Politically isolating Prabhakaran

STATEMENT: On November 26, in the year 1952, was born to parents, of a fishing family in Velvatithurai, a baby, who they named Velupillai Prabhakaran, who was to become responsible for the most number of Tamils killed on his orders.

As the leader of the LTTE, he has made thousands of Tamils sacrifice their lives on the promise of an elusive goal called 'Eelam'.

Therefore, it would be much closer to the truth if November 27, is elevated, even by the most rabid Sinhala chauvinist, in status as the 'Dooms Day of the Tamils' and sympathize at their predicament at hand of this man.

In order to politically and sociologically analyze the statement Velupillai Prabhakaran made from a secret conclave, sans the military parades, pandals, ceremonies and other tamashas associated with it, to the edification of those other chauvinist Tamils, the speeches made on previous occasions should be compared and contrasted.

After the infamous Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) was signed, by the LTTE and the GOSL, the former, played games with the abject moral decadence of the Southern leaders, who in search of power and in order to achieve it, shamelessly and in cowardice, embraced the Tigers with open arms, as equal partners.

The path to power, via a virtual sell out of the people of the South, was portrayed as the struggle to uplift the economy.

The Southern people, believing in the invincibility of the LTTE and the inability of the Armed forces to contain the Tigers, thought the Unilateral declaration of peace by the LTTE was genuine and the only way to reciprocate the good intentions of the LTTE was to immediately get them to agree to work on an agenda of cessations of the hostilites.

The Southern people were educated and brainwashed with the idea that the panacea for the present predicament lies in cooperating with the Tigers. The foreign INGO's and the NGO's spent millions of rupees in dangling the carrot of peace before a population, which the NGO considered as, having an asinine intellect.

A fistful of Dollar would do the trick they concluded. As much as they depend and thrive on the dollars, amounting to millions of Rupees, by selling peace, a few crumbs and pennies thrown hither and thither would suffice to silence them.

After the Cease Fire Agreement was signed, the LTTE were committing more and more acts of terrorism. The propagandist remained silent as more and more were killed in the South.

They created a fear psychosis and said one wrong move would create a debacle and would result in a catalytic acceleration towards war. Everything that would, even in the slight manner, offend Prabhakaran would lead to his renouncing the CFA.

The more the acts of terrorism the LTTE committed, these agents spread the gospel of peace. They often postulated that they had information from the inner circle of the LTTE that they had renounced war and Prabhakaran has no intention of going back to an armed struggle to achieve his goals.

He had shown all his armories to the Norwegians and said he was prepared to blast them. He will establish a civilian administration where he will play no roll. His wife will most probably be the Chief Minister.

"It was a downright folly, of the chauvinist forces in the South, to not be prepared to concede even the basic demands of the Tamils. They were opposed to the CFA. They wanted to spread the gospel of hatred and racialism in the South and make that a cause for them to come to power".

We were entrapped by Prabhakaran in the quagmire, when he unilaterally renounced war and for the first time agreed to sign an agreement which would enforce a ceasefire.

"Only a person with brains the size of a peanut will oppose such an instrument", the gobbelsian propagandist, in the pay of the LTTE in south, said. The propaganda unleashed on behalf the Peace Brigade, the anti-war front and the influence of the peace hawks, was so strong.

Prabhakaran blew hot and cold, he talked peace and continued to target and kill his enemies with the aid of his pistol gang. The first casualties were the heroes.

As in any sell out, those worked in the interest of the nation, fought hardened battles and obtained important information were those who were to be sacrificed by the traitors.

The intelligence unit in the South and specially those who fought a battle to obtain information from the Tigers, who came from the Malay community, were killed brutally in Colombo.

The Sinhala politicians, in order to capture power, dismantled the Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol which operated from safe house at Athurugiriya. It dismantled and the intelligence unit was betrayed, not by the Army and not by the Police but, by the Southern political leadership.

It is interesting to note that in the year 2004, when the CFA was in force, it tilted the military balance greatly in favour of the tigers. The Army was denuded of all the ammunition and left with only a nine-day stock in the event of a war.

The situation became so serious and tragic that if not for the assistance of the Indian Government they would have been left with no ammunition.

