Mahinda Rajapakse - the Road to Disaster

The manifesto of Mahinda Rajapakse, presidential candidate of the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), is an endorsement that a leopard (Sinhala political leaders) does not change its spots (the supremacy of the Sinhalese). It is instructive to know that despite the loss of more than 65,000 lives, a devastation of the country and serious questions about its future, the thinking of Sinhalese politicians has not changed. If such people are elected to power, neither has the thinking of the Sinhalese majority changed. It is not “instructive” for us, who have known this for years, but it is instructive for the international community which is still hallucinating that there is a genuine desire of the Sinhala leadership to reach a political settlement with the Tamil ‘minority’.

Rajapakse’s manifesto titled “Mahinda Chintana” (Mahinda’s thoughts) in the setting of agreements signed by him with so-called Marxists” (read political opportunists) in the JVP, and the extreme Sinhala chauvinists among the politically active Buddhist clergy (the JHU), is the clearest indication that the concept of multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious Sri Lanka as a Sinhala-Buddhist nation, is alive and well. If that is the score, there is no alternative to the establishment of a Tamil Nation, Tamil Eelam.

In other pronouncements of “Mahinda’s thoughts”, he has said that the ongoing Ceasefire Agreement between the government and the LTTE will have to be ‘revised’ i.e. scrapped. The concept of self determination for the Tamils will have to be abandoned and with it, Federalism as a basis of a negotiated settlement. Mr Rajapakse does not seem to realise that the bottom line in the struggle to free the Tamil people from Sinhalese domination is the right of a people to self-determination. He should note that it is this same right of self-determination that enabled his ancestors to free themselves from British domination. By rejecting this right, he is effectively closing the door to a negotiated settlement.

Rajapakse’s ‘thoughts’ and their inevitable consequence (war) is reminiscent of another Sinhala political ‘leader’ J.R.Jayawardene, from the other side of the Sinhala political divide, the UNP. In the wake of the 1977 post-election massacre of Tamils, the newly elected Prime Minister Jayawardene told the devastated Tamils “If you want a fight, let there be a fight”, and went on to attribute this to the Sinhala people - “It is not what I am saying. The people of Sri Lanka say that”. Perhaps we should ask the people of Sri Lanka whether they did say “that”.

The comparison between Jayawardene (UNP) and Rajapakse (SLFP, now in an expanded group the UPFA), is important. What it means is that Sinhala politicians from the Green or Blue (and now even the Red) camp, are the same. They are Sinhala chauvinists with whom the Tamils cannot negotiate. That is not pessimism, it is realism based on historical fact.

Since Rajapakse has effectively closed the door to a negotiated settlement that will accommodate the aspirations of the Tamil people, he leaves no alternative to the Tamils other than to achieve this by force. If Rajapakse (and his bedfellows in the JVP and JHU) want war, (and it seems so), then war is what will occur – now or in the not-too-distant future. If/when it does, it will be a war for which Rajapakse will be responsible making. Let us be clear about that. Let this be made known to the International community, in particular the crucial aid-givers who are the Godfathers who enable the Sri Lankan government to buy the necessary weapons to destroy part of the population of that country.

The manifesto is replete with glorious words : “I am dedicated to building a ….just state…..”. What? Another “Just State”? I thought Jayawardene built one in 1977 when his election campaign promised a “dharmista” (just and righteous) society. When demagoguery was replaced by realpolitic in 1983, it meant the genocidal massacre of some 3,000 Tamil civilians in the Sinhala South. This was presumably was a pre-requisite to the establishment of a ‘Just” Sinhala nation. Jayawardene, by then the self-appointed President, told Ian Ward of the London Daily Telegraph “I am not worried about the opinion of the Jaffna people now…..Now we cannot think of them, nor about their lives or their opinion about us”. These are the Sinhala ‘leaders’ with whom the Tamils are expected to negotiate.

Rajapakse dedicates himself to achieving an undivided country. If that is so, a prerequisite would be the removal of the Constitutional provision which effectively spells out a Sinhala-Buddhist nation. Will he do that? Not likely.

He goes on to ensure that the people will be free to practise their respective religions. Well, they already can do this - give or take the burning of many Christian churches, and the destruction of even more Hindu temples, some filled with refugees. However, the fact remains that the people have been free to practise their religions. Rajapakse need not “dedicate” himself to this. What he has to do is to ensure that the Tamil people can live with equality, dignity and safety in the country of their birth and this, Rajapakse he has carefully avoided mentioning.

