Opinion:

Sri Lanka's defeat of terrorism: Did Tamils want LTTE eliminated?

by Shenali D. Waduge

There is one question that, if honestly answered, would provide the only solution to burying the past and getting on with the future and that is for Tamils to finally ask themselves whether they are happy the LTTE is no more and whether they want to continue to be a part of plots to resurrect a terror period that some are working towards achieving. Did the Tamils not want the LTTE eliminated? Was the country mistaken to think that the Tamils wanted the LTTE eliminated?

LTTE child soldiers

It was the Forces personnel who helped Tamil civilians

Was it only the low castes that had no life under the LTTE, because despite paying a monthly ransom to the LTTE, the high castes or classes of Tamils were able to, not only go abroad and settle down, but had numerous other opportunities to advance themselves and many Tamils have made a name for themselves internationally using the LTTE card? Numerically, how many of the two million Tamils in Sri Lanka actually hate the LTTE and how many are actually grateful to the LTTE?

These questions are certainly pertinent for no sooner the LTTE was eliminated, the announcement made the Tamils outside the Eelam enclave shocked and they could not believe that the LTTE was actually destroyed. Their facial expressions and lack of desire to share the enjoyment with the rest of the Sri Lankans, who put country first and were happy that terror was destroyed, was noticeable. This was not the reaction the country expected because scores of learned Tamils themselves had been gunned down in cold blood, scores of ordinary Tamils and even LTTE cadre had been killed by the LTTE, including a foreign Prime Minister.

Again, what needs to be continuously reiterated is that the LTTE was a terrorist group - there was no reason for Tamils to feel sad about its demolition for, was it not important for people to walk out of their homes without the fear of not returning? The people who celebrated the elimination of the LTTE were all those who were happy that they could leave their homes, their children could go to school and people could go to work without returning home as corpses.

Domiciled overseas

It is disappointing that Tamils mourning the LTTE have not wished to believe this logic. What handful of people would feel sad that the LTTE was defeated and in what quantum do these people actually influence the rest of the Tamils? In the context of gratitude for the LTTE to bringing about the scenario that enabled one million or so Tamils to now be domiciled overseas, can Tamils wish for the LTTE to prevail, knowing that every day, they were eliminating people for their own benefit?

For 30 years, the Tamils living among the LTTE were denied electricity and a means of communication. They were clueless about what the LTTE was about, who was running the show and how they were being used as mere guinea pigs in a larger plan. The rest of the Tamils nor the Tamil politicians cared. Neither did they care that it was from these deprived segment of Tamil society living in the Wanni that the LTTE picked their child soldiers. Not a single high caste Tamil child became a child soldier (by force or even voluntarily). It was always low caste Tamils, either Hindus or mostly those converted to Christianity, as indoctrination was easier - believing that orders came from a higher source.

The Kebethigollewa massacre

The many atrocities committed by the LTTE in the name of liberation

With the killing of Amirthalingam, the LTTE sent out a strong message that it would not allow the high caste/class Tamil superiority syndrome to prevail. Thus, the Tamil high class/caste politicians had to manoeuvre their strategy to one of silently being part of a movement without executive power, buying time - the dividends have paid off and now power once more belongs to the high caste/class of the TNA which is why Mavai Senathiraja was not chosen as the Chief Ministerial candidate despite years of service and choosing to, with Indian support, parachute Wigneswaran from nowhere. All it took was to tell who Tamils had to vote for and Wigneswaran became Chief Minister.

The 80,000 or so who did not vote for the TNA are the people who need to be praised for coming forward to not follow the same brainwashed view and orders Tamils have suffered to commit. What is, however, important is that Wigneswaran is a Hindu and now the Hindus need to seriously wonder if Eelam is actually meant for them - all the newly created ‘independent’ states are now ruled via the Church!

Last stages

The fact that Tamils have not denounced the LTTE has left foreigners confused as well. The Tamils who accompanied the LTTE during the last stages of battle had to be either forcibly taken or they went voluntarily. Either way, it is time the world knew whether Tamils went with the LTTE voluntarily or they were forced. If the Tamil civilians went voluntarily, by virtue of the LTTE being a terrorist entity in an armed conflict, these civilians automatically lose their right to claim to be defined and treated as civilians.

Civilians taking part in some form of hostility under armed conflict become referred to as combatants and they lose their right to be regarded as civilians. One of the burning issues is the question that is not answered - how many of these Tamil civilians actually took part in helping the LTTE, either voluntarily or by force, and in so doing met their deaths?

The soldier in a war theatre has no time to be flicking the Geneva Convention, going through the volumes of terminologies to decipher whether under international laws, he can shoot a man in civil clothes with a gun in hand, about to shoot him and decide whether he is permitted to shoot first or simply wait and be shot dead for that is what the book technically tells him to do. So, all we get is a dead soldier.

