An open letter to M.A. Sumanthiran, TNA, MP:

Is the Tamil leadership preparing for another war?

By H.L.D. Mahindapala

Dear Mr. Sumanthiran,

Without much ado let me get to the nub of the political formulas you are prescribing right now for the Jaffna Tamil people who are still struggling to recover from the misery caused by the Tamil leadership that passed the Vadukoddai Resolution of 1976 and dragged them all the way to Nandikadal in May 2009. The tone in the speeches of your leader R. Sampanthan and that of yours is menacing.

The thrust of your speeches is aggressive. Your speech in Parliament on August 10, 2012 and that of Sampanthan in Batticaloa reveal that you both have either gone into a state of denial or forgotten overnight the horrors that came out of the politics of Vadukoddai violence.

M. A. Sumanthiran

Political analysts and Tamil leaders agree that the rise of Velupillai Prabhakaran - he was born out of the Vadukoddai Resolution - led to "Tamils killing more Tamils than any others". Is this what you want once again? Your latest decision to return to Vadukoddai Resolution doesn't add to your public posture of wanting peace and reconciliation. On the contrary, it makes you look like the avatars of Prabhakaran rising from the cold waters of Nandikadal. Ever since May 18, 2009 when all your hopes sank in the bloody waters of Nandikadal both of you have been flogging the dead horse of Eelam.

When the Tamil leadership went for Eelam the first time, you had all the manpower, firepower, the militancy, the finances ($300m annually, according to Janes Weekly), the backing of international community led by Erik Solheim, and charismatic leaders (Prabhakaran and Balasingham) and yet you lost. Without these resources and without any guarantee of winning Eelam now you have gone back to the Vadukoddai Resolution.

Compassion

Have you no compassion for your people who are going to be the victims of your mindless politics? This means that you and other Vadukoddians are very brave in sacrificing the children of other Tamils while you and your children get the security you need from the "Sinhala state" including the perks and privileges granted by "the Sinhala state" to your mob in Parliament. Jaffna Tamils leadership throughout their history have thrived in the comforts of Colombo (like you, for example) while shedding crocodile tears for the victims of Vellahla/Vadukoddai violence.

Your leaders took the biggest gamble when they passed the Vadukoddai Resolution declaring war on the rest of the nation. They never expected to lose. Nor did Prabhakaran, as you know only too well. What guarantee is there that you can win when you take to violence in Vadukoddai War II? Besides, remember, when the old leadership called "the youth to take up arms" in the Vadukoddai Resolution they first turned the guns on the leadership that armed them. How safe are you and Sampanthan going to be when the next round of violence breaks out in Vadukoddai War II?

Your joint action indicate that you are pursuing a course of action tailored precisely to use your people in Jaffna the way your predecessors have used them for their political survival.

Like your colleagues of the failed generation of separatist leaders you are playing the same old tunes of a deceptive Pied Piper to diddle the youth with promises of an Eelam which you know you can't get even if the entire TNA jumps into Nandikadal. You both are now engaged in the business of dragging the next generation of Tamil youth to the last supper that the "Surya Devan" you worshipped gave to the brain-washed youth just before they took off to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi, or President Premadasa, or Neelan Tiruchelvam. You both are beating the drums of Eelam knowing that the blood, the corpses and the graves that are inevitable in its wake will be on your heads.

Veiled threats

Anyone reading your leader's speech in Batticaloa will realise that the Tamil leadership has not learnt anything from history nor are they willing to learn from history. Your leader's speech is replete with veiled threats to wreak havoc if your demands are not met within the time you stipulate. Starting with local and foreign threats is not the best or the brightest way to begin meaningful negotiations, is it Mr. Sumanthiran? Obviously you have no intentions of negotiating because negotiating means compromising and you have no intention of compromising, do you Mr.Sumanthiran? You are following the identical intransigent politics of your late leader, Prabhakaran, and where did it take him?

You also act as if you both are still tied to Prabhakaran's tight leash, making you bark according to his commands. It is pathetic to see two lawyers acting as lap dogs of the most vile Tamil tyrant who violated every decent law under the sun to brutalise the Tamil people - particularly the children - and keep them under his jackboots so that he could cool off and play with his family in the Vanni swimming pool while he dragged forcibly the children of other Tamil parents to a frontline that collapsed almost overnight. Now that you've decided to play Prabhakaran's beastly politics how well do you and your bushy-browed leader manage to sleep these days? Or do you take aspirin before you go to bed?

