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LTTE 'can only be defeated by the guns, men and women of the Sri Lankan
armed forces' - Sri Lanka Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka M.R.
Narayan Swamy
Sunday, 1 June 2008
 "
Jayatilleka accused the
University
Teachers for Human Rights-Jaffna (UTHR-J) of 'becoming part of the West's
civil society pets... It has joined several other Tamil dissident groupings in
showing extreme distress at the thought of military defeat of the LTTE... These
elements just do not want the Sri Lankan state to win... They must comprehend
that Tiger fascism cannot be defeated by unarmed Tamil expatriate dissidents...
It can only be defeated by the guns, men and women of the Sri Lankan
armed forces and their (armed) Tamil partners."
Comment by tamilnation.org
Tamils living in many
lands
(including Tamil Nadu) will welcome Mr.Dayan Jayatilleka's statement that
the LTTE
'can only be defeated by the guns, men and
women of the Sri Lankan armed forces and their (armed) Tamil
partners' and not by 'unarmed Tamil expatriate dissidents'.
They will welcome
his statement for its belligerent
frankness.
According to Indian journalist
M.R. Narayan Swamy (whose book 'Inside
an Elusive Mind - Prabhakaran' reveals the access he has to sources in
India's RAW),
Mr.
Jayatilleka is
one of Sri Lanka's 'most high-profile
diplomats' and 'enjoys a close rapport with President Mahinda
Rajapaksa.' Ergo, his words should be taken seriously by the Tamil
people - and not dismissed simply as the bluster of a Sinhala Buddhist
racist.
It appears that Mr.Jayatilleke does not subscribe to the
views expressed by the
United States Institute for Peace in May 1999 on How Terrorism Ends
-
" ...The nature of the grievance matters.
Ethnically based terrorist campaigns can be harder to end decisively
than politically based ones, because they often enjoy broader support
among a population they seek to represent. The nature of the
organisation putting forth the grievance matters as well. Intelligence
is important not only to prevent terrorist attacks but also to
understand how the organisation works and how its decision making
process can be affected.... deterring terrorism and prosecuting
terrorists may be insufficient to end terrorism,
especially when a large population supports the
terrorists' cause. In such situations, negotiated settlements may
provide the only solutions. In Sri Lanka, the government appears to have
concluded from its victory over the Maoist JVP that law enforcement and
compulsion can end a terror campaign. However,
the LTTE has a much broader base of support than the JVP ever did,
and the LTTE is unlikely to go away simply through government-applied
force.... Trying to 'decapitate' a movement may radicalise the whole
movement ... Assassinations and military force can provoke a desire for
revenge, create mythologies of martyrdom, or feed paranoia and
secretiveness (which makes the movements even harder to penetrate for
reasons of either understanding motivations or foiling actions).."
That ofcourse was 9 years ago and many will
conclude that the USIP has been proved right in its assessment that the
LTTE, given its broad base of support, was 'unlikely to go away simply
through government-applied force'. But then Mr.Jayatilleke may regard
the United States Institute for Peace as a 'part of the West's civil society
pets'. And he may well be right. It is
not that interventions by NGOs like the USIP and Western state actors
are
benign and neutral. After all, the USIP in its study conspicuously
failed to distinguish between 'terrorism' and 'lawful
armed resistance'. And it appears that the USIP was not troubled by views
such as those expressed by
UN Special
Rapporteur, Kalliopi K. Koufa, in Terrorism and Human Rights -
"The most problematic issue relating to
terrorism and armed conflict is distinguishing terrorists from lawful
combatants, both in terms of combatants in legitimate struggles for
self-determination and those involved in civil wars or non-international
armed conflicts. In the former category, States that do not recognize a
claim to self-determination will claim that those using force against
the State�s military forces are necessarily terrorists....The
controversy over the exact meaning, content, extent and beneficiaries
of, as well as the means and methods utilized to enforce
the right to self-determination
has been the major obstacle to the development of both a
comprehensive definition of terrorism and a comprehensive treaty on
terrorism... ...The Special Rapporteur has analysed the distinction
between armed conflict and terrorism, with particular attention to
conflicts to realize the right to self-determination and civil wars.
