While Sri Lanka was burning...:

JR played Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Wijitha NAKKAWITA

There were prophets of doom and gloom. The past three decades witnessed a string of such people. Among them were all types yet the mainstay was what were popularly called Non Governmental Organisations. Some of them were academics, some social workers, some ecclesiastics and some nondescript citizens who had become so used to live on foreign funding that everything they said or did sounded foreign.

Invincible

Then of course there were politicians whose voices sounded louder when they prophesied that there was this invincible terrorist group like some global octopus that could not be killed as its tentacles spread across national frontiers.

Any one who suggested that the LTTE should be militarily crushed was given a label, extremist, chauvinist, war monger or simply someone who did not know anything.

This brings us to the beginning of the sad chain of events. How did the so-called invincible terrorist group burgeon from a group of about 25 - 30 misled youth to a formidable military machine armed with the most sophisticated weapons reaching the apex of power with some light aircraft in addition to a flotilla or highly destructive improvised boats? At one stage it was known that the LTTE leader Prabhakaran had boasted to his top aides that he was the commander of an army, navy and an air force!

When in the early 1970s the former leaders of the TULF notably the Amirthalingam couple misled the youth to take up arms, first to silence dissent in the north and frighten any politician who dared to support the then United Front government, there were less than 50 youth in what was called the TULF youth wing.

The gruesome murders started with Jaffna Mayor Alfred Duraiappah in 1975, successive armed robberies and the murder of Inspector of Police Bastianpillai and Sergeant Ehambaram in Jaffna while the Sansoni Commission appointed to go into the minor racial conflict of 1978 was hearing evidence from witnesses in Jaffna including top police officers and Amirthalingam himself.

Martyr's deaths

What was the motivating force of the small groups of youth who were lured into taking up arms? It was said in evidence before the Sansoni Commission that Amirthalingam urged the Tamil youth to take up arms like Garibaldi did in Italy. All they would get would be arrests, jail terms, torture and even martyr's deaths but when all that was over they would be able to win `Eelam' he told them.At one stage one of the godfathers of the Tamil terrorist groups said 'We have to win the struggle to achieve one race and religion, that is Tamil' the interesting evidence before the Commission stated!

Then of course President J.R. Jayawardene's government was directly responsible for the race riots and killing of hundreds of Tamil civilians in Colombo and elsewhere in the south in July 1983.

At that time till five long days of violence broke loose in the south, he did not promulgate the state of emergency nor did he make even a minor effort to bring the goons under control.

Only on the fifth day he addressed the nation. His infamous words on that occasion were worth recalling to understand the hypocrisy of that UNP government and its leaders.

Jayawardene in his address said some of the Tamil people "are our friends and others are our kinsfolk" but irony of the fate of the Tamil people who were killed or otherwise hurt was the leader of the country was watching impassively the tortures, killings, looting and arson of property of his friends and kinsfolk.

Yet none of the goons were punished as the police were asked to look aside. Then to cap it all he banned the JVP blaming the violence against the Tamils on that party. The people were well aware that in the forefront of those who saved or helped the Tamils during the July 1980 riots were JVP members while the goons and thugs were led to kill, rob and loot Tamils was the UNP and at least two or three Colombo based UNP ministers were behind the killers and looters.Three elements were responsible for the national disaster.

Third element

One was the J.R.J. government that paved the way and created a motive for the armed groups of Tamil youth to end up as racist terrorists and create the Tamil Diaspora that became the main source of funds of the LTTE. The second element was the former TULF leadership, Amirthalingam et al.

Friendship

The third element was the Eelam apologists including the NGOs and INGOs and some politicians who are the proxy of the terrorists.Today the terrorists group has become a paper Tiger and President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the armed forces have almost ended their killing spree and made them fight for survival. It is now the time for all political parties and groups to build bridges of friendship between the North and South as the citizens of this country from time immemorial had lived together in peace except when racist politicians created acts of shame like those in 1958 or 1980.