Shenali D Waduge

 Much of the terminologies in use appear to provide loopholes and enable lawyers to wriggle through technicalities that project & at times protect terrorists as freedom fighters, insurgents while to the victims they are nothing but terrorists. It is in looking at the backgrounds of these terror groups, how they arose, how they got arms and weapons and training and the international campaigning designed to promote them highlights a lot of hypocrisies taking place. However, the present Foreign Minister has wrongfully suggested that Sri Lanka suffered a civil conflict. This statement is anything but true. The common enemy was the LTTE. The victims were Sinhalese, Muslims, Tamils and even foreigners. It is only those that indirectly/directly benefited from LTTE that wish to portray a wrong version. It is time we set the story straight.

What we should conclude is that whatever terminology applied wherever and whenever unarmed civilians are subject to serial crimes that cover suicides, planned bomb attacks on civilians and civilian installations, assassinations, heinous methods of murder – these are acts of terror and by terrorists. LTTE thrived and became notorious on account of these terror acts and the victims were not a specific group but people (Sinhalese/Muslims/Foreigners and even Tamils) this denies them and their supporters to claim they stood for the rights of Tamils and fought on behalf of Tamils. It is on account of LTTE’s terror ways that it remains proscribed as a ‘terrorist organization’ by 32 nations including Sri Lanka.

A civil conflict to be defined as one requires warring parties to be from the same country, to fight for a political change or separate state and have at least 1000 people killed on both sides.

Though both parties are from the same country what needs to be said is that the armed forces were not warring but were defending the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country. They were engaged on state service.

Next we must look at how the warring parties emerged. This question is important for there is little uniformity related to laws applicable for States that sponsor terrorist groups. Relevancy of this to Sri Lanka is that the ‘warring party’ did not just happen, they were actually created and made to happen. Thus, LTTE joins a list of over 30 unemployed Sri Lankan Tamil youth taken clandestinely to India and trained by retired Indian military and Indian intelligence with complicity of the Indian Government. They came out into the open following 1983 riots making us to now wonder whether the riots were pre-planned and the work of neighbour’s intelligence apparatus giving to them a ready-made slogan ‘Eelam’ and ‘Tamil grievances’ both of which find their roots in India and possibly the modus operandi was to pass the headache to Sri Lanka to realize two objectives – delay calls for self-determination in Tamil Nadu and destabalizing Sri Lanka and stall its development.

We still wait for India to be investigated or in the least made to answer for its role in creating the militant groups of which LTTE emerged leader having killed the leaders of the other groups.

Similarly, virtually all of the other ‘wars’ conflicts or any other names given find their roots to nations that manufacture and sell arms, syndicates that are into selling illegal arms as well as entities involved in cross-activities that cover illegal narcotics, arms smuggling, human smuggling etc. A thorough search may find that all these entities are in fact connected.  So too are the sub-entities (media/human rights/think tanks/charities/UN & entities) all of whom find their ownership/shareholders/funding to the same sets of people who control the money flow that generates the apparatus to start wars and uses breathing space via peace talks/negotiations/ceasefires where in walks in their other partners to advance further agendas related to politically weakening targeted states so that ‘their nominees’ are placed in an larger plan that is all about profit for a handful of people and to satisfy their sadism in seeing both sides of a conflict suffer – emotionally, physically, economically and in whatever other way that is planned.

Returning to Sri Lanka, the conflict is neither Civil nor Ethnic for several reasons

• LTTE & other armed militants were all made in India clandestinely as early as mid 1970s.
• The segments of Tamils that supported LTTE was not because they agreed to LTTE’s murderous ways but saw it as an opportunity to rule over their own (high castes ruling the low castes) while for others (mostly middle class) the ‘discrimination’ served as a blank cheque to win refugee status and thereafter permanent residency in western ultimately only the low caste/impoverished remained to be guinea pigs for both LTTE and the upper caste/class Tamils with a handful of them given rank & file within the LTTE simply as a ruse.
• The conflict was not ethnic because LTTE’s first murder were Tamils (Tamil Mayor Duraiappa & thereafter Tamil policemen) the other Tamil victims included teachers, public servants, principals, academics, Tamil politicians, clergy and even the one and only Tamil Foreign Minister Mr. Lakshman Kadiragamar. In addition, LTTE leadership did not hesitate to even kill their own cadres (child soldiers who ran away, combatants who wanted to leave, injured cadres and enemy cadres) We can safely presume that LTTE killed more Tamils than the world is accusing Sri Lanka of killing and these numbers can be established with names unlike the ghost figures been thrown at Sri Lanka.
• The conflict is not civil because – the majority of Tamils live among Sinhalese which can be statistically proven. At no time have the Sinhalese ordinary masses fought with the Tamils and all occasions that are being quoted have been politically motivated and politically arranged which the Sinhalese have condoned and wished to take no part in (1983 riots as an example still awaits acknowledgement from Tamils that Sinhalese looked after them and kept them in their homes for safety)

• The ‘discrimination’ tag has to also be nullified because inspite of repeated requests no one has been able to establish any lists of grievances that showcase Sinhalese enjoying what Tamils are constitutionally, legally and legislatively denied. In no other country does a minority with less than 12% have got official language status (where money is wasted on translating anything and everything into Tamil), Tamils own businesses, hold property (including over 90% of flats in Colombo), Tamils steer the wholesale market, Tamils are employed in both public and private sector even at the highest levels. Nonetheless, it cannot be said for the Sinhalese who are over 74% of the populace. The Sinhalese are not able to buy land, purchase property, work or reside in North Sri Lanka and those who had been living even before 1948 have been chased out and those who wish to return are treated in such a way to make them uncomfortable to stay with the LTTE-created TNA going so far as to say Sinhalese are not welcome and no Sinhalese can enter the North. None of these racist statements have even so much as got a rebuttal from the very organizations that jump when a minority sneezes to accuse the Sinhalese of being the culprit!

If the communication and media apparatus (international/local) had not been biased in view of the links to their ownership & funding, the world would realize that it is not anyone else but the Sinhalese who are the real victims and the reverse discrimination is applicable to them. It was the Sinhale Nation that was held captive by the British, it was the State religion Buddhism that was reduced to be accepted as the foremost religion and the heritage, culture and traditions that have had to accommodate while no reciprocation has taken place by other parties. Today, that Eelam project has become a hobby horse for a host of people. For the Church, it is a means of harvesting souls, for the NGOs/UN & others it is a means of employment and the ability to on behalf of those funding them to deliver on their hidden objectives, for foreign governments puppets of an invisible cartel of elite people wars and friction satisfies their sadism.

Unfortunately, for some uncomprehensible reason it is Tamil holding foreign passports and Tamils living among the Sinhalese with no intention of ever going to reside in the North who are pushing for an Eelam based on some mythical notion embedded into their minds by their leaders.

Our foreign minister nonetheless needs to be corrected – Sri Lanka’s conflict was neither civil nor ethnic. The country was held ransom to a group of foreign-trained militants with a megalomaniac leader hell bent on reigning supreme while the Tamil leadership used it as a time-gap to fine tune their demands to eventually lead their own though in the larger picture of things none of these protagonists will fulfil their aspirations because those funding wars/conflicts have a totally different plan altogether – the bloodshed, the talks, the ceasefires are just to add color to a very ugly outcome for all involved. Unless, we realize this we, the nation and our future are doomed.

Shenali D Waduge