November 23, 2024
Prabha family, except for first son Charles Anthony
Had he been living, Velupillai Prabhakaran would have reached 70, on November 26th. In my still continuing ‘From Sachi’s Files’ series, posted four years ago I had collected 90 of my published letters on Sri Lanka and Eelam in Chapter 14.
Quite many among these published letters (I’d say, mangled items from the originally submitted texts, at the editorial desk of respective publications) were in defense of LTTE and Prabhakaran. However, there is another category of my letter/email missiles thrown as darts to editors’ eyes. These were not published in print or digitally posted. I provide below my e-mail correspondence with Mr. Prabath Sahabandu (the editor of the Island, Colombo newspaper), sent on May 19, 2008.
This was exactly a year before LTTE’s defeat in Mullivaikaal, Mullaitivu. I had sensed that in the aftermath of the Eastern Provincial Council election held than, the editorials of the Island hyped the upgraded status of Pillaiyan, then a Tamil darling of President Rajapakse’s team. So, I sent a sarcastic email (incorporating a popular derisive Tamil proverb) on May 19, 2008 to Mr. Prabath Sahabandu.
Prabath Sahabandu
My first mail to the Editor/The Island(Colombo)
“Hello Mr. Prabath Sahabandu:
This is the first time I’m corresponding with the editor of the Island, since when I wrote to your predecessor Gamini Weerakoon many moons ago. Kindly allow me (an exiled Tamil) to comment on the quality of the editorials you contribute. The anti-LTTE editorials published in the Island are always amusing. Have you done any survey to check how many Tamils believe you? You had given ample space to rascals like Anandasangaree in the past. He has been somewhat silent since the Eastern Provincial Council election. The popularity of his rump-TULF (which you had projected in the past as something of a manna for Tamils and Sinhalese) among the Tamils in the East has been exposed. Now, you are pandering the ego of a Pillaiyan -who was a non-entity even among the students of LTTE, before 2004. Have you even bothered to check his rank in LTTE, if he has had anything to brag?
Buddy, I wonder whether you know Tamil. Here is a popular proverb in Tamil that describes the antics of turncoat swindlers like Anandasangaree and Pillaiyan: Nakkuhira Naaiku Sekkenna Sivalingam enna? [Does the licking dog bothers whether the item is an oil press or Lord Shiva’s phallus?]. You know whose majestic phalluses are being licked by the likes of Anandasangaree and Pillaiyan. I pray to Lord Buddha that you live long to contribute your piffles for entertaining the dimwitted Sri Lankan folks.”
Response from the Editor/The Island (Colombo)
I received the following response from the editor of Island on the same day.
“Dear Mr. Sachi Sri Kantha,
Thanks for your response. You sound more pro-LTTE than Prabhakaran! Never mind that. I respect your right to express yourself. I believe Pillaiyan has emerged a force to be reckoned with, given his contribution to the clearing of the East and the conduct of elections. Moreover, he got the highest number of preferential votes in the Eastern Province at the recently concluded PC polls. Prabhakaran doesn’t have a seat even in a Local Government body, does he?
Ranks in the LTTE are no yardsticks in measuring leaders. For, they are showered on Prabhakaran’s hangers on. During Hitler’s days, even butchers and carpenters became big shots in the German army! (And that brought about Hitler’s downfall.) Look at Prabhakaran’s police chief. He was only a sergeant in the Sri Lanka Police. You know what the late Tamil Chelvam was by profession, don’t you? If they could/can go places, why cannot Pillaiyan?
Ranks, in my book, do matter only in a professional army. What has Prabhakaran achieved after twenty five years of fighting? Pillaiyan is at least a Chief Minister equal in rank to a cabinet minister in a sovereign state. Prabhakaran is only the self-appointed leader of an outfit proscribed as a terrorist organisation in the countries that matter in this world.
Will you ever dare get up in a decent forum and identify yourself as an LTTE backer. You certainly won’t. For, you know the LTTE for what it really is and stigma attached to it. So, Sir, why defend it on the sly?
Pl. don’t misunderstand me. I am a very reasonable man and I condemn unreservedly all the crimes committed against Tamils by the criminal elements in the Sinhala community. I have never pulled punches in my edits in dealing with those issues. Tamils must have a right to live as equal citizens of this country. So do Muslims and other minority communities. That’s the bottom line! Terrorism is not the answer, as evident from the difficulties that the LTTE has got into, having practised it for twenty odd years. May God Siva bless you!
