H. L. D. Mahindapala

The Vadukoddai Resolution, which declared war on the democratically elected state and the nation as a whole, is ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-a crime against peaceƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚. This principle was first enunciated and tested at the Nuremberg trials in convicting the fascist Nazis and later incorporated into the UN Charter.

When peaceful alternatives were available to resolve inter-ethnic relations ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” however tardy they may have been — the Jaffna Tamil leadership opted for a military solution by declaring war on May 14, 1976. No other Tamil-speaking community had ever decided to step out of the non-violent democratic framework and resort to violence to resolve their differences other than the intransigent and aggressive Jaffna Tamil leadership. The Vadukoddai Resolution legitimized violence and urged the Tamil youth to take up arms and never stop until they get two thirds of the coastline and its hinterland, based on imagined history and equally fictitious geography, to less than 10% of the population (20million), according to latest demographics.. Misguided by their miscalculations and myths the Jaffna leadership collectively decided to go on the war path ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” a gamble that boomeranged on them with devastating consequences.

The result was a 33-year-old war initiated, organized, directed, financed, internationalized and executed by the Jaffna leaders. They deliberately misled their people to believe in the elusive and unattainable Eelam. The TULF leadership knew that the international community was against dividing Sri Lanka. Appapillai Amirthalingam, who was the then Leader of the Opposition, went round the world with a diplomatic passport issued by the J. R. Jayewardene government and returned home with the firm knowledge that a separate state was not on the international agenda. He told this to his coterie. But he didnƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢t tell the Tamil people. The Jaffna leadership which incrementally pushed its mono-ethnic politics to engage in extreme violence ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” they never had an alternative political programme to ethnic extremism ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” kept up the myth of attaining a separate state, hoping that PrabhakaranƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s violence would force the international community to do a Kosovo or Sudan.

But their crime against peace and the brutality of Prabhakaran undid them. First, the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-boysƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ turned the guns on the leadership that passed the Vadukoddai Resolution. And then the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-boysƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚, aided and abetted by the Tamil expatriates, physically dragged the confused and helpless Jaffnaites from Vadukoddai to Nandikadal.

The Vadukoddai War ended on May 18, 2009, which adds up to 33 years, give or take a few days. It ended with the death of Velupillai Prabhakaran ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” the child that came out of the womb of the Vadukoddai Resolution. He killed more Tamils than any other force put together ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” a judgment passed first by S. Chandrahasan, son of S. J.V. Chelvanayakam and later reinforced by the president of the Tamil United Liberation Front, V. Anandasangaree. As the Nazi-type of fascist terror escalated the conscience of some Jaffnaites began to question the indiscriminate violence that savaged the Jaffna Tamils, the Muslims, the Sinhalese and, most of all, children who were plucked from their parentsƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢ bosom and thrown into the futile Vadukoddai War. Shocked by the horrors Prof. Rajan Hoole, the professor of mathematics at Jaffna University, who had to run away from the Tigers hunting him and find refuge in the south, urged the Tamils to wake up and asked how such evil could come out of the womb of Jaffna! (Sunday Times ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” November 5, 1995).

There is, no doubt, that it was the Jaffna Tamils who had to face the brunt of the violence unleashed by the father of the Vadukoddai Resolution, S. J. V. Chelvanayakam. They alone had to face (1) the violence of the Indian IPKF which killed 5,000 Tamils, apart from raping and torturing the Jaffnaites, (2) the counter-terrorist violence of the Sri Lankan forces and (3), most objectionable of them all, the self-serving violence of Velupillai Prabhakaran, who ran the first garrison state of fascist terror by the Tamils for the Tamils, raising serious questions as to whether the Tamils are fit to rule themselves.

Trapped in the violent peninsular political culture there was no redemption for the oppressed castes/classes of Jaffna during the period when Tamil leaders were in command. The fascist terror of the Vellahlas ruled Jaffna during feudal and colonial times. They oppressed castes of Jaffna fell from the Vellahlas frying pan into the fire of low-caste PrabhakaranƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s fascist terror in the post-Vadukoddai period. On any scale of comparative social conditions it can be averred that the Tamils of Jaffna were better off under what they called ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-the Sinhala stateƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ than they were under the fascist regimes of the Vellahlas or Prabhakaran.

