H. L. D. Mahindapala

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ There are five major communities in Sri Lanka ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” 1. the Sinhalese, 2. the Tamils of the North; 3. the Tamils of the East who consider themselves to be distinct from the Northern Tamils in culture and caste (Mukkuvars as opposed to the Vellahlas); 4. the Indian Tamils of the central hills and 5. the Tamil-speaking Muslims. No leadership in any of these communities has suppressed, oppressed, persecuted, dehumanized and even slaughtered on a mass scale their people, under fascist ideologies of varying shades, as the Tamil leadership in Jaffna. Vellahlas condemned their caste victims and Prabhakaran condemned his political victims to subhuman hells. The suffering of Jaffna Tamil victims under their Tamil political masters was a perennial existential banality which they endured as a part of the inescapable culture of Jaffna.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The victims of caste and political oppression had no respite under all three categories of their home-grown rulers ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” 1.the founding rulers of the 12th and 13th centuries who claimed to be from royalty, (2) the Vellahla sub-rulers under colonial masters and (3) ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-the sole representatives of the TamilsƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ headed by Prabhakaran. Violence was an essential instrument for the ruling elite of all three categories to maintain their supremacy over the peninsular population. The violent culture of Jaffna began with the ruling elites turning inward to keep their victims under their firm grip. The subhuman fate of the under class/caste in Jaffna has no parallel in the other communities of Sri Lanka.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Any opposition to the ruling overlords and war lords was invariably crushed with a fascist fist. The peninsular political culture swung incrementally to mono-ethnic extremism with the Jaffna leadership turning aggressive, confrontational, intransigent and bloody, every step of the way to Nandikadal. It is this ingrained violence of the Jaffna culture that spilled over and exacerbated north-south relations. This explains why the other Tamil-speaking communities (Muslims and Indian Tamils) co-existed in a non-violent multicultural relationship with the majority and why only Jaffna turned violent, withdrawing into extreme mono-ethnic culture. .

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ It was the Vellahlas who initially honed violence as a religiously ordained instrument of power to rule over ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-the minoritiesƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚, meaning their caste victims. Their reign as sub-rulers to the colonial masters was the longest ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” from the 16th century to the 20th century. They warped Jaffna society with their institutionalized, legitimized (under Hindu-Saivite customs and laws, Tesawalamai) and collective violence ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” violence which was officially transmitted in the Vadukoddai Resolution to their successors, the Tamil Tigers who adopted and pursued it relentlessly with greater ferocity.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ A society that legitimized and institutionalized the lowest of the low caste known as the Turumbas, a group of outcasts not allowed to walk in daytime in case they polluted the purity of Vellahla eyes, is one of two characteristic symbols of the subhuman culture of Jaffna. The other is the Tamil elite that hero-worshipped the cult of Prabhakaran which, among other things, depended on abducting under-aged children to fight in a futile war. How can the Jaffna elite boast of their culture when they pro-actively fostered these evils within the heartland of the indigenous Tamils, Jaffna? How can they point a finger at the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-otherƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ when they committed the worst crimes against their own people? In comparative terms, their culture sinks below that of the Southern belt of America which denied the basic rights to the Afro-American slaves or even apartheid in S. Africa. It is this leadership of Jaffna that went round the world accusing the Sinhala majority of denying the Tamils of Jaffna their minority rights.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ A culture that denies human beings their basic dignity and reduces them to subhuman slaves under their highest religious principles does not deserve the respect of the rest of the civilized world. Does the hooded Ku Klux Klan riding into Afro-American homes with burning crosses deserve any respect? Or did the apartheid regime quoting the Bible to justify their violence and suppression of the African people deserve any respect? But the Vellahlas managed to camouflage their culture of violence, or hide it beneath a veneer of a superior culture which, of course, never existed in Jaffna. The Vellahlas, who manipulated and warped the political culture of Jaffna with their violent fascist culture, exerted a degree of power which enabled them even to force the Churches to have separate pews and separate cemeteries for the low-castes.