Prabath Sahabandu”
My 2nd Mail to Mr. Sahabandu
I responded promptly on the same day itself. The sentence in bold font and words in italics were, as in the original.
“Dear Prabath:
It was a delight to hear from you, so promptly. Like you, I also respect your right to express yourself, even though you seem to be nothing more than a servile hack laboring to provide for the family, under Colombo’s hot air. I appreciate your spunk, which reminded me of my Peradeniya days when I had openly discussed this perennial issue with my Sinhalese buddies. One thing which became clear immediately is that if you cannot scribble something about LTTE and Pirabhakaran pejoratively in your editorials, your neck will be in line for the axe.
Ceylon map in 1796
Let’s leave Hitler out of our discussion, pal. Hitler extolled the virtues of Aryanism and in the blessed island, who extolled such Aryan-Buddhist trash since 1930s is an open secret. Secondly, you seem to be so unaware of Hitler’s background. He was a politician who mesmerized the masses with spell-binding oratory, which Chaplin lampooned in his great movie ‘The Great Dictator‘. You seem to have forgotten the practitioners of spell-binding oratory among the Aryan Buddhists such as S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, Premadasa and their current imitators. It is your privilege to pretend to sleep or sleep walk on history. You can call all names on Prabhakaran. But, you will be laughed off the podium, if you call Prabhakaran as an orator. In this aspect alone, your comparison of Prabhakaran to Hitler is off the target.
Prabath, you seems to have not read the Lanka Guardian issues edited by Mervyn de Silva. May be you are young. I haven’t heard your name, when I was living in the island. If you are familiar, then you wouldn’t note that I’m defending LTTE on the sly. If Lanka Guardian past issues exist in your god-damn library, check for my name, in the Correspondence columns. Openly, I have contributed letters to defend LTTE and Prabhakaran. Mervyn de Silva had published >40 of my letters. Your regular contributor Dayan Jayatilleka knows it. Feel free to check with him. I defend not LTTE per se, but I defend Tamil nationalism. And in my view (which you are entitled to differ from), only LTTE stands upright for Tamil nationalism. Not the patriots in your Sinhalese eyes, like turncoats (Anandasangaree and Pillaiyan) and Johnny Come Lately’s like Kadirgamar.
OK, ranks don’t matter, in your dictionary. I should agree with you, since the Inspector Generals of Police (IGPs) who got appointed for the past 25 years or so, were mere fart catchers of the top political dog. Ranks, don’t matter sir. The current army chief is the 12th man in the job since LTTE emerged. I left the blessed island in 1981, aged 28. That the island has gone to dogs, by any yardstick, is accepted by all Sri Lankans. Only because of the rotten heads who got elected to rule and messed with their jobs. All the rotten heads who contributed to demolishing the country were nominally Sinhalese, and Buddhists. Won’t you care to admit this naked truth? So, if you have some sense, you don’t have to blame Prabhakaran and LTTE for all the ills. The serious rot began when Sirimavo Bandaranaike (in her wisdom) sent the army to Jaffna in 1961, when Prabhakaran was 8 years old. Then, in the following year, Sirimavo packed the army with Sinhala Buddhists and made repulsive option to exclude Tamils from the Services.
If you preach for equality, how about you actively campaigning for ethnic quota in the SL armed services? Sinhalese (Buddhists and Christians) should not hold more than 75% of armed service jobs! If you have spine to work for this, then I’ll applaud you pal. You don’t have to anoint yourself as “a very reasonable man”. It’s all relative. Of course, from what you print, I can infer that you are a reasonable man, with a pro-Sinhala bias. By the same token, I’m a reasonable man with a pro-Tamil bias. You can google Sachi Sri Kantha and check my pro-Tamil nationalism contributions. I’m not a closet operator. Thanks again for your prompt response, which I enjoyed reading. Best regards.
Sachi Sri Kantha
May 19, 2008.”
Sadly, I never heard back from Mr. Sahabandu!