Looking back over the 33-years of the futile Vadukoddai War it is quite clear that the Vadukoddai Resolution was not only a ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-crime against peaceƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ but also the political instrument that inflicted the worst crimes against the people of Jaffna. Prof. A. J. Wilson, political scientist and son-in-law of the father of separatism, S. J. V. Chelvanayakam, says in the biography of his father-in-law that he (Chelva) went through the wording of the Vadukoddai Resolution with a fine comb before it was passed by the TULF Convention in Vadukoddai ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” ChelvaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s electorate. So ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-ChelvaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ was not the pacifist that he claimed to be. He was committed to take any violent step necessary to achieve his political goal of Eelam, though Wilson wriggles in every which way to convince the readers that his father-in-law was a kind of ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-trousered GandhianƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚.

To this day the two main issues contained in the Vadukoddai Resolution ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” i.e, separatism and violence that go with it — remain as the reference point of the Tamil separatists, both abroad and at home. It has not been pointed out so far that the passing of the Vadukoddai Resolution, declaring war, is the equivalent of committing a crime against peace as defined at the Nuremberg trial. The silence of the Tamil intellectuals and the pro-Tiger NGOs on this issue is deafening. They dare not focus on the evils that spilled out of the Vadukoddai Resolution because that would divert attention away from their political objective of denigrating Sri Lanka and blaming the Sinhala- Buddhist alone for the worsening of inter-ethnic relations.

The following quote from Wikipedia will help to clarify the basic principles of ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-crimes against peaceƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚: ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-A crime against peace, in international law, refers to “planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of wars of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing”.

In addition to “planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of wars of aggressionƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-participation in a common plan or conspiracy (by the Vadukoddians) for the accomplishmentƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ of a military solution, or a war of aggression, comes within the definition of a ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-crime against peaceƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ committed under the leadership of Chelvanyakam.

History records that all this was conceptualized, organized and implemented through the Vadukoddai Resolution approved by Chelvnayakam.

Wikipedia adds: ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-An important exception to the foregoing are defensive military actions taken under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Such defensive actions are subject to immediate Security Council review, but do not require UN permission to be legal within international law. “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations.” (UN Charter, Article 51) The Security Council will determine if the action is legally the “right of individual or collective self-defence”, or it may appoint another UN organ to do this.

ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-No legal authority exists for the definition of the terms “territorial integrity”, “political independence” and “sovereignty”. However, their face value would seem to disclose the following:

ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-The “territorial integrity” rule means that it is a crime of aggression to use armed force, not excluding territories for the foreign affairs of which it is responsible; The “political independence” rule means that it is a crime of aggression to use armed force with intent to deprive a state of the entirety of one or more of the prerequisites of statehood, namely: defined territory, permanent population, constitutionally independent government and the means of conducting relations with other States; The “sovereignty” rule means that it is a crime of aggression to use armed force with intent to overthrow the government of a state or to impede its freedom to act unhindered, as it sees fit, throughout its jurisdiction.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚

The”planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of wars of aggression, with intent permanently to deprive a state of any part or parts of its territoryƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚, as stated in the UN charter, are the critical and intrinsic factors contained in the Vadukoddai Resolution and dutifully implemented by the Tamil leadership headed by Chelvanayakam. Put together, all these add up to ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-crime against peace.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ The ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-defensive military actionƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ taken by the Government of Sri Lanka comes within Article 51. Sri Lanka waged a just war to end the most brutal fascist force that came out of the womb of Jaffna.

Parenthetically, it should be noted that that only the Security Council can ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-determine if the action is legally the “right of individual or collective self-defence.” It is also the Security Council that ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-may appoint another UN organ to do this.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ This makes it absolutely clear the Secretary-General has no authority to appoint arbitrarily committees of his choice, like three-man panel. It must come either from the Security Council or another UN organ.

