Kethesh Loganathan - We salute you

KETHESH Loganathan is dead. No. He was killed. Killed by the LTTE exactly one year after Lakshman Kadirgamar was brutally assassinated by the LTTE. Why was Kethesh killed?

He was killed because he was a Tamil, an intellectual, a man of peace, a democrat and a Tamil who opposed the LTTE brutality vehemently.

As described by Dayan Jayatilleka in our main article today, Kethesh was one of the best minds, a committed, engaged intellectual, one of the sharpest analytical intellects and one of the finest Sri Lankan minds of his day.

Kethesh did not work with the so-called LTTE Peace Secretariat, which propagates war, but with the Peace Secretariat of the Government and also as its Number Two. That was another reason he earned the wrath of the LTTE.

Kethesh was a former member of the EPRLF. He understood the problem facing the country like the back of his palm. He was a member of the delegation that took part in the Thimpu talks.

More than that he understood the duplicity and the brutality of the LTTE. Like many right-thinking Tamil brethren of ours, Kethesh Loganathan did not accept the LTTE as the "sole representative" of the Tamils in Sri Lanka.

Kethesh also worked for a Non-Governmental Organisation for some time. Even there he did not sell his soul to the money hungry NGOs who are sympathetic to the LTTE. That was one reason Kethesh willingly joined the Government Peace Secretariat when he was invited to do so.

It is time the world understands what the brutal LTTE is doing while propagating that they are the "sole representatives" of the Tamils. Do the world know that the LTTE has killed more Tamil leaders than Sinhala or Muslim leaders?

Do they know that most Tamils live in fear of the LTTE and they are harassed, intimidated and then brutally killed by the LTTE? The world must understand that democratic Tamil leaders cannot move freely, visit their constituencies in Sri Lanka.

The world must also understand that though they wouldn't show it openly many Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leaders are also mortally scared of the LTTE, because they know very well what would happen to them if they go against the brutal but cowardly LTTE leadership.

It is ethnic cleansing of the Tamils by the LTTE. Kethesh Loganathan was one such victim. We Salute you Kethesh. Though Kethesh knew he was under threat from the LTTE, he refused to bow down or give in to their threats and ultimately he had to pay the price for it.

But, we would say he made the supreme sacrifice on behalf of the peaceful people of Sri Lanka, unbowed and unafraid.

The killing of Kethesh Loganathan

Neelan, Lakshman Kadirgamar, Kethesh: Harvard, Oxford, Georgetown. What gems of the small Sri Lankan Tamil community! What priceless resources for their society and South Asia! They went their different ways and died violently, assassinated in the same town, by the same organisation, the Tigers, led by the same man, Velupillai Prabhakaran.

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LTTE reeling from Double-Whammy

The LTTE's mis-adventure in the Jaffna peninsula has singularly failed with massive LTTE casualties. As the attacking force the LTTE was expected to sustain significant casualties, but the scale of LTTE losses perhaps stem from the desperation that engulfs the organisation.

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Love and protect thy neighbour specially if he is a Tamil

The sacrifices they and others have made should make us realize that these are the true saviours of our country, who prevented secession and separation. So protect the Tamils and invite them to help the governance, use their knowledge and expertise in the fields of commerce, Law, Medicine and show that we respect their rights, their language, their religion and their culture the same way we protect ours. We must protect them the same way we protect "Murali".

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Kethesh's unwitting self-portrait

This absence of "enlightened self-interest" in my opinion, although now largely rectified in relation to Indo-Lanka relations but not necessarily irreversible, continues to dog the Colombo political establishment on other matters relating to the peace process, and has provided the LTTE its very mode of existence.

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