A Missed Item in my posted 2020 Collection of ‘Published’ Letters
This was a short reader’s letter to the Newsweek magazine, sent as email on June 1, 2000. I don’t think, it appeared in the print version of the magazine. But, it had been collected in the web version of Newsweek collection, under the title ‘Mail call’, Sept 17, 2000. [https://www.newsweek.com/mail-call-159289]. This letter was sent to critique the portrayal by Newsweek’s reporter Ian MacKinnon’s write-up on Prabhakaran. In the web version, it appeared under the caption ‘Lessons From Sri Lanka’. The posted text of my letter is reproduced below.
“Any understanding of Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran’s motives is incomplete without a direct meeting with the man himself. In this sense, your reporter Ian MacKinnon’s sketchy profile (‘You Will Have to Die’, Asia, May 29) faces a credibility problem. Also, as a Tamil who is well read in the Tamil Tiger literature (published predominantly in the Tamil language), I can assure you that Prabhakaran has never stated that his inspiration comes from Hitler, though he has acknowledged the influence of other historical personalities such as Napoleon, Mao Zedong and Che Guevara, as well as Clint Eastwood.
Prof. Sachi Sri Kantha
Gifu University”
I had saved a print out copy of what I sent to the Newsweek by email. But the last sentence of my mail, had been deleted at the editorial desk. The deleted sentence was this. “Asking Douglas Devananda’s impressions on Prabhakaran is akin to soliciting opinion on George Washington from Benedict Arnold.”
What made Prabhakaran a Tamil Hero?
Though reams of garbage had been written and published by incompetent ‘terrorism’ scholars and graduate students who were ignorant and clueless on the history of Eelam Tamils (primarily based on the scribblings of Tamil contemporaries of Prabhakaran – such as D.B.S. Jeyaraj, Radhika Coomaraswamy, Rajan Hoole and his small coterie), there have been a few who could read Prabhakaran’s mind correctly. One of these was Sri Lanka’s esteemed journalist Mervyn de Silva (1929-1999). I have saved a column contributed by Mervyn, via his well-known pseudonym ‘Kautilya’, in late 1986, for mild humor and reverse compliment on Prabhakaran’s character. The occasion was, when Rajiv Gandhi and his acolytes like J.N. Dixit were dictating terms on Indo-Sri Lankan policy, prior to the doomed Bangalore SAARC summit. It was indeed a prick on the ignorance balloon of Indian policy makers/journalists, and Prabharan’s determination to fight for Eelam. Excerpts:
“Will the militants negotiate? Can Mr Gandhi or more accurately the Rajiv-MGR team, exert sufficient pressure to compel a recalcitrant and increasingly troublesome ‘Tiger’ to come to the negotiating table?
Do the ‘Tigers’ really want peace? If so what price will they be ready to pay for a chance to return to normal life?
A large majority of them I guess are well under 30. So would titles like Deputy Chief Minister, Additional GA, DIG and Chief Magistrate take fancy, fulfilling suppressed aspirations for a proper station in life? For all my usually accommodating taste for the improbable and the bizarre somehow find it difficult to visualize Mr Prabhakaran himself, the diligent student of Napoleon, according to the HINDU, sitting relaxed behind a mahogany desk, the staid civil service commissar engaged in the diurnal bureaucratic duties of issuing, interalia, gun licences. (‘So you really want a licence for an AK-47 to kill bandicoots in your backgarden…? Come on, Thambi, tell that to the Sri Lankan marines….!)” [Words in bold font and dots, are as in the original, The Island, Colombo, Oct 12, 1986].
Kautilya had mentioned in the above passage ‘negotiating table and return to normal life’. But Prabhakaran was NOT at all willing to negotiate for Chief Minister of North-East province or Cabinet Minister position. Of course, there were other Tamil ‘militant’ guys who were satisfied with what dropped as morsels, down from the table. Prabhakaran’s stance is understandable for what had happened to his native region in the previous three years, when President J.R. Jayewardene decorated one of his proteges Lalith Athulathmudali as the Minister of National Security in 1984.
For those who were not aware of what happened, I provide excerpts from S. Parthasarathy’s report, published the Hindu (Madras) of Oct. 16, 1984. It was captioned, ‘ ‘Misdeeds’ of the army, cultural genocide.’
