CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

Life after Prabhakaran

By Gomin Dayasri

A Prabhakaran dead can be more menacing than a Prabhakharan alive. Prabhakaran missing could be still worse. The call to surrender laying down arms is to place the pill under his tongue - Prabhakaran fears to face Tamils without arms and ammunition. Prabhakaran dead or alive would not matter, if the legitimate grievances of the Tamils are attended, without leaving it in the freezer.

Tamils fleeing the northern sector (except those planted by the LTTE as moles to cause economic and military damage) know Prabhakaran better than those in the South. They had to escape from him to tell the sorry story. To the parents- Prabhakaran is the prime child snatcher; to the children-Prabhakaran has ruined their future; to all- the man has rendered them homeless by ethnically cleansing his own creed. Resurrection conjures reincarnation from the grave, icons can become idols; the second coming of Prabhakaran is possible through fable and legend in the form of fairy tale and folk lore, mime and music.

Prabhakaran and Wijeweera are the anarchist children of J.R.Jayawardane. He fathered them when he aborted the election and gave birth to a referendum. Instead of becoming babes in parliament they went into the woods to emerge as killers in battle dress. Prodigies became megastars with a dream in mind and a gun in hand. Holding out as freedom fighters they hunted and killed their own kith and kin which made them fall from grace with division within their own divisions. The self proclaimed freedom fighters alienated their own people when they denied them their freedom to live with dignity. The student circles destroyed Wijeweera in hiding - military cadres are doing the same to Prabhakaran in hiding. To operate from hiding with a remote controller is handing power to others to make grave mistakes. History will show cadres alienate the people more rapidly than the leader, in isolation, to accelerate his downfall.

Wijeweera died with few friends at home. So will Prabhakaran. JVP has to still depend on support and funding from abroad as they live off their diaspora. So is the LTTE. After Wijeweera, the JVP entered the democratic process. So will follow suit, the remainder of the LTTE after Prabhakaran; the JVP politicians who remained at home in search of occupational therapy became parliamentarians. JVP keeps metamorphosing into further fractions. It will happen to the LTTE more so with a political vacuum. JVP blow themselves big with small and energetic cadres. LTTE does it better. The post Wijeweera youthful leadership in the JVP made a greater impact as democrats winning 40 seats in parliament than their discredited revolutionaries whose exit only their families mourn. The breakaway former LTTE group captured power in the East at the first democratic opportunity. Out of crushed revolutions grow meaningful evolutions.

JVP hardly talks of Wijeweera and his fighting forces except on the commemoration day. Few knew him in JVP to talk of him. Ask Wimal Weerawansa or Vijitha Herath-they merely have a picture image of the founder being schoolboys. Probably only Somawansa Amerasinghe speaks of him fondly . Still less would know Prabhakaran, living in splendid isolation, and few would care to talk of him endearingly. Like Wijeweera in the JVP, Prabhakaran will live more in the minds of the diaspora who are living overseas seeking attention for a moment when they come home on furlough to be recognised and willing to pay for it. Prabhakaran will be made the fall guy like Wijeweera and blamed for killing fields-a topic JVP assiduously avoids. Once the upper echelons of the JVP were eliminated the next generation was willing to walk the path of democracy.

It is the governments by procrastination and neglect that can make northern homes decorate with garlands the photographs of a murderer. If the legitimate grievances are attended to, in a reasonably satisfactory manner, Tamil will put his picture in the dustbin. The greatest setback for the launching of the Federal concept for the Federalists was the emergence of Prabhakaran; not the Sinhala nationalists who energized the federalists. Prabhakaran destroyed it for more than a generation He inherited the federal trappings and killed those propelling it and converted the weaklings to be his mouthpiece. He made an exhibition by deed and act, that federalism will lead to secession. It is to the credit of Anandasangaree that he fearlessly stood alone on the deck when others deserted him. It is ironical that a Tamil fighting for a homeland pulled the curtain down on federalism eliminating it from the constitutional choreography. Now is the time to move the idol from iconology- by being genuine towards Tamil grievances.

The priority must be the Tamil people and not the Tamil politicians. The lesson to be learnt is from the CWC which has been warming cabinet seats uninterruptedly under every administration for 30 years, while the Indian Tamil community has hardly progressed; the beneficial flow has been to the party officials and the community still deems it to be neglected. Provincial Council is side stepping the issues affecting the Tamil people. The 13th Amendment was never sought-it was imposed and accepted by a weak leader who was a thug only at home. It has stands flawed fractured flayed because the present constitution was plotted at a 'mad hatters' tea party- an Indian midsummer nights dream. It could be said a programmed coup is worthwhile merely to rewrite a constitution.

