by : A.A.M.NIZAM – MATARA

The sheep clothed tiger terrorist R.Sambandan, who was the doyen of the Tamil politicians who supported and justified the crimes and atrocities of the megalomaniac Prabhakaran when he was alive and whose TNA became the post-war, post-LTTE avatar as per Mr. N.Ram the Editor-n-Chief of the reputed Indian daily The Hindu” has made a very lengthy speech on the budget facilitated by the utterly bias Speaker on 16^th November which was serialised for three consecutive days in the Island”.

At the beginning of the speech he has congratulated Mangala saying that Mangala is an old, sincere friend of theirs who has always been very progressive in his views, on many crucial issues, particularly on the resolution of what he calls the National Question. He has said that various proposals made in the Budget, have been aimed at ameliorating the living conditions of segments of society, deeply affected as a result of the conflict, facilitating reconciliation and infusing hope in the lives of such people and help them towards resumption of normal life.

Then he has divested completely from the budget and vented his anger and enrage at the former President Mr. Mahinda Raajapaksa, the anger and enrage built up evidently due to Mr. Rajapakse’s bold leadership in leading our gallant war heroes to vanquish armed tiger terrorism from the soil of this country and completely eliminating its leadership including the megalomaniac Prabhakaran, and putting an end to their Eelam dream through armed aggression.

Utterly distorting various statements made by Mr. Rajapaksa to suitably and craftily present his views as Mr. Rajapaaksa’s support extended in the past for devolution and for a new constitution, he asks Mr. Rajapaksa to support the constitution process that is being made at present without indulging in communal politics and make the country to miss the golden opportunity.

This sheep clothed tiger terrorist says that it is well known the diseases that have afflicted this country were lack of unity, disharmony caused by inequality, injustice, discrimination and exclusion. Legitimate political aspirations and demands for equality, inclusion, democratic empowerment were met with violence against unarmed civilians. Political commitments were not honoured, the rule of law was not enforced and these harmful developments resulted in counter violence and eventually an armed conflict of unexpected and unprecedented proportions which lasted several decades. He says that fighting a war at a very heavy cost could have been well avoided if commitments made to democratic Tamil leaders were honoured and if there was reasonable political accommodation of legitimate Tamil aspirations on the indisputable basis that Sri Lanka is a multilingual, multi-ethnic pluralist society. The recognition of that reality was paramount for there to be national harmony and peace.

Sambandan craftily avoids to mention that it was the ignominious Vaddukkodai resolution of 1972 that led to the Tamil youth taking up arms and launching a war for establishing a separate state in the country.  He has conveniently forgotten that they wholeheartedly encouraged this aggression against the country, justified it and lobbied international support for this war. Why they never talked about a peaceful solution then even under the spineless Presidents and Prime Ministers of this country who were slavish to them

On the contrary Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa was very much concerned about ridding the country from this precarious situation and even mentioned that he was even prepared to make the extra mile to meet the terrorist leader and find a solution.  He held several rounds of peace talks in the European countries but the intransigent posture of the terrorists and their rude behaviour of closing down of the Mavil Aru anicut thereby depriving drinking water and irrigation facilities to several thousand families compelled him to give instructions to embark on the long war and continue with it until the country is liberated.

The sheep clothed terrorist Sambandan even went to Canada to raise funds for arms procurement for the terrorists. See my Lankaweb article of 5^th November titled Hypocrite Terrorist Sambandan deserves to die as a banished traitor .  He cannot deny the fact of fund raising for the terrorists as the photograph below (originally published with the above referenced article) confirms his despicable involvement in this vicious act. This event was held at Jaasmine Banquet Hall at No.90, Nolan Court, Markham, Ontaria, Canada.

TNA leader withTRO President in the fundraising event

After ending the war on 18^th May, 2009 Mr. Rajapaksa took several commendable measures on his own as a great statesman to find a permanent solution for the problems which started with his bold declaration that there is no majority/minority in this country and all are Sri Lankans, and included appointment of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) and appointment of a Parliamentary Select Committee to be represented by all parties in the Parliament to review the APC report presented by Prof. Tissa Vitharana which was mandated to review  all previous APC reports.

The arrogant TNA scuttled this PSC review even ignoring Indian persuasions for them to attend the PSC.

Failing to implement these progressive measures due to the intransigence of the TNA, direct and indirectly non-cooperation by the UNP, President Mahinda Rajapaksa in his Presidential Election manifesto in 2015, said that the country has been battered for 36 years by the 1978 Constitution which was thrust upon our people and the country, without an appropriate debate or discussion and it has been distorted due to various amendments over the years, some of which are not consistent with others. The manifesto said that therefore, instead of amending the Constitution further with piece-meal changes, he will take action to formulate a new Constitution that reflects the people’s ideas, aspirations and wishes within a period of one year. Contrary to this Sambaandan is now asking for Mr. Rajapaksa’s support for a federal and secular constitution and how a person like Mr. Rajapaksa for whom the country is above everything else could agree to such a proposition?

