Never Say No
Posted on April 20th, 2014

By Charles.S.Perera,

Never say No,  is a streak of the character of the Sri Lankans, from the President to the ordinary peasant in a Sri Lanka village.  They never give up hope.  It was seen recently with the Sri Lanka Cricket team winning the T20 world Cup.  Within them was the  flickering spark of hope because of which despite several losses they would Never say No.

When the vote of the Tamils at  the north PC elections, despite all that the government with its Armed Forces did to rescue them from the inhuman lives they lived under terrorism, was likely to be for the remnants of the terrorists the TNA, the President  never wanting to say no to the Tamil people to have their freedom of choice in a democratic election what ever the outcome  would be, called for PC elections in the  North.

The vote was as expected to the anti government TNA, but yet there was the hope that an educated man who had been a judge by profession would as the Chief Minister of the NPC  see the wisdom of  reconciling the Tamils with the rest of the Communities to make one Nation of Sri Lankans.  But yet it was not to be, the Chief Minister Wignesvaran chose the separatist camp of the  Tamil terrorists. The President and the rest of the people were disappointed, still they would never say no, for things could still change tomorrow. The change has to come from the Tamils, and the Muslims, as the ground for reconciliation had been laid by the Government.

There is at last a gleam of hope of the changing mentality of more intelligent Tamils.”Nearly five years after the extraordinary defeat of the LTTE, the Tamils in Sri Lanka and overseas are taking a tough stand against the LTTE. Tired of intimidation, assault and killings, ordinary Tamil civilians are beginning to fight back. One such leader is Rajan Mahavalirajan from Canada who is tired of racist Tamil politicians filled with hate and the LTTE remnants. These respectable men and women want to purge the LTTE from their society and community and get on with their lives”, writes Camelia Nathaniel  in ” LTTE Faces Canadian Challenge”        ( Sunday Leader 20 April, 2014).

247 years before the West invented their religious faith,  Sri Lanka was the land of the Sinhala people ruled by Kind Devanam Piyatissa, from the seat of his Kingdom in  Anuradhapura. The great King Asoka of India sent his son Venerable Arahat  Mahinda Maha Thera to meet his friend the King Devanam Piyatissa and offer him and his people the teachings of the Buddha.  The King Devanam Piyatissa accepted the teachings and in appreciation offered  the Land of Sri Lanka of which he was the sole ruler to the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha.

Years passed and the prosperous  and peaceful Sri Lanka attracted the attention of the thieves and marauders from South India, and Anuradhapura that was once the seat of the King Devanam Piyatissa , after many invasions  and wars  was occupied by Sena and Guttika two horse dealers who set up a  kingdom of their own in Anuradhapura. Later a Chola Prince Elara invaded Anuradhapura unseated Sena and Guttika and set up his Kingdom in Anuradhapura , while the South of Sri Lanka continued to be ruled by Sinhala Kings. The hope of the Sinhala to bring the whole  country under their own rule remained alive.

In the South lived a young Sinhala Prince, who hoped one day to  re-establish the Sinhala Kingdom in the whole of the Island and bring lasting peace. King Elara had a strong Army and  the Sinhala Kings feared to take arms against him. In the year 161 before the West invented their faith, this young prince Dutugemunu from the South against all warnings waged a  war and  defeated  King Elara and brought the whole of Sri Lanka under his rule.  The impossible was done  because the Sinhala never said no.

The Sinhala rulers thereafter became weak and internal fighting made the country come under the rule of the  conquerors from the west. Finally the British who colonised the country  introduced Indian labour and in order to keep the Sinhala Majority weak and  dependent recognised Tamils as a  Community extending to them special favours sidelining the Sinhala majority, until after independence of Sri Lanka from the British colonial rule, the small population of Tamils  began demanding equal rights along with the Sinhala majority.

Thereafter, the   governments through  democratic system of elections came to be set up by the Sinhala by reason of their majority.  This became a bone of contention over which the Tamils disputed the right of the governments set up by the majority of the people, who were Sinhala. They even began to question the right of the Sinhala people to be the majority claiming that Tamils had been there even  before the Sinhala, some of them even took to rewriting the history of Sri Lanka.

However circumstances kept on changing until conceived by our close neighbour India now a far cry from what it was under King Asoka, a group of Tamil youth from the north of Sri Lanka was trained in terrorism and released in the North in 1980s making them kill in cold blood 13 Sinhala Policemen, expecting a backlash from the South in order to  have the India trained group of Tamil youth  officially recognised as terrorists.

