Last chance to save our people
It is very unfortunate that you had not taken any of my letters
seriously, all of which were written with good intentions, although most
of them had been very critical of your activities
The curse of over
330,000 people belonging to about 81,000 families, kept by you under
compulsion, will not let
you live in peace and it will follow you and your heirs for many more generations to
come, said TULF leader V. Anandasangari in an open letter to LTTE leader
V. Prabhakaran. |
and those of your
cadre.
The criticism I had been leveling against you, mainly had a duel
purpose. One, I thought by systematically pointing out your mistakes I
could bring you into the democratic process.
You will remember how I had been even assuring our support to you for
the peace process, without asking for any positions for us. The other
purpose was to liberate the Tamil people who had been subjected to live
under constant fear and tension and undergo untold hardship, for almost
quarter of a century, under your control.
Genuine
V. Anandasangari |
Prabhakaran |
I was prepared to face any risk to my life, since I was convinced
that my mission was not self-centred but very genuine and honest.
I very politely ask you, to take your thoughts back to the days when
you were involved in a series of assassinations of political
personalities like Rajiv Gandhi, Ex-Prime Minister of India, President
R. Premadasa, Presidential Candidate Gamini Dissanayake and several
Ministers and Members of Parliament along with him and the attempted
assassination of President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga.
You gained, you only earned the hatred of the whole of India
including Tamil Nadu and also the wrath of the Sinhalese. The recent
uprising in Tamil Nadu on the Sri Lankan issue is only a political ruse
for political gains.
Prominent
A large number of prominent Tamil leaders like Mr. A. Amirthalingam,
Secretary General of the TULF, Jaffna D.D.C. Chairman Mr. S. Nadarajah,
the Mayor of Jaffna Mr. P. Sivapalan, a great constitutional Lawyer Dr.
Neelan Thiruchelvam, the Mayoress of Jaffna Mrs. Sarojini Yogeswaran and
a long list of Public Servants, Academics, Heads of Schools, Teachers,
Parliamentarians, Local Politicians and many such others had been
assassinated by you. Your killings created a big vacuum in the Tamil
leadership.
Several new leaders cropped up like mushrooms. You did not even spare
the TULF, the only moderate party that functioned without confronting
any other groups. You killed some of the TULF leaders and bought over
some others with the offer of seats in Parliament. What harm did the
Tamil leaders do to you for you to drain out the entire leadership of
the Tamil people, none of whom was ever harmed by any Sinhalese or
Muslim?
Tamil Language is the mother tongue of the Muslims also. You did not
allow them even to celebrate the National Milad-ud-Nabi festival
peacefully and had 15 innocent civilians killed and over forty seriously
injured. Atleast now have you quenched your thirst for blood.
This is one such attempt of yours to spark off a communal riot. How
many innocent Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims to whom you had given blood
bath. You had massacred innocent Muslims while they were praying in
mosques more than once. You had massacred Buddhist pilgrims at
Anuradhapura the most sacred place for Buddhists. You tried to destroy
the world famous temple of the Sacred Tooth in Kandy.
Mercilessly
You had the heart to massacre a bus load of children who had ordained
themselves as Buddhist priests. You mercilessly drove away all the
Muslims from the North compelling them to take only Rs. 500 each and to
leave behind all their possessions. You did not spare even infants at
the border villages. You had gunned down several innocent chena
cultivators for no reason.
Innocent people have been under going all these hardships living
under your control, while the expatriates who had been encouraging you
with financial assistance to do all these, are enjoying life. Can one
assess the losses sustained by these innocent people and describe the
agony they underwent during your control.
All that is now over. What is done cannot be undone but there are
remedial steps if taken by you without further delay, a lot of things
can be sorted out. It will be a great relief for the people who are now
on the verge of losing even the little things that they left behind, to
save them. All these and many more things had happened.
Every time the people got displaced they took with them only what
they could carry, leaving behind all the rest of their belongings and on
return hardly found anything left.
The entire Tamil population that lived in areas under your control
starting from Mannar had to abandon all their belongings when displaced.
It is the same with the people of Vavuniya, Kilinochchi and
Mullaitheevu. This is exactly what happened in the East. Some of the
displaced are brought and accommodated in a few newly constructed
temporary villages in the Vavuniya and Mannar districts. When they get
back they will find nothing left.
Perspective
If you had taken my advice in the right perspective all the Tamil
people would have had something left. Now after fighting for over
quarter of a century and sacrificing thousands of lives you have made
everyone of us paupers.
How many people in the North, having lost all their possession, have
to fall in the queue to collect food parcels? To my recollection Vanni
did not have any beggars.
Now what do you gain by keeping innocent people under your
compulsion. There are over three hundred thousand men, women and
children. Many are sick and wounded. Some are feeble and old. I do not
think that you will ever regain your position even after many years of
fighting. As far as we could see the war is over.
What is happening today is mopping up and winding up operations in a
small area where 81000 families had been squeezed into. Detaining these
people indefinitely will not help you in any way.
Insecure
The future position of your entire group is also highly insecure.
Rather than losing all of them please come to your senses and save the
remaining members of your cadre. Please surrender them and all of them
can be saved under a general amnesty.
Also disband your organization and surrender to the Forces. This is
one way by which you could save them.
Except those who claim to represent you, who never gave you proper
advice and some people in Tamil Nadu, thoroughly mis-led by some
political leaders, the whole world has turned against you. You are being
accused by the International Community of ill-treating the people. The
UN and the EU have condemned your action. The UN High Commission for
Human Right and Organisations like the Human Right Watch also have
accused you of compulsorily detaining the innocent people.
The gathering of Tamils in important cities all over the world had
demanded that the Tamils should be saved and they did not speck for you.
The message for you is to release our people. The responsibility of
saving the Tamils is now entirely in your hands. You should feel more
for them, because it is you who have brought them to this State.
Hence without any more delay please allow the people to go any where
they want to go. For heaven’s sake don’t hand them over to the self
centred political hawks who are awaiting to take your place and prolong
the agony of all Tamil people who had suffered enough and now want to be
free.
They don’t want to see the sight of a fire arm any more, not even a
toy pistol.
If atleast at this stage you give up your arms and put an end to the
war, clearing the landmines with International support won’t take much
time and very soon people of Vanni can get back to their homes and
salvage what is still left of their belongings.
Blame
If you do not listen to my advice at least now, you should take the
blame for the loss of properties of these people, if taken together,
will be worth several hundred billions in addition to what they had
already lost.
Long delay in these people going back to their places of residence
will result in their finding nothing left in their houses. This is my
desperate call to you and perhaps the last too. I humbly beg of you to
concede to my request and bring back peace to all of us Sinhalese,
Tamils, Muslims, Burghers, Malays and all the other ethnic groups, so
that all of us can live in peace and tranquility as equals in a United
Sri Lanka. You are one who destroyed peace and you are the only one who
can bring permanent peace to all of us.
As an interim arrangement I suggest that without asking the
Government to stop the war, if you agree to act reciprocally we suggest
to the Government Forces to stop aerial bombing, artillery attack and
shelling which will bring the casualties to the very minimum. In such a
situation a request can be made to the Government to send sufficient
food and drugs for the people’s survival. You also in turn should stop
artillery attack and shelling. |