He also carefully avoids mentioning anything about addressing corruption - just as well, after dipping into the Tsunami funds to the tune of Rs.83 million (which he graciously returned in an attempt to avoid being prosecuted for fraud!). If the Sinhala people want crooks as their leaders, that is their problem. Why saddle the Tamil people with such leaders.

When Rajapakse “dedicates” himself to moulding a new Sri Lanka and creating a “prosperous peaceful country”, he will have to front up to some basic realities.

1. The Tamil people in the North and East have long since realised that they can never expect a fair deal under a unitary set-up where administrative and developmental power are entrenched in the hands of the numerically superior Sinhalese majority. If the deciding factor is the mere counting of heads and not equality of all its citizens, then a change is mandatory. A manifestation of this realization is the overwhelming mandate the Tamil people in the North and East gave their parliamentarians in 1977 to pursue the establishment of a Separate Tamil State. The brutality unleashed on these people (civilians) by a succession of Sinhala governments since 1977, in a determined attempt to crush them, has only hardened their resolve. So when Mr.Rajapakse “dedicates himself” to ensuring an undivided country, he is living in fantasy-land.

2. The Tamils have, in fact, established a Separate State in the Wanni which has its own administration, its own police, legal system and military. What is more, it seems to be far less corrupt and a far more efficient and organized administration than anything the Sinhala South has had for a quarter of a century or more. When the Sinhala South and their politicians finally wake up, they will find to their astonishment that a Tamil State has been functioning for years. What is left is for the Sinhala South to accept this reality and not fool themselves that a denial will make the reality of a Tamil State go away. It will not.

As for Mr Rajapakse and the Sinhala extremists and political opportunists in the JVP and JHU, they can hallucinate about an undivided country. If they plunge the country into war, they will be held responsible by the Sinhala people (whom they claim to represent) and the international community. He will also have to explain to the Sinhalese people why the bodies of rural youths, who will be called up to fight this war, are returning in body-bags.

What of the other side of the political divide - Ranil Wickremesinghe and his UNP? What if he becomes the next President? The Tamils do not need imagine that there will be a fundamental change. As I have said, a leopard does not change its spots. In 1983, when the Tamils were being butchered in Colombo, it was a young Minister in Jayawardene’s government who appeared on TV to say that Tamil businessmen deserved what they got. The Tamils would do well to identify that person. It is also worth remembering that after half a dozen non-productive Peace Talks and no peace–dividend for the Tamil people, the LTTE decided to abandon further peace talks “for the time being”, because Ranil Wickremesinghe (and his UNP) were dragging their feet in the implementation of what was agreed to.

What of the possibility of a so-called “National Government” (Wickremesinghe’s UNP and the Bandaranaike-Kumaratunga SLFP)? It is merely the amalgamation of two parties that have, for years, adopted more and more anti-Tamil measures to win the electoral support of the Sinhala majority. It was a combination of similar people who, in 1948, disenfranchised a million Plantation Tamils in one of the worst acts of political savagery the world has known. So let us not have any illusions that a “National Government” (read National Sinhala Government) is the answer.

The upcoming election is to elect a Sinhala President and that is a problem for the Sinhala people. It is not a problem for the Tamils. If the Sinhala people want crooks who may have had their hand in the Tsunami till as their President, that is their problem. If they want hoodlums who have wrecked the South in armed uprisings (in 1971 and again in 1989) with the murder of thousands of civilians who included University professors, leading professionals and charismatic Sinhala leaders such as President Kumaratunga’s husband, and an extensive destruction of infrastructure which included much-needed agricultural equipment, which be described as “the vandalisation of a country”, that is a choice for the Sinhalese. If they want Buddhist “monks” who are more comfortable preaching violence than the doctrine of Buddha, that is a problem for the Buddhists.

The Tamils have a problem. This is to develop the area under their control and carry this forward. The role of the international community is to assist this commendable activity. It is the role of the expatriate Tamil community to stop dreaming about a Tamil State and help in its building.

Dr. Brian Senewiratne                                                                 AUSTRALIA

EUROPEAN UNION & THE TAMIL STRUGGLE EU Credibility on the Line

I am a Sinhalese from the majority community in Sri Lanka. I am a doctor of Medicine with no political affiliations or ambitions. I left Sri Lanka 30 years ago and the only reasons for my involvement are concerns that are humanitarian and the future of the country. I have had a longstanding interest in the on-going ethnic conflict, in particular, in achieving a solution which enables the Tamil ‘minority’ to live with equality, safety, dignity and without discrimination, in the country of their birth. I have supported the Tamil people in their struggle against a succession of Sri Lankan (read Sinhalese) governments who conceive of Sri Lanka as a Sinhala-Buddhist nation which effectively excludes the Tamils, a concept that is even enshrined in the Constitution.

