On assassinations and assassins

Notes for a new Sri Lanka by Malinda Seneviratne

Joseph Pararajasingham was killed just after midnight on December 25, in Batticaloa. As I write some group calling itself Sennan Padai has claimed responsibility for Pararajasingham's death.

Some would say that the man was killed by the LTTE to discredit the LTTE's professed enemy, the Sri Lankan State or to tell the international community, "See, 'they' are killing too," by way of justifying their own blood-lust. As I write, the truth is we know more about accusations rather than who the real assassins are. Apart from the advantages of one-upmanship there is little to gain from pointing fingers.

Joseph Pararajasingham was undoubtedly a man who supported the LTTE unconditionally. He was previously someone who didn't see eye-to-eye with Prabhakaran. Indeed he became an MP to fill the vacancy created when Sam Thambimuttu was gunned down by the LTTE in 1990.

He was converted. He was co-opted. Perhaps he didn't have a choice. As far as I am concerned, he was no friend. He stood for division of the country. He undermined at every turn the conditions of the 6th Amendment to the Constitution.

His actions sought to legitimize a lie. He actively defended a tyrant who is (whichever way you look at it) an enemy of the very people he sought to "liberate". His aspirations collided with mine. I quarrelled with probably everything he stood for. I didn't know him personally, and there's nothing to say that we would not have got along had it been otherwise. All this is marginal in relevance to the point I am trying to make: Joseph Pararajasingham need not have died the way he did.

Charles Wijewardena need not have either. No, not Lakshman Kadirgamar, Appapillai Amirthalingam, Neelan Thiruchelvam, Ranasinghe Premadasa, Ven. Dimbulagala Seelalankara Thera, or any of the thousands who have been killed over the past thirty years. Not the servicemen and women, not the politicians, not the civilians, not the self-styled 'liberators', not the little children and pregnant mothers caught in the crossfire or deliberately hacked to death.

Of course there are those who often try to pin the blame on carefully constructed 'root causes', but even if these were not as vague, ambiguous and historically-speaking, suspect, nothing can justify the wanton unleashing of terror in the name of liberation.

Since the Ceasefire Agreement was signed, the LTTE has violated it over 3400 times, is reported to have (the real figure is probably twice this amount) perpetrated over 900 abductions, and killed almost 400 people, including political rivals, service persons and civilians.

If anyone still wants to use the tag "liberator" on Velupillai Prabhakaran, they should spend a few minutes with the injured father of T. P. W. Leenayathi, a 17 year old girl in Eravur who was gunned down by Prabhakaran's 'liberators' because she tried to prevent them from abducting her brother and her cousin. They will have a story to tell about liberation and about the self-determination they enjoy and can expect to enjoy should Prabhakaran ever get the separate state he wants.

The LTTE has taught an invaluable lesson and the international community should take some of the credit. The lesson is this: terrorism or the threat of terrorism to achieve political objectives is a justifiable course of action. Indeed, the lesson continues, if you up the scale there is greater likelihood of acquiring legitimacy. Someone has learnt this lesson well. Joseph Pararajasigham was one of the unfortunate victims who fell in the process of that well-learnt lesson being put into practice.

In the end he became an exhibit, an instructional tool that illustrated a point. This is the real tragedy, not just for the people he thought he was representing, but for all of us who have failed to either call a terrorist a terrorist or have failed to deal with terrorism effectively even though we knew that it was terrorism and not liberation that all this is all about.

It is time that we in Sri Lanka faced the facts. The international community, so-called, has taken a more or less apathetic stand with respect to these acts of terrorism. Their condemnation has not proceeded beyond a few predictable utterings that are hardly sufficient to deter someone like Prabhakaran.

If the international community truly believes that the LTTE is interested in negotiations then that particular club is ignorant and naive to the extreme. If anyone believes that what the LTTE does has anything to do with allegedly "historical grievances" of the Tamil speaking Dravidians living in Sri Lanka, that person has to be treated either as a blind adherent of LTTE propaganda or someone trying to fish in troubled waters.