The main thrust of Sampanthan's speech proclaims that going back to the failed past is the answer to the future. His speech is nothing but a regurgitation of the Vadukoddai Resolution. However, both of you are cocky because you assume that you have the backing of the international community to get what you want. The only new comment in his speech refers to the victory you claim at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva. This is what he said: "

We gather here following our victory in the passage of the recent Resolution at the UN Human Rights Council, a condemnation against the Sri Lankan government by the international community, which has recognised that the Sri Lankan government has committed the crime of extermination against our people, and that it continues to deny them their political rights…” Based on this you both crow that you have won the international community to your side. No wonder Prof. Kumar David labelled the Tamil leadership as "stupid". You have assumed that one swallow in Geneva has made an Indian summer for you in Jaffna.

Side-show

Forget for the moment UNHRC which is only a side-show to the main UN body in New York. The highest decision-making body that counts in international affairs is the UN Security Council (UNSC).

Do you know that it is because the Western lobby failed to get a resolution passed at the UNSC that they went to the UNHRC? Again as things stand, do you know that your agents can push as much as they want but they cannot get the UNSC to pass anything against Sri Lanka?

Besides, do you know how many resolutions have been passed by the UNSC with nothing positive coming out of them? For instance, the UNSC has been passing resolutions against Israel and India from day one of the UN and not all the fine words in those resolutions have changed one iota of the Palestinian and Kashmir issues. So where do you stand in relation to one resolution - watered down one at that - by the UNHRC? Can't you remember how your late leader, Prabhakaran, who was sinking in Nandikadal, was still hanging on the phone with "KP" believing, like Sampanthan, that the international community will come to rescue him? Did not the Tamil diaspora, believing in their imagined might to move big powers, made Prabhakaran believe that the international community was with him and that they would save him? Aren't you going down that same track, relying on the uncertain vagaries of the international community which acts according to their international agenda and their internal interests and not on your political dreams?

Tamils streaming across the Nandikadal Lagoon

Like India, the international community is not interested in the Tamil community per se. Nor does any serious analyst believe that they are in it because of their claim to be champions of human rights. They are interested in you because they see an opportunity to make use of you for their agenda in the Indian Ocean overshadowed by the rising might of China. Once that is resolved you will be thrown away like a used condom. Ultimately, whatever outcome that is in store will have to come out from GOSL. And, in any case, there are limits to which the international community can push GOSL.

So you have to go through an agonising reappraisal and recalculate your decision to go back to the Vadukoddai Resolution.

The Tamil diaspora jumping up and down for Eelam like a yo-yo in Western capitals has not worked for you, has it? Remember they even committed suicide the last time. What happened? As for Vadukoddai Resolution, it is the last thing that can produce results, particularly in the post-Prabhakaran period when all that was written in the Vadukoddai Resolution sank in Nandikadal Lagoon. True, the Tamil desperadoes are hoping for Prabhakaran to do a Lazarus. But his Second Coming is as promising as that of Ranil Wickremesinghe becoming the next president.

Fundamental failure

The fundamental failure of the northern politics is their failure to adjust to the ground realities. They are stuck intransigently in the pipe dreams of Vadukoddai Resolution.

Experience should have taught that it is no longer a dream. It has reached insufferable proportions of a nightmare. Not even Ranil Wickremesinghe, your only hope, can get what you want. But, even if Wickremesinghe comes back to power he won't last a week if he gives into the concessions you demand. If his powerful Uncle "JRJ" couldn't sell the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement how can Wickremesinghe sell his CFA deals to you?

Not after Nandikadal was clinched by the Sri Lankan forces. So you will be back to square one.

Your decision to go back to Vadukoddai is tragic -- tragic mostly for the Jaffna Tamils because they will be dragged once again into a war that no one wants. Jaffna, unfortunately, has never been blessed with a leadership that gave them peace. From Sangkili to Prabhakaran they were faced with perennial persecutions, tortures, massacres and subhuman slavery.

The Jaffna Tamilian never had dignity, or even the basic right to walk in God-given sunlight under the fascist Tamil leaderships. Forget for a moment the other oppressed Jaffna Tamils down the ages. Tell us what dignity did you and Sampanthan have under Prabhakaran?

Besides, the Sri Lankan Security Forces will not be caught off -guard this time. They are already in place and, what is more, Jaffna will not find another Prabhakaran to fight the next war.

It is not the international resolutions that will bring Eelam to you. Nor will India or any other big power land their forces to fight your war. They can come like the IPKF. But how are they going to get out?

In other words, you will have to do a do-or-die battle.Where will all this leave the Jaffna Tamils? Your decision to go down the path of Prabhakaran once again is suicidal for the Tamils. Vadukoddai War I reduced your population by half. Vadukoddai War II will get rid of the remaining half.

Problem solved! So who is going to benefit in the end? Aren't you playing into the hands of the Sinhalese once again, Mr. Sumanthiran?

If by any chance you get your Vadukoddai War II

I hope you will get another chance to watch your people suffer the way you did in Vadukoddai War I while enjoying security and all the perks showered on you by "the Sinhala state" you love to hate.

Yours sincerely,

H. L. D. Mahindapala
Melbourne, Australia