
infecting the Sri Lankan majoritarian democracy in its elections, its
bureaucracy, even Judiciary, the Armed Forces and the Police, the Tamils who
suffered for many decades under these corruptions, are not in a hurry to fall
prey to such forms of governance. Sri Lanka must not try to impose their forms
of governance on the Tamils as if their (Sinhala) forms are idealistically
suited for the Tamils. Let the South free itself from the weaknesses it has
fallen into. And we Tamils, conscious that we were temporarily forced to go into
an alternative style of leadership for our liberation, will endeavour to come up
with a cleaner and better and effective form of governance, may be, to the envy
of others.
16. Creating the right conditions for Democracy and Human Rights
Once conditions are normalized for Tamil life and Tamils can live in their own
land with dignity, a higher quality of democracy and human rights will
definitely set in. Without rectifying the violation of the basic rights of a
people for life, security, food, clothing and shelter the Government wants to
discuss highly complicated permanent solutions. The Tamils are not prepared for
endless political discussion with the threat of war hanging over them, with
insufficient food, clothing and shelter. Hence they demand normalization of life
as the first need.
Till then this de facto leadership has to be understood, acknowledged and
encouraged to incorporate gradually the ingredients of true parliamentary
democracy, namely human rights, justice and freedom. But until civilian life
returns to normalcy, the government has to deal with the LTTE without getting
behind flimsy excuses. The government cannot with an air of superiority
talk-down to the LTTE or preach to them democracy and human rights without
practicing them.
17. Tamils reject Pseudo Leaderships
In their inability to deal with the leadership put out by the Tamils of the
Northeast, many Singhalese still entertain the wish for meaningful negotiation
with some pseudo Tamil representatives, by side-tracking the LTTE. Many
Singhalese, even at this late stage, hope for a weakening or division of the
LTTE, if not its complete disappearance so that they can promote the emergence
of some pseudo Tamil leaders with whom they can do business.
There are those Tamil groups who initially were militant, but in recent years
have become armed-politicians supportive of the Government, even to the extent
of betraying the struggle. They have managed to enter the Parliament through the
backdoor by buying a handful of votes with money given by the government- and
that too with the help of the army. Though they cannot speak for the Tamils, the
government exposes them as �Tamil democrats�.
The Sinhala majority and their political parties have tended to devalue the
Tamil Struggle as mere terrorism and tried to contain the militant reaction of
the Tamils with international help. Time has come when the new Tamil leadership
after showing its military capabilities is showing its political acumen and
readiness for a political solution. The racism and feudalism inherent in the
party leaderships of the Singhalese are tested before the world whether they
will rise up to statesmanship in finding a democratic and just solution for the
ethnic problem.
18. A Leadership founded on convictions of the people
It was left to the LTTE to fight state-terrorism with their guns as well as
strengthening the political aspiration for liberation among the people. Even at
the height of military victories, the LTTE proclaimed the big difference between
the state-forces which fight for their salary and the Tamil youth who fight for
their convictions. The leader of the LTTE has repeatedly claimed that their
strength lies not in the weapons they possess and the military victories they
gain, but in the deep conviction that their cause is just and right. This
conviction kept growing as the people went through their long suffering under
the iron heels of the state forces.
It has taken so many decades for the Sri Lankan Government to realize that they
cannot by their numerical majority or military strength subjugate a people. This
temptation is still present among many Singhalese either to encourage an
internecine war of self-destruction within the ranks of the LTTE, as occasioned
by the break-away of Karuna recently from the Eastern command, or to invite some
foreign powers like India or the USA to rush the LTTE. But convictions cannot be
erased off by military strength.
19. A politico-militant leadership with a voice in parliament
The LTTE is not convinced of the democratic nature of the Parliament of Sri
Lanka, because it is a majoritarian democracy capable of bulldozing over the
rights of the non-Singhalese. Nor does it believe in the constitution passed by
such Sinhala majoritarian democracies without the consent of the Tamils.
Nevertheless it wants to send a clear message to Sri Lanka and to the world in a
language spoken and understood by the so called democratic world. For this
purpose it fielded proxy-Candidates for the Parliamentary elections of 2004,
gave a manifesto and campaigned for the election. The resounding victory of the
Tamil National Alliance and the routing of the others have proved to the world
clearly the strength of the LTTE leadership among the people.
It is the Tamil people who have freely and overwhelmingly voted for the Tamil
National Alliance and their manifesto acknowledging LTTE as the sole
representatives of the Tamils fighting for the inalienable right of
self-determination of the Tamil people and for their traditional homeland.
Hence the LTTE leadership, is one that has emerged from below, from among the
people, soaked in the conviction of their ideals and strengthened to fight with
their lives for those ideals. Thus the parting of ways in 1976 to follow a
parliamentary path and a politico-military path has again closed ranks to stand
up for one ideal under one leadership. And this leadership has a voice in the
Sri Lankan Parliament too.
20. We salute the Architect of the new Tamil Nation
The liberation struggle of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, as unfolded during the last
fifty five years through various phases and fronts, has enriched the meaning of
liberation as understood by a people as well as help identify the evil forces of
oppression against which they have to struggle. It has also made clear the price
a people have to pay for their liberation in terms of lives and property as well
as identify the destructive resources of the oppressive states and governments.
These truths have been learnt once and for all and embedded in the memory of the
Tamil nation.
Pirabaharan is not only the present national leader standing up for his people
against oppressors and challengers, but also the unforgettable architect of a
leadership that established the Tamils of Thamil Eelam as a nation with
self-respect and self-dignity. We all salute him.
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