It is time we recognized that Tamil aspirations are but a meaningless alibi for the perpetration of terror and even if the Tamil people are reluctant to admit this, we cannot afford to fool ourselves any longer nor afford to take seriously and such claims from whatever quarter they come from.

It is time that we in Sri Lanka faced the facts. We are not ready to fight a war. The fact that neither is the LTTE should not stop us from acquiring that capability, one way or the other. The LTTE is a threat to the security of all peoples in this country. The LTTE is a threat to peaceful coexistence.

The LTTE is in short a threat we cannot pretend we can wish away. It is time that we faced the undeniable fact that we will most probably have to fight this war on our own, regardless of the endless and by now boring rhetoric spouted at international forums about the supposedly global fight against terror. While welcoming help from any source, we have to understand that help is something we should not count on. It is far better to believe that we are alone and that we will have to fight this fight on our own.

Where does the assassin lurk? This is the first question we have to address. The easy answer is "he/she is holed up in some bunker in uncleared areas." That's a part answer. Someone could say "in lodges and safe houses in the capital" and this could be true to a certain extent.

If this is true then necessary action should be taken. This will elicit howls of protests from LTTE-sympathizers disguised as human rights. While all care should be exercised in ensuring that those arrested are treated as though they are innocent until proven guilty, there is a message that everyone should be made clear to everyone.

If anyone has to suffer any deprivations on account of these and other such operations that person should be asked to direct his/her indignation to the LTTE. The point is, we can't afford to take any more chances for we have suffered too much.

Lodges and hostels and other such places are but the possible physical residences of the assassin. The assassin lurks in other places too.

The assassin also resides in the minds and hearts that are susceptible to misreading the signs, that are prone to confusing terrorism and liberation, terrorist and liberator. Needless to say, the assassin is a welcome guest in the minds and persons of all those who actively manufacture such misreading and confusion. These territories that provide comfort and succour have to be recognized as breeding grounds of assassins and assassination.

Does all this mean that peace-talks is no longer a viable political option? No. One talks peace with only those interested in peace. With those who are against peace, talk is not an option. Still, peace must be talked.

Some say that talks that exclude the LTTE is like playing Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. In this case, the LTTE has clearly excluded itself from talks and for the record, while indeed you cannot play Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark, neither can you play it with Macbeth, a tyrant, an usurper and an assassin who is a far cry from the main protagonist of Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Talks should be held with elected representatives subsequent to a free and fair election supervised by an independent body. If anyone is opposed to such an election, that person or persons should be disqualified from representation at negotiations and branded anti-democratic.

Even before we get to the point of negotiations, we can resolve the question of "historical homelands" by a simple directive from the President to appoint an independent and competent body that can deliberate on the issue. This will either legitimate or make meaningless the claim that the North and East comprise the exclusive historical homeland of Tamil people.

It is necessary to clear this area for this too is a theatre of war, a breeding ground of assassins and assassin-protectors.

This is a war. We have no option but to fight. If we have to be vigilant to safeguard democracy, let us be vigilant as citizens. This vigilance cannot be limited to watching out for parcel bombs and suspicious strangers.

The assassin, we must remember is not necessarily a Tamil. The assassin, we must remember, can very well lurk in our minds, in those spaces where complacency reigns. There are spaces in our minds, let us all remember, where fear can generate a certain numbing, an inability to think, to comprehend and act. These are spaces in our minds, let us not forget, that the assassin seeks to occupy. Let us shut our doors.

Joseph Pararajasingham need not have been assassinated. He was. We are all to blame. There will be other such assassinations and each and every case we will all be culpable simply because we have accommodated and facilitated the assassin either by mis-naming the assassin or letting assassin plant seeds of doubt, fear and apathy in our minds.

We have done much damage to ourselves and our children. It is time we arrested the assassin. The security forces and the police can only do so much. We have work to do. Let us not idle because the next Joseph Pararajasingham could be any one of us. Or our fathers. Or our mothers. Or our children. Or, indeed, our future.