Attempt to Explain the Tamils’ Problems to the Sinhala Nation is a Useless Effort
by Taraki (aka D. Sivaram), Virakesari, Colombo, October 3, 2004
Translation by M. Thiru
sangam.org/articles/view2/590.html
I went to a book release event in Colombo last Monday. The Sinhala extremist SL Gunasekara has written a book highly critical of the ISGA and a majority of the English-speaking elites from the Sinhala nation were present at this event. After the function, I was talking about Sri Lankan issues to a few of these eminent people that I know. They expressed their clear and firm views to me : As long as Karuna is with the SL army, the LTTE will never go to war. For this reason Chandrika Kumaratunge is dragging the peace process, said one of the Sinhala Buddhist supremacists.
In the next few days I was able to check this matter with a few who are close to the government in Colombo. If troubles are created in Batticaloa or create an environment there which gives the impression that there are still troubles, the LTTE’s attention will be diverted to fixing those troubles in the East, the feeling goes. Because of this the LTTE will have a hard time preparing both the battlefront and the political front to go to war again. I came to understand that there are several people in the government who still believe in this line of thinking. In addition to that, what I came to know from the Sinhala elites is what actually prevails on Chandrika’s side.
In short, what the above matters clearly show is that the majority of the Sinhala nation still seek ways other than granting a just political solution and solving the racial conflict. Time and again, instead of giving a just political solution and thus bringing an end to the war and the problems Tamils face, the Sri Lankan rulers and the Sinhala chauvinists have been seeking ways to completely crush the liberation struggle of the Tamils.
I have been mixing with the Sinhala media personnel and the opinion makers/analysts from the Sri Lankan South for the last 15 years and I have come to understand one issue very clearly. That is, as far as the Tamil issue is concerned, the Sinhalese nation is only prepared to listen to what they want to hear. This is a fact. This is why the Singhalese supremacists like to hear news and views such as “In their heart of hearts, the Tamil people hate the Tigers completely,” “Because of internal conflicts, the Tigers are going to disintegrate, ” “There is strong opposition against the Tigers among the Tamil diaspora” and ” The Tigers will kill the Tamil journalists which is the only reason these journalists write in support of the Tigers.” Even the Sinhala public likes to hear the same, i.e. all of the above. They adore Tamil journalists who write views and opinions that they want to hear.
The Sinhala nation is not ready to accept Tamil voices who say that the liberation war is happening because the just political rights of the Tamils have not been granted. They do not want to hear that there is no way to bring the war to a permanent end without a just political solution. The Sinhala nation, right from the start, does not want to see this truth, and always tries to find ways other than a political solution to the national question and have been investing heavily on such ways to crush our liberation struggle. This has been their focus. We have to understand this psyche of the Sinhala nation in the South very clearly. Otherwise we will continue to be deceived by the illusion that any effort we take to explain our problems to the Sinhala nation will bear fruit.
The Tigers have ventured into a plan of explaining our problems to the Sinhala nation. The intention is good, but it will never work. As far as our problems are concerned, the Sinhala nation will only listen to what they like to hear. This is the truth.
Let us look, in brief, at the steps the Sinhala nation took over time to completely crush our struggle by ways other than a just political solution. On that basis, it is important to understand how the Sinhala supremacists now approach our problems in order to find solutions other than a just political one.
In the 1980s , the Sinhala supremacists planned and implemented many Sinhala colonization schemes in the Tamil homelands with the belief that they could crush the unity of the Tamil homeland step by step. In areas such as Manal Aru ( Weli Oya), Muthur South, and northern parts of Batticaloa both the SL government and the SL army jointly implemented Sinhalese colonization schemes and created army posts around them. The Singalese extremist Malinga Gunaratne has written many important details about these projects in his book For a Sovereign State.
In addition to the colonization effort, Sinhala supremacists strongly believed that, either by weakening our liberation organisations or by eliminating them in Tamil Nadu, they could hammer the last nail in the coffin of the Tamil liberation war. There were articles, editorials, cartoons appearing continuously in the English and Sinhala media in Colombo at that time about this tactic. In order to crush the activities of the liberation movements in TN, the SL government came out with many plans. As the lynch pin for these plans, the SL government transferred the High Commissioner of Sri Lanka Tissa Jeyakody from Germany to Chennai. Many people wondered at that time why a senior diplomat of Jeyakody’s calibre was transferred to Chennai, a post for a Assistant High Commissioner.
Not many people were aware of the ” intelligence” background of Tissa Jeyakody at that time.