A sub committee headed by the distinguished jurist Nirmala Naganathan identified areas which can be treated as minority grievances -listed broadly under the headings (1) Language (2) Security (3) Land (4) Water (5) Employment (6) Development (7) Abductions and Kidnappings (8) High Security Zones (9) Multi Ethnic Security Forces (10) Child Recruitment.
The sub committee was an off shoot of the barren experts committee which the President with wisdom disbanded swiftly having appointed ill advisedly.

Though many of the problems of the aforesaid grievances touch the majority community, current country situation warrants solutions on a fast track to the grievances of the minorities, if found to be legitimate The nature of the grievances requires the intervention of the centre which must act with speed courage and determination. A federal solution is most unhealthy as it will result in an inevitable clash between the existing centre and the emerging periphery. It will again aggravate and revivificate the existing grievances with interested parties waiting to exploit political advantages to lead to another explosion and revive secession. After the elimination of the prime LTTE military structure, there will surface again the federal school of thought engineered by INGOs, closeted government federal agents posing off as intellectuals, decrepit leftists, Tamil politicians now in hiding and foreign advisors. The inside story of the Burghof Foundations intrusions into the activities of a Ministry to propagate federalism as stated in the Parliamentary Select Committee Report on the INGOs has sufficient source material for a future researcher to write a paper.

Their combined threat could be as deadly as that of the LTTE , as it will lead to the revival of the LTTE under another name; the same voices that once convinced society that the security forces cannot defeat the terrorists, will raise the federal issue. If the war was fought at the costs of so many valuable lives at such great costs, to usher federalism, totally rejected by the people consistently at elections, it may have been more prudent to hand over the North and East to the LTTE without spilling blood. A clash between the centre and periphery would mean the legitimate grievances of the minorities will remain to fester while politicians posture to gain mileage- the prescription of the LTTE medicine man. Reaching the people and attending to their grievances is a fast forward approach to eliminate the problem without placing power in peripheral political units more enthusiastic in widening their political cult than solving problems. The lesson learnt in the East is an intensive course in adult education and a learning curve to handle a more complex North. The answers to the listed grievances can be assuaged without constitutional amendments by legislative and administrative measures by the central government through the existing peripheral units. The speed has to be accelerated by Presidential Directives.

All Party Representative Committee [ARPC] is poppycock. It cannot justify its existence or continuation. It has become a convenient façade to do nothing on the national problem. It neither receives nor delivers direction from or to its parent, the All Party Conference [APC]. Both deserve a public caning for allowing the national problem to rankle.

With the successful completion of the war, must emerge an immediate formula as a reasonably feasible solution to the problem. It will not be a perfect solution to satisfy all stakeholders but with time it can be perfected but yet it will never be and/or expect to be the flawless resolution to the issue-that is to live in cuckoo land. The resolution of the ARPC- of fulfilling the terms of the 13th Amendment- is not an answer to the question but a question to answer, as to whether the 13th amendment which has lasted as long as the war, has created rather than solved problems?. An instant IQ test- name one benefit conferred by the 13th Amendment to the people? So many for the politicians but is there just even one for the people or a semblance of a contribution to solve the national issue? We are stuck - marooned in an island with a constitution like an albatross around our necks and a judiciary attempting to break out from its moorings.

The Constitution cannot be amended to change its character due to its inbuilt locking system. The eerie spirit of J.R.Jayewardane, still hovers over it to exorcise any efforts to dismantle the structure he constructed to permanently disable any tinkering that will bring down the house that Dick built. The curse of Jayawardane has outlived his life and times. It is Sri Lanka's twentieth century disaster stretching into the twenty first. It is worse than a tsunami-financial or tidal- since both are repairable or replaceable but the supreme document is a construction fabricated on alien soil that is hard to dislodge unless a pragmatic and innovative judicial process is operated.

If the grievances remain un attended it will be the Sinhalese who will be unwittingly restoring the image of Prabhakaran The streets of the peninsula will be decorated with graffiti in praise of the LTTE by their underground remnants, to be scored off by their competing rivals. The danger will be when photographs of Prabhakaran will be restored in the homes from where he ejected the occupants to build a safety net for himself.

The specter of federalism may raise its head, unwittingly, through the forces which fought terrorism- the founding fathers of terrorism were those who originated federalism.

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