This is an issue of great international controversy, in need of careful
review due to the �your freedom fighter is my terrorist� problem and the
increase in the rhetorical use of the expression �war on terrorism�,
labelling wars as terrorism, and combatants in wars as terrorists, and
it has an extremely undesirable effect of nullifying application of and
compliance with humanitarian law in those situations, while at the same
time providing no positive results in combating actual terrorism...."
Presumably it was not the USIP view
that there were no circumstances in which a people ruled by an
alien people may
lawfully resort to arms to liberate themselves.
Be that as it may, the USIP was right when it said that the
Sri Lanka government in the 1990s wrongly concluded 'from its victory over
the Maoist JVP' that law enforcement and compulsion can end a struggle for
freedom. It seems that the Sri Lanka government now takes the view that
Angola (a civil war but not a secessionist movement) and
land locked Chechnya (surrounded on three sides by Russia and on the
fourth side by Georgia) are today's success stories for 'law
enforcement and compulsion'.
It is strange that on the one hand, Sinhala
ethno nationalists justify their
assimilative agenda in the island of Sri Lanka by pointing out that the
Sinhala people are a minority in the Indian region, that they have a so
called 'minority complex', and that they have fears rooted in the
history of the
Chola empire
and the associated
Tiger emblem -
and on the other hand, the same Sinhala ethno nationalists ignore the
togetherness of more than 70 million Tamils living in many lands (including
Tamil Nadu) in their pronouncements that the struggle for Tamil Eelam can be
annihilated by resort to 'the guns, men and women of the Sri Lankan armed
forces.' The story of the little boy who cried wolf may come to haunt
Sinhala ethno nationalists bent on
genocide in Tamil Eelam. Tamil Eelam is not Angola. Tamil Eelam is not
landlocked Chechnya.
The people of Tamil Eelam have, for the past several decades,
struggled for freedom from oppressive alien Sinhala rule
without depending on the 'civil society pets' of either the West or India -
but with the growing support of their own brothers and sisters (their
udanpirapukal) living in
Tamil Nadu, in
Karnataka, in
Malaysia, in
Singapore, in
South Africa
and
in many lands around
the world. Mr. Jayatilleka's remarks will serve to remind Tamils living
everywhere, yet again, of something which Aurobindo
said a century ago -
"...The mistake which despots, benevolent or
malevolent, have been making ever since organised states came into existence
and which, it seems, they will go on making to the end of the chapter, is
that they
overestimate their
coercive power, which is physical and material and therefore palpable,
and underestimate the power and vitality of ideas and sentiments. A
feeling or a thought,
the aspiration
towards liberty, cannot be estimated in the terms of concrete power, in
so many fighting men, so many armed police, so many guns, so many prisons,
such and such laws, ukases, and executive powers. But such feelings and
thoughts are more powerful than fighting men and guns and prisons and laws
and ukases. Their beginnings are feeble, their end is mighty. But of
despotic repression the beginnings are mighty, the end is feeble... But the
despot will not recognise this superiority,
the teachings
of history have no meaning for him. ..He is deceived also by the
temporary triumph of his
repressive measures.. and thinks,
�Oh, the circumstances in my case are
quite different, I am a different thing from any yet recorded in
history, stronger, more virtuous and moral, better organised. I am God�s
favourite and can never come to harm.�
And so the old drama is staged again and
acted till it reaches the old catastrophe..."
It may be that Mr.Jayatilleka believes
that the circumstances in Sri Lanka's case 'are quite different', that
Sinhala Sri Lanka is a 'different thing from any yet recorded in
history, stronger, more virtuous and moral, better organised' and that
Sinhala Sri Lanka is 'God�s favourite and can never come to harm.'
But to many Tamils it will appear that Sri Lanka's ethno
nationalist Sinhala leaders seeking to conquer and rule Tamil Eelam are
acting out the old drama 'till it reaches the old catastrophe'.
Again, more than 70 million Tamils
living in many lands
whose memories may not extend to a century ago will be reminded of something
which
Velupillai Pirabakaran said more recently -
".. Victory in war is not determined
by the size of an army or the quality of armaments. Factors like
unshakable determination, heroism, and desire for liberation
determine victory...Truth stands as our witness.