Getting back to the Vadukoddai Resolution, the irony is that this ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-crime against peaceƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ was committed by the so-called Gandhians of Jaffna. As to how non-violent ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-GandhiansƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ can declare war is the kind of bizzare logic which only the aggressive and violent Vadukoddians, who fathered Prabhakaran, can explain. Who will believe in Jesus, Buddha or Gandhi as pacifists if they took up the sword and waged war? The crimes committed by the Jaffna ruling caste/class (whether they be the Vellahlas or the Tamil Tigers) against their own people have never been committed by any other external force against the Tamil people. But they succeeded not only in covering up all the sins they committed against their own people. They also succeeded incredibly in blaming the others ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” mainly the Sinhalese — for failing to achieve the over-ambitious political goals of the most privileged community in Sri Lanka. The English-educated Vellahla elite constituted the organized priviligentsia from British colonial times, pushing all other communities into second place, and yet they succeeded in convincing the world that they were the victims of ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-discriminationƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” the foulest myth in Sri Lankan politics..

All communities coming out of the semi-feudal, semi-capitalist economy in transition in the post-independent period experienced discrimination of various categories. Amidst all the inequalities experienced by all the communities the elite of Jaffna remained as the most advantaged. The standard of the PeoplesƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢ Quality of Life Index (i.e., infrastructure, education, health etc.) in Jaffna was the highest in the nation. Yet they propagated the myth of victimology which has now turned into an international orthodoxy.

They first convinced themselves that they were victimized by ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-the Sinhala stateƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ and then convinced the world that they were victimized on ethnic grounds by the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-Sinhala governmentsƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚, ignoring the basic historical truth that it was the Sinhala youth who first took up arms on cries of discrimination by an English-educated ruling class. The simplicity of the mythology of victimology was marketable easily. No one paused to ask how the doctors, lawyers, academics, and other professionals who lobby the Western governments could have come up with expert skills to occupy jobs in the upper echelons of the hierarchy if they were denied equal rights on racial grounds. They got the best from the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-Sinhala stateƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ and went round crying that they were discriminated. They manipulated the myth to make it more powerful than reality.

Of course, they were the victims of the lunatic fringe in the Sinhalese community that went on the rampage on several occasions in the post-independence period. But neither the majority of the Sinhala community nor ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-the Sinhala stateƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ ever took an official stand in waging war against another community. The counter-terrorist war against the internationally banned terrorists of the LTTE was not on an ethnic basis. It was no different than the war that was waged against the Sinhala terrorist of the south. The state did not make any distinction between the Sinhala terrorists and the Tamil terrorists. Besides, a democratically elected state had the right to act in ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-self-defenceƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ to protect not only the sovereign state but also the people who were victims of Sinhala and Tamil terrorism.

Ethnicity was not the target of state in either case. The state was doing what it had to do: initiate and implement counter-terrorist measures to restore peace, law and order. But the Vadukoddians exploited it as an ethnic issue as if the objective of state was to target the Tamil community. But the film footage of the great escape from Prabhakaran gives the lie to this myth. As seen in the last stages of the war, the Tamil people were running away from the Tigers into the safe hands of the Security forces. If the state was targeting the Tamils would 300,000 Tamils rush into arms of the Security Forces?

The last stages of the war blew up the myth of the state launching a war against the Tamils for four main reasons: 1) the Tamil people did not join the Tigers at the street level like the Palestinians; the war was confined to the Tiger cadres, some of whom were forcibly dragged into it (2) the people were used as a human buffer to protect Prabhakaran and not the Tamil people;(3) Tigers had to forcibly recruit the old and the children to fight in the futile war because there were no volunteers to fill the depleted rank and file. and (4) people voted with their feet against Prabhakaran by running away from him even at the risk of getting shot by his cadres. These basic factors make it abundantly clear that it was not a war of the Tamil people, or a war against the Tamil people but a war of a gang of fascist terrorists.

Nevertheless, the myth that gained currency was that the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-Sinhala stateƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ was waging a war against the Tamil people.

