The murderous chicanery of the LTTE Political Wing
Prof. Rajiva WIJESINHA
The Peace Secretariat is extremely disappointed at the letter sent by
P. Nadesan, the Head of the Political Wing of the LTTE, to a number of
international leaders, expressing its ‘readiness to co-operate with them
on a ceasefire and peace talks leading to a permanent solution to the
ethnic conflict’.
This seems to be the only response it can make to what was described
at the press conference given by Sir John Holmes and Minister Mahinda
Samarasinghe as the efforts of several intermediaries ‘working behind
the scenes with all participants to the conflict in an effort to get the
civilians out of the conflict zone’.
These civilians are the principal concern of the Government at
present, working together with its international partners, and it hopes
very much that the LTTE can be persuaded to provide relief for these
suffering civilians. But it is absurd of the LTTE to respond merely by
formally requesting what it has tried to promote for so long through its
surrogates, namely a ceasefire that will allow it to do again what it
did throughout so many ceasefires in the past.
Nadesan has evidently forgotten the history of the LTTE. Indeed he
has forgotten even his own history as a policeman in the Sri Lankan
Police, for he declares that the Sri Lankan Armed Forces were made up
‘only of young men of Sinhala ethnicity.’ He may wish to exclude the
police, but he should not forget that one of the first assassinations by
the LTTE was of the Tamil Police Inspector Bastianpillai. He forgets
that the first Army Commander was Tamil, and that even in the ‘90s there
was a Tamil Chief of Staff, and that recently senior officers at the
premier training institute of the Army have been Tamil. However the
threat of assassination by the LTTE makes it difficult for them to serve
in the field, given that two prominent recent Army victims of LTTE
assassination were senior Tamil speaking Muslim officers.
Civilians suffered the most due to LTTE atrocities |
Around the same time that Inspector Bastianpillai was slaughtered,
over 30 years ago, the LTTE killed the Tamil Mayor of Jaffna, a
performance it repeated in the ‘90s with two more Mayors, after which
the Municipal Council could no longer function. Nadesan seems to have
forgotten that, as well as the several Tamil political leaders killed by
the LTTE during ceasefires or negotiations they treated as conveniences
to assassinate their enemies.
These include Sri Sabaratnam of TELO during the Thimpu talks, the
former Tamil leader of the opposition Appapillai Amirthalingam when the
LTTE was talking to President Premadasa, and Tamil Foreign Minister
Lakshman Kadirgamar in 2005 during the most recent Ceasefire. Other
prominent Tamil politicians killed by the Tigers include the Human
Rights activists Sam Tambimuttu and the Harvard educated lawyer and
constitutional expert, Neelan Tiruchelvam.
With this appalling history, what makes Nadesan think that anyone can
place any credence in his latest pronouncements? He cannot believe the
world leaders whom he addresses are fools, to think Tigers will strange
their stripes, so perhaps he believes that they are new and that no one
will brief them about what the term Ceasefire actually means to the LTTE. |