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ In its heyday, under British colonialism, the Jaffna culture looked up to Sir. Ponnambalam Ramanathan, the prominent icon of the time, to defend the Vellahla mob that attacked a funeral of a low-caste man proceeding to bury his wife to the sound of tom-toms. It was a culture that expected the state and the law to uphold and protect their feudal casteist privileges. Violating Hindu casteist taboos by the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-minoritiesƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ (i.e., caste victims) was seen as a usurpation of the powers and privileges of the Vellahlas. Mark you, Sir. Ponnambalam was not just a lawyer appearing for a fee in the British Supreme Court. He was a favourite acolyte of Arumuka Navalar, the high priest of Vellahla casteism. He represented the Hindu-Vellahla ideology in its entirety, without missing a full stop or a comma. He opposed universal franchise recommended by the Donoughmore Commission fearing that granting political power to the low-castes would undermine the supremacy of the Vellahla ruling caste/class. The Vellahlas relied on Sir. Ponnambalam as their knight in shining armour to vanquish the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-minoritiesƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ and the asangha (alien) dragons and save them from extinction.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Violence of the Vellahlas was not uncommon in colonial times because that was the most effective means of resisting the changes that was undermining the authority and the supremacy of the Vellahlas, the ruling elite. Burying a low-caste woman according to Vellahla customs would take away the power of the hierarchical rituals that kept the low-castes in their place. Consequently, Jaffna became the last fortress of casteist feudalism resisting any change. Besides, invading forces of modernity were threatening to erode Vellahla power and authority. Every aspect of modernity, except those that advanced the Vellahla interests, was resisted by the Vellahlas, with force if necessary. Even the Hindu temples ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” the last fortress of Vellahla feudalism — were closed to the low-caste outsiders. Thus Jaffna remained a tightly closed society as opposed to the south.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ While the south opened all its windows to let the winds of change sweep away the cobwebs of feudalism Jaffna withdrew deeper into the past to preserve and perpetuate its systemic power base enshrined in Hindu casteism. Jaffna was the last to enter the 20th century and that too under the violent pressures of Prabhakaran who radicalized Jaffna ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” one of the few good outcomes of PrabhakaranƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s violence.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Of course, it must be conceded that it was not Prabhakaran who introduced violence into the political culture of Jaffna. He merely continued the culture of fascist violence inherited from the Vellahlas whose oppression and suppression of their own people was sanctified under the Hindu-Saivite religion. Preserving and perpetuating the divinely ordained hierarchical system was a sacred duty and, consequently, more important than protecting the fundamental rights of the individual and liberating them from the shackles of an oppressive culture.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The Vellahlas confined their violence to the borders of the peninsula and the northern parts adjacent to Jaffna. Prabhakaran, however, took it to the farthest extreme by sharpening the edge of traditional Vellahla violence and using it uninhibitedly and unreservedly against the Tamils and non-Tamils beyond the borders of the peninsula. He even crossed the national borders when he assassinated Rajiv Gandhi in S. India. His cult of violence appealed mostly to the Vellahlas because it gave hope to the elusive political dreams of their ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-KlanƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ ruling a separate state under their hegemony. They did not hesitate to endorse it, finance it, justify it, legitimize it and even elevate the political monster they created to the status of a demigod.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Prabhakaran was the Vellahla face of the violent culture of Jaffna. He was the latest avatar that personified the traditional culture of violence soaked in all its bloody triumphalism. Jaffna was also a land without heroes. It had never produced an iconic figure of gigantic proportions. At the peak of his power he was embraced as the hero they never had. His brutality reflected the power that the Jaffnaite never had. When the Western ambassadors lined up at his door in the Vanni the Tamils felt that Prabhakaran had conquered the world on their behalf. But as usual the Jaffna Tamils overrated their power and glory.