On 12/22/07, H.L.D. Mahindapala [email protected]
wrote:
The Indian knife disemboweling Prabhakaran

Amidst all the fireworks and the drama of the unfolding events one
factor surfaces with sharp clarity: President Mahinda Rajapaksa is on a
winning streak both nationally and internationally.
Col. R. Hariharan, former head of the IPKF intelligence in Jaffna,
confirmed this when he told me at the Madras Club in Chennai last week:
"I back Mahinda Rajapaksa fully. He has a clear cut programme. He must
pursue it to the end." In case I didn't get it right or misheard it I
went through with it all over again.
The previous day N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief of the prestigious 'Hindu'
told me categorically that Velupillai Prabhakaran must be removed from
the political equation for peace to dawn in Sri Lanka. His wish nearly
came true when the Sri Lankan Air Force missed a direct hit. However,
the debris of the bomb that hit his hideout in Jeyanthy Nagar on
November 28 injured Prabhakaran. This is the nearest that the Sri Lankan
forces ever got to him.
Hopefully, next time it could be near enough for the Catholic priests
who went to pray for him after November 28 to sing the hymn "Nearer, my
God, to Thee!" - a popular number at Christian funerals.
Getting back to Ram, he did not come to the conclusion that peace can
never be achieved through Prabhakaran in the last shower of rain. Ram is
well informed and he had moved closely with most of the key players in
the Sri Lankan crisis.
He foresaw what was coming after he had interacted with Prabhakaran
who was plucked out of Jaffna and brought before Rajiv Gandhi, India's
Prime Minister. That was the time when Rajiv was playing an
interventionist role in Sri Lanka. Prabhakaran contacted Ram and was
complaining bitterly about the treatment given to him by Rajiv.
He told Ram that he was held as "a prisoner" at Ashok Hotel. He was
virtually held incommunicado and he had access only to a selected few
like Ram. At the end of his discussions with the caged Tiger, Ram wrote
a note to Rajiv Gandhi saying that Prabhakaran will not play ball with
India.
Ram, who is one of the ten eminent persons of India engaged in
international affairs, reflects the disillusionment and frustration of
Indian dealing with Prabhakaran.
If the Indian establishment gives tacit approval for the current
military campaign against the Prabhakaran entrenched in the Vanni, Ram
states it openly, endorsing the military offensive to weaken and/or
eliminate Prabhakaran.
In a recent editorial he wrote: "......(T)he Sri Lankan state is
perfectly within its rights to respond firmly to the military and
terrorist challenge posed by the LTTE." In another telling editorial he
concluded by stating: "The Tamil question cannot be resolved in any just
and enduring way as long as the LTTE remains a politico-military force
to reckon with - or as long as Mr. Prabhakaran remains its supremo."
Branding the Vanni regime as "a Pol Potist" regime, Ram states that "Eelam
is a pipe dream and the LTTE supremo has known this for some time."
Adducing reasons for this he states: "The key factors behind this
realisation are the fatal weakening of his organisation in the eastern
province (following the Karuna revolt); the Indian and western
designation of the LTTE as a terrorist organisation and the increasing
international isolation; the enhanced military resources, including air
power, of the Sri Lankan state; and last and potentially the most
important factor, ......... the improved prospect of their (the two main
Sinhala parties) agreeing on a political settlement of the Tamil
question."
Despite loud protestations that erupt from Tamil Nadu, Ram is also
emphatic that Prabhakaran has lost his grip in this state - the backyard
that was once the primary source of his overseas strength. Highlighting
this loss Ram wrote: "(S)ince post-Rajiv assassination, popular and
political sympathy for the LTTE and the Eelam cause in Tamil Nadu has
evaporated, except at the chauvinist fringes."
Ram's opinion is representative of the current thinking that
dominates the Indian establishment . After all the twists and turns,
India is now firmly located in the non-interventionist mode with a
slight tilt towards getting rid of Prabhakaran. For instance, India's
OUTLOOK magazine (December 17,2007) focused starkly on the sea change in
Indian attitude towards Prabhakaran.
Pushpa Iyengar surveying the new mood the Tamil Nadu wrote: "In the
innocence of the '80s Tamil Nadu had a penchant for forming human chains
to show its solidarity with the Sri Lankan Tamil cause. The Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), at the forefront of the liberation war in
Jaffna, northern Sri Lanka, had the backing of every political party in
the state.
Fallen and living LTTE leaders were celebrated as revolutionary
icons. Not any more. Cut to 2007 and the killing of Thamilchelvam, one
of the top three rebel leaders, last fortnight. While die-hard LTTE
supporters like Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazahagam (MDMK) chief
Vaiko courted arrest there was no groundswell of public sympathy or
protest in the state."
Quoting V. Geetha of Tara publications, OUTLOOK states: "In the
absence of any other voices, it was assumed that LTTE represented Tamil
interests" she says but points out that the Tigers have polarised the
debate because "no other voices" percolate down. She adds: "People here
are put off by the bomb-culture, the lack of internal democracy in the
LTTE and the forced conscription of young boys...."
OUTLOOK also stated: "Social scientist M. S. S. Pandian, visiting
Fellow of Delhi's Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS),
argues that there is no political space now for those who express
sympathy with the LTTE. As he puts it: "It's treated as sedition......"
The hardening of Indian opinion against the Tigers is as deadly as
the bunker busters that got Thamilchelvam. The Tigers cannot get
anywhere without India. And the ill-fated Tigers have no alternative
strategy to win India or any other member of the international
community.
The prevailing thrust of the national and international forces
provides only one option for Prabhakaran: expand the acreage of
graveyards, leaving some space for him to join sooner or later to push
the daisies non-violently.