History stands
as our guide... What do we demand? Why are we fighting? We
want to live with peace and honour and independence from others
in
our land, historically our habitat, and our homeland where we
were born and where we grew up. We are also humans; a human society
with
fundamental human rights. We are a
separate ethnic
community with a separate cultural life and history. We demand
that we should be accepted as a human society with distinctive
characteristics. We have the
right
to decide our political life by ourselves. On the basis of this
right, we like to establish a system of government where we rule
ourselves.... We are no racists and no violent war-mongers; we do
not regard the Sinhala people as our enemies or as our opponents. We
are no enemies of democratic principles. We fight only for the
fundamental democratic political rights of our people..."
That Mr. Jayatilekka may see the views of
Velupillai Pirabakaran as the expression of 'Tiger fascism' is ofcourse
understandable - understandable that is, from the point of a view
of a propagandist for a
Sinhala Buddhist
ethno nation
with a
Sinhala flag, with an
unrepealed
Sinhala Only Act, with
Buddhism enthroned in the Constitution, and with the
Sinhala 'Sri Lanka' name which it gave itself unilaterally in 1972 -
a
Sinhala Buddhist
ethno nation
which dare not speak its name, which lives a lie by denying its
existence and which seeks to masquerade as a
multi
ethnic plural society and pass itself off as a 'Sri
Lankan civic nation'.
Mr. Jayatilekka is concerned that the
(UTHR-J)
'has joined several other Tamil dissident
groupings in showing extreme distress at the thought of military defeat
of the LTTE. These elements just do not want the Sri Lankan state to
win.'
Mr.Jayatilekka may want to ask himself the
reason for this 'extreme distress'. These Tamil dissident groupings which
had been nurtured by Sri Lanka during these many years, know only too well
that if the LTTE is militarily defeated, Sri Lanka will have no further use
for them - and that they will be left only with a begging bowl, pleading for
crumbs at their master's table. Hence their 'extreme distress'.
And here, let us make clear that the struggle
for Tamil Eelam is not about what the LTTE may have done or may not have
done.
Those states who have banned the LTTE, so
that each of them may advance
its
own
strategic interests given the uneasy balance of power in the
Indian
Ocean region, may want to recognise that they may ban the LTTE but they
cannot ban the aspiration of a people for freedom. The struggle for Tamil
Eelam is about the democratic right of the people of Tamil Eelam to rule
themselves in their homeland. If democracy means the rule of the
people by the people for the people then it surely follows as night follows
day that no one people may rule another. Self determination and democracy
are one - and inseparable. The struggle for Tamil Eelam is a struggle for
freedom from alien Sinhala rule. And it is this which Gandhian leader
S.J.V.Chelvanayagam
proclaimed 33 years ago on 7 February 1975 in Kankesanturai in Tamil
Eelam -
"Throughout the ages the Sinhalese and Tamils
in the country lived as distinct sovereign people till they were brought
under foreign domination. It should be remembered that the Tamils were in
the vanguard of the struggle for independence in the full confidence that
they also will regain their freedom.
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 that is why more than
70 million Tamils living in many lands will welcome Mr.Dayan
Jayatilleka's sincerely felt pronouncements because his belligerent
frankness will serve to broaden and deepen support for the struggle of the
people of Tamil Eelam to expel the 'guns, men and women of the Sri Lankan
armed forces' from the Tamil homeland - and free Tamil Eelam from alien
Sinhala rule. More than 70 million Tamils living in many lands will be moved
to revisit the words of Velupillai Pirabakaran -
"உலகெங்கும் தமிழன் பரந்து வாழ்ந்தாலும்..
தமிழீழத்திலேதான்
தனியரசு உருவாகும் வரலாற்றுப் புறநிலை
தோன்றியுள்ளது..."
"Though Tamils live in many lands and
across distant seas, it is in Tamil Eelam that the
historical situation has arisen for the creation of
an independent Tamil state."