During this infamous period, Iqbal Athas showed the growing strength of the Tigers, then twenty month after the signing of the ceasefire agreement. Mr. Athas said "at the time of signing the CFA, the LTTE armed cadre strength stood at 9,330 but today (2004) it is about 19,750.

Some 30% of the new recruits are child soldiers. They get a regular supply of military hardware by sea. The Tigers have constructed 19 camps in Trincomalee and Batticaloa".

The manner in which the CFA was implemented was a down right shame on the political leadership, who sold the birthright of every single citizen, whether they are Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim or Burgher, to Prabhakaran.

The Tigers, without any hindrance from the Navy or the Indian Navy, unloaded millions worth of military hardware and brought them to their warehouses. The Government sang the song of peace and our military hardware was becoming non existent.

The ammunition which was brought prior to the CFA had to be dumped to the sea as they were useless. The fear that the Norwegian facilitators or the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission would hold the Government responsible for breach of the CFA was foremost in the mind of the Government.

Terrorists arrested with great difficulty and awaiting trial were released by the Attorney-General's Department on the orders of the government.

All, except the JVP and JHU, sang hosannas of the peace dove, finally perching on a tree top singing without a break. 'Blessed are the peace makers' Inflation dropped to single digit. Tourism boomed and people seemed to prosper.

The hotels at Nuwara Eliya and the southern coast and even the eastern coast were full of with local and foreign tourists. No coffins were brought to the villages. There was an economic boom. Stock market hit the ceiling and reached the high heavens.

There were songs and dances and musical extravaganza's in every park. Casinos boomed, Foreign prostitutes left their poor countries in search of greener pastures in Sri Lanka, Poor became middle class, rich became super rich.

It was nothing for a parent to handout a bundle of Rs. 50,000 to their offspring to liberally spend and compete with their friends in a spending spree and enjoy night life with young damsels to celebrate the new found peace. Foreign prostitutes came to Sri Lanka.

First came the Russians, then came the Thais and Philippinos and then came the Chinese. Colombo became the playground of the East.

Prabhakaran and Pottu Amman knew what short memories the Sinhalese have and what shameless leaders the Sinhalese elected. The only thing that mattered to them was to grab power.

Prabhakaran made his two children, who were reaching the age in which they should join the liberation struggle, to leave the war zone and fly to England with their mother.

They had the total blessings of the Sinhalese Government. But he did not stop his killings. He killed at random. When IP Thabrew was killed, in his own police quarters, no one was worried. Police Officers who were doing yeomen service as intelligence officers were abducted. Yet we were singing the praises for the peace process.

In this atmosphere of Peace and tranquility, it is interesting to note what Prabhakaran said in his famous Heroes' Day speech in the year 2004, after having strengthened his military to take on the weakened Sri Lankan Army and having breached CFA more than 3,000 times.

Prabhakaran spoke "three years have lapsed since we entered in the CFA with the GOSL after three decades of protracted armed struggle.

You are fully aware that during this period of this ceasefire we have been making every endeavour, with sincerity and commitment, to seek a negotiated settlement to the Tamil national question, through peaceful means in various capitals of foreign nations and with Norway as facilitators we engaged in peace talks. The six sessions of negotiations, held over the duration of six months, turned out to be futile and meaningless".

Then Prabhakaran brings forth the question of equal status. What the ceasefire did was to legitimize the LTTE and make it equal to the Government of Sri Lanka. In fact they demanded that they be permitted to participate in the donor conference in Washington.

Then, having scored a valuable point by accusing the government of refusing the LTTE request to allow them participate at the Aid Conference, and making that an excuse, for not participating in the peace process, the LTTE brought in a condition precedent for future peace talks.

During this period, the Southern political leaders submitted three draft proposals for devolving power. These proposals were rejected outright by the LTTE. They refused to participate in any further negotiations.

The Southern leaders feared that, in the event of the LTTE breaching the CFA, there would be a double jeopardy.

First, by the fact that if the CFA is thrown overboard by the LTTE, the government would lose at the elections and secondly, if the LTTE started the war the Armed Forces were not equipped to face them.

Prabhakaran's elusive mind knew that the Southern politicians only goal was to remain in power for as long as possible and he used this situation to announce the political package (ISGA), which would be the first step to achieving their ultimate objective of Eelam.

Interim Self Government Authority (ISGA) was nearly established. It would have permitted them to completely takeover the entire administrative, political and judicial power in the North Eastern Province.

