“Intimidation and coercion of Tamils and their political leaders can never be a good beginning for any lasting solution. The fundamental point is that the powers don’t want to see parity to Tamils in the negotiation. They want to confirm Colombo’s position that there is a post-LTTE phase and the Tamils to negotiate from a post-defeat position. Above all, they don’t want to recognize the national liberation perspectives of the Tamil struggle,” writes an independent commentator in Vanni, who has long been sharing his insight with TamilNet. “What the powers actually expect is TNA disowning the LTTE and joining Rajapaksa club in hoodwinking a solution. The Eezham Tamils were at the receiving end of political deceit for ages and they have a good sense of smelling it out, even if it is international."
The translated and edited version of the text received from the commentator in Vanni follows:
“Are we small children to drink poison when somebody offers and forces us to partake it”, was reportedly the response of TNA, which refused a meeting with the Sri Lanka president, Thursday.
The Colombo government, in petty ways typical only of it, is coercing the Tamil leadership to accept subjugation in the name of ‘political engagement’.
Intensification of the killing of civilians in the safe zone, silencing the Tamil media, fabricated legal threats to TNA members and the abduction of the brother of a TNA member are seen by observers in this light.
The TNA took a right step in declining a meeting without ceasefire of the war, which Colombo is actually waging on Tamil civilians, and without adequate humanitarian supplies reaching the civilians facing everyday massacre.
Colombo was keen in the meeting to cast a smokescreen of ‘post-LTTE political engagement’, to justify its claims for international monetary assistance, to continue with its agenda of fighting to the end and as an excuse for avoiding negotiation with the actual fighting force of the Tamil people.
But what is disgusting Tamil circles are the aims and ways of some powers manoeuvring the course behind the scene.
It is reliably learnt that diplomatic missions of some powers in Colombo were pressurizing TNA circles to attend the meeting irrespective of insisting on ceasefire.
The implied point was that asking for ceasefire would amount to recognizing LTTE as a party to the conflict.
The cat is finally out: The powers don’t want a ceasefire.
They don’t want to recognize the fighting force of the Tamils that was resisting oppression for decades. They want to see the complete elimination of the Tamil fighting force, facilitating genocidal Colombo to get a total victory.
They want the war to continue in the name of fighting against terrorism, the Tamils to get killed everyday and the injured to end up in concentration camps, until a total ethnic subjugation is effected.
The fundamental point is that the powers don’t want to see parity to Tamils in the negotiation.
They want to confirm Colombo’s position that there is a post-LTTE phase and the Tamils to negotiate from a post-defeat position.
Above all, they don’t want to openly recognize the phenomenon simmering for decades in the island as a national liberation struggle of the Tamils facing subjugation under an irredeemably chauvinistic state. They want to blunt it as mere issues of devolution and development.
What the powers actually expect is TNA disowning the LTTE and joining Rajapaksa club in hoodwinking a solution.
The US has a current interest in justifying IMF loans to Colombo. The attitude of the British government was clear on Wednesday when state minister Rammell rejected possibilities of direct action against Colombo, despite a vocal parliament demanding ceasefire and international action. The election-pressed Indian Establishment will try a hand at TNA, it is reliably learnt.
The powers played a thoroughly undemocratic game through money, lure, pressure and intimidation three years back and continued playing it later in polarizing political parties and paramilitary groups on the side of Rajapaksa government in waging the war against Tamil national aspirations.
The world is witnessing the results, despite internationally orchestrated information sabotage. The worst massacre and human rights abuses of this century are being committed by a state abetted by these powers.
But the powers are yet to mend their ways.
They ostensibly sit on international action and mediation at the UN level, in order to subvert the national liberation struggle perspective of the crisis.
Some of them try to keep solutions under their armpits or at their backyards. Attempting frantically and deliberately at weakening and isolating the only force that is fighting for Tamil nationalism, they are trying to cast an image that this force is useless and they are going to be the real ‘saviours’ of Tamils. It has particularly become an obsession with one of them.
But to what extent they are going to be successful when they miserably fail at fundamentals is the question.
Without recognizing the fundamental issue and addressing it, humanitarian patchwork, hoodwinking devolution, lure of development, organizing quislings and coercing political leadership are not going to work.
It may be an election issue for the Indian Establishment, but it cannot be handled in the way elections are handled: by money, offer of position and by buying politicians or intimidating them.
It is a life or death issue for the nation of Eezham Tamils and they are watching from all over the world.
Intimidation and coercion of Tamils and their political leaders can never be a good beginning for any lasting solution.
The Colombo government and the powers have to be really ashamed of their conduct in coercing the civilians here in Vanni to the extent of massacre in aiming for their undemocratic goals.
The powers who failed at everything with the Colombo government seem to be thinking it is easier for them to tackle the oppressed.
The self-determination of Eezham Tamils proclaimed in the Vaddukkoaddai Declaration of 1976 and has been mandated overwhelmingly by Eezham Tamils in the 1977 elections is non-negotiable.
It is the wish of a people and no one has the democratic right to say that the Tamils have to drop the demand for Thamizh Eezham. Even the LTTE has no rights over it.
An insinuating confusion has been created in recent times in differentiating it as ‘internal self-determination’ and ‘external self-determination’.
Self-determination is self-determination.
People who have the right to self-determination may decide thereafter, exercising their self-determination, whether they want to make a nation state of their own or want to be a constituent part of a bigger nation state.
The powers have to first recognize this fundamental right of Eezham Tamils who have historically proved this aspiration of them through decades of liberation struggle. The military situation has been caused only by the powers casting their full weight in tilting the balance. The present military situation is only a simulated ground reality. People’s wish is the actual ground reality.
Without any further delay the powers have to bring in an unconditional ceasefire, stop the war waged with their abetment and take the case to be resolved at international level with due respect to its status as a national liberation struggle.
The right procedure to be adopted in such a situation is to call for a free referendum of Eezham Tamils, including their diaspora, under UN supervision, to decide how the Tamils want to exercise their right to self-determination in future.
If there is any vicious veto that is blocking the solution of this crisis of grave concern for human civilization, then the powers harbouring any interest in the island have to act on their own.
The Eezham Tamils were at the receiving end of political deceit for ages and they have a good sense of smelling it out, even if it is international. Deceit coming in any form against cherished aspirations of the long-oppressed Tamils is sure to find righteous resistance from them.
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