If State Reform is the real question now in the presidential elections, it is better for Eezham Tamil politicians to leave it to the Sinhala nation to decide. But it is not simply keeping quiet or Tamils painting themselves into a corner. It is keeping quiet with a mission and conveying a message in no uncertain terms to the Sinhala nation and to the powers. In 1977, at the height of the pogrom, J. R. Jeyawardane asked Tamils whether they want peace or war. Now it is the turn of Tamil politicians to tell in a different way, whether the Sinhala nation wants peace by sharing territory and sovereignty in the island with the Eezham Tamil nation, so that the power games in the island could be faced jointly, or whether it wants to continue with the genocide to invite war – this time a war of competing imperialisms fulfilling their greed for the entire island.
TamilNet Editorial Board
Don’t open mouth on the occupying genocidal Sinhala military, is the stern warning given by the military to Eezham Tamils in the island.
Don’t blame or say anything against the imperialisms of Washington and New Delhi that made the genocidal military victorious and continue to groom it, is the ‘advice’ given to the diaspora.
So, the Eezham Tamils are left free and encouraged only to blame themselves, blame their militant struggle of the past and blame any of their polity that challenged the deception of New Delhi in 1987 and the deception of Washington and the West since 2001. The subjugation has to be justified by the subjugated.
Perhaps a host of our politicians, activists, media campaigners and ‘creative’ writers are doing that job only, knowingly or unknowingly.
It should be clear that the powers are now engaged in a competitive global engineering, a post-neocolonialism process for the West and new beginnings in tandem for the powers in the East.
All need the strategic island and hence all need the genocidal Sinhala military as the neo-lascarine force for the imperialist engineering process in the island.
That is why all are in competition in grooming the military; in getting their agents within the military in the name of ‘training’; in deploying the military in the structural genocide ranging from demography to economy cum infrastructure in the occupied land of Eezham Tamils and in coming out with the deception that they would ‘reform’ the genocidal military and the State.
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New Delhi has an additional requirement. It is very well aware of the gravity of the sins it knowingly committed on Eezham Tamils. It also knows well that the repercussions would be historically long lasting, especially creating concerns to it in Tamil Nadu.
New Delhi imperialism has previous experiences in deploying military in Kashmir, in northeast frontier states and in Punjab within its own country, but any situation in Tamil Nadu would be qualitatively different because of the maritime factor.
Therefore, despite the ‘annoyances’ that come from China, grooming the Sinhala military, establishing ‘military to military’ relationship with it, strengthening its navy and bringing and stationing the Sinhala military in the North and East of the island, in the islets off Jaffna and in the Palk Bay waters knocking the doors of Tamil Nadu, are of long term anticipatory military interests to New Delhi.
New Delhi and Colombo have already named the process as “Mithra Shakthi” (power of friendship).
The recent political containment measures forcefully deployed by New Delhi in Tamil Nadu have to be carefully perused and understood.
Fortunately, the political grassroot in Tamil Nadu seems to have gained a better understanding of the situation and better confidence over what should be done than the diaspora or Tamil politicians in the island.
The military in the island will eventually turn into a demon to the Sinhala nation also, but currently it is justified to the Sinhala nation by citing the need to complete the structural genocide of the unarmed nation of Eezham Tamils.
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“Nobody should mourn the end of LTTE terrorism,” said John Rankin, the current British High Commissioner in Colombo in a recent interview, welcoming ‘economic growth and infrastructure development’ in the island.
Whatever he might have said afterwards on accountability, political settlement or ‘normalised’ military levels are hoodwinks to preserve the single State model created by British colonialism.
When the war was turning into genocide, the then British representative at the UN and later the MI6 chief Sir John Sawers said at the UN Security Council that the LTTE was long blighting the Sri Lankan government. ‘Terrorism’ was not the issue, but saving the genocidal State was the issue.
It would be a folly or hoodwink to say that any level of the single-ethnic military would relieve Eezham Tamils under a single State that is genocidal. It is also a folly on the part of the Eezham Tamils and their politicians to expect that any of the powers would relieve them from this military, unless they are forced to do it.
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The History of Colonialism would tell how nations were bulldozed and how vulnerable sections of peoples were first taken into or transported for slavery and indentured labour, and how later all sections got into sophisticated forms of slavery in the process of empire building.
Tamils were one of the worst affected people in South Asia, as the labour history from Fiji to Guyana across the world would testify. Perhaps that is why today’s powers also, including the New Delhi one, take the ‘Stateless’ Tamils for granted.
The process is now re-enacted in the case of Eezham Tamils by imperialisms and the agent-State in Colombo erasing their nation in the island. Even the so-called ‘affluent’, war-affected diaspora cannot claim that it is free from sophisticated forms of slavery. Future history will assess it.
If there is any global process in statecraft and development for the benefit of humanity, Tamils should appreciate and contribute to its positive sides and participate in it positively. But if the modus operandi of the powers is genocide in any form or denial of nationhood and territory, that has to be denounced and resisted in full force.
Not that the powers are unable to conceive a model of giving the genocide-affected nation its country and having their development. They are only unwilling.
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It is under such circumstances only the ‘presidential’ election is taking place in the island. Already there are speculations on the backing of powers to the contestants.
In the given circumstances Eezham Tamil politicians taking any stand on supporting any of the contestants would amount to only endorsing the Colombo-centric system with which Tamils have experienced a long catalogue of deceit for nearly a century.
C.V. Wigneswaran says that the incumbent regime played the deceit with New Delhi and Washington too. But this is largely due to the readiness of those two in getting ‘deceived’ for gaining something else.
Without any difference from the past, the presidential contest now is among the same Colombo-centric Sinhala elite and agent capitalists. But, if State Reform is really the question now, it is better for Eezham Tamil politicians to leave it to the Sinhala nation to decide.
But it is not simply keeping quiet or Tamils painting themselves into a corner. It is keeping quiet with a mission and conveying a message in no uncertain terms to the Sinhala nation and to the powers.
In 1977, at the height of the pogrom, J. R. Jeyawardane asked Tamils whether they want peace or war. Now it is the turn of Tamil politicians to tell in a different way, whether the Sinhala nation wants peace by sharing territory and sovereignty in the island with the Eezham Tamil nation, so that the power games in the island could be faced jointly, or whether it wants to continue with the genocide to invite war – this time a war of competing imperialisms fulfilling their greed for the entire island.
But whether the Eezham Tamil politicians already at the feet of the powers would put it in the right way to appeal to the Sinhala nation is the question.
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