C. Wijeyawickrema, LL.B., Ph.D.

“Give us what Colombo gets”

“Col. Karuna” was the first major Tamil politician to present the Tamil problems from a non-racial perspective. For this, Mano Ganeshan branded Karuna as a “Tamil traitor.” This had been the usual habit of Tamil separatists in Ceylon/Sri Lanka since 1920s. Even G.G. Ponnambalam was given this title when he worked with the Colombo government. Jaffna mayor Alfred Duraiyappa was another. In reality Karuna was only copying what the JVP was saying in 1971-milk to Colombo and forage to villages. Even the Youth Commission Report submitted to R Premadasa by a group of Colombo intellectuals paid lip service to this idea.

Colombo paradigm- colonialism-Colombo black-whites

Colonialism in Ceylon promoted and created a Tamil separatist movement based on Pakistan demand and the Dravidasthan demand in India. Exploitation of colonies was a project hidden under another project, the job given by the God to Christian white masters-to civilize the Orientals and Africans and Arabians by converting them to Christianity. The twin projects, exploitation and conversion to Christianity-created uneven land developments and discriminatory societies. For example, in Ceylon these projects created two Ceylons: (1) Colombo Ceylon- Christian dominated, English-speaking, foreign-educated, commercial, capitalist and CCS agents, and (2) Rural Ceylon- Sinhala Buddhist, Hindu Tamil, Muslim, poor people engaged in farming, fishing and manual labor. They drank the tea dust collected from tea factory floors while the rich Colombo class drank the BOP (broken orange pecko). The roads and railways became the drains that exported the resource to London from the Colombo harbor. This set up which continued until 2005 is called the Colombo paradigm.

Under this set up Colombo people started fighting for power and a group of Christian Tamils in Colombo decided to have a separate country for them. The concentration of power, development, infrastructure, money, jobs etc . all in and around Colombo gave an opportunity for Tamil separatists to mislead the Jaffna and Trinco Tamils. The neglect of remote areas or even a few miles away from Colombo was an all island problem and not just a North and East problem. This was why JVP could work in 1971. The surrender of NP and EP to Tamil separatists in 1987 by JRJayawardena and in 2002 by Ranil W or various packages in between by CBK-GLPeiris-Neelan Thiruchelvam trio were in line with the Colombo paradigm.

The challenge to this Colombo paradigm and the Tamil separatism that thrived under it began during November 2005 presidential election and completed on May 18, 2009 with the elimination of Prabakaran. Col. Karuna’s conversion from a fighter for a mythical Tamil homeland to a reasonable Tamil person who decided to learn Sinhala and work as a Sri Lankan citizen was due to his realization the hard way that the Sinhalese have the military capability to end Tamil terrorism militarily. The unreasonable Tamil separatism demand that began in the 1920s with bad examples in 1949 (Tamil state party), 1976 (Vaddukoddei resolution), Thimpu demands, ISGA, and PTOMS continued because Sinhala Colombo politicians were prisoners unable to say that the Tamil demand was unreasonable. They were all enjoying milk and honey from Colombo and did not think seriously of the rest of the country.

The public statements by Karuna and Pillian (both ministers now) that they are learning Sinhala must be compared with another change on the Sinhala side. RPremadasa knew Tamil so well, but he had no courage to speaking in public in Tamil. This was like the presidential candidate Albert Gore refusing to say which soft drink he preferred, Coke or Dr Pepper! It was Mahinda R who broke this barrier. Now even RanilW tries to use bad Tamil words like Poda!

Under the Karuna paradigm, people are empowered at the village council level and there are no homelands of any kind. A new constitution similar to the 1947 Constitution will be the best. Politicians should not make the blunder of what USA has done where no good president can do any good work under three-separate branches of governments and a system controlled by the military-industrial-congress complex. While separation of power and the rule of law are needed to some extent, especially an independent judiciary, what Machiavelli proposed was not a strict separation powers, but the distribution of sum total of powers to as many units as possible. This kind of local unit level sovereignty can be compared to the independence of a chief monk of a village temple. He is not under the control of a “Pope.” The Panchayathi Raj Institutes in India is an example in this regard. Our own system of Gamsabhava was 2500 years old.

Old Sarath and new Sarath

When Sarath Fonseka was working under Mahinda R and Gotabhaya R he supported the Karuna paradigm which was based on reasonable treatment to all communities. He said, “Sri Lanka is a Sinhala Buddhist country and minorities should enjoy equal rights and equal opportunities with the majority. But, minorities should not make unreasonable demands.” This statement of SarathF was so similar to the statement made by the late professor Gunapala Malalasekera in 1954. GP was only asking the restoration of lost rights of the Sinhala Buddhists when DSSenanayaka, under the advice of Ivor Jennings told the Buddists that there was no Precept called “I take the refuge of the Government.” Due to corrupt machination of the Colombo politicians today Buddhists are facing double-jeopardy-the paper called the constitution says Buddhism is given foremost place but nothing extra was given to it. While outside agents use this paper to say Buddhists are discriminating against the Christians!

Sarath is now trying to get MahindaR’s job and he is playing a different tune. The Tamil separatist who lost the battle on May 18, 2009, were forced to give up separatists talk within Sri Lanka. But because of Sarath’s unwise behavior those who had to hide their plans are now getting oxygen to come out. All they need is about 5000 civilians to resurrect the ghost of SJV Chelvanayagam, who was identified as the Moses of Sri Lanka by the Colombo Bishop Lakshman Wickremasighe, uncle of RanilW. They will go on demonstrations as civilians while NGOs and INGOs make films for the world televisions. In the meantime buried weapons will stay underground safely until the next round of war.

Several American professors wrote about the need to eradicate terrorism totally as if a cancer cannot be cured by leaving some remnants. The victor can be generous to the vanquished only if he wins it completely. This was what the great king Ashoka did or Alexander the Great did when he defeated the Indian king in India. Because there are some Tamil separatists like Sambandhan of the fake TNA or Rudrakumaran in New York or Robert Blake in USA or David Miliband in London, one cannot say that the army should closed down its military activities. What Sarath is now promising to TNA is not a person with 40 years of military experience should do. He is agreeing to dismantle the security network against separatist infiltrations, and to erect the political skeleton needed to renew the Tamil separatist fight by merging N and E and supporting 13-A.

The more Sarath opens his mouth the more we are convinced that he has either willingly or unknowingly become an agent or a victim of an international imperialistic coup to do a regime change in Sri Lanka. After all one can now suspect that his green card was not a luck by chance but a planned name drawn from a possible agents list prepared by an American ambassador, just like so many Fulbright scholarships or even Nobel Prizes go to political needed men and women. Sri Lankan voters who did not fall into RanilW trap in 2005 will not fall into RanilW trap in 2010. We know God Vishnu is protecting the island from evil.