These proposals were referred to as the greatest betrayal of the Sinhala nation by K. H. J. Wijeydasa, a former Secretary to President Premadasa.

Prabhakaran said "the proposed framework (ISGA) is invested with substantial authority to effectively and expeditiously undertake the commencement of rehabilitation, reconstruction and development in the Tamil homeland.

He submitted these proposals to establish an ISGA to Ranil Wickramesinghe's Government on the 1st November last year and also released it to the media for public debate.

"Ranil Wickramesinghe's Govenment did not reject our proposals to deal with the war affected people and to reconstruct the war devastated Tamil nation. His Government viewed our proposals as different from their drafts but agreed to resume the peace talks on that basis."

The moment the ISGA was announced the NGO circle started bellowing about the value of this ingenious proposal which would usher in the prospect of lasting peace and dismissed any criticism of the ISGA.

When the proposals were criticized, the NGO community shed tears stating that billions of dollars, in the coffers of G 7countries and the co-chairs, waiting to be distributed amongst the poor and rural peasants of this country, would never be given to Sri Lanka.

The robber barons and the multinationals, were waiting to invest billions of dollars in this country, which would leapfrog from an under developed failed state to a developed state, surpassing even Singapore and Malaysia.

"The Sinhalese are bloody fools,. They are killing the goose that lays the golden eggs of prosperity and peace".

The Southern polity was immersed with and imbibed such blatantly false propaganda. They forgot the fact that the LTTE already controlled a large part of the North Eastern province and in fact had established a de-facto Tamil Eelam and with the ISGA they would have total control over all the eight districts.

The ISGA does not use the term federal or co-federal and does not concede unity, integrity and sovereignty of the whole Island. It would grant recognition to the LTTE as the sole representative of the Tamils and they would have the power to negotiate for foreign aid.

Whatever criticism that is levelled at the JVP and the JHU, it was their propaganda that paved the way for the Sinhalese and the Muslims in the South to defeat this great betrayal and save Sri Lanka from being partitioned.

The political power for this struggle to save Sri Lanka, by unifying all patriotic elements under one umbrella, was brought about by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Thus, the speech of the great liberator Prabhakaran is no different from the speeches he made during the ceasefire, when everything was tilting in his favour.

In his speech on November 26, 2006 he said "six years have passed since we dedicated ourselves to find a solution to the ethnic conflict through peace talks.

In this long time span, has a solution been found to the burning Tamil question? Was there any visible change in the mindset of the Sinhala leadership that continues to inflict unrelenting cruelty on the Tamil people? Were any of the justifiable requests of the Tamils fulfilled? Were our people able to find relief from the daily harassment at the hands of the occupying military? Were the daily basic problems of our people resolved? None of these have happened. Instead, death and destructions were heaped on the Tamils".

The answers to these questions are in the hands of the President and the Government of Sri Lanka. It is obvious that the LTTE would not accept any proposal, made by the South, which devolves less, as they have spelt out in the ISGA. No government in the South will ever be able to propose the ISGA again.

On the other hand, India and the USA and other important countries have virtually rejected the ISGA. Having praised the JVP and the JHU for saving the country from the ISGA, it is also important that they consider a package of devolution which will be accepted by all moderate Tamils like the University Teachers of Human Rights in Jaffna (UTHR) and V. Anandasagaree, UNESCO peace price laureate, and all other moderate Tamils who want an honourable settlement to the ethnic problem. The package should be acceptable to them as well as to India, USA and the co-chairs.

These proposals should be submitted to Parliament and all Southern political parties should support this devolution package and a new Constitution or an amendment to the present Constitution, which will address the genuine grievances of the Tamil people.

If anyone poses a stupid question, such as "what grievances do the Tamil people have today?" The answer to that is not only the survival of Prabhakaran and the LTTE, but also the Tamil Diaspora who believe the propaganda unleashed by the LTTE machinery. If there are to be no grievances for the Tamils, then there should be no Prabhakaran and no LTTE.

To politically isolate Prabhakaran is to grant the Tamils a package that will be accepted by any reasonable prudent man. Otherwise, Prabhakaran will continue to spell out his Heroes' Day message until the people, whether Sinhalese, Tamils or Muslims, of this country are destined to doom.

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