Palitha Senanayake

Vinayagamurthi Muralitharan alias Karuna Amman, the former LTTE Eastern Commander, has got in to a difficult position with his recent utterances about the past encounters with the Sri Lankan forces. Sections of the people in this country, including the members of the Sanga are up in arms against this statement stating that it is a statement inimical to our heroic forces who liberated the country, etc.

The reality however, is that if you study these people who have made this an issue, the majority of them are those who never supported the forces when they were fighting the LTTE. As for the rest they are they are ignorant as to the enemy the country is facing.  The real adversary of Sri Lanka is the LTTE Diaspora that is stationed abroad and they carrying a war of attrition against the state of Sri Lanka through forums such as the UNHRC even today.  LTTE is only the fighting wing of this diabolical separatist enemy that has devastated this country for the past 40 years and thanks to the forces now we have overcome that.  Yet let us not be complacent because we are yet to overcome the true forces of racialism.

Therefore this fight however is far from over because the background necessary for a cowboy like Prabhakaran to walk in to a war and perpetrate all that criminal activity was created by the Tamil nationalism that haunted this country well before independence. It is this Tamil nationalism that opposed the introduction of universal franchise to this country in 1935. Tamil MP Waniayasingham predicted in the 1960’s that a well- trained Tamil army of 5000 youth could take over Sri Lanka and they proposed the floating of shipping company to bring arms to the country.  At that time the Army Commander was Tamil, Anton Muthukumaru and so was the Secretary of Defense. Chelvanayagam visited UK in 1962 and founded the Tamil Diaspora stating that, ‘We need funds for the future struggle’. Chelvanayagam’s clarion call to the Tamils was that, ‘the great Tamil nation should unite to prevent the uneducated Sinhalese’ from taking over their country.

Those who represent this line of action today, Tamil nationalism, are the likes of R Sambanthan, MA Sumanthiran and V Vigneshwaran etc. who are commemorating the LTTE and canvassing at world forums against our forces. Therefore in this midst what is this madness of advocating action against Karuna? This issue has brought up situation that will please these separatist to no end because Karuna is the only prominent Tamil who has publicly eschewed separatism. He is on record stating that the Tamils do not need a separate state and that they could live in harmony with the Sinhalese. Has Sambanthan, Sumanthiran or Vigneshvaran made a similar statement? They always maintain that the Tamils need a ‘political solution’ and by that they mean separatism of powers that will eventually lead to separate state.   Therefore, this situation where the state is trying to prosecute the one who betrayed the ‘Tamil cause’ as per the chauvinist, will be very welcome by the likes of Sampanthan Sumanthiran and Vigneshvaran.

Karuna is contesting the election and he has to address a polity that has been brainwashed with ‘Tamil greatness’ for year by these chauvinist politicians starting with SJV Chelvanayagam. Thus, he has to work on a thin line between this ‘Tamil greatness’ and the need to reconcile with the ‘Sinhala state’ as the Tamils have been made to call Sri Lanka.

The other party that will be very happy with this news is the Tamil Diaspora that is presently deploying everything within their means to defame the Lankan state. We have to realize that this fight against separatism and international-slur is a propaganda fight. In this fight Karuna could prove to be an asset as he could be in possession of a sea of information as to the parties that helped and nurtured the LTTE.

Sri Lanka leaders have made a lot of mistakes in this fight against separatism and that has dragged this country through a devastating war for 34 years and the propaganda war however, is yet to be won. At least now the people in this country, patriotic and otherwise, have to realize that this fight has to be fought with brains and not with baser instincts.