The back lash as it was expected by the Indian secret service  who trained the terrorist group caused a venomous riot which saw the exodus of large number of Tamils from the north to foreign countries as refugees.

In the mean time terrorism was continuing with many facetted development.  The Tamils who left  Sri Lanka settled down in different foreign countries as wage earning refugees. At the behest of the terrorists in Sri Lanka  pro-terrorist militant groups amoung these migrant Tamils formed into Terrorist Front Organisations and collected funds to help terrorism in Sri Lanka which had as its aim the setting up of a  separate Tamil State .

Terrorism continued for decades and  the small group that was trained  by India and sent to Sri Lanka became a considerable terrorist force.  The Sri Lanka army was no match to the terrorists who had by then procured most modern military equipment. Sri Lanka Army was helpless and no government  since 1983 onwards  was neither able to fight against terrorism, nor come to a peace settlement, as the terrorists were persistent in their demand for a separate  Tamil State- a Tamil Homeland.

Situation was hopeless, all Western Governments on which the Government of Sri Lanka was dependent did not step into help, but seemed on the other hand  bent on helping the terrorists  to have their way . They demanded that the Governments of Sri Lanka should find a political solution to settle the ongoing terrorism. The governments’ demand for peace negotiations ended up with the representatives of the terrorists walking away from  negotiations.

JR Jayawardhane offered to make Prabhakaran the Chief Administrator of the North and Eastern Provinces. Ranasinghe Premadasa presented Prabhakaran with  power sharing offering him arms and money. In 1994 President Chandrika Kumaratunga offered to Prabhakaran the terrorist leader the entire  Northern Province for ten years without elections. Even after Prabhakaran’s attempt to assassinate Chandrika Kumaratunga in  December 1999, she generously offered  Prabhakaran Regional Councils.  All these offers wer rejected by Prabhakaran.  Then in 2002 Ranil Wickramasinghe  signed a Cease Fire Agreement with Prabhakaran giving the terrorists the control of  some of the areas occupied by them.  But Prabhakaran made use of the CFA to build his terrorist Armed Force, in order to set up a separate Tamil State by force.

The Sinhala people would never say no. There was some where in the deep south of Sri Lanka where King Dutugemunu  who also never said no had once come from to defeat the powerful King Elara, a man  who would never say No, and was determined to defeat terrorism.

He would not offer the North to Prabhakaran, nor give him arms or money, or give him Regional Councils, but would meet him face to face to negotiate a peace settlement.  He was Mahind Rajapakse a man from a remote village in Beliatta in the heart of the South.  He was elected the President of Sri Lanka in 2005.

Mahinda Rajapakse was a determined man who had vowed to  settle the twenty five years  old terrorism peacefully if possible or militarily if not.  Everyone who knew the strength of the Terrorist Force and the weakness of the Government Armed Forces, thought that Mahinda Rajapakse was no match to the terrorist leader the Mahavir Prabhakaran.   But Mahinda Rajapakse did not take no for an answer- Never say No is the spirit of which he is made.

He made no concessions to Prabhakaran, he knew what he was going to do and knew that he would come out of it the winner.  Victory over terrorism, cannot be put to “chance”.  Mahinda Rajapakse meticulously organised the method to end the  now nearly three decades of terrorism, which many Presidents before him with experienced Army Commanders  had failed to achieve.

He not only eliminated terrorism but also ordered  his Armed Forces to evacuate 300,000 Tamil civilians into safety.  He got the Armed Forces to organise camps to temporarily accommodate the evacuees. He got these IDPs resettled within three and a half years after elimination of terrorism, after progressive demining of lands in the North. Thus he brought civilisation back to the North and East after three decades of  terrorism.  Not wanting to leave things half done, he allowed democratic PC elections in the North and the East.

TNA says that because they won the PC elections the Tamil people are 100 percent behind them and was boastful of the command they think they hold over the Tamil people.  When the Sri Lanka Air Force wanted to use precise bombing to avoid collateral damage to persons and property, the Air Force had to depend on Tamil people to provide them “information”, and it was with such collected intelligence that the Air Force targeted a residential complex where TamilSelvam was meeting  with the  members of the LTTE, which marked the beginning of the end of terrorism.  The ordinary Tamil people trusted the Sri lanka Armed Forces.

