What's Next? Independence?

by  Wakeley Paul, Esq.

Has Mr Piribakaran, by his stern warning in his 2005 Heroes' Day speech, inspired the Sinhalese people to make a stark choice about their future direction? 

Is Mr Rajapakse, having made democracy the rhetorical centerpiece of his policy, about to focus his attention to solve the ethnic mess that all past Sinhalese leaders helped to create and perpetuate, or is his concept of democracy limited to satisfying only Sinhalese aspirations, at the expense of Tamil hopes and ecpectations? Is Sri Lankan politics about to end the bare knuckles era of the past? 

Is Mr Rajapakse really ready to map out a detailed map for the future peace of  the nation, or is he - like every one of his predecessors - as leader of the Sinhalese people, ready to drown himself in denial and continue to play games with the problem before him? His election pledge was one of no concessions to the Tamils; a commitment not to veer away from his commitment to preserve the Unitary Constitution; while at the same time expressing an equally determined desire to speak to Mr Piribakaran about the problem that divides the nation.

Does Rajapakse's pledge make sense, or does it suggest a plan to dance around the problem, while doing everything in his power to impress upon  the international community that it is the Tamils who refuse to talk peace?

Is not this a policy that has continually teetered off the ledge in the past? The Sinhalese leader makes an Offer to speak, Mr Piribakaran asks about what, Mr Rajapakse says about “ my intractable offer,” Mr Piribakaran says no way, and Mr Rajapakse then blames the LTTE for refusing to talk. Has that not been a familiar and consistent strategy of Sinhalese leaders since the 1950s?

This strategy is an ostensible pretense of wishing to solve the problem with not the remotest concept of a serious plan to effectuate it. The Sinhalese leaders make dazzling gestures, with no intention of ever intending to end the crisis.  Instead, they divert everyone's attention by resorting to the age-old and outworn tactic of accusing the LTTE of being terrorists who employ child soldiers, and by using any other gimmick to cripple the Tamils' right to express their political dissent.

The fact is that the Sinhalese leaders and the Sinhalese people have been in an eternal swoon.  They are dazed and disconnected. and seem to have no qualms about liquidating the country in an imagined effort to preserve themselves. They fuel unfounded fears about the possibility of their extinction should they divert an iota of political power to the Tamils. Their inferiority complex makes them unfit to rule themselves, leave alone control the fate and future of others.  They are a fundamentally misguided people whose only way of overcoming their inferiority is to believe in the bubble of Sinhala supremacy. They call those who challenge this delusion extremists, when in fact they are the very extremists one has to fight against.

The Sinhalese leaders' pretense to wish to heal the divisions that engulf the island is riddled with falsehood, which is why it continues to falter. Their fraudulence has sparked violent discontent in the past and runs the risk of provoking nothing short of a quest to be totally free of their control in the future. 

The Sinhalese leaders are so shortsighted that they are provoking the very result they hoped, and continue to hope, to avoid.

Mr Piribakaran has, with his characteristic honesty, summed up the situation simply and vividly when he says, “The new government should come forward with a reasonable  political framework that will satisfy the aspirations of the Tamil people. This is our urgent and final appeal. If the government rejects our urgent appeal, we will, next year, in solidarity with our people, intensify our struggle for SELF DETERMINATION, our struggle for NATIONAL LIBERATION, to establish a government in our own region."

Can the International Community find any fault with Mr Piribakaran's statement? Or do they believe in perpetuating the right of the Sinhalese to crush Tamil aspirations, and in letting the warped Sinhalese notion that what is good for the Sinhalese is good for the Tamils as well prevail and prosper?

wakeleypaul@sbcglobal.net