Shenali D Waduge

How many are able to grasp the real problem that prevails. The LTTE was just an ailment that lasted 3 decades because our leaders were not able to take a grip on the larger plan and nip that in the bud. Unless we see the issue from a global perspective we will never understand the scale and magnitude of the cancer that prevails. Unless and until we look at the reality of the numbers and figures the entire nation is doomed. The Sinhalese are only 14million against a world Tamil populace of 76million belonging to a country that the British created with a combined population of 1.3billion. These are the entities throwing their tentacles around our island nation having secured global positions and by the strength of their ability to raise funds they have succeeded in lobbying and winning people, parties and policies to their advantage. How far have the Sinhala leaders realized this challenge or even devised how to counter it? The politics being played has nothing to do with rights or grievances but a game to display power politics.

First we need to understand that Sri Lanka’s armed militancy had nothing to do with any ethnic element on account of the clandestine training and creation of armed militant groups by India in the late 1970s. This automatically removes the ethnic element of the conflict as LTTE targeted all the ethnic groups. Sri Lanka’s conflict is classified as a non-international armed conflict.

The Second factor is the Eelam claim linked to India’s historical goal to annex Sri Lanka to India. This can be clearly established in the demands made and India’s involvement claiming to be the negotiator of peace but invariably using the issue to secure its tentacles around Sri Lanka. The Indo-Lanka Accord, the 13^th amendment, bogus historical inferences in clauses of the 13^th amendment, various trade agreements all serve to justify and fulfil this historical annexation objective which is using ‘Tamils’ as the pawn. Wigneswaran is a pawn of India’s parachuted from Colombo to be made into Chief Minister as are many other politicians of all colors.

The next factor is the manner that the Tamil issue has been flogged to advance the geopolitics of the West’s pivot to Asia goal. Daya Gamage writing to the Asian Tribune cites a digital video conference that took place 40 days before the elimination of the LTTE (8 April 2009), between several US-based organizations representing members of the Tamil Diaspora and US Asst Secretary of State for South Asia Richard Boucher from US and US envoy Robert Blake in Colombo. These were the same personalities who were close to the LTTE advocating a separate state. They became veterans at lobbying foreign policymakers and lawmakers in Washington. The entities that the GOSL proscribed and the individuals that head these entities were regular visitors to the UN & UNHRC head holding regular meetings with these UN officials.

In a surprising development Richard Boucher recognized the ‘homeland concept’ giving legitimacy to the claims of the LTTE that the US had proscribed as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization’. Never was there any Sinhala leader to bring out the historical facts/data or even the statistics that proved that Sinhalese were very much living in the North until they were ethnically cleansed from their original habitats. Late Cyril Mathew’s report to UNESCO detailing all Sinhala Buddhist sites becomes important to establish the right of Sinhalese to their original habitat in the North. On the strength of chasing people out of their original homes, LTTE or Tamil Diaspora cannot demand homeland status. The new US envoy Keshap who openly propagates a ‘federal’ structure for Sri Lanka should be told that with the 13^th amendment and devolution to the provinces Sri Lanka already has a federal constitution.

We need to realize that there is a bigger foe than the LTTE. It is this foe that the Sinhala leaders have failed to identify and strategize on how to counter while they in the meanwhile have taken every step to build their grasp over every policy maker and entity involved in decision making at global levels. It is the power of these lobbying that finds us lost in verbal limbo – ‘engage’ ‘political solution’ ‘reconciliation’ are fancy words thrown in the air while our leaders simply nod in appeasement because we neither have the plan or know the plot leave aside having a strategy to meet these googlys.

We should now know that every time the West plays the ‘minority’ card it essentially has nothing to do with the concern for any minority or its rights or its grievances. Why else would Iraq, Libya, Kosovo be worse off than under the supposed ‘dictator’ that the West deposed?