A fundamental problem is the failure to recognize the historical fact that Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) was not a single nation but three effectively separate kingdoms (nations), the Tamil Kingdom in the North, the Kandyan (Sinhalese) in the Centre, and the Low-Country (Sinhalese) Kingdom in the South. This separation existed for hundreds of years until the colonial British, for administrative convenience, unified the country.

When they quit (1948) they handed over the country to Governments that were, and will always be, dominated by the majority (74%) Sinhalese. Discrimination against the minorities, especially the industrious Tamils, was always a possibility, and was, in fact, articulated strongly by Tamil politicians when the British quit. This possibility became reality as competing Sinhalese political parties adopted more and more discriminatory policies against the Tamils in language, education, employment and the developmental neglect of the area in which the Tamils lived.

Over the next 50 years Tamil politicians have negotiated with a succession of Sri Lankan governments to address these problems. A series of pacts between the two groups have not been implemented, even torn up, unilaterally by the Sri Lankan government to gain the political support of the majority. The initial request of the Tamils was for a Federal State in the Tamil area. The response of the Government was to unleash violence on peaceful Tamil protests and to increase the discriminatory measures. It was then that the Tamils pressed for a Separate Tamil State (Eelam). It is important to appreciate that the Tamils are not trying to divide and destroy a country but to reverse a British colonial policy which had clearly not worked.

It was not the LTTE but the Tamil people who, in the 1977 General election(the last with a credible result) voted overwhelmingly for a Seperate Tamil State and gave their elected parliamentarians a mandate to pursue such a result. It was the abysmal failure of these elected representatives to make any headway using democratic means that resulted in the Tamil militants picking up arms to establish such a goal by force, much as what Nelson Mandela and the ANU did to get the racist South African government to abandon its policy of apartheid.

Had the Tamil militants not gone the way they did, the elected representatives of the Tamil people would still be grovelling at the feet of Sinhala politicians as they have done over the past 50 years. There would have been no Peace Talks or a search for any solution to address the problems faced by the Tamil ‘minority’. Had Mandela and his group not acted in the way they did to take on the South African government, apartheid would still be flourishing in South Africa. To White South African eyes, Mandela was a terrorist who should be jailed (and was), to international eyes he was a statesman who deserved a Nobel Prize (and got it). So also Yasser Arafat, another Nobel Prize winner, leader of the PLO whose acts of violence dwarfs anything that the LTTE have done.

If some of Sri Lanka’s political leaders who have directed the mass killings of Tamil civilians and the Heads of the Armed Forces who carried these out (which included mass ‘disappearances’ of those in their custody, some of whom were tortured and buried alive), are taken before the International Court in the Hague on a charge of genocide, I doubt if they will go unscathed.

The EU declaration

In the context outlined above, the recently released EU statement condemning one party ot the on-going negotiations puts the credibility of the EU on the line.

1. The declaration condemns the “continuing violence and terrorism of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)”. There is no condemnation by the EU of the much more serious violence and terrorism of the Sri Lankan armed forces and the paramilitary groups armed and supported by them.

Where were the EU nations when the armed forces launched an assault on Jaffna with half a million civilians (“Operation Thunder” followed by “Operation Riviressa” (Sun Ray)? Half a million people had to flee the city to escape the onslaught. The then UN Secretary General called on international governments to “assist the uprooted people of Jaffna”. Was this not government terrorism unleashed on the Tamil people in the North? Was this not an attempt by the Sri Lankan government to pursue a political goal, by what the EU itself describes as “totally unacceptable methods”. If so, why did the EU nations not condemn this in the same language that they have now thought fit to “declare”?

2. The EU declaration claims that “the present political goals of such totally unacceptable methods only serve to damage the LTTE’s standing and credibility as a negotiating partner”. But that is precisely what the Sri Lankan government has done over many years. The EU’s double standard is blatant hypocrisy.

3. The EU “repeats the condemnation of the shocking murder of Lakshman Kadirgamar….” For a start, there is no evidence that the LTTE were responsible unless the EU has some undisclosed information. It is more likely that the EU is acting as a mouthpiece for the Sri Lankan Government whose credibility has been questioned by internationally credible human rights groups over many years.