Even at the early stages ethnic violence was provoked by the Tamil leadership deliberately to instigate ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-the ethnic lower-level leadership ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ to attack the Tamils in order to win sympathy from the world, said Prof. Wilson. The tactic of ChelvanayakamƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s Vadukoddians was to consciously to attack Sinhala-Buddhist targets to provoke the Sinhala lower-level leadership to attack the Tamils. The abject immorality of provoking other communities to attack your own community to gain political sympathy to advance a separatist agenda politics is horripilating. These are the abominable Vadukoddians who are now parading as champions of human rights in world capitals. They were lusting for blood of the Tamils so that they could pose as champions of human rights in the West.

Getting Tamils killed was the tactic of the Tamil Tigers too to win international sympathy as seen in the last stages of the Vadukoddai War. The Tiger terrorists deliberately fired from the No Fire Zone allotted for the civilians knowing that retaliatory fire of the Security Forces into the No Fire Zones will cause civilian casualties. The figures, the pictures of those casualties were then marketed round the world as atrocities committed by the Sri Lankan Forces. Victimology was their most effective card of the heartless Tamil leaders who condoned and even encouraged the killing of Tamil civilians.

Chelvanayakam didnƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢t mind this because he too gained sympathy by exposing the Tamils to violence of the mobs provoked by his divisive politics. The other Tamil-speaking communities (Muslims and the Indians) did not face the wrath of the wild Sinhala mobs (no different to rioting mobs in India, UK or USA) because they were willing to co-exist in peace and harmony with the majority. It was the provocative and aggressive politics of Chelvanayakam that led to mob violence in the south. Besides, ethnic violence escalated and exploded to unmanageable proportions only in the post-Chelvanayakam period. In the twilight years of his life when he could have exerted his influence and doused the fires of Tamil violence he went in the opposite direction and took the extreme step of endorsing violence in the Vadukoddai Resolution.

The Tamil leadership asked for violence and when they got it they didnƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢t like it. They argued as if they had the exclusive right to violence and human rights. When they were getting a taste of the violence unleashed by them they condemned it as a violation of human rights. Of course, they pretended that their violence did not violate human rights.

The most explosive period of ethnic violence was after Chelvanayakam took over the leadership of Jaffna from G. G. Ponnambalam. After flirting for a shot while with non-violent demonstrations he dropped all pretensions of being a Gandhian when he endorsed the violence in the Vadukoddai Resolution. Like HitlerƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s final solution of eliminating Jews to create an ethnically cleansed German race ChelvanayakamƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s final solution (followed faithfully by his political progeny, Prabhakaran) was to create a Tamil state by ethnically cleansing the north and the east of the Sinhalese and even the Muslims. Where did it take him and the Tamil people? His Vadukoddai Resolution led to the birth of the most dreaded fascist Prabhakaran ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” and, of course, the deaths of innocent Tamil civilians.

Oddly enough the stature of both grew according to the number of Tamil deaths. Tamil myths were manufactured to project him as the benevolent ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-ThanthaiƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ (father) ChelvaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚. Wilson concocted the myth of Chelvanayakam wanting to be the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-father of the TamilsƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ because he had no father. This load of psychobabble went down well with the Jaffna Tamils who had no remarkable leader. It was a narrow, imitative political culture lacking in heroes, history and glory as the Sinhalese who created a brand new civilization. But Chelvanayakam and his Vadukoddians imagined as if they were the product of a master race born to rule the world. Hence the proliferation of Tamil myths to glorify either subhuman killers like Prabhakaran or mediocre ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-trousered GandhisƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” description of Chelva cited by Wilson.

In a sense, it is possible to judge an individual or even a community by their acclaimed heroes. Chelvanayakam was the best they had before Prabhakaran. His father, who was in Malaysia, dumped him in Tellipallai, Jaffna when he was four and Chelvanayakam saw him only once after that. If Chelvanayakam remained in Malaysia he would never had the chance of exploiting communalism through extreme of violence as endorsed by him in the Vadukoddai Resolution. Equally important is to test his claim to be the father of the Tamils when he was plotting and planning and organizing to sacrifice them in a futile war. He must have been the most heartless father in Jaffna to have led his children into unnecessary deaths in a war that produced nothing for the Tamils. He was more like the Pied Piper of Jaffna who lured the children with his racist tunes to drown them in Nandikadal. He was the Grim Reaper who wore Gandhian clothes to entice them into committing suicide in a cause that had no future. His claim to be a father of Tamils must be confined to Prabhakaran — the most notorious killer of Tamils.

