Sri Lanka Green Tiger

This single political statistic also goes against the general accusation that the Sinhala majority has been the oppressor of the Tamil-speaking communities. This makes it abundantly clear that, despite differences and tensions, the Sinhala majority has been successful in maintaining harmonious and peaceful relations with two of the Tamil-speaking communities and had problems with only one Tamil-speaking community. This single political fact should speak more about the peninsular political culture with its mono-ethnic extremism than about the Sinhalese who had down the ages co-existed as a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-cultural and pluralistic entity.

The myths that dominate the political landscape have turned reality on its head. For instance, the multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-cultural and pluralistic Sinhala society is denigrated as racist or chauvinistic while the mono-culture of Jaffna which fought strenuously to preserve its mono-ethnic hegemony is projected as an exclusive haven of cultural superiority. The anti-Sinhala lobby manufactured an ideology to paint the Sinhalese as extremists and paint the mono-ethnic extremism of the Jaffna Tamils as the victims of Sinhala oppression.  If, as they say, the Sinhala majority was oppressing the Tamil-speaking minority on the scale described by NGOs and allied propagandists of the Jaffna Tamil separatist lobby, wouldn’t all other Tamil-speaking communities have common cause to gang up against the Sinhalese? Besides, why did the Jaffna Tamil leadership fail to mobilize the other two Tamil-speaking communities in their political and military campaigns against their so-called “Sinhala oppressors”? Serious attempts were made by S. J. V. Chelvanayakam to form a pan-Tamil-speaking peoples’ front against the Sinhalese but he failed to get them into a common front against the Sinhalese.

If on the convincing mathematics visible to rational political analysts, the Sinhala majority had maintained harmonious relations with two of the Tamil-speaking communities, resolving differences without violence, why did the Jaffna Tamil leadership alone fail to maintain non-violent