Pongu Thamil to Attention Circus

The grand days of the LTTE, when the terrorists were lording over nearly one-third of Sri Lanka, thanks to the Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) signed by Ranil Wickremesinghe with Velupillai Prabhakaran, with all blessings of Norway, the focus of LTTE action abroad was on the ‘Pongu Thamil’ events to which was a road show on the need for Tamil liberation in Sri Lanka, with hardly anything said about how much the Tamils were suffering under the LTTE.

The CFA which was understood at that time by perceptive Sri Lankans as an act tantamount to treachery, and is accepted more so today, conferred on the LTTE the powers to tax (otherwise extort) money from all who traveled to the North, abduct/kidnap traders for ransom, make unconscionable profits on goods transported to the North from outside to enrich the coffers of terror, held the Muslims and Sinhalese in the northern areas of the East under severe threat and even forced expulsion, and permitted Prabhakaran and his armed thugs to terrorize the citizens of Si Lanka in what it claimed to be its future state of Eelam.

All the brouhaha of Pongu Thamil began to fade away after the huge blunder by Prabhakaran, who was praised by apologists for LTTE terror and separatism, as the best strategist of separatism and terror the modern world has produced, in closing the Mavil Aru anicut to cut off water for drinking and livelihoods of more than 15,000 families in the East in mid 2006, and his later refusal to listen to the President’s ultimatum to stop carrying out attacks on civilians or face the abrogation of the CFA in January 2007, the LTTE had to face the reality of combat with newly energized, armed and motivated Sri Lankan troops, who were soon giving the lie to all the claims about the invincibility of Prabhakaran the military prowess of his terrorist organization.

Inevitable defeat

With the LTTE on the brink of inevitable defeat, Pongu Thamil has now turned to ‘Attention Rallies’. This is the new catchword for the supporters of the LTTE’s brand of the most ruthless terrorism to use the freedoms of democracies in the west, as well as capitalize of their Nelsonian blindness of the authorities in those countries on open support for a terrorist organization banned in their own countries, to carry out public demonstrations, obstruct traffic and the day-to-day lives of uninterested people, and create a media circus about the plight of the Tamils in the North of Sri Lanka.

Western journalists, even from the usually perceptive mainstream media in the West, are rushing to Colombo to get a quick ride to the No Fire Zone or the IDP camps, impatient at the formalities required to visit such areas necessary in view of the very nature of the enemy that the Sri Lankan State and people have faced for nearly three decades. They come with deep impressions created by the LTTE’s Attention Getters. No research has been done to find the truth of the allegations made, and the reality behind all the gory charges of genocide or the annihilation of Tamils, no documents even from the United Nations read and studied, and no contact made with sources other than the so-called Sri Lanka Tamil ‘Diaspora’ and the publicity seekers of the attention parades complete with burning tyres and threats of self-immolation, before setting out for a touch-down and fly away story in which they are less informed than when they arrived.

The Attention Tigers of the West have no word about how the LTTE continues to keep several thousand Tamil civilians as its human shield in an ever shrinking sliver of land, or how those who flee the hold or terror are fired at and killed and injured.

There is silence on the protests now erupting daily in the No Fire Zone by Tamils eager to face alleged genocide in the future, obviously thinking it better than being under the terrorist jackboot of their so-called liberators.

None of these demonstrators for the liberation of the Tamils, have shouted one slogan or raised one banner to ask the LTTE to stop recruiting and using Tamil children.

The Attention Getters, who claim to have embraced western democracy and are the darlings of alleged human rights watchers, make no demands on the LTTE to let the civilians it still holds to act as they wish and please to; that is the right of a Tamil, wherever he or she lives, which includes the No Fire Zone in Sri Lanka, as much as the comforts of London, Toronto, Oslo, Geneva or and other western cities that are now being used to draw attention away from the LTTE’s impending defeat and the folly of those who continue to make a pretence of belief in an independent Thamil Eelam.

Vaiko’a Bloodbath

That the LTTE’s current of impending defeat would figure in the current election campaign in India, especially in Tamil Nadu and other southern states was not unexpected. It is well known that Karunanidhi, Jayalalitha, Vaiko, Ramdoss and the likes have to compete for the large Tamil vote there, and that they will seek to fan emotions to grab the votes necessary to be party to any ruling coalition that emerges, after the final cunt is announced in May.

The larger parties such as the Congress and BJP are also not fully immune to such needs, having some of these chauvinist elements as allies in their campaigns, and possibly in the new power equations that will emerge.

But there is widespread opinion in India that support for the LTTE, a banned organization in India, is getting well out of control, especially by the blood curdling threats by Vaiko, about a bloodbath in India if Prabhakaran and his Tamils in Sri Lanka are harmed, and also the threat that such action, in which the parties in New Delhi are said to be complicit would lead to very real separatist demands and a such a movement among the Tamils of India.

The perception of the danger faced by India with such utterances and threats is such that it the authorities have been swift to act against the MDMK General Secretary, Vaiko.

The Chennai City police have registered a sedition case against for his speech warning that India would not remain one country if the war against the LTTE in Sri Lanka was not stopped.

The Hindu reports that the case has been registered under 13 (1) b of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act, 2004 (advocating, abetting, advising or inciting the commission of any unlawful activity) and also under Section 124 -A and Section 505 (1) (b) of the Indian Penal Code; Section 124-A relates to sedition (attempting to bring into hatred or contempt or exciting or attempting to excite disaffection towards the Government established by law in India).

Public mischief

He is also charged under Section 505 (1) (b) relates to statements conducing to public mischief (making statement with intent to cause fear or alarm to the public whereby any person may be induced to commit an offence against the State or against the public tranquility).

The Hindu quotes a senior police officer stating that Mr. Vaiko had not only spoken in support of the banned Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, he had also eulogised its leader V. Prabhakaran, a proclaimed offender in India. Besides, he had spoken against national unity, integrity and sovereignty. Together with these dangerous statements by Vaiko is the alert issued by the Indian Home Ministry of a threat to Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, and her children Rahul and Priyanka, as they campaign for the coming election.

It will be recalled that her husband, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by the LTTE in May 1991, also when he was campaigning in Tamil Nadu in the general election campaign.

It must now be clear that the LTTE’s terror and its goal of Thamil Eelam, are threats not confined to Sri Lanka, but clearly emerging as a major threats to peace and stability wherever there is a large enough Tamil population, be it East or West, sections of which can be influenced by the LTTE’s separatist ideology and abundance of money.