But like Prabhakaran he was deified by a section of the Tamils. Some Tamils still hero-worship him like the way neo-Nazis try to revive the failed past of Hitler.. His racist ideology, like that of HitlerƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s, had no redeeming features. Like HitlerƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s racism it led to mass slaughter. Like HitlerƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s racist ideology it boomeranged and destroyed the Tamils more than any other community. Can a political Frankenstein like Chelvanayakam be a father to the Tamils? His Vadukoddai Resolution was a weapon of mass destruction. More than Sankilli who massacred 600 Tamil Catholics and more than Prabhakaran he is responsible for conceptualizing, initiating, planning, organizing, internationalizing and laying the foundations for making the racist ideology that finally took the Tamils to the bottom of Nandikadal operational.

In his lifetime, however, Chelvanayakam succeeded in being all things to all men, women and hermaphrodites. He was a Gandhian, (temporarily for public consumption), a parliamentarian, a lawyer and a man afflicted with ParkinsonƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s disease. He used all these to his advantage, even his ParkinsonƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s disease. His lean and hungry figure, with all the infirmities caused by ParkinsonƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s, was projected to give him an aura of Gandhian saintliness. This was pointed to me by Dr. E. M. V. Nagathan while he was climbing the steps of the old Parliament after lunch one day, using me as his walking stick to lean on.

Chelvanayakam used every trick in the book to internationalize, propagandize and win sympathy for his role as the Jinnah of Sri Lanka. His main aim was to win sympathy from the world as victims of discrimination practiced by the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-Sinhala stateƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ though their history records that they have been the relentless and ruthless victimizers of the Tamil low-castes denying them their basic human dignity and their fundamental rights. They have been the most ardent and enthusiastic human rights activists while they violated every known canon of international humanitarian law against their own people during feudal, colonial times and post-Chelvanayakam periods. Privately, they praise the recruitment of child soldiers as heroic sacrifice of Tamil volunteers fighting in the frontlines against ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-the Sinhala stateƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ and publicly they condemn the Sri Lankan governments firing at them. Privately they financed the war chest of Prabhakaran which has led them only to Nandikadal and publicly they condemn Sri Lanka for liberating the Tamils from Prabhakaran. Publicly they condemn Sri Lanka for not supplying food to the Tamil civilians in the Vanni and privately they rejoiced that the Tiger terrorists were siphoning off the food provided by the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-Sinhala stateƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ to feed their cadres. Publicly they boast that Prabhakaran had established a state with a navy, army and air force while privately admitting that it is the Sri Lankan government that maintained the free education, health services and food to the Tamil people used as a human buffer to protect Prabhakaran.

Ultimately, the question facing the Jaffna Tamils is: who is responsible for taking the people to the bottom of Nandikadal? That responsibility lies with those who crafted the Vadukoddai Resolution and master-minded the Vadukoddai War. On both counts the finger points to Chelvanayakam. If he is the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-ThanthaiƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ then he must accept responsibility for the good and the bad. Since there is nothing good in going to the bottom of Nandikadal he must accept full responsibility for his stupidity. When he failed the people of Jaffna failed with him. ThatƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s what a leader does to his followers: they rise or fall with the leader. And Chelvanayakam failed. There is no one else to be blamed.

The ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-fatherƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ of the Vadukoddai Resolution had no compunction in leading his children into the horrors of an unwanted war. He has the blood of Tamil people on his savage hands. It was his ideology of separatism that led the Jaffna Tamils to accept the Vadukoddai Resolution and from there to Nandikadal. Without him the history of the Tamils and the nation as a whole would have been one of the best in the east.