Recently when the Armed Forces were searching for Sundaralingam Kajeepan alias Thevihan, who was involved in aerial attacks on Anuradhapura Air Base and Kollonnawa Petroleum Storage in year 2007, Selvanayagam Kajeepan alias Gobi, and Navarathnam Navaneethan alias Appan, it was on the information received from the Tamil people, who may even have voted for the TNA Candidates, that the Armed Forces successfully conducted the search operations in Nedunkerni in Vavuniya and killed the three terrorists.

The ordinary Tamil people who suffered under terrorism will continue to help the Sri Lanka Armed Forces  to which they fearlessly turned to be  evacuated from the deathly terrorists.  Hence the USA and the West should take into consideration that all the ploy about violation of human rights and war crimes at the last phase of military operations by the Armed Forces is  made up by the Tamil Politicians and the Tamils of the diaspora who did not know what it would have been to be under the terrorists for nearly three decades.

It is not possible to blame all Tamil people for the vicious political ambition of a few  who tries to  dominate the Tamil people.  We could still harbour the fervent hope that at least  a section of the Tamil population in the North would soon change its attitude towards the Sinhala, and that the  reconciliation would become  a reality.  The President Mahinda Rajapakse, too has still not given up hope that the  Tamils will eventually reconcile with the Sinhala to make the freedom and peace  which he had won for them after thirty years of suffering meaningful.

It is unfortunate that the Tamils in the North have turned  their backs to the President Mahinda Rajapakse without any show of gratitude for  all that he had done for them to be emancipated into an independent free thinking Community divested of suffering under the terrorists who treated them no better than animals driving them hither and thither to keep them as human shield to save their own skins.  Never say no is a streak of the character of the Sinhala.

10 Responses to “Never Say No”

  1. stanley perera Says:

    Even if Northern Tamils give up their anti Sinhala campaign, the corrupt politicians in the west would not allow Sri Lankans to live in peace and harmony. The most corrupt politicians like Harper and Cameron surviving in politicks through bogus Tamil refugee votes.

  2. Nanda Says:

    “The ordinary Tamil people who suffered under terrorism will continue to help the Sri Lanka Armed Forces to which they fearlessly turned to be evacuated from the deathly terrorists. ”

    -Not true. We see it as a suffering, they see it as a sacrifice needed for enlightenment under a dictator. They did not fearlessly ran towards army, they had no choice once their gods died.

    Charles keeps violating the 4th precept. Are you a Buddhist or not ?
    Please Sir, always write the truth ( to your knowledge).

  3. Charles Says:

    Nanda, I cannot help when reading your comments thinking that you are a Tamil from Canada using a pseudonym . I do not see the relation between what I wrote and the fourth precept.

    Thank you for your comment nevertheless, you have the right to have your own opinion.

  4. Lorenzo Says:

    “When the Sri Lanka Air Force wanted to use precise bombing to avoid collateral damage to persons and property, the Air Force had to depend on Tamil people to provide them information.”

    NOT TRUE.

    SLAF relied on UAVs and SINHALA AND MUSLIM LLRP members.

    This is an INSULT to the sacrifices of our LLRP officers the BRAVEST of them all.

    For POLITICAL reasons this LIE may be told with GOOD intentions but we must not rely on it to assess Tamil people’s support.

    “it was on the information received from the Tamil people, who may even have voted for the TNA Candidates, that the Armed Forces successfully conducted the search operations in Nedunkerni in Vavuniya and killed the three terrorists.”

    NOT TRUE AGAIN!

    This information was FORCEFULLY OBTAINED from Tamil people (AND that Ruki Fernando and a Tamil Catholic priest) which is the RIGHT thing to do. The initial suspicion was by the NIB given Gobi’s EXTENSIVE travels AND that mother of 3 LTTE terrorists who rented her house and her **** to Gobi.

    Charles,

    It is important to state FACTS because IF we base our decisions on FALSEHOODS our actions are going to be disastrous.

    I can tell you 90% of SL Tamils are either with TNA or TNA ENDORSED political parties. Lets face this FACT.

    IF TNA tells them to vote for Fonseka (the army commander who killed MOST Tamil terrorists) they will vote for him.
    IF TNA tells them to cry genocide they will do it.

  5. Mr. Bernard Wijeyasingha Says:

    One of the blatant aspects of the Tamil Diaspora that has selflessly supported the Tamil Tigers for the formation of Eelam and now failing that have reverted to the United Nations Human Rights Commission to continue to bring up the issue of the so called “human rights violations” perpetrated on the Sri Lankan Tamils at the end of the war. Now they have extended that charge to the post war period.

