CALL OUT THE RECONCILIATION WRECKERS NOW!

Reconciliation and reform are the two fronts on which the Sri Lankan government is remiss, say the chorus of negativists and plain hard-boiled naysaysers. How far is this correct, if it is? It takes two to tango in the reconciliation process, and it's worthwhile taking a glance at reconciliation from the frame of reference of the Sri Lankan government.

For a community of political leaders that styles the slightest criticism of the Tamil history of separatism as being 'vituperative', that kind of a characterization is rich. From day one since the reconciliation process began the leaders of the TNA and their cheer squads in Udayan etc., have had nothing but vituperative rhetoric aimed at the elected government of the people.

This vituperation has been at varying degrees both personal invective aimed at the leadership, and grossly unfair commentary aimed at the reconciliation process itself.

The Sri Lankan leadership has been vilified as being chauvinist and insincere, even as a massive rehabilitation and de-mining process took place in the former theatre of war, despite a litany of cocksure negative predictions.

But yet the constant vituperative rhetoric has not stopped at barbs aimed at the leadership at home. The Sumanthirans and the Sambandans have gone abroad, sat down to sup with thinly disguised terrorist front organizations such as the GTF comprising of ex-terrorists, and let out a barrage of invective against the state. Sumanthiran - it is no secret - led a delegation that knocked on doors in London recently in an attempt to coerce the CMAG to shift the CHOGM venue from Colombo.

How does this aid the reconciliation process? But no -- buffoonish commentators writing all the way from Canada have decided that nobody can say anything about the history of the misguided Tamil separatist campaign, as that constitutes vituperative rhetoric. But, to go by their book, Sumanthiran and his cohorts can fire salvo upon salvo of the most vituperative intemperate rhetoric against the government, and that does nothing to subvert the cause of reconciliation!

The state is asked to clap with one hand, and 'reconcile' with a rabidly ferocious Tamil leadership that does not let up the slightest opportunity to denigrate the Sri Lankan leadership because these people see 'reconciliation' as a one way street - you pander to us, and we treat you like dirt.

For instance, these days they are getting a dose of the true history of the Tamil separatism, the fact that before standardization, before the so called colonization of Gal Oya and allegedly Tamil areas, before any of the alleged provocations by the so called Sinhala governments, Chelvanayakam and others had decided on a separatist project.

Apparently, to point this out as Tamil racism is to be vituperative! Certainly the person who points this out says something about himself - more than he says about Chelvanayakam. He says that he is not afraid to call a spade a spade, despite regular shamans and snake oil salesmen who try all the way from Canada, to skew the narrative and show up the government that has done more than its bit for reconciliation as being non-cooperative while the real reconciliation wreckers of the TNA are painted as aggrieved and innocent babes in the woods.

This kind of skewing of narrative may have worked previously with regimes that did not have the collective gonads to call out this bluff. That does not obtain any more. Spades will be called spades - not receptacles for slow excavation of earth. And no mediocrity from Canada will be able to skew the narrative by what he may consider, narcissistically and stupidly of course, clever sleight of hand.

They also try to tell whoever may be listening that the people of the North will vote based on considerations so trivial as the characterization of past figures of the so called Tamil liberation struggle who have been nothing more of course than Tamil racists, such as Chelvanayakam. The people have better ideas. They will vote based on current issues, and the better deal for Tamils in the North. They might just yet be misled by intimidation and the weight of peer pressure from the diaspora lap-dogs, but a triumph made in this way would be a pyrrhic victory, as the forces of development in the North will assuredly eventually triumph, if not this year, several years down the road...