The devil in Prabhakaran at the Borella Kanatte...

Last week I was present at a funeral at the Borella cemetery where members of the fourth estate flocked in their numbers. Came two young journalists looking quite neophyte to the profession, with scant respect they sat on a well cemented tomb. They both introduced themselves to each other claiming to be scribes from the private media. Their conduct displayed they were never ready to learn from the experts in the profession. Minutes later, they were engrossed in an interesting topic- ‘Prabhakaran, crime and war’.

Neophyte journalists

The location was close to the grave of my colleague, the late Ajith Samaranayake who departed two years ago. I am sure that Ajith would have turned in his grave, had he heard the conversation of these two neophyte journalists that centred on Prabhakaran, the ruthless man of the millennium.

I concluded at mind, that the two young scribes were self-proclaimed philosophical monomaniacs with the ability to counter punch. They offered an inexorable hilarious enmity during their debate. It was nothing, but a diametrical dichotomy.

One of them who professed to be an expert on ‘Prabhakaran, crime and war’ claimed that Velupillai Prabhakaran was an upper caste Tamil. The other added misery saying that Prabhakaran was a Roman Catholic. A few women, perhaps certain to be from the adjacent Colombo 7 were also attentively listening to this debate, with mischievous grins on their well powdered cheeks. Those misleading and self-destructing statements which lacked credibility from the two neophyte men in journalism engrossed in a hilarious enmity, moved me to pen this commentary today. The two young men less knew what diffidence and trepidation was, in trying to wax eloquent on a subject they chose to debate to impress others around, at a silent venue like a cemetery.

The young scribes looked to be souls who had the gift of melting into another nature lacking the courage to assert themselves, in a way not to melt away altogether. They also failed to understand that in a democracy, different types of people are thrown together where crime, murder and terrorism are thrust upon a people and a nation. The monomania of the two young men who tried to impress they were experts on the subject they debated, failed to focus on the barbaric brutality of the megalomaniac called Velupillai Prabhakaran. Instead, their debate appeared to be a similar narration of a ‘Super Star’ script of the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin or that of the irresponsible Bokassa of Central Africa.

Said one of them, ‘Do you know that Prabhakaran’s father is a lawyer?’... ‘Tell me in which jurisdiction he practiced? shot back the other. It was a comic masterpiece for those around. I knew that the two ‘veterans’ were ignorantly mocking at facts and history. To put the facts to education for today’s neophytes in the profession of the fourth estate, the brutal Prabhakaran was never a high caste Tamil. He belonged to the ‘Karaiyar’ (fishing) caste that had two vocational segments. The upper ‘Karaiyar’ people were smugglers and the lower ‘Karaiyar’ were practical fishermen. Prabhakaran was an upper ‘Karaiyar’ and a well known smuggler before taking to terrorism. His father was never a lawyer, but worked as a Land Officer in the Jaffna Kachcheri. Prabhakaran is a born Hindu and his father was one of the Trustees of the Sivan Kovil at Velvettithurai. Despite being a son of a temple trustee, Prabhakaran had the brutality to personally gun down the former Mayor of Jaffna, Alfred Duraiappa, when the latter came out from a kovil with his wife and daughter in Jaffna, 1976.

Butcher of human beings

In Sri Lanka’s pre and post independence history, there has never been a butcher of human beings like the criminal, Velupillai Prabhakaran. There is no limit to his brutality and barbarity. The bulk of those who have been killed by him in this orgy of horrific proportions are innocent civilians of all races. Human life became cheap in the eyes of this dreaded killer who dreams of a separate State, a distant dream that would never be a reality. Underaged Tamil boys and girls were uprooted from their homes for combat. Those who refused were murdered or maimed for life. The scribes who talk or debate about the criminal should educate themselves on the life of that megalomaniac. If not, they would only mislead the reading public with distorted history and facts.

The young scribes of today should visit their libraries to read the horrendous stories of the past of Prabhakaran and his ruthless LTTE. History records the manner in which Prabhakaran ordered the massacre of thousands of men, women and children in and around border villages, Dollar and Kent farms, churches, temples and mosques.

The bellies of pregnant mothers were slashed, the unborn were taken out and dashed against walls. All such criminality against humanity are well recorded and documented in libraries of the fourth estate offices. The two neophyte scribes at the cemetery were quite ignorant of the fact that Prabhakaran is an idiosyncratic buffoon who wants power by the use of the bullet at the cost of human lives.

This commentary is meant to tell our young scribes that Prabhakaran, the illiterate smuggler turned terrorist, is not a man with intelligence or education.

With blood all over him like the ‘Big Dada’ of Uganda, Prabhakaran dons military uniforms to impress and frighten his own people.

If somebody hated or challenged him, he would brutally murder that somebody. When his deputy Mahendraraja alias Mahattaya challenged him, Prabhakaran brutally murdered him in secrecy and Mahattaya’s body was never found as such were the days when Idi Amin killed his own cabinet ministers in secrecy. At times Amin ate human flesh of his cabinet colleagues.

Prabhakaran and Idi Amins

Prabhakaran views dissent as an outcome of education like Macias Nguema of Equatorial Guinea after independence from Spain in 1968. Nguema had everyone who wore spectacles either made blind or murdered. Because, he thought spectacles equalled short sight, and short sight meant intelligence after having read too much. Hence, we see no difference between Prabhakaran and Idi Amins, Bokassas’, Nguemas’, Hitlers’ or Polpots of the African, Western and South East Asian bygone days. There’s hardly any difference in the rise and fall of those murderous men and that of Prabhakaran, now trapped in the jungles of Mullaitivu and made to count his balance days. All of them resorted to criminal methods to achieve brutality.

Neophytes in journalism must learn the paradox of history. Otherwise, history may mock at them. Or they should humbly learn from the professionals in the trade without trying to live between two worlds - one dead and the other impossible to be born. Without historical sense and profound experience, no scribe could gain recognition in the profession through self-proclaimed intelligence or influence. Facts are sacred and comment is free in this noble profession of the fourth estate. Neophyte scribes should also learn that ignorance of the trade only leads to arrogance, a tool that never pay dividends. To attain the object of professionalism, scribes should not distort history nor speak good of the devil or the devil’s grandmother at a cemetery, a place where silence is golden to those who rest in peace.