LTTE has a ‘well-oiled propaganda machinery’ which with time self-inflated to surpass even the expectations of the Tamil Diaspora. They were able to do magic globally. It all began in 1984 when LTTE established its first office in London. By 1996, the LTTE had divided its international operations into political representation and propaganda, arms procurement and fundraising, and had established a quasi-diplomatic network consisting of 38 offices worldwide (Davis 1996). The report by Human Rights Watch (Becker 2006) corroborates how intimidation, coercion and outright threats took place during the LTTE’s massive fundraising drive within the Tamil diaspora, against the backdrop of the return to war.

Where we have erred is not taking the entirety of the numbers together. The manner Tamil Nadu politicians interfere in the internal affairs of Tamils in Sri Lanka clearly shows the power their leaders are able to yield and the propaganda behind it.

Raj Rajaratnam before he was arrested on insider trading charges in 2009, gave more than 3.5 million dollars to the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO), a charity whose assets were later frozen by U.S. authorities for ties with the LTTE. We cannot even estimate the profits that LTTE & its fronts generates from the illicit international network that involves credit card scams, human smuggling, arms smuggling, boat people smuggling, narcotics. The Tamil lobby generates funds both legally and illegaly … these profits run into millions of dollars and surpass the GDP of small countries plus the money laundering and other nexus makes this network a formidable force.

Tamils have donated even to the Clinton campaign and have created very strong pressure lobbying groups to entice foreign politicians from both government and opposition. The manner Britain’s Opposition Leader is flouting diplomatic protocol and claiming to address the self-determination bid for eelam is both pathetic but shows the realistic picture of how influential the Tamil lobby has become.

The Diaspora has been able to frame the issues that have set the debate and are campaigning the debates across the continents among every sphere of influence channels – foreign parliaments, foreign media, the UN, foreign academics, global rights groups, the Vatican and Church network – every focal point of global influence have been brought under the influence of the Tamil diaspora lobby. Whether this lobby is working in cahoots with the Indian Empire expansionist project (which would invariably have the British seal of approval) is another matter but what we need to understand is the scale of the octopus that has been created around our small island.

Not only that Tamils are themselves in the seats of influence. Navi Pillai an ethnic Tamil held post of UNHRC head, her bias has been virtually sealed following her attendance as Chief Guest at an event organized by an entity proscribed as a LTTE front. There are numerous other Indian Tamils holding powerful seats of office globally. Creating pocket ethnic areas overseas has helped Tamils to virtually make foreign MPs dance on their palms as we can see how British MPs are doing. Some of them are now holding portfolios in entities proscribed as LTTE fronts. The letters, the terms of reference in the UN resolutions, the scope of coverage in the UNHRC Resolutions, the global chants of war crimes against a sovereign nation, global petitions signed by powerful people, invites as VVIPs for these lobbying groups, the lethargy of the same entities to demand justice against LTTE and LTTE fronts that provided material and campaign support to LTTE, shows the scale of influence they are able to generate.

There is a Tamil promoting separatism & confederalism virtually everywhere – NGO circles, INGOs, the UN, UNHRC, lobbying groups that influence foreign MPs and governments, human rights agencies, foreign media, among the Church network…everywhere. Let’s not forget that LTTE had Sinhalese working for them inside the armed forces, media, among MPs, organizations etc.

We have not been able to make these links because of the many ‘invisible’ Sinhala koti that have been working illicitly amongst us.

But there are Sinhalese also holding international portfolios but do they speak on behalf of Sinhalese grievances? Hardly. Instead they are happy to preach reconciliation, multiculturalism and all the jargon that have sealed Sri Lanka’s coffin.

None of Sri Lanka’s ‘Sinhala Leaders’ have understood the scale of the problem. It is nothing that ordinary Tamils trying to make ends meet can be faulted with. They are just as victims as all the rest of us who are being used for a bigger political game. Sadly our politicians are busy engaged in kindergarten politics to understand the scale of the problem or even devise ways to counter the problem. Only a handful of patriots are bringing these topics to the public domain that too is curtailed because the separatists control the media circles too. Our leaders by their indifference and apathy to take on the issue by not calling a spade a spade have allowed a nation with a long and proud history of independence to be reduced to wishes of parties that seek to divide and destroy this island nation.

Shenali D Waduge