His plight exposes the inescapable trap into which the Tigers - and,
of course, the hapless Tamils who follow him - have fallen. Ever since
Velupillai Prabhakaran took the scalp of the first unarmed Tamil leader,
Alfred Duraiyappah, in 1975 he has relied exclusively on achieving his
"pipe dream" through violence.
Duped by his initial successes of acquiring power through brutal
violence he went way beyond his capacity to deliver his imagined goals
with no concept of maneuvering or strategizing politically at
international and national levels through non-violent negotiations.
His numerous declarations of unilateral ceasefires and sending
emissaries to peace talks have been exposed as futile feints to gain
time and space to recoup and consolidate his military strength. Violence
is a double-edged weapon: the sword that lifted him up is now cutting
him down to size.
Initially the Tamils were buoyed by the force of Prabhakaranist
violence.When Alfred Duraiyappah was gunned down by Prabhakaran the
Tamil leadership, from S. J. V. Chelvanayakam downwards maintained a
calculated silence of approval. The so-called Gandhians did not utter a
single word of condemnation.
The "Tamil Gandhians" took the most disastrous political step in 1976
when they passed the "Vaddukoddai Resolution" endorsing violence against
what they called "the Sinhala state."
What was seen then as the mighty force of the Tamils peaked to a
formidable level with the rise of Prabhakaran only to find that at the
end of three decades (since the Vaddukoddai Resolution) they are back to
square one. Prabhakaran is at a point where he cannot sustain his
violence at the same level as before, or gain the lost ground.
The signs are that day by day his arrogant force is petering out.
The other key strategy of the Tamil leadership was to
internationalize Jaffna-centric politics. Both factors worked in their
favour initially. But today the two major forces mobilized by the Tamil
leadership - (1) violence and (2) the international community - have
taken the Tamil leadership nowhere. In fact, both have boomeranged on
them.
The failure of Jaffna-centric politics to force their mono-ethnic
extremism at the expense of all the other communities was expressed
pathetically by Prabhakaran when he complained bitterly against the
international community in his last annual speech.
"It is an extraordinary confession of political frustration," wrote
Ram, referring to the "2007 'Hero's Day Statement' of its Pol Potist
leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. "The 2,700-word speech is a litany of
grievances against everyone under the sun - except the talented military
leader who had brought such cruelty, suffering and uncertainty to his
own people and of course to their compatriots belonging to other ethnic
communities in the island," said Ram.
Looking back it is pretty clear that the Tamil leadership misled the
Tamil people all the way. Of course, the uncompromising and aggressive
peninsular leadership, competing with each other for supremacy on anti-Sinhala
racism, has never ceased to blame the Sinhala south.
Focusing on the external "other" was their way of surviving in
competitive racist politics. Any move to co-exist with the other
communities was rejected by the Tamil leadership as surrender to the
Sinhalese. Rival Tamil parties accused each other of being "traitors"
and "collaborators" when one or the other Jaffna-based party extended a
hand of cooperation to the centre.
Whipping up anti-Sinhala racism was their standard tactic to pursue
their narrow-minded and arrogant politics derived from a false sense of
superiority. Driven by this unwarranted sense of superiority, which was
as unsubstantiated and fake as their "Gandhism", they led the Tamils of
Jaffna like lambs to slaughter.
Velupillai Prabhakaran continues that peninsular tradition with the
blind arrogance and intransigence common to suicidal and blood-thirsty
Hitlers and Pol Pots. With their charades of "non-violence" and bogus
cries of discrimination (example: compare their status with that of the
Tamils of Malaysia) they misled their own people who are forced to pay
with their lives, not to mention their under-aged children. The Tamils
today are paying for the sins of their political fathers.
The way forward is to co-exist under whatever political arrangement
that can be worked out for the benefit of all communities and not just
for those obsessed with peninsular politics.
But the modalities for co-existence cannot be worked out until
Prabhakaran is removed from the political equation. The national and
international consensus of opinion confirming this negates the
NGO-sponsored theory that a new constitutional arrangement must be put
in place first to isolate the Tamil people from Prabhakaran. As usual
the pseudo theoreticians in the NGO circuit are barking up the wrong
tree.
They know that Prabhakaran will not accept any constitutional formula
that is short of his Eelam. If they know their history as they ought to
know it, they will concede that Prabhakaran will not allow any peace
formula that is not approved by him to gain ground.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa is on the right track in prioritizing the
military campaign to remove the main obstacle to peace: the Pol Potist
regime in Terroristan. Despite all the hardships, the people, by and
large, are willing to go along with him because they have pinned their
hopes to his campaign.
They know that the President has to win for them to realize their
future. The anti-Rajapaksa politics cranked up by the opposition has not
worked because the people, sick of this war, agree with President
Rajapaksa that first things must come first.
The carping critics in the NGO circuit and the media (except,
perhaps, 'The Island' focus not on the priorities of ensuring a future
filled with hopes but on the negative issues on the periphery.
Whatever the merits and demerits of their criticisms may be they
cannot take away from President Rajapaksa his incontrovertible gains
which make a Sri Lankan watcher like Col. Hariharan say that he backs
the clear cut programme of the President.
The gains he has made so far - leave alone those yet to come - in
changing the tide of seemingly insurmountable forces rising against Sri
Lanka will no doubt earn him an indelible place in history.
While his critics will be cast in the dustbins of a forgotten past
(remember those who scoffed at the gains in the east?) he will be
remembered as the leader who took up the challenge and showed the way to
the future when all others gave up, surrendering the nation to the
brutal forces of terrorism. |