New Delhi, June 1 (IANS) A negotiated end
to Sri Lanka's dragging conflict is still possible but not before the Tamil
Tigers are 'verifiably demilitarised and democratised,' says one of the most
high-profile diplomats of that country. Dayan Jayatilleka also
said in an interview that the conflict would only end when Velupillai
Prabhakaran, the elusive and feared leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE), gets 'demilitarised one way or another'.
Jayatilleka, who enjoys a close rapport with President Mahinda Rajapaksa, was
asked if there was any room for a possible negotiated settlement to end a war
that has claimed over 70,000 lives since 1983 and still rages.
'Yes but not with the Tigers, and certainly not with Prabhakaran,' the
51-year-old said over email from Geneva, where he is Sri Lanka's permanent
representative to the UN and other international organisations based in
Switzerland. Referring in some detail to the 1991 assassination
of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi by an LTTE suicide bomber,
Jayatilleka said of Prabhakaran: 'With him there can be no peace.'
'A peaceful, negotiated settlement is possible only if it recognises that any
solution has to be within a single, united Sri Lanka, and the Tigers are
verifiably demilitarised and democratised.' Jayatilleka is a
political analyst and academic who served briefly as a minister in the
provincial government in Sri Lanka's northeast when Indian troops were deployed
there in 1987-90. He was posted in Geneva in June 2007 as
fighting escalated between the military and the LTTE and Sri Lanka came under
intense attack over rampant human rights violations. Asked how
the war in Sri Lanka will end, Jayatilleka asserted: 'It will all end the way it
all ended in Angola after decades of conflict when (rebel leader) Jonas Savimbi
was killed by the Angolan armed forces. 'It will all end the way
it did in Chechnya when the Russian army got Djokar Dudayev, defeated the
Chechen separatist militia in fierce combined arms warfare... Angola and
Chechnya are peaceful and prosperous now. 'It cannot end while
Prabhakaran has not been demilitarised one way or another.'
Claiming that Sri Lanka's 'human rights record, our record of civilian
casualties, compares favourably with that of the West in theatres where its
armed forces' operate, he said the West's use of human rights as an instrument
was 'most disturbing'. 'The issue of Kosovo (and the de facto
separate status of Iraqi Kurdistan) reveal that the West is not averse to the
splintering of existing states and the carving out of new ones.'
Jayatilleka added: 'The West does not seem to believe in a brotherhood of
legitimate states which are besieged by terrorism. For the West, terrorism is a
problem only if the anti-state movement in question claims to be Islamic or
Leftist.'
Comment by tamilnation.org
On the 'brotherhood of legitimate
states'... "...Let us accept the fact
that states have lifecycles similar to those of human beings who created
them. The lifecycle of a state might last for many generations, but hardly
any Member State of the United Nations has existed within its present
borders for longer than five generations. The attempt to freeze human
evolution has in the past been a futile undertaking and has probably brought
about more violence than if such a process had been controlled
peacefully...Restrictions on self-determination threaten not only democracy
itself but the state which seeks its legitimation in democracy"
Self Determination & the Future of Democracy -
Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein, 2001
In contrast, most Asian countries back Sri Lanka on the issue of
human rights, he said, because 'they are not possessed of colonial or
neo-colonial habits of centuries', because they believe in 'non-interference in
the internal affairs of others', and also because they 'know what it is to
experience the threat of secession and terrorism'.
Comment by tamilnation.org
"The Third World has declared a geographic war on the
Fourth World. This global conflict is assisted by First and Second World
states.. 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 defend
their nations from being annihilated, many peoples have taken up arms and
engaged in wars of national liberation. 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"."
National Liberation Movements in Global Perspective - Dr. Jeff Sluka
Jayatilleka accused the
University Teachers
for Human Rights-Jaffna (UTHRJ), a respected rights group, of 'becoming part
of the West's civil society pets... It has joined several other Tamil dissident
groupings in showing extreme distress at the thought of military defeat of the
LTTE. 'These elements just do not want the Sri Lankan state to
win... They must comprehend that Tiger fascism cannot be defeated by unarmed
Tamil expatriate dissidents... It can only be defeated by the guns, men and
women of the Sri Lankan armed forces and their Tamil partners.' |
