Home
Second Class or More Than Equal? By S. L. Gunasekera
On June 11, 1990, while the LTTE were engaged in purported `peace talks' with the government, they murdered no less than 600 Sinhalese and Muslim police officers serving in the eastern province who had laid down their arms and surrendered after being promised safe conduct and release at Ampara. On August 3, 1990, the LTTE murdered 103 Muslims and injured 70 while they were at prayer in the Jumma and Hussainiya mosques at Kathankudy. Eight days later, they murdered a further 116 Muslims at Eravur. On January 31, 1996, the LTTE exploded a bomb near the Central Bank killing 82 people who belonged to all communities and injuring 1338. On January 25, 1998, they exploded a bomb at the Sri Dalada Maligawa, killing 10 Sinhalese and causing immense damage to the historic shrine.
On May 17, 1998, the LTTE murdered Sarojini Yogeswaran, the newly elected mayoress of Jaffna and on September 11, 1998, murdered her successor, Mayor Pon Sivapalan. Assistant Municipal Commissioner Pathma- nathan, two municipal engineers - Easwaran and Pathmarajah, Architect Mallika Rasaratnam, a Tamil typist, Brigadier Susantha Mendis, another Sinhalese army officer and five police officers (four of whom were Sinhalese) were also murdered.
First taste of blood
No meetings were held; no demonstrations planned and no vituperative statements were made by any of the so called `moderate' Tamil political parties or their allies to protest against these or any of the manifold unspeakable atrocities committed by the LTTE since their leader Prabhakaran first tasted blood by murdering the unarmed and elderly Jaffna Mayor, Alfred Duraiappah on July 27, 1975.
However, the moderates who viewed murders of thousands of Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims by these 'boys' were beside themselves with rage when on June 2, 1999, the hoisted CWC flag was brought down at the CWC headquarters and an attempt was made to burn it by a small number of those who participated in a procession organised by the Sinhala Veera Vidhana and the National Movement Against Terrorism whilst dispersing after the conclusion of that procession.
The procession was organised to hand over a letter to the president, protesting against the transfer of the senior superintendent of police Nuwara Eliya, at the behest of the CWC. What followed was set out in the article under the heading `Volte face by CWC' in The Sunday Leader (June 20, 1999).
The DWC organised a snap public meeting at the Sugathadasa Stadium sports hotel on to June 8, 1999, where verbal fire and brimstone were directed at the Sinhala Veera Vidhana and the National Movement Against Terrorism by representatives of the CWC, DWC, ACTC and the Marx Brothers of Sri Lankan politics - Vasudeva Nanayakkara and Wickremabahu Karunaratne (by proxy granted to Abdul Nizar).
This was followed by a call by the CWC for a procession from the Khan Clock Tower down Main Street to the Gasworks Street junctions and a public meeting on June 11, 1999, to protest against the alleged conduct of the Sinhala Veera Vidhana.
On the following day, a meeting of the organisers of the proposed protest was attended by representatives of the CWC, DWC, TELO, ACTC, MULF and NSSP and was held at the office of CWC MP R. Yogarajan (who, albeit fortuitously, owes his seat in parliament to the LTTE in that, having contested the Colombo district on the UNP ticket in July 1994 and failed to get elected to parliament, he entered parliament on November 14, 1994 to replace Weerasinghe Mallimarachchi after he, together with Gamini Dissanayake and 53 others were murdered by a bomb exploded by the LTTE at a public meeting at Grandpass on October 24, 1994).
At this meeting it was unanimously decided that the procession and meeting must be held even if the police refuses to give permission.
Permission to hold the procession was refused because the police was involved with the southern provincial council election scheduled for June 11, the very day the procession was supposed to take place.
The proposed mass protest against the Sinhala Veera Vidhana and the National Movement Against Terrorism being postponed to June 18, the CWC later decided to cancel it in view of certain assurances which were allegedly given to it by the government that they will look into the complaint of the CWC.
All bark and no bite
To this cacophony of voices screaming against the Sinhala Veera Vidhana and National Movement Against Terrorism was added a diatribe by Kumar Ponnambalam, a man whose significance lies in his being one who is all bark and no bite.