Therefore, it is now time for the Tamil civilians to openly admit whether they took part in some form of hostility or whether they actually suffered at the hands of the LTTE. Either way, we now need to know whether they were with the LTTE voluntarily or they were taken by force. We are working on the premise that the Tamil civilians were taken by force as they were screaming to be freed unless that was a trap to entice the soldiers. Which also brings us to the question, the scenario being concocted about 40,000 to 80,000 to even 125,000 dead Tamils (in addition to the saved 300,000). Who killed the 2,800 Sri Lanka Army soldiers? Can the experts quoting figures, as if they personally counted the dead, let us also know how many LTTErs were killed too, for the deaths have to be divided as Tamil civilians or LTTE and Sri Lanka Army and possibly foreigners (if Indian immigrants had been used).

Keeping mum and using these as opportunities is not going to get the Tamils or the country anywhere. The whole issue revolves around the fact that Tamils are not coming out to say whether they suffered because of the LTTE or whether they still wish for the LTTE to be around. This silence is causing the interference of so many ill-entrants to the scene, using the scenario for their own agenda, made easy because Tamils are silent and Tamil politicians and diaspora are ever ready to be aligned to foreign agendas, for their interests never cover concerns of the ordinary people.

Some honest questions and answers would erase a lot of false assumptions floating around. Do Tamils seriously think that the West will carve out a separate state called Eelam and they can live happily ever after? If Tamils think there is such a possibility, they need to immediately look at how the Iraqis, the people of Kosovo, Sudan, Haiti, East Timor, Afghanistan and Libya are today suffering and repenting their mistake in trusting the West to deliver liberation. It was all lies for them to get a foothold into the region and plunder the resources.

Ground realities

Whatever notions are being canvassed, what Tamils need to look at are the ground realities. Can Tamils be honest enough to say that there is nothing that they are legally, constitutionally, officially denied that only the Sinhalese are enjoying? Can Tamils not be truthful enough to realise that most Sinhalese, especially those living in the deep South, are living in far worse conditions than their counterpart minorities? If there was any of the discrimination of the kind that is being promoted, should all Sinhalese Buddhists be living plush lives, enjoying all perks and privileges?

Why have Tamils been part of the lying campaign without being honest enough to say that Tamils, as a minority, enjoy far more privileges officially than minorities in other parts of the world? Why would Tamils not want to learn Sinhalese, but be happy to learn French or German? Is there some superiority-inferiority complex that Tamils are silently suffering from, for in taking stock of the 76 million Tamils, they think that numerically, they are the majority than the 14.8 million Sinhalese of Sri Lanka? Is this the problem that Tamils are reluctant to reveal?

Have Tamils thought how unfair Tamils have been to promote a false notion when Tamils of India have been deprived by Hindi India in many ways. Such a situation does not exist in Sri Lanka. Look at the ruling Government - how many of the inner circle are actually Sinhala Buddhists? Are those around the President not belonging to the minorities - either ethnically or through religious domination? Of the Buddhists, some are ‘paper Buddhists'. Therefore, in reality, governing decision making has always marginalised or disfavoured the Buddhists in a country where seven out of 10 comprise Buddhists. Would this not constitute real discrimination and is it not because ‘others’ are holding the decision-making right that this aspect of reality never gets exposed?

These factors will eventually work in the leaders' disfavour one day when they realise by clipping the wings of those that defend the nation, they have taken themselves into traps. For how many Tamils or Muslims would, realistically speaking, come out to defend the nation except pool their energies towards using issues to advance the rights for their ethnic group or religious group only?

Be that as it may, Tamils now need to realise that they cannot expect a repetition of former deals that allowed many Tamils to live in foreign climes. Natives of the West are clearly saying a firm ‘No’ to immigrants and ‘multiculturalism’ as their identity is being threatened.

International intervention

When Cameron says ‘international intervention’, what should strike all citizens of the country is whether we are looking at a situation no different to Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, had Russia not put its foot down. Yugoslavia today is broken into little caucuses, where people are suffering to make ends meet. India is targeted for the same division and its leaders have opened up India and advanced its future division which is why a true nationalist Hindu Indian is needed to save India from disintegration.

If this is the scenario, Tamils need to forget that with the desired result of foreign intervention achieved, they would enjoy comforts that are being promised for allegiance to the West. Just take a look at the state of affairs in Iraq. Democracy restored has meant 44 executions in just one single week! It is total anarchy in Iraq where killing is now just an ordinary day-to-day affair, something that never existed under dictator Saddam!

Is this the environment that the Tamils want to bring Sri Lanka towards is a question that Tamils need to answer for themselves and the sooner they answer this, the better because they hold the key to how Tamil politicians are using them to steer the type of intervention that the West would so love to carry out. Politicians have never thought of the country - they always put their self-interests first. The people must not do the same mistake.

Mistakes have prevailed all round. Deaths have occurred for the Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims, even foreigners, all at the hands of the LTTE. Remnants of the outfit remain overseas, but to make them irrelevant, the Tamil people need to be more affirmative. With no guns in their possession, the current period is just a buying time phase. But this phase can be utilised for the Tamil people to unite, to say no to being party to separatism, division and most of all, lies.

It is now in the hands of the Tamil people, those that live in Sri Lanka, to view their demands in the context of the situations that countries being used by the West, adapting the same divide and rule scenario are facing today, and then decide to finally put an end to the charade. Historically, the Sinhalese and Tamils have never had animosities - the problems were created by the colonial rulers so they could plunder the nation and remain longer in the countries they invaded.

Courtesy: defence.lk