“War is also theirs, peace is also theirs; therefore the solution also should be theirs. Why don’t they come out with that and end the suffering?” asked a sulking school teacher in Vanni, frustrated at the diplomatic games and dilly-dallying of world powers in protecting the life and dignity of civilians, neither by themselves nor allowing the UN to do it. But the solution some of the powers envisage in what they call the ‘post-LTTE era’ goes back to the concentration camps of the Nazi times.
A proposal of the Colombo government that is being circulated and deplored by many of the human rights organizations and media in the West is the setting of ‘concentration camps’ in the guise of ‘rehabilitation’ of the civilians of Vanni.
Thousands of acres of land have already been identified for this purpose in the Vavuniyaa and Mannaar districts, news reports say.
The camps will be run for a period of three years according to the proposal.
The real aims of the camps are everybody’s knowledge: first to get money to run the Colombo government and to save it from economic collapse, citing camp expenditure, rehabilitation and development and ultimately to pave way for Sinhala colonization of the Tamil homeland and complete subjugation of Tamils, temporal and spiritual.
Responses of condemnation have come from the West, a British media describing it as the return of the barbed wire.
But, some Asian powers are enthusiastic about the programme, pledging money and support, media and human rights circles said. They see it as a prospective outlet of investment.
Unscrupulous show of greed is anticipatory in the competition of sharing the spoils of war.
In the meantime, world powers are engaged in a verbal show of sympathy for ceasefire and political solution, but they have not so far demonstrated any resoluteness in bringing them out. On the contrary they sabotaged any action by the Security Council of the UN.
Political and media circles in India, off the record comment that the subtle change in the stance of the Government of India as seen in the President’s Speech was neither spontaneous from the government nor due to pressure from Tamil Nadu, but was a half-hearted measure orchestrated by some world powers. They expect nothing positive out of it. When the transition from present to future is elusive for comprehension, the contemporary geniuses have a way of describing the phenomenon by putting the adjective ‘post’ before whatever that obsesses them.
Thus we have postmodernism, post 9/11 etc.
Some intellectuals in Colombo, Peradeniya and among the Sinhala expatriates have already started speaking about a ‘post-LTTE era’ abound with imaginations and wishful thinking that reach no limits.
With a great sigh of relief when some shades of the imaginations enlighten us on the magnanimity of the Sinhalese and the need for Tamils to be benefited by that there are the other sides that paint a vivid picture how a structural genocide of Tamils could be enacted.
Invariably the imaginations either don’t touch the point of meeting Tamil political aspirations substantially or point to the impossibility of the Sinhala state addressing to them.
In the conquests of the distant past, rulers did not merely stop at people. The land of the opponents was ploughed, mounted with donkeys, in order to desecrate and curse. Mahinda Rajapaksa has enough mind and donkeys to do the job, commented a government official in Vavuniyaa after witnessing the attitude behind the running of internment camps for injured and fled civilians.
Once again, it seems it is the American ambassador Robert Blake who has spilled out one of his valuable revelations.
The US ambassador was quoted by Voice of America as saying the Sri Lanka military’s capture of the Vanni region which he expects within weeks will not end the LTTE’s armed struggle as it still has a large number of guerrillas underground, relying on the support of the diaspora. He urged Colombo to reach a political settlement with Tamil leaders and with the Tamil diaspora.
Many now shed crocodile tears in India and in the international community for the genuineness of Tamil cause being misled by the LTTE and ask people to come out of it for emancipation. They should first ask themselves that when have they facilitated or supported feasible alternative space, justifying Tamil cause, asked a veteran Tamil national activist of the pre-militant era.
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