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The violent culture of Jaffna was self-destructive. Prabhakaran symbolized that self-destructive culture. He used the violence endorsed in the Vadukoddai Resolution and turned it inwards, first, to destroy the Vellahla leadership and their casteist foundations and, second, to destroy whatever values that were left in Jaffna by dragging the population, young and old, with him to the Nandikadal, with the Churches singing hosannas in praise of their new ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-Sun GodƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The Jaffna elite misread and mistook brutality for everlasting power. The very force of brutal power that took Prabhakaran to the top brought him down. Buoyed by the feeling that he could dictate terms to the world with his gun ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” he spoke only through the barrel of his gun ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” he overplayed his hand and met his kismet in Nandikadal. At the zenith of his power Prabhakaran was standing on the peak of a mountain of Tamil corpses. He wrote the last chapter of Jaffna in the blood of his people. He made the dark chapters of Jaffna darker. Under him Jaffna turned into the darkest chapter in Sri Lankan history.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The Sankilis laid the foundations of the violent culture of Jaffna with the massacre of 600-700 Catholics on Christmas eve of 1544. The Vellahlas embraced the founding violence of Sankili with a religious fervour and authority and enforced it with an iron fist. And Prabhakaran, the successor to the Vellahlas, pursued it with a vengeance by incarcerating, torturing, decimating or exiling the Jaffna man. However, what is remarkable is that the violent and the oppressive political culture of Jaffna has seldom, if ever, been a part of the public discourse in analyzing the north-south crisis.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The general assumption has been that the seemingly placid, non-violent (supposed to be Gandhian) north has been the victim of the aggressive and violent Sinhala-Buddhist south. This one-eyed view of history was consolidated and posted officially by the Vellahla political class in the Vadukoddai Resolution of 1976. A remarkable feature of the post-Vadukoddai period is that research, carried out mainly by privatized research centers like the International Centre for Ethnic Studies, (ICES), Centre for Policy Alternative, (CPA) etc., headed by the pro-mono-ethnic leadership of Jaffna, tended to confirm the ethnically partisan political agenda in the Vadukoddai Resolution.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The focus of foreign-funded ICES, CPA and other privatized research centre in NGOs was directed almost exclusively, if not excessively, on the south, leaving the north virtually untouched. The CPA, for instance, boasted about it successes in the courts of the south but it never dared to defend the victims of human rights violations ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” example: abduction of children — in the courts of Prabhakaran. Why? What is the boastful crowing of prosecuting the Sri Lankan government by Rohan Edrisinghe, the legal eagle from the Colombo University attached to CPA, worth if he did not consider it is his duty, particularly as an active Christian demonizing Sinhala-Buddhists in international Christian seminars, to prosecute Prabhakaran and Tamilchelvam, in the courts of Vanni or international courts? Where is the balance? Where is the justice?

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-PakiƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ Saravanamuttu, head of CPA, consistently focused on the Sri Lankan soldiers running away from the battlefield and depleting the fighting force, implying the failure of the Sri Lankan forces to wage a winnable war against ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-the invincibleƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ Prabhakaran. But ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-PakiƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢sƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ one-eyed morality did not inform him that the Tiger cadres did not even have that chance of running away, like the Sri Lankan soldiers, because the relatives would have had to pay the price of their children going awol. Nor did he remember to focus on the common practice of the Tamil Tigers replacing their depleted Tiger cadres with under aged children abducted forcibly against the will of Tamil parents and children. This is not criminal negligence. This is the work of a criminal mind deliberately absolving the Jaffna Tamil political leadership of their guilt by blaming Tiger brutality on the politics of the south. They never dared to explore the north and its fascist culture but they were quite brazen in taking on the democratically elected state of the south. Why the double standards?