The objective of Jeyakody was to create suspicion and conflict between the Indian intelligence service and the Tamil fighters by forging secret contacts with Tamil liberation organisations. In this regard he had one or two successes. It is believed Jeyakody was sent to Chennai, not only for the above mission, but also to handle Unni Krishnan, RAW’s Head of Southern Regional Activities. Unni Krishnan was also in charge of monitoring the activities of Tamil liberation organizations in TN. (It was well known news to many that Unni Krishnan was working with the American CIA and in 1985 he was caught redhanded.).
It should be noted that Jeyakody, instead of staying in his official residence in Chennai, camped at the Taj Corammandel Hotel.
About the same time as Jeyakody started his work, the Sri Lankan intelligence service started a plan to make the people of Tamil Nadu and the Tamil Nadu police forces turn against the Tamil liberation organisations. The plan was to blast bombs in a few important places in Chennai and then to put the blame on the Tamil liberation organizations. The people of TN and the TN police forces would thus start to hate the Tamil organisations amidst them and chase such organisations out from the soil of TN. If there were no support base in TN, the Sri Lankan army could ‘easily crush’ all the Tamil liberation organisations. This was the strong belief of the then UNP leadership and of the Sinhala supremacists. In order to implement this plan they sent a Tamil from the SL intelligence service to Chennai. Because of this Tamil officer’s effort a few bombs went off in the capital of TN. But the Police Forces of Tamil Nadu arrested this culprit and put him in jail. This person, after finishing his jail sentence in TN, has joined the politics of the upcountry Tamils in Sri Lanka and is doing the necessary things for his own benefit.
Attempts of this nature to destroy the support base of the Tamil liberation struggle in Tamil Nadu, by the Sinhala political leaders ended up as a failure. Nevertheless, after the Indo-Srilanka Accord, they were openly pressing New Delhi to completely evict all the Tamil Liberation Organisations from TN. When Eelam War II started in 1990, Sri Lankan army commanders and many of the Sinhala supremacists definitely believed that, if the Tigers could not continue to operate in TN, they could not continue with the war in SL for more than one or two months. On this basis there were several demands to New Delhi from Colombo.
After Rajiv Gandhi’s murder, the tTgers could not step into either TN or India and the commanders of the Sinhala armed forces and the Sinhala supremacists were feeling that they had completely crushed the liberation war by the Tamils and were talking big and writing a lot at that time. But they have forgotten all that. It was only after moving out completely from TN that the LTTE gained its strength as a powerful conventional armed force. When the supremists came to face this reality their hope & belief in the second strategy also was shattered.
At this time, for those who were dejected, there was a new path opened in the form of Mahathaya. In 1993 there was big talk about this in the Sri Lanakn South. A Sri Lankan government strategist who I know, categorically told me his view that ” Mahathaya is holding the second position in the Tiger organisation. He has been always in the war frontline without even going to India. There is no way to rescue the downward slide of the LTTE because of Mahathaya’s problems.” This analyst refused to listen to my alternative views on this issue. Instead, he was emphasizing his views again and again. I told him, “I am not going to argue on this, but the LTTE’s Hero’s Day is coming up in one or two months and to mark that they may carry out an attack. If their attack is on a small scale or if there is no attack at all, I will agree with your views. But if there is an attack on a big scale, then you must accept my views.” Then I walked away from him. After the Tiger’s attack on Poona Kiri, I met the same strategist once or twice, but he never talked about Mahathaya again. I would like to point out here that the Sinhala media and the Sinhala extremists had the same opinion as this SL Government strategist at that time.
When the SL forces captured Jaffna they thought the Tamil liberation war could be completely crushed forever and celebrated their victory with Chinese firecrackers. “Crushing the strength of the enemy forces by considerable amount and damaging substantial part of their weaponry is considered an army victory ” according to the definition of military specialists. If you measure by that scale, the capture of Jaffna did not mean victory over the Tamil Tigers because the Tigers had taken their forces, war machinery and weapons to Wanni without much loss. This is what I wrote in detail in the Sunday Times. The Sinhala nation never noticed what happened. In the South all were talking only about the Tigers’ disintegration at that time. But, with the heavy attack on the Mullaithivu base by the Tigers, their belief was shattered. Then the Sinhala nation was believing that the Jeyasikkuru victory was monumental until 1999. That belief was shattered also with the fall of the Elephant Pass Army base.
After that the Sinhala supremists managed to win over Karuna and celebrated it. Now they are hoping and dreaming for some foreign army to intervene in their favour so that they can win the war. However, they are refusing even to think about granting us a just political solution. They will continue to refuse to grant any just political solution to the Tamils.
http://www.virakesari.lk/artilce/a1.htm
http://www.tamilnatham.com/articles/taraki/taraki20041003.htm