Opposing war to please the ‘Sun God’

Janaka Perera

FOSSILS: The antics of anti-war clowns who included some Trotskyite fossils at Vihara Maha Devi Park Colombo recalled the daydreamers of the old Left raising anti- war cries at the height of World War II.

While the Soviets and the Western allies shed their bitter ideological differences and joined forces to face the immediate threat of Fascist militarism our doctrinaire socialist pundits propounding hair-splitting theories were calling for a ‘world proletarian revolution’ (which is supposedly still round the corner) to defy the Soviet-Western Alliance and its enemy the Axis powers simultaneously!

The practical-minded Russian leaders, however, did not care a hoot and instead termed the resistance to Hitler, the Great Patriotic War. To them, the top priority then was not world peace and socialism but defeating the Nazis and their Axis partners.

Obviously in comparison the armed conflict here is not a war between two countries. The world knows it. But do the Wanni hoodlums think so? To them it is a war between two nations - Tamil Eelam and Sri Lanka (their demand for sea rights and the right to deal directly with foreign governments is very clear proof of it).

So what should be the country’s priority? Attempting to confuse the government and the public on this issue, the ‘peaceniks’ have formed themselves into a buzzwords club.

‘Conflict resolution,’ ‘citizen diplomacy,’ ‘right to self-determination’ and multi-ethnicity,’ are some of the buzzwords used in order to befuddle the masses and create the false impression that the LTTE is ready to accept a `viable alternative’ (Anton Balasingham’s stock phrase) to a separate state.

Although these `civil society’ busy bodies always talk of opposing war, they usually avoid using the word terrorism - except when they want to attack the State. Then the term used is ‘state terrorism.’

Their campaign to ‘save the children,’ does not extend to preventing the LTTE from recruiting children for combat. Instead the ‘peacemakers’ focus is confined to children suffering from malnutrition and lacking access to education and other such difficulties resulting from the ongoing conflict.

Trotskyite Professor and Sinhala literary critic Sucharitha Gamlath wants government troops to withdraw forthwith from all High Security Zones in the North and East to make room for ``Tamils to return to their traditional homeland.’’

Writing in his weekly column in the March 19 issue of the Sinhala weekly Irudina (the Sunday Leader’s sister paper) Gamlath brands the anti-Tiger Tamil groups - EPDP, PLOTE, EPRLF and TELO as `mercenaries’ enjoying the protection of Sri Lankan security forces.

The professor accuses Southern politicians and government troops of having ``weakened the power of the Wanni LTTE in the Eastern Province by seducing of Karuna after luring him into the company of prostitutes’’!

This `Marxist’ pundit attributes the Cease Fire Agreement with the Tigers to the ‘inability’ of Sri Lankan soldiers to defeat the racist LTTE.

The CFA - pontificates Gamlath - is ``the consequence of the bitter realization this country’s capitalist class gained after fighting the Tigers for 20 years with its back to the wall’’!

Scoffing at all party talks to solve the current crisis he instead wants

President Rajapaksa to hold a referendum to find out if Tamil people in North and East wish to have the two provinces merged for the creation of a separate State!

How Gamlath and that other Trotskyite panjandrum Dr. Wickremabahu Karunaratne are going to merge Marxist internationalism with Prabhakaran’s racism and ethnic cleansing is beyond our comprehension.

Karunaratne is awaiting the day ``when the Sinhala masses would join the Tamil liberation struggle against Yankee Imperialism’’ in the event U.S. troops land here to help Sri Lankan defence forces deal with the Wanni LTTE, according to his weekly column in the Sunday Lakbima. He made this ‘prediction’ when U.S. marines arrived here to help in the tsunami relief operations!

These ‘revolutionaries’ are more agitated over ‘Southern terrorists’ rather than the striped monsters in the Wanni. The fact of the matter however is that the so-called Southern terrorists (an obvious reference to the JVP and JHU) are in Parliament while the real terrorists in the North have no guts to face an election.

Their ‘Supremo’ is even seldom seen in public. The whole farcical NGO exercise in the South of opposing the ‘war’ can be likened to a group of people calmly discussing non-violence and peace, while right before our eyes armed psychopath is on the rampage killing everyone in sight.

It is indeed surprising that these sanctimonious ‘anti-war’ humbugs did not march up to the Pakistan High Commission to protest against Islamabad’s military assistance to Sri Lanka!

Perhaps they did not have the time due to the fracas at Vihara Maha Devi Park. ‘AW’ activist Vasudeva Nanayakkara told the SLBC Sinhala service August 19 that the Security Forces should cease operations against the Wanni Tigers, except perhaps in the Mavil Aru area, since the flow of water should be ensured.

Participating in the SLBC’s Subharathi programme he said that no community would like their villages being invaded by an outside force - implying that government troops were occupying the so-called Tamil traditional homelands- although he was careful not to use the exact term.

He stressed that no matter who started the war both sides should stop fighting but did not say who is ready to `bell the cat’ (the Tigers). His view was that it is the South that should call for a halt in military operations since it is the Sinhala Buddhists who suffered most in this fighting, saying that Sinhalas were now fleeing Trincomalee.

Nanayakkara however seemed blind to the fact that it was more Tamils than Sinhalas who were compelled to flee their so-called traditional homelands and seek asylum in the West or escape to the predominantly Sinhala South as a result of the LTTE’s intransigence over the past two decades.

He failed to note that it is the infrastructure and civilian life of the North that has suffered most as a result of Prabhakaran’s lunacy. In addition Nanayakkara appeared to have little or no concern for the plight of Muslims who are refusing to return to their homes until the Security Forces drive out the LTTE from their villages in the East.

Perhaps he is also unaware that the Tigers’ campaign is no longer a ‘Tamil liberation struggle’ but a major mafia operation with mutual advantages for both the LTTE and the dregs of Sri Lankan society.

Today, the Wanni Tiger mafia is offering income earning-opportunities not only to LTTE’s ideological supporters, but also to underworld thugs in the South and other scum.

Payments that the LTTE makes to criminals who engage in terrorist acts on the Tigers’ behalf reportedly range from Rs. 4000 to Rs. 100,000 or even more. Those who do not get cash rewards are paid in kind. Such payments include motorcycles and three wheelers.

Six years ago the LTTE organ Liberation Tigers (January-February 2000 issue) published had a picture of Prabhakaran pointing at Jaffna on a map of Thamil Eelam with his left forefinger.

Beneath it was the verse: “Where Sooriya Thevan (Sun God) points with his finger, thither the sun rays will hasten, to enfold Thamil Eelam in the brightness of his glory.” (UTHR-J, July 11, 2000 Information Bulletin 23) Can there be political pluralism or multi-party democracy under such a megalomaniac even if he ever succeeds in realizing his dream of Thamil Eelam enfolding in “the brightness of his glory”?

It is the responsibility of the government, all genuine peace lovers and patriots to make the LTTE desperadoes clearly understand that their rogue State has absolutely no right to exist within this island. It means that the country’s security forces are duty bound to topple this illegal terrorist regime.