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The under-reporting of the violent political culture of Jaffna has led to the inevitable: exonerating the north from any blame of exacerbating the north-south relations. Coincidentally, this was also a time when research had changed hands from the more objective and traditional schools in academia to privatized research centers in NGOs which offered lucrative remuneration for academics who toed their mono-causal line of blaming only the south. The NGOs were sprouting as the largest growth industry which provided profitable jobs for the new batch of English-speaking intellectuals who laughed all their way from their sinecures in NGOs to the banks. Local media also gave them free space to pose as knights of human rights, particularly in cocktail circuits of Western embassies. Some editors who are in cahoots with them for the crumbs they pick up from NGO tables still protect them and deny space to their critics.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Western funding was a primary source for the anti-Sinhala- Buddhist forces to mobilize their intellectual cadres. Without Western resources the anti-Sinhala-Buddhist gangs could never have got off the ground to lay the intellectual foundations for federalism, confederalism, power sharing, self-determination and even separatism. Their basic strategy was to collectively demonize the Sinhala-Buddhists. For instance, S. J. Tambiah of Harvard University, who authored the anti-Sinhala-Buddhist tract, Buddhism Betrayed?, was funded by Lal Jayawardena, the husband of the anti-Sinhala-Buddhist fanatic, Kumari Jayawardena of Colombo University. This couple jointly funded and even provided photographs and other selected anti-Sinhala-Buddhist material for foreigners and like-minded writers like Tambiah to denigrate Sinhala-Buddhism.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Kumari JayawardenaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s obsession with anti-Sinhala-Buddhist leaders reached its bitter peak when she vilified the Senanayakes, Kotelawelas and the Bandaranaikes and the new Sinhala-Buddhist leadership that emerged in the open markets of the colonial period as a new class. In her book Nobodies to Somebody she exonerated the Marxist leaders who were also as a part of the new bourgeoisie, some of whom came from the plantocracy. They were not included as nobodies who became somebodies, though every one of them was a nobody who became a somebody. Not that there was anything wrong with it. IsnƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢t everybody a nobody who becomes a somebody in the Darwinian evolutionary scale? So why did she pick only on the Senanayakes and the Bandaranaikes and not her political favourites in the left?

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Take also the example of her father-in-law, N. U. Jayawardena, a clerk in the Galle kachcheri who rose to become the Governor of the Central Bank. All credit is due to him for his enterprising skills. His climb from the position of an obscure clerk to the heights of the Governor of the Bank is, indeed, commendable. At the same time it must be recognized that if ever there was a nobody who became a somebody it was her father-in-law. But she treats him almost as a demigod in writing a hagiography ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” oops, biography! Nowhere does she list him as a nobody who became somebody. In fact, she airbrushes his warts and the seedy side of his life to make him look like an impeccable and adorable achiever. It is obvious that her venomous mind obsessed with anti-Sinhala-Buddhist hatred has adopted double standards ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” one for the Senanayakes whose rise from being ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-nobodiesƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ to ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-somebodiesƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ ran parallel with the nationƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s rise from colonialism to independence and beyond and one for her father-in-law who made the grade no doubt, particularly in amassing a fortune (of which she was also a beneficiary) leaving behind some skeletons in the family closet which she never dared to open.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ These are the typical traits of our intellectuals who prostituted their bodies and minds to push their partisan, perverse agendas. The couple Lal and Kumari Jayawardenas siphoned off international funds of the UN to promote their pet hate: Sinhala-Buddhists. Lal Jayawardena, when he was head of UNƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s WIDER, also funded lavishly six lectures for undergraduates written by Prof. Carlo Fonseka, another cheap, anti-Sri Lankan pamphlet that could have been written by any hack bent not on spreading some original knowledge but on collecting some fast cash.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ This herd instinct of one academic following the other as they went down the narrow path of the Vadukoddai ideology without questioning its fictions led to a distortion of the social realities. A whole new school of anti-Sinhala-Buddhist authors cropped up, particularly in the Colombo University with active agents like Kumari Jayawardena and Jayadeva Uyangoda denigrating the grass-root forces from which they came. Their theories were advanced to blame only the Sinhala-Buddhists confirming the fictitious history and the concocted geography outlined in the Vadukoddai Resolution.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Peradeniya University, by and large, took the opposite point of view. Sri LankaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s foremost historian, Prof. K. M. de SilvaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s monograph on the separatist ideology debunked the claims in the Vadukoddai Resolution. Professors, K. N. O. Dharmadasa and G. H. Peiris produced enough substantial evidence to demolish the fabricated anti-Sinhala-Buddhist or pro-separatist theories of Colombo University academics.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ For instance, Uyangoda was cock-a-hoop when he embraced and propagated Bruce KapferrerƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s myth that the Sinhala-Buddhists were motivated to commit acts of burning and other violence by seeing the paintings of hell fires in Buddhist temples. In propagating this anti-Sinhala-Buddhist fabrication he never explained whether the brutal violence of the JVPers ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” he was one of their leaders — was driven by the Buddhist paintings in temples or by the vulgarized lumpen Marxism which advocated bloody revolution as the only way to overthrow the ruling class. In one bit of anecdotal evidence it is reported that a gang of JVPers tied a man down to table and ran a hot iron over his back to extract information. Can Uyangoda demonstrate how this relates to paintings in Buddhist temples?

