Let’s Leave Dichotomies & Dreams To Find A Decent, Democratic Answer

By Kusal Perera -March 30, 2013 

Kusal Perera

Last evening (28 March) a mail in my “Inbox” from CT said. “Three replies to you.” I went through all of them, beginning with Pon Chandran‘s and Dr. Paul Newman‘s second response, both Tamil activists from India and then SL Tamil Diaspora leader, Ms. Usha S. Sri Skanda-Rajah‘s very aggressive reply. The two Indian friends, Chandran in particular says, the human rights fraternity in India, especially the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) acknowledge and express their profound gratitude and respect to me, the “hypocrite” and the “cynic” in Ms. Sri Skanda-Rajah’s reply,who would have to “eat his own words”. The only “sin” I committed was to argue how the SL Tamil conflict could be finally solved, or at least attempted to be solved.

Solving the “conflict” that is not just “post war”, but is “post LTTE” too, is actually the issue with most of them who desist accepting the ground reality in SL. They can not and they do not want to accept that “post LTTE” SL has no political space for a “Thamil Eelam”. I don’t blame these groups for their inability and reluctance to understand that truth, but I do blame these Diaspora groups for dragging the Tamil people in exile with an elusive “Eelam” for another 20 years or more to come. Over 30 years agoPrabhakaran promised them an “Eelam” and made them fund that “dream” for over 20 years to the tune of over 100 million dollars a year. He then helped bathe that “dream” in innocent blood, most unnecessarily. PresidentRajapaksa was the choice of Prabhakaran, over UNP candidate Wickramasinghe at the 2005 November presidential elections. They termed Wickramasinghe “a cunning fox” who tried to weave an international net to curb the LTTE during the 2002 CFA. LTTE therefore called on the Tamil people to boycott elections knowing very well, that could make Rajapaksa the next President.

Having allowed Rajapaksa to ascend the presidency, a week later on 27 November, 2005, Prabhakaran told the Tamil people, in his annual policy statement made as the “Mahavir Day” speech, since Rajapaksa is considered a “pragmatic leader” he would give one year for Rajapaksa to come up with a reasonable solution. He said from his Mullaitivu hide out,“Our people have lost patience, hope and reached the brink of utter frustration. They are not prepared to be tolerant any longer. The new government should come forward soon with a reasonable political framework that will satisfy the political aspirations of the Tamil people.” He made it sound “an urgent final appeal” and promised the Tamil people, if such offer is rejected, the LTTE “will, next year, intensify the struggle for self-determination, to establish self-government in a [Tamil] homeland.”

It was such stupidly arrogant pronouncements that made the Tamil people in exile fund his promise of “Eelam” in millions of hard earned dollars that left a still unbelievable human tragedy on our soil. That human tragedy could have still been avoided IF only, Prabhakaran accepted his “Eelam” project was defeated and over, when he decided to abandon Kilinochchi on 02 January, 2009 without a single shell fired. IF he actually wanted to avoid a human catastrophe in Vanni, he should have allowed the civilians to leave the conflict zone and fought his own battle to death, in Nandikadal or where ever he chose to. He proved he was not interested in civilian life. Prabhakaran therefore is as responsible as Rajapaksa is, for all the brutal deaths, for all the missing numbers, for all the displacements, for all the widows, for all the children who have lost their fathers, for all sons and daughters Tamil mothers had lost, my Tamil Nadu friends and the Diaspora groups keep saying it is “genocide”.

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