by Rajkumar Sivapatham; published April 29, 2004
Are Tamils going to be fooled again?
The UFPA government and the president planned for the constitutional amendment by hook or crook. The loss suffered by the UFPA on the speaker’s election has put a dent in that plan. Then the president started her next plan. This is to fool the international community and Tamils into believing that there is going to be a peace process. The real motive is to change the constitution.
The Tamils don’t have any kind of love for this constitution. The Sinhalese can do whatever they want with it. The things that are important to Tamils are their freedom, self-determination and peace. This is where Tamils have conflict with the Sinhalese polity. The Sinhalese ruling class (including Bikkus) think that the freedom of Tamils and their peace pose a threat to the sovereignty to Sri Lanka. It eludes the understanding and logic of the normal human beings how the freedom and peace of a community could pose a threat to the sovereignty of a country. Surely, there must be something wrong.
Having blocked the freedom of Tamils for years, using every method at their disposal, the Sinhalese ruling class hasn’t done any good to the same sovereignty that they are crying for. As many of the writers noted in the world media, Sri Lanka depends on donor countries for the next meal. It depends on others to secure its borders. Not only that, it will obey any orders from India or USA. Yet, they think that the freedom of Tamils means a threat to the sovereignty of Sri Lanka.
Let us look at the Tamil side. The Tamils have developed a force in the form of LTTE to get their freedom. The strength and readiness of the LTTE are not in question to take on the forces who try to suppress their freedom struggle. Having proved it, the LTTE is trying to achieve this freedom by peaceful means without damaging the sovereignty of Sri Lanka. Therefore, in reality now, Sri Lanka has little sovereignty as understood by normal human beings. The LTTE is offering the Sinhalese people (not to the Sinhalese rulers) a chance to protect the sovereignty of the country and achieve the freedom of Tamils.
But what is happening in the Sinhalese side? The Bikkus, JVP, SLFP and UNP are still under the illusion that the Tamil struggle for freedom can be fought off by crying about a “threat to the sovereignty.” They don’t see the danger of inviting outsiders to suppress the Tamil struggle. They think that once the outsiders have done the job, they will leave the country after giving it back to Sinhalese on a silver plate. It did not happen in the past occasions, did it? This realisation of truth just evades the Sinhalese rulers. Their idea of ruling Sri Lanka has been through corruption, misuse of power and selfishness. Even if they come under a superpower, no matter it is regional or global power, as long as they can continue to practice the same politics, they are happy. They just want the Tamil struggle to be destroyed by the superpower in the first place.
Can they achieve their goal? As long as the Tamils are strong and united, it is simply not possible. No country in the world wants to risk its forces and taxpayers money on Sri Lanka, just to satisfy the Bikkus, JVP, SLFP and UNP. There are many good examples of how things can go wrong in that type of adventure. Given the history of Tamils and the LTTE, any country would think twice before embarking on that adventure. But that does not mean the countries who burnt their fingers once would not try to burn them again in some form or another.
It has to be said that it is in the interest of all the people that the peace efforts have to be genuinely taken forward and a peaceful solution is reached with the LTTE (Tamils). It is in their interest that they treat Tamils (and their representatives, the LTTE) as part of Sri Lanka rather than the objects to hunt for votes and get funds from donor countries. It is in their interest to dump this constitution which was created by a power-hungry maniac and have a constitution which gives the people of Sri Lanka from all the communities the power to determine their own destiny without hurting others.
Since 1948, the Sri Lankan rulers have taken the Tamils for ride. They have done the same thing to Sinhalese people in various forms. Unfortunately, it appears that the Sinhalese people haven’t realised to what extent they have been fooled. Tamils have realised that they have been cheated, not only by the Sri Lankan rulers, but also by the neighbouring country, Great Britain, the UN and the international community as a whole. The LTTE is certainly not going to let the Tamils be fooled again by any of these forces. That is the main reason the LTTE enjoys an unprecedented support among the Tamils, even though the Tamils have only seen destruction and death in the past 25 years.
Therefore, if any country wants to truly help the Tamils, all it has to do is to show an understanding of their plight rather than simply donating hi-tech equipments to the hospitals.
Harrow
UK