From the dark days of 1979, when former President J R Jayawardene sent an occupation army to the North with the mandate of "wiping out terrorism within six months", all Tamils in Sri Lanka have been yearning for peace. There are hordes of Tamils who have written and spoken in the political and public arenas on the need and conditions for peace, long before 1994 August when a government was elected on a mandate for peace. In fact Tamils from all over the island overwhelmingly supported the present President when she stood on the platform of peace during the 1994 elections. Yet, the President accuses the Tamils of being "silent".

When peace negotiations commenced between the President and the LTTE in January 1995, many Tamils spoke loud and clear in the press and various public fora, that the negotiations were not conducted with bonafide intentions: they termed it as a counter insurgency tactic adopted by the government. They begged the government to review its strategy of attempting to alienate the LTTE, and instead, replace it with a process of according equality to its counterpart negotiator and building up trust and confidence between them. Many Tamils publicly predicted by February 1995 that the peace process was going to flounder, not because of what is claimed by the government as the intransigence of the LTTE, but because of lack of professionalism and clean and clear objectives on the part of the government. Now that the military operations have been escalated by the government as never before, the Tamils are clamouring that along with the de-escalation of military operations, whatever the proposals put forward by the government for solving the ethnic conflict have to be sent to the LTTE for re-opening negotiations with them. But, the President, and sections of the Southern press are still searching for the voice of the Tamils!

Perhaps we should dissect the reasons for this collective deafness (or is it selective hearing?) that has engulfed the State and sections of the Sinhala Nation. Tamils do speak of peace, but of that peace that follows equality and democracy. They speak of the need for the majority community to come out of the mindset that they have to "offer" Tamils "concessions" and try their level best to impress upon the Sri Lankan polity that Tamils only demand the establishment of political structures that would enable them to exercise their rights as equal citizens of Sri Lanka with equal political power. When Tamils thus articulate their interests, it is heard of only as the voice of the LTTE, not as the voice of Tamils. The nagging suspicion of the Tamils harboured in the minds of those thus impaired in their hearing senses takes form in the President's words that "every single Tamil person in Colombo and in the South by their silence are supporting LTTE terror".

In this manner, if the President and others wish to complement the LTTE as a movement with mass support, fair enough; the Tamils are bound to agree with them, only because the LTTE is the single party which has consistently stood for the political interests.

While saying that Tamils support the LTTE, in the same interview the President also declares that "Tamils, more than anyone else, are tired and sick of the politics of terror practiced by the LTTE". The Tamils are tired and sick, but of the continuing trend of resorting to military option to suppress their legitimate political demands, of the various pogroms committed on them, the arbitrary arrests of Tamil youth, the indiscriminate bombings, shellings and outright invasions of Tamil regions. They are tired and sick of requesting successive governments to meaningfully negotiate a political solution with the LTTE. The Tamils are tired and sick of the mainstream media's description of a militant group which evolved in the historical context of State suppression of the political aspirations of a people, and that which to this date has neither the resources nor the legality and legitimacy of a State, as the aggressor against the Sri Lankan State. The Tamils in Sri Lanka wish to declare to the world that in the name of fighting terrorism, the Sri Lankan government is waging a war against the Tamils.

But again the President holds out in her interview other possibilities to those Tamils who are perceived to support the LTTE, or in other words who are "hiding in their cocoons". She says, "...quite definitely the Sinhala people are going to get tired very soon of getting attacked, the civilians being killed by the LTTE in their villages and the bombs going off like they did recently, there may not be any stopping of the Sinhala people being persuaded into all kinds of racist and physical attacks. But now the people feel that the maximum has been offered to the Tamil people. And if they are not willing to accept that also...". In effect, when the Sinhala people feel that the maximum has been offered to the Tamils, the Tamils have to take it or else they have it coming. And, she added: "there may not be any stopping the Sinhala people being persuaded into all kinds of racist and physical attacks". So the government cannot guarantee the safety and security of the Tamils.

That is not all. Rather than warn the Sinhalese chauvinists that those who take the law into their own hands will be severely punished, the President has in effect signalled that her government cannot intervene to check violence against the Tamils. And, the human rights and peace organizations have maintained a deafening silence. There is a chilling precedence to this approach. Before the holocaust of July 1983, senior ministers of the then UNP government also had accused the Tamils of being silent. After July 1983, numerous Sinhala intellectuals blamed the TULF for failing to condemn the LTTE landmine attack in Tirunelvely. Is the President similarly preparing the justifications for another July 1983?

AGOTIC is pleased that for once the President succinctly put the fact of the status of Tamils in Sri Lanka in a nutshell and explained beautifully the justifications for their struggle. Yes Madam President, as you imply, while the Tamils because they do not share State power, are helpless victims of various kinds of violence, the Sinhalese people have all the possibilities of taking things into their hands and teach Tamils a lesson or two in the answer to incidents such as the Central Bank, Aranthalawa and Kebettikollawa; and, "horrors of what happened under the last government" will visit the Tamil people in the South. It is a historical fact that all attacks against the Tamils during the past forty years had State patronage. Madam, are you not willing to be an exception?

If for any reason it is felt by the government that "there is no stopping of the attacks against the Tamil people", the AGOTIC demands that it arms each and every Tamil citizen in the South so that they may protect themselves. Failure to do so would only establish clearly the non-neutral stand of the Sri Lankan State and entrench the alienation of the Tamils.

Dr K Velauthapillai
President
20 March 1996