“IN the weeks preceding this correspondent’s visit, some 650 boys, largely from Valvettiturai and Point Pedro, were forcibly taken by the armed forces. In many cases, it was the parent who produced them to the military authorities. This is what Mr. K.C. Adiapathan, Secretary of the Valvettiturai Citizens Committee, has to say: ‘Over the loudspeaker the army asks people to bring to the Community Centre all youths of 18 to 25 years with their national identity cards for inquiry and immediate release. The people cooperate by producing the boys from their houses and expect them to be returned soon after honest interrogation. But no such thing takes place. Instead, the boys are taken to the Palaly camp and to distant places in the far south for interrogation, perhaps a synonym for torture. Not all the captured boys return even after torture. In every batch, some 25 percent of the boys are seen missing.’
Lawyers and other knowledgeable people say that such acts by the military are in contravention of the new emergency regulation requiring that no person arrested shall remain in military custody for more than 48 hours, and also requiring that information of the arrest be communicated to the Government Agent concerned within that period. It appears that the regulation is being violated with impunity considering that some of the Government agents themselves have not been able to give the approaching people the whereabouts of their missing children.
The experience of Mrs Rajalakshumy Pancharatnam of Anaicoddai is heart-rending. Sometime in May, she produced her son Vihas alias Babu at the Jaffna police station on the army’s direction. Two days later, she learnt the boy was in the Jaffna Hospital with injuries. But the Government Agent informed her later that against medical advice the boy had been taken to Colombo from the Jaffna Hospital. A month later she was told that her son had died in Colombo. When she went to Colombo, she was allowed to see only the face of the boy while the remaining portion of the body was covered.
Another moving interview brought out the poignant tale of how brutally a 43 year old person was assaulted in army custody. Alagaratnam Sivaramachandran of Maniamthoddam, Jaffna, a cottage industrialist, was taken into custody at his doorstep and moved to the Jaffna Stadium Camp along with five others from the locality, including his neighbour, Reginald. He and the others were asked to stand in a narrow trench the whole night and when he asked for water to drink, he was given a handful of stones.
During the ‘questioning’ the army removed his clothes, tied his hands, and put him down face downwards. He was asked to implicate Reginald in certain things and when he said he was not aware of anything, he was beaten until he was unconscious. With a bleeding head injury he was asked to go home by bus when he could hardly walk. Later, he had to be operated on for haematoma (blood tumour) in the Jaffna Hospital. He is still confined to his house. ‘What have I to do with the Tigers to deserve this barbarous treatment at the hands of the most indisciplined army in the world,’ asked Sivaramakrishnan.
Or witness the fate of another boy who has not come back from military custody, weeks after he was rounded up. The 21 year old Kumara Kuruparan was nursing his sick father at Valvettiturai when he was asked for his identity card by army men who suddenly entered his house one afternoon in August. He produced it but that was not the end of it. He was taken away for interrogation but did not return home. ‘Did you not take steps to find out his whereabouts.’, the body’s father was asked.
‘For weeks I was in touch with the Government Agent and through him with the military authorities only to be told in the end that no boy of that description was ever taken into custody.’ remonstrated Mr. K.K. Balasubramaniam, the boy’s father, a senior lawyer and notary, advanced in years with the experience etched in his wrinkles. He had been operated on for kidney and heart troubles and was convalescing when his son was forcibly taken away. On the day he was met, he received a formal letter from the Army Commander, Brig. Balthassa(r), saying his boy was not in military custody.
The old man, in impotent rage, says he is not going to leave things at that. He will be going to the Supreme Court on a habeas corpus writ. But it will be a pity if he is not able to establish the identity of the uniformed person or persons who actually effected the boy’s arrest. Many may not know the uniformed men do not sport distinctive numbers for facilitating identification…”
In conclusion, there are many (even among Tamils) who ask ‘What did Prabhakaran achieve?’. My answer is simple: he and his immediate family courageously fought (1) for the dignity of Eelam Tamils, (2) for the wounded lives and prides of powerless Tamil folks (the likes of Mrs. Rajalakshumy Pancharatnam, Alagaratnam Sivaramachandran and his neighbour Reginald, Kumarakuruparan and his father K.K. Balasubramaniam) mentioned above. Last, but not the least, Prabhakaran also fought to retrieve the Eelam land, duplicitously incorporated into ‘Ceylon/Sri Lanka’ in 1948. Of course, Prabhakaran’s army was wiped out in 2009. But, he delivered military lessons in the battlefield for a quarter century to not ONE national army, but TWO. His record of building an army from zilch, couldn’t be matched by any human in the 20th century.
*****
The greatest Tamil leader !!!