Could we ask the EU to turn to the shocking mass murder thousands of Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan armed forces who have indiscriminately bombed and shelled Tamil civilians who had a right to be where they were i.e. peacefully living in their homes? It would appear that Tamil civilian lives are of lesser value (lesser mortals) to the EU.

4. The EU is “actively considering the formal listing of the LTTE as a terrorist organization”. Precisely what would this achieve? The exclusion of one of the main negotiators from the Conference Table? And what would that achieve?

The EU, in particular the UK “presently leading the EU”, should know that with IRA bombs exploding all over London, the British government banned the IRA. What did that achieve? Nothing. When the reality of being unable to negotiate with a banned organization dawned, the IRA was “de-banned”! The EU in general and the UK in particular, seem to have learned nothing from past blunders.

5. The EU “has agreed that with immediate effect, delegates from the LTTE will no longer be received in any of the EU Member States…” What exactly is the EU trying to achieve? To opt out of facilitating a negotiated settlement? Is that acceptable behaviour of a supposedly responsible body?

6. The EU has agreed that member States will “take necessary measures to check and curb illegal and undesirable activities (including issues of funding and propaganda) by the LTTE”. What about issues of funding, propaganda and of even greater concern, the supply of weapons to the Sri Lankan government? Is the ‘end use’ of such military assistance for a country to fight and destroy its own people, of no concern to the EU? It would appear so from the recent partisan declaration of the EU.

7. "...The EU “calls on the LTTE not least to take immediate public steps to demonstrate their commitment to the peace process and the willingness to change”. For the record, it was the LTTE that initiated the Ceasefire even befor the then Sri Lankan Government did so. The EU needs to check its facts. Would the EU call on the Sri Lankan government ”to demonstrate …. willingness to change” by abandoning its declared policy that Sri Lanka is a Sinhalese Buddhist nation despite the fact that Sri Lanka is a multiethnic, multicultural and multi religious country, and repeal sections of the Constitution in which this is guaranteed? If not, why not?.."

The reality

It is time that the EU recognized the reality on the ground. Whether one considers the LTTE to be Liberation/Freedom Fighters or Terrorists, two things are crystal clear.

The first is that they are here to stay. They will not go away, be bombed out or “smashed”. That will not happen, indeed the opposite. They have grown from an insignificant group whose very existence was doubted in the early 1970s to one of the most powerful and best organized military organizations in the world. They have also established a de facto State in the area under their control (Wanni) which is far more efficient than anything in the Sinhalese area and infinitely more honest and free from corruption. The handling of the recent Tsunami disaster was evidence of this and was commended by several NGOs.

The second is that the LTTE is a key player in any negotiated settlement of the ethnic problem. It is not a “marginal player” that can be, isolated, antagonized or banned. Those who cannot appreciate this are living in the land of make-believe

To claim that the LTTE are the cause of the problem is arrant nonsense. The LTTE is not the cause of the problem but the result. The cause of the problem is Sinhala-Buddhist ethno-religious chauvinism – this destructive concept that multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-cultural Sri Lanka is a Sinhala-Buddhist nation which effectively excludes the Tamils. If that is so, then there is no option to the establishment of a Tamil nation.

The timing of the declaration

The EU declaration is not only seriously flawed but its timing is disastrous. Sri Lanka is facing a critical period. Prime Minister Rajapakse, who is the Government-favoured Presidential candidate, has just signed a pact with the so-called Marxist JVP (read ‘political opportunists’) who have done so much damage to Sri Lanka (in two insurrections in1971 and in 1988) and the politically active Buddhist clergy who, by their ethno-religious chauvinism have prevented any solution to the problems faced by the Tamils. These extremists and opportunists have declared their crucial support to Mr. Rajapakse on condition that he tears up the Peace Pact and abandons the Tsunami relief to the Tamil areas. The recent EU declaration will give enormous support to these extremists and strengthen their hand. If these extremist forces triumph, it will be the restart of war and the total destruction of the country or what is left of it. Should this happen, the EU countries cannot absolve themselves from blame.

The EU can make a number of substantial contributions to facilitate the peace process in Sri Lanka. Issuing irresponsible ‘declarations’ will not be one.