Ponnambalam chose to label the lowering and attempted to burn the CWC flag as "Buddhist terrorism" in an article headed "Advent of Buddhist Terrorism" published in The Sunday Leader of June 20, 1999. In the same article he launched an attack on Ven. Maduluwawe Sobitha thero - the malice and viciousness of which was only matched by its falsity.
According to Ponnambalam, the Ven. Maduluwawe Sobhitha Thero was a leader of the mob that burned the CWC flag. He was actually nowhere near the scene when the CWC flag was brought down and an attempt was made to burn it.
While labelling the "violence" visited on that inanimate object, the flag of the CWC, as being `Buddhist Terrorism' Ponnambalam (like Thondaman) adamantly refused to categorise any of the fiendish atrocities committed by the LTTE including the foul murder of that 60 year old widow Sarojini Yogeswaran (whose husband V. Yogeswaran who was also murdered by the LTTE on July 13, 1989, became the member of parliament for Jaffna in 1977 after defeating Kumar Ponnambalam by a majority of 9291 votes, as acts of terrorism).
Sarojini Yogeswaran did not, like Kumar Ponnambalam, tour the world capitals in perfect safety and comfort to blow hot air against the successive government of Sri Lanka and the Sinhalese and return to Sri Lanka to continue to live among the Sinhalese in Colombo in equal comfort and safety.
On the contrary, she, with consummate courage and genuine concern and commitment for the welfare of the Tamil people of Jaffna, knowingly put her life at stake and finally sacrificed it by seeking to give them a better life. Yet these moderates who showed such indignation about violence visited on a flag were hardly moved by this or any other murders of human beings by the LTTE.
It is pertinent at this stage to revert to the reason for the procession of the Sinhala Veera Vidhana and the National Movement Against Terrorism on June 2, 1999. The National Movement Against Terrorism (and not the Sinhala Veera Vidhana as falsely claimed by the CWC) organised a meeting to be held in the Public Library of Nuwara Eliya at 2.00 p.m. April 2, 1999, in order to launch in Nuwara Eliya, a booklet containing its proposals for defeating the Tigers.
No word against Tamils
The police gave the National Movement Against Terrorism permission to hold that meeting. They advertised this meeting by pasting posters in public places and hanging a 60-foot banner opposite the post office. While reference was made in those posters to Tiger terrorism there was not one word in any of them against the Tamils in general or the CWC.
The CWC had also organised a meeting - namely, a May Day rally - to be held on the following day near the bus stand. There was clearly no way in which there could have been any conflict between the two meetings, which were to be held on different dates at different places.
Replete with the delusion of grandeur that Nuwara Eliya was the "kingdom" of the CWC where no organisation of Sinhalese could profess views different to those of their leader Saumyamoorthi Thondaman (to whom the Tigers are not terrorists.) The CWC took umbrage at the National Movement Against Terrorism having been given permission to hold that meeting and defaced its posters no sooner they were pasted.
The members of the National Movement Against Terrorism having acted with commendable restraint, peace prevailed despite the wanton provocation offered by the CWC. Finally on April 29, 1999, armed goons of the CWC demanded that the 60-foot banner opposite the post office be brought down. The National Movement Against Terrorism naturally refused to oblige and a tense confrontation engineered by the CWC ensued with the police intervening to maintain peace.
Finally, after much political pressure had been brought to bear on the police by the CWC, the police pleaded with the National Movement Against Terrorism to bring down its banner and they reluctantly agreed to do so at about 4.00 a.m. on April 30, 1999.
The National Movement Against Terrorism held its meeting as scheduled. The meeting was over by about 5.00 p.m. The CWC held its rally as scheduled on the following day and contrary to the hysterical accusation of the CWC, neither the Sinhala Veera Vidhana nor the National Movement Against Terrorism did or sought to do anything to disrupt it. However, it would appear that the CWC even went to the extent of blaming the Sinhala Veera Vidhana rather than the Ceylon Electricity Board for a power failure that is alleged to have occurred during its rally.
Despite having been able to deface the posters of the National Movement Against Terrorism and intimidate its members with impunity, the CWC was not satisfied - it wanted action taken against the Nuwara Eliya police for unpardonable crime of permitting a group of Sinhalese, namely, the members of the National Movement Against Terrorism, to exercise their fundamental right of the freedom of speech at the Public Library.