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Swayed by the impressive rise of Jaffna Tamil violence endorsed in the Vadukoddai Resolution these misguided intellectual believed that the nation was irreversibly stuck in an unwinnable war and the only way out was to follow their imported theories that recommended total surrender to the intransigent demands of the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-invincibleƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ Velupillai Prabhakaran. Uyangoda, holding a chair in political science, (a disgrace!) even agreed with Bishop Kenneth Fernando that Prabhakaran was a humane leader. He went as far as dividing Sri Lanka in three ethnic states: one for the Jaffna Tamils, one for the Muslims and the other for the Indian Tamils. Michael Roberts came up with his theory of confederation.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Of course, all their theories sank with Prabhakaran in the Nandikadal Lagoon. Now they are not as vociferous as they were when the Vadukoddai violence reached its peak under Prabhakaran. Like the Vellahlas, they were hoping to ride on the back of Vadukoddai violence and claim victory as the theoretical prophets of Sri Lanka. But the triumph of the anti-theoretical forces has thrown them into the black hole from which they came and are now forced to lick their wounded egos oozing with the sickening pus of their failed theories.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The upshot of the conflagration ignited by the Vadukoddai Resolution was the total loss of objectivity and balance in the social sciences researching the north-south crisis. Flushed with foreign-funded resources they were the talk of the town parading as the theoretical saviours of the nation. It was then fashionable to be one of them. Lanka Guardian even put Prabhakaran on the cover page as the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-Man of the DecadeƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚. Uyangoda, for instance, who came from the lowest rungs of the social hierarchy, was crowing like a cock wanting to be taken notice as a peacock. Looking back on their ideological exercises it can be seen how this theoretical gang became criminal partners in a futile bloodbath that could have been avoided, or minimized, or shortened if they had a realistic grasp of the complex forces that intertwined and determined the unfolding events that ran from Vadukoddai to Nandikadal.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ It was the nation, particularly the people of Jaffna, that had to pay for their stupidity purveyed as critical and salvific theories. Looking back, it is apparent that they were no better than the voodoo witch doctors of primitive tribes who sacrificed innocent children to cure an illness that could have been healed with some common sense ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” a critical element that is invariably missing in fanciful and partisan theories.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Ironically, it was Prabhakaran, their hero firing their ideology with his guns, that let them down. His violence is not there to justify their peace formulas and huge pay packets. They have also lost their pretentious claim to be ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-the sole representativesƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Their mission of saving the fascist tyrant, Prabhakaran is over. Now they are trying to preserve his political carcass like an Egyptian Mummy hoping they could spin some money out of his ideologically embalmed cadaver. They are also promoting in devious ways that Prabhakaran has done a Lazarus. Given that there has been no Lazarus since Jesus came down from the Cross we can easily write him off as a soufflƒÆ’†’ƒ”š‚© that can never rise twice,

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ NB: There are several Ph.Ds to be gained by scholars researching the themes outlined above as long as post-graduate students avoid the anti-Sinhala-Buddhist universities in Colombo and Jaffna.