Dr.Brian Senewiratne                                                                     Australia

One Party State in Sri Lanka: Political Ideology - Anti Tamil

Recent revelations have confirmed that there may be several political parties in the Sinhala South, but only one ideology – being anti-Tamil. There is the right wing United National Party (UNP), the supposedly socialist Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the so-called “Marxist” Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), the Marxists of yester-year, the Lanka Sama Samaga Party (LSSP), the political party of not-so-clean-shaven men in yellow robes, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), and many more of their ilk. In reality they are all different names for one party policy – anti-Tamil.

The only difference between these parties is the degree of their ‘anti-Tamilness’. It extends from the extreme anti-Tamil chauvinism of the JHU based on a ‘pure’ Sinhala-Buddhist State, followed closely behind by the anti-Tamil JVP based on political opportunism which has replaced their Marxism, the ‘not-to-be-left-behind’ ex-Marxists in the LSSP, and the anti-Tamil stance of the two main Sinhala parties, the SLFP and the UNP. Every one of these parties without exception tries to outdo each other in their ‘anti-Tamilness’ to secure the electoral support of the Sinhala majority which they hope will propel them to political power (the passport to mega-corruption in Sri Lanka).

This anti-Tamil game has been played since Independence, indeed well before that. While still under British rule, Sinhala politicians even decided to have a pan-Sinhalese Board of Ministers, excluding the Tamils despite the fact that they had some outstanding Tamil politicians supporting the Government, some even in it. The alarm bells should have rung then. However there is no point in bells ringing if there are no ears open to hear them. The ears were shut, and these included those of the British who were more interested in leaving the country in the hands of Sinhalese capitalists who would play ball with them. Safeguarding the interests of the Tamil people was as far from British thinking as was their land from Ceylon, as it then was.

It is this single factor, this obsessive anti-Tamil populism, that has prevented the building of a nation. After 57 years of Independence, Sri Lanka is still a State with two warring nations, a Sinhala nation and a Tamil nation. The country had been unable to emerge as a single nation thanks to the lack of vision, and of integrity, of a succession of Sinhala politicians. This has not been recognized by the international community because of a massive propaganda campaign mounted by successive Sri Lankan governments, especially in the last three decades. What exists is a Sinhala-Buddhist State that has effectively excluded the Tamils who form some 18% of the population.

It is not possible to look at the future without looking at the past. I therefore make no apology for doing so. In the run-up to Independence, two groups of anti-Tamil Sinhala chauvinists (Senanayake and Bandaranaike) sunk their minimal differences and combined to form the UNP. They then sucked in some ‘hopeful’ Tamils (who blindly hoped that a single nation was a possibility), to present a united front to the British. The British were not unaware of the ethnic tensions and serious Tamil fears of discrimination under Sinhala rule after they left, but were ‘happy to be bluffed’.

This charade of Sinhala-Tamil unity started falling apart within months of Independence when the anti-Tamilness of the Sinhala leadership showed its hand. In one of the first acts of Independent Ceylon, a million Plantation Tamils were disenfranchised and decitizenised in one of the worst acts of political savagery in modern times, indeed of any time.

A few Tamils saw the writing on the wall and split from the UNP to form the (Tamil) Federal Party recognising that a Federal Tamil State was necessary for co-existence with the Sinhalese.

Following the breakup of Senanayake’s UNP because of the personal ambitions of one man, S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike, the current President’s father, the Sinhala voter had a choice between a blatantly anti-Tamil SLFP under Bandaranaike and the equally anti-Tamil UNP under Senanayake. Political power has regularly oscillated between the UNP and the SLFP based, not on any material difference in policy, but on the degree of anti-Tamil measures on offer to the Sinhala majority.

As the anti-Tamil measures adopted by successive Sinhala ‘leaders’ came into effect, the numbers in the Tamil Federal Party swelled and the demand for a Federal Tamil State was replaced by a call for a Separate Tamil State, Eelam. Eelam is effectively the creation of Sinhala politicians with no vision and no interest in nation-building.

The blatant anti-Tamil stance of the SLFP under Bandaranaike, his wife and daughter have been matched by a similar anti-Tamil stance by the UNP under Senanayake, Jayawardene and Wickremasinghe (all of them kinsmen).

Over the years, Tamil political parties have merely been suckers who have been conned into supporting one or other of the main Sinhala parties, which were trying to get into power and then being ignored once they did.