A pusillanimous government which is ever ready to do anything and make any compromise in order to hang on to the support of the CWC obliged and Senior Superintendent of Police Nuwara Eliya Pujitha Jayasundera was precipitately transferred to the pool.
This was the cause of the procession of the Sinhala Veera Vidhana and the National Movement Against Terrorism of the June 2, 1999. It is significant to compare the conduct of the CWC vis-a-vis the meeting of the National Movement Against Terrorism which did not and could not have harmed or inconvenienced any denizen of Nuwara Eliya with its conduct vis-a-vis the blasting of several electricity transformers by the LTTE in the recent past which inconvenienced thousand of people and caused losses to the tune of millions to the country. The conduct of CWC in respect of these blasts was predictably, to do nothing and say nothing about them.
Outraged
Although many were outraged by these antics of the so called moderate Tamil political parties and the others who supported them, I for one was delighted by such antics - for they exposed with clarity, the absolute falsity of separatist propaganda, hypocrisy of these parties and some of the many dangers of implementing the government's "Devolution Package."
According to separatist propaganda, Tamils are second class citizens of Sri Lanka who are bereft of equality with the Sinhalese and live in constant fear of physical violence at the hands of the Sinhalese. If, this were so, would any Tamils have dared to hold meetings, press conferences etc. and attack two Sinhalese organisations like the Sinhala Veera Vidhana and the National Movement Against Terrorism?
Would any Tamils have even dreamt of organising a mass demonstration against these organisations of the Sinhalese in Colombo? Would Ponnambalam have been able to write vituperative articles against the Sinhalese, Sinhalese organisations and a highly venerated Buddhist monk like the venerable Maduluwawe Sobhitha Thero, have then published by a newspaper owned and edited by Sinhalese and continue to live in perfect safety and security among the Sinhalese.
They have been able to do all this because as they know full well, they enjoy equality with the Sinhalese in all aspects and have nothing whatsoever to fear from the Sinhalese whatever they may utter, however, nonsensical it may be, because the Sinhalese and organisations of the Sinhalese like the Sinhala Veera Vidhana and the National Movement Against Terrorism respect the legal rights of those opposed to them to express their views - for that is what democracy is about.
It is pertinent to contrast this liberalism of the Sinhalese and Sinhalese organisations like the Sinhala Veera Vidhana and the National Movement Against Terrorism with the total intolerance of any views opposed to their own of the LTTE and the CWC. The Tigers brook not a word dissent against them in the territory under their control and many a Tamil such as Dr. (Mrs.) Rajini Thirangama have paid with their lives for holding and expressing views contrary to those of the LTTE. The CWC, as evidenced by its conduct in respect of the meeting of the National Movement Against Terrorism at Nuwara Eliya, does not concede that an organisation of the Sinhalese has the right to express views that are opposed to their own in an area such as Nuwara Eliya which they consider to be their kingdom.
Proven beyond doubt
These so-called moderates have by their own conduct proved beyond doubt that separatist propaganda is founded on nothing more substantial rank falsehood.
The choleric rage displayed by these so called moderates about the attempt made to burn the flag of the CWC in the wake of unpardonable aggressive and oppressive conduct of the CWC in Nuwara Eliya, and the lack of even a hint of any comparable rage or demonstration of their opposition to the thousands of inhuman acts of naked terrorism committed against Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims by the LTTE over a period of more than two decades makeevident the fact that to them, Tamils - even criminal Tamils like the LTTE, can do no wrong and that wrongdoing is the sole monopoly of the Sinhalese.
All these happens while Sri Lanka is still essentially a unitary state where the police officers in all provinces are members of the Sri Lanka police force which functions under the government. In this scenario wherein the chauvinism and the intolerance of the so called moderates have been so clearly exposed by themselves, it is pertinent for those who still believe that the government's devolution package is a good and necessary piece of legislation to ponder on the question of what the fate of the Sinhalese in the northern and eastern province would be if all normal police powers and functions are devolved in their entirety to the proposed regions as contemplated by the package.