{"id":92493,"date":"2019-08-22T15:01:04","date_gmt":"2019-08-22T22:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=92493"},"modified":"2019-08-23T05:00:19","modified_gmt":"2019-08-23T12:00:19","slug":"three-idiots-and-a-blind-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/08\/22\/three-idiots-and-a-blind-woman\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Idiots and a Blind Woman"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rifat Halim<\/u><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Three Idiots<\/em> is a classic Hindi movie that features a\ngroup of morons. Sri Lanka has gone one step further by producing three modayas<\/em> and\na blind woman in real life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Future historians would be hard-pressed to explain Sri Lanka\u2019s civil conflict (1983 \u2013 2009). How could a small section of a microscopic minority terrorise the country for so long? In 1983, Sri Lankan Tamils were <\/em>barely 10% of the populations and the LTTE (also known as the Tamil Tigers) was a minuscule group <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer lies in the stupid rivalry of the politicians.\nEvery time the Tigers committed an atrocity, the politicians blamed someone\nelse. They were so transfixed by their petty quarrels that they were blind to\nthe big beast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ranasinghe Premadasa<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Premadasa\u2019s name will ring long in the country\u2019s memory. He\nwas the only non-Govigama President or Prime Minister. His energy and determination\nwere legendary. He wiped out the JVP, a feat that eluded JR Jayewardene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, his legacy is forever tainted by his Hilton\nHoneymoon with the Hitler of Asia \u2013 Velupillai Prabhakaran. He not only gave\nthe Tigers the lease of life in 1989, but he armed them against the IPKF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former Defence Secretary-General Cyril Ranatunga has written on page 103 of From Peace to War, Insurgency to Terrorism<\/em> that President Premadasa had decided to give arms to the LTTE\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the TULF leader Appapillai Amirthalingam was killed by the LTTE on 13th July 1989, President Premadasa defended the LTTE. He refused to blame his negotiating partner, who was then enjoying his hospitality in Colombo\u2019s Galadari hotel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On May 1st, 1993, a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber killed Premadasa. He could only be identified by his watch, which was fitting for such a punctual man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ranjan Wijeratne<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The white-haired Minister of State for Defence Ranjan Wijeratne was a planter who had immense administrative skills. His crowning achievement was the elimination of the JVP leadership in November 1983.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, his record with the Tamil Tigers was a collaborationist. Like Premadasa, Wijeratne absolved the Tigers of any responsibility in killing Amirthalingam and Yogeswaran. In fact, he knew that the three assassins had visited the Tamil Tiger delegation in the Galadari Hotel shortly before the killing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the LTTE Mahathaya admitted that the LTTE killed\nAmirthalingam and Yogeswaran in October 1989, Ranjan Wijeratne still refused to\nblame the LTTE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March 1991, karma (and the LTTE) caught up with\nWijeratne. He became the first politician in the subcontinent to be killed by a\ncar bomb. The white-haired Wijeratne charred body was unrecognizable in his\nwhite Mercedez Benz. Several others perished with him. The assassination was\nblamed on the LTTE, whom he had once defended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gamini Dissanayake<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dissanayake was a politician of exceptional charm and charisma. He will be remembered like the ancient Sinhalese Kings for taming the mighty Mahaweli River. He brought Test status to Sri Lanka in 1981.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His revulsion towards Premadasa was even stronger than the\ngushes of the Mahaweli river. After Premadasa sacked him from the Cabinet in\nMarch 1991, Dissanayake was intent on discrediting his rival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the LTTE killed Major-General Denzil Kobbekaduwe and\nMajor-General Wijaya Wimalaratne in a landmine blast in August 1992,\nDissanayake tried to implicate Premadasa. His private secretary Palitha Pelpola\nengaged a British military consultant to issue a report that the bomb was\nplaced inside the vehicle. The implication was that foul play was at hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dissanayake and Lalith Athulathmudali rebelled against\nPremadasa\u2019s UNP and formed a breakaway party called the DUNF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In April 1993, Lalith Athulathmudali was shot dead by the\nLTTE in an election rally. Dissanayake refused to blame the LTTE and pointed\nthe finger at Premadasa\u2019s government. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A week after Athulathmudali\u2019s death, Premadasa himself perished in a suicide bomb. Dissanayake still refused to blame the LTTE. He said, Premadasa has fallen victim to the same violence that he brought upon the country.\u201d He did not have one word of sympathy for a man with whom he sat in the same Cabinet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, Dissanayake has suffered the same fate. In October 1994, Dissanayake (who had rejoined the UNP) and over 50 others were killed by a suicide bomb in an election rally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chandrika Kumaratunga<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kumaratunga is the scion of one of Asia\u2019s political\ndynasties. She endured the assassination of her father in 1959 and her husband\nin 1988. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wisdom deserted her despite these tragedies. When Gamini\nDissanayake was killed in October 1994, Chandrika Kumaratunga was negotiating\nwith the LTTE. Dissanayake\u2019s killing was on the eve of the second round of\ntalks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kumaratunga promptly blamed the blast on the internal\npolitics of the UNP. She was refused to blame her negotiating partner. No\naction was taken against the perpetrators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In December 1999, karma visited Kumaratunga. She was\ngrievously injured in an LTTE suicide blast at the Town Hall. The President\nlost her sight in one eye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only was she blinded in one eye, but she was blind to\nreason.  In 2005, she signed the P-TOMs with the LTTE. Luckily, the\nSupreme Court prevent Kumaratunga and her collaborationist ally Ranil\nWickremesinghe from the evil designs of the P-TOMs. If it was enacted, it would\nhave funded the LTTE for many years. The long night of suffering of the Tamils\nwould have never ended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only one man in the Cabinet opposed the P-TOMs \u2013 the then\nPrime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa. He recognized that only the physical\nelimination of the LTTE would bring peace.  In May 2009, President\nRajapaksa\u2019s forces put a bullet into the head of the LTTE leader Velupillai\nPrabhakaran. Peace has since reigned on the island. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rifat Halim Three Idiots is a classic Hindi movie that features a group of morons. Sri Lanka has gone one step further by producing three modayas and a blind woman in real life. Future historians would be hard-pressed to explain Sri Lanka\u2019s civil conflict (1983 \u2013 2009). How could a small section of a microscopic minority […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92493\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}