The plight of the Tamil civilians has been pathetic. They have been subjected to mass murder, bombing with a total destruction of their property, rape, arrest and detention without charge or trial, “disappearances”, torture – in fact every human rights violation that has filled the publications of internationally credible human rights organizations for the past three decades. Even the former UN Secretary General has expressed concern at what has been done to the Tamil people. Yet, the world has done nothing other than to arm the Sri Lankan Government to bomb and kill its own people.

With a succession of General Elections in the recent past, I have repeatedly pointed out that Sri Lankan Elections are to elect a Sinhala Parliament – the Tamils being no more than spectators, if that.

The country now faces a Presidential Election to elect a Sinhala President. It is not an issue for the Tamils although they are nearly a fifth of the population. The two leading Sinhala candidates – Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, the SLFP nominee, and ex-Prime Minister Ranil Wckremasinghe, the UNP nominee, are as anti-Tamil as each other.

Rajapakse’s anti-Tamil stance has been obvious, made even more so after he signed a pact with the anti-Tamil extremists in the JVP and JHU. The blatant anti-Tamil acts of the out-going President, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, the leader of Rajapakse’s party, are too well known to be detailed here. Her 12 year rule has been described as the worst the country has ever had. If her nominee, Rajapakse, succeeds her in next week’s ballot, it will be more of the same, perhaps worse.

From the other side of the Sinhala political divide, Wickremasinghe’s anti-Tamil stance, has recently been clearly exposed by two UNP stalwarts. Naveen Dissanayake, the son of a former UNP Presidential hopeful, has recently boasted that it was the UNP which engineered a split in the Tamil Tigers by ‘arranging’ for the renegade Tiger commander Karuna to break away from the Tigers. The report claims that this had the full support of Wickremasinghe who had signed a Peace Pact with the Tigers and was supposedly negotiating with them.

The sordid details are interesting but of little importance. One of Wickremasinghe’s nominated MPs, a Muslim from the volatile East, ‘arranged’ the split in the Tamil Tiger camp by offering various rewards to a Tiger leader from the East to break ranks. The MP has left the country for greener pastures, so has the family of the renegade, now luxuriating in a house in Malaysia, generously provided by the Sri Lankan government using tax-payers’ money. What has been left behind is a complete mess in the East, the new ‘killing fields’ of Sri Lanka. In effect a match was tossed into a tinder box, which was the ethnically volatile East. The ethnic flames may well be uncontrollable, even with the unlikely possibility of the introduction of an international peace-enforcing force. Such are the irresponsible acts of Sri Lankan ‘leaders’. Small wonder the country is in a mess. With leaders such as this, who needs enemies?

Dissanayake goes on to explain Wickremasinghe’s strategy to deal with the Tigers – to get the Americans and the Indians to fight the Tigers should the war restart. Apparently this was arranged with George Bush and Sonia Gandhi when Wickremasinghe was Prime Minister, despite his peace pact and on-going peace negotiations with the Tigers. Presumably, inviting the Indians to take the oil tank facility in Trincomalee on the Eastern seaboard, was part of Wickremasinghe’s ‘strategy’. The Indians can now be invited to defend their property, in the process killing even more Tamils than they did when Rajiv Gandhi marched his troops into Northern Sri Lanka at the invitation of Wickremasinghe’s kinsman, the then President J.R.Jayawardena. The actors are different but the games are the same.

Dissanayake’s claims were confirmed by Milinda Moragoda, a close confidante of Wickremasinghe, who was a member of the UNP government’s negotiating team for talks with the Tigers between September 2002 and March 2003. If evidence of Sinhala duplicity is needed, there it is in full measure.

What amazes me, a Sinhalese, with no political barrow to push, or reward to gain, is that the Tamils, both in Sri Lanka and abroad, still feel that it is possible for the Tamil people to negotiate with the Sinhala government of whatever political complexion, to enable them to live in equality, dignity and safety in the country of their birth. As I have said, the Sinhala political parties, irrespective of their label, have in effect one political ideology – of being totally and shamelessly anti-Tamil. This anti-Tamil outfit has now put forward two Presidential candidates who are two sides of the same coin. ‘Heads” the Sinhalese win, ‘Tails’ the Tamils lose.

If anti-Tamil candidates are all that the Sinhala polity can come up with, and the inevitable outcome, an anti-Tamil President and a Sinhala State of which he is the President, then there can be no alternative to the establishment of a separate Tamil State, Eelam. It confounds me that .. the international community, cannot see this stark reality. This article is written in the hope that they will. A remote possibility, since there are none as blind as those who will not see.

Dr. Brian Senewiratne                                                         Australia