    What smacks of its hypocrisy is that these Tamils who now live in a number of nations ranging from Canada to India NEVER address the human rights violations occurring in their neighborhood. London is a den of inequity, violence, and the degradation of civilization, so is Chennai. For that matter so are many US cities. But the Tamil Diaspora steps over the victims of human rights violations and reaches out over oceans and continents to an island in the Indian ocean to push the issue of human rights.

    On a personal note this demonstrates that the Tamil Diaspora are not champions of human rights even against their own Tamil brotheren in Tamil Nadu. They do not give a damn about how much misery a Tamil Dalit suffers, does not give a damn if his daughters are raped by upper caste Tamils. But instead they use the Human rights issue for the narrow prism of the Sri Lankan stage.

    Just in Malaysia the Tamils have been treated as second class citizens for generations and decades yet even that is not an issue. Only what took place in Sri Lanka is the singular issue.

  6. Nanda Says:

    Charles,
    whether a Tamil from Canada or a Sinhala from Sri Lanka, you have to be careful not to abuse anyone who keeps 5 precepts when you don’t keep it.

    4. I undertake the training rule to abstain from false speech. Musāvādā veramaṇī sikkhāpadaṃ samādiyāmi.

    You are knowingly using false statements ( worse than speech, as you reach a bigger audience) to glorify your idol, in turn you are hurting Sri Lanka more. Yet you call yourself a Buddhist. I am aware there exist people thousand times more than you but please bring your arguments powered with truth rather than this hollow dressing up like most westerners do.

    Did you speak to a single Tamil man who was stuck in Mullathiv who claimed they risked their lives and willingly wanted to run to army controlled area(because they liked Sinhalese than Tamils) ?
    Your statement implies there are thousands of such people. This is an example of dressing up I am talking about.

  7. Nanda Says:

    Correction -“there exist people thousand times worse than you.”

  8. Nanda Says:

    Lorenzo,
    I fully agree “It is important to state FACTS because IF we base our decisions on FALSEHOODS our actions are going to be disastrous.”

    But cannot agree to “For POLITICAL reasons this LIE may be told with GOOD intentions” , even such action should be the last resort and unselfish.

  9. Lorenzo Says:

    Nanda,

    I know you STRICTLY follow Buddhist teachings on these.

    I DISAGREE on that as long as the END RESULT is a noble one (saving UNITARY SL).

    e.g. By claiming Tamils helped SLAF and NIB BUST Tamil terrorists we can create a DIVISION within the Tamil community. A VERY SMALL division but still they will kill each other over it IF they believe it.

    But when it comes to DECISIONS we shouldn’t be fooled by our OWN propaganda!!

    e.g. USA tells its people Al Qaeda are terrorists. But doesn’t hesitate to USE Al Qaeda to get rid of Assad.

    I know it is BAD but in this cruel world we HAVE TO do this kind of double deals.

    Agree with the rest. Particularly this.

    “Did you speak to a single Tamil man who was stuck in Mullathiv who claimed they risked their lives and willingly wanted to run to army controlled area(because they liked Sinhalese than Tamils)?”

    Look what those DOCTORS did. PRIME witnesses for the govt. They said NO shelling hospitals, etc. but later changed the story at UNHRC!!!

    You have understood the MIND OF SL Tamils very well. A tiger will NEVER (I dare say NEVER) eat grass (a Tamil proverb).

    Our friend Charles is in denial. He wants to DENY HARD truths so that he can rest easy. It is like a husband publicly claiming his wife is happy because she gets enough food, entertainment, etc. BUT if he ask her without any threat of revenge she might speak her heart out with ugly truths he may NOT like to hear. She may say she was always unhappy with him and is in love with the neighbor and wants to live with him!!

    Tamils DENIED their sundog was killed for a week. But then they accepted it.

  10. Ananda-USA Says:

    In EVERY country, renewable energy plants are granted a higher tariff to PROMOTE renewable energy by offsetting the higher costs due to the INITIAL Low Volume of installation, and to offset any pollution costs not being levied against fossil power plants.

    These subsidies for renewable energy SHOULD BE MAINTAINED to provide the required INCENTIVE REQUIRED to install higher cost renewable energy plants.

    That higher cost will be recovered MORE THAN FULLY by moving the nation towards self-sufficiency in energy free of fossil fuel imports, and towards a cleaner, more sustainable, environment. Sri Lanka is arguably the most highly population country in the world with more than 800 people per square mile. We MUST CONSERVE our natural resources and become independent of imported fuels. Self-sufficiency in energy and a healthy national Balance of Payments are essential prerequisites if we are to survive as a nation in a world that is becoming increasingly competitive for natural resources.