Mr. Rajapaksa’s Select Committee Proposal, though despised by the arrogant TNA received with much appreciation in India as a viable proposition. Mr. N.Ram, the Editor in Chief of the Hindu commented that President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s roadmap for finding a 13th Amendment-plus political solution will take the Tamil question in Sri Lanka to a Parliamentary Select Committee, which will look into it and propose suitable constitutional amendments, and then on to Parliament. Meanwhile, local elections in the Northern Province, which have been scheduled, would be followed by a Provincial Council election. Mr. Ram said that Mr. Rajapaksa told him that he will accept whatever the Parliamentary Select Committee recommends to him.

Mr. Ram stated that Mr. Rajapaksa reiterated his long-held view that police and land powers are not subjects suitable for the Provincial Council, and he reminded Mr. Ram what happened in India, in the Mumbai bomb attacks. How slow the police and security response was with all the restrictions to the Centre and coming back with orders from there. Therefore, Mr. Rajapaksa has emphasized that security matters must be with the central Government of Sri Lanka.

Asked about complaints that the armed forces were expanding their footprint in Jaffna and other Northern districts and apprehensions of a permanent militarisation of the North, Mr. Rajapaksa has pointed out that as soon as the end of the war he appointed the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) to look into the war related problems and recommend measures to settle them and in respect of army camps he has said that army camps exist all over the country even in Hambanthotta, in Colombo, in every Province, and in every district and in that way there are camps in the North and East.

Mr. Ram said that when asked about the allegations of human rights violations, and especially about Channel 4’s Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, which showed gruesome and distressing footage and charged that the Sri Lankan army and government had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in the final stage of the war against the LTTE, President Rajapaksa responded saying that it is a film and has explained that the footage showing close-range executions of naked men with their hands tied behind their backs has been filmed in Tamil and that if the footage was true it was not the LTTE cadres, it must be the army boys who were being shot. The man who is shooting, Mr. Rajapaksa has pointed out was not wearing an army belt, but a LTTE belt and if it is true, it was a  LTTE cadre shooting an army man. If it is not true, it’s a film and not a true document.

Mr. Ram in conclusion of his article also states that Mr. Rajapaksa expressed happiness over Sri Lankan High Commissioner Mr. Prasad Kariyawasam’s meeting with Chief Minister Jayalalitha in Chennai and has pointed out that he asked the High Commissioner to meet the Chief Minister Jayalalitha and convey his invitation for her to visit Sri Lanka and if she is not ready or is busy, to send a parliamentary team to see for themselves the true situation in Sri Lanka.

With Mr. Rajapaksa having taken all these measures for true reconciliation in the country and help the Tamil people how can this sheep clothed terrorist Sambandan accuse him as a Sinhala/Buddhist communalist?

Mr. Rajapaksa has also held discussions with the Indian Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi on 27^th September 2014, during his visit to New York to attend the UN General Assembly sessions to find solutions to the problems in Sri Lanka.  During this meeting Mr. Modi has disclosed to President Mr. Mahinda Rjapaksa about the TNA group meeting him and Mr. Modi too has acknowledged the importance of the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) process.

Earlier in October, 2013 President Mahinda Rajapaksa when he met the visiting Indian External Affairs Minister of that time Mr. Salman Khurshid has apprised him that the Parliamentary Select Committee is the best forum to decide on devolution of more powers to the Northern Provincial Council. Mr. Kurshid has commended the Sri Lankan government for the successful conduct of elections in the Northern Province and described it as a very important step for the society and one that will likely be viewed as a great historic moment.

Mr. Rajapaksa held the Northern Provincial Council election knowing very well that the government cannot win that election, and despite requests from many UPFA parliamentarians not hold that election.  If Mr. Rajapaksa wanted to discriminate the Tamils as the terrorist Sambandan erroneously alleges he could have refrained from holding the PC election in the North or could have used thugs from the South to rig the election as Cyril Mathew and Gamini Dissanayake did to rig the District Council elections in the North or as this government used its henchmen to get local government elections postponed through court orders.

Meanwhile, the website UK Tamilnews.com reported on 5^th June, 2014  that TNA was seeking public support and diaspora involvement to make its submissions to the PSC.  TNA has said that rather than participating in the PSC proceedings it would submit its written proposals upon receipt of suggestions from the public and the diaspora.

As per the foregoing facts it is very clear that the LTTE rump TNA scuttled all genuine efforts made by Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa to find a peaceful solutions for the Tamil people’s problems since they wanted nothing short of a separate state or a federal secular self governing entity destined by the Vaddukkodai reesolution which they could not achieve through megalomaniac Prabhakaran’s terrorist war.  Now they shamelessly seek Mr. Rajapaksa’s assistance to get the horrendous Federal Secular constitution which they could utilize as a stepping stone for the establishment of Tamil Eelam in the future.  Sambandan and his acolytes should understand that there is a large percentage of people in this country who are not prepared to become slavish to them and prepared even to sacrifice their lives to protect and safeguard this country as a free, sovereign unitary nation.