    The higher cost of renewable energy should be passed onto the dirtier fossil energy production plants through a POLLUTION tax. It SHOULD NOT be passed on to the CONSUMERS through higher tariffs.

    That will provide the necessary INCENTIVE for building renewable energy power plants instead of fossil power plants for all but the minimum capacity required to accommodate the demand for the always dispatchable base load power that cannot be accommodated by time varying forms of renewable energy such as solar and wind.

    This is an ESSENTIAL CAPITAL INVESTMENT that we dare not ignore as a nation given that Sri Lanka spends as much as 30% of our GNP on fossil energy imports. Germany today produces 40% of its energy from renewable sources. The comfort of that high degree of self-sufficiency was achieved by a national decision implemented several decades ago through national subsidies to PROMOTE investments in higher cost solar and wind at all levels: individual homeowners, farmers, non-energy businesses, and energy companies. At a time when Germany’s energy supplies from Russia are being threatened by the Ukraine crisis, the wisdom of its investment in renewable energy becomes crystal clear.

    Can Sri Lanka, threatened by powerful external adversaries hellbent on destroying our country and preventing Sri Lanka from importing oil at discount from friendly countries, such as Iran, do any less than Germany? Let us exercise the WISDOM and FORESIGHT needed to protect our Motherland.

    ……………..
    Sri Lanka cautioned on rising renewable energy costs

    April 20, 2014

    Sri Lanka’s Central Bank has sounded a note of caution and over the rising burden of renewable power on consumers as the proportion of non-conventional renewable power (NCRE) increases in the grid.

    “Although the country is keen on including more renewable energy to its total generation plan due to its sustainable and renewable nature, the current tariff of NCRE sources keep rising compared to other conventional energy sources,” the Central Bank said in its 2014 annual report.

    “Hence, the acquisition of advanced technology to improve cost effectiveness is important to ensure that the public is not burdened by rising tariff of NCRE.”

    Sri Lanka has a target of increasing non-conventional renewable energy to 20 percent by 2020 from the current 10 percent.

    Critics say the global renewable lobby is a powerful special interest group that had managed to grab billions of dollars of tax-payer money especially in developed nations by propagating highly refined arguments.

    Renewable energy companies have also benefitted from ‘climate change’ where carbon dioxide emissions are blamed for warming temperatures, though the latest data seem to indicate that the world has not warmed for over 15 years, despite millions of tonnes of the gas being pumped into the atmosphere.

    The Central Bank’s warning for more efficient technology comes as the renewable lobby in Sri Lanka has used even more innovative methods than the rest of the world based on economic nationalism to gain even higher profits.

    In the last tariff decision the mini-hydro companies were offered a flat tariff of 16.70 rupees per unit, but those using ‘local’ inputs were given an even higher rate of 17.15 rupees.

    For wind, a tariff of 20.62 rupees was inflated to 21.22 percent for using ‘local’ inputs.

    Biomass dendro get a tariff of 25.09 rupees, municipal waste 26.10 rupees. In the tariff decision, rates moved up between 20 to 38 percent , despite the earlier rates already being some of the highest in the world.

    Analysts have said that Sri Lanka’s current power tariffs for larger households are probably the highest in the world (about two to three times the generation cost) and have also tilted the playing field in favour of solar power companies.

    Solar is the expensive form of renewable energy costing over 35 rupees a unit.

    CEB has lost some of its best customers to solar companies through the net metering process, though it has allowed large domestic customers an avenue to escape the unjust tariff.

    The high household tariff was a quasi-taxation income re-distribution tool aimed at cross-subsidizing losses on small households, though net metering has allowed it to subsidize solar power companies instead, critics say.

    In Sri Lanka the rising cost of new renewable feed-in tariffs are partly due to currency deprecation which pushes up costs of imported capital equipment.

    Mini-hydro feed in tariffs are among the cheapest. Almost all sources of non-conventional renewable power except waste heat are several times more expensive than coal which costs about 10 rupees a unit in Sri Lanka.

    Ironically currency depreciation is also strongly linked to subsidies in the power and energy sector, where bank credit and money printed to keep interest rates down has triggered almost all recent balance of payments crises episodes.

    If the rupee is continuously depreciated by the central bank, non-conventional energy such as wind where more than 20 rupees are paid for a unit, may become relatively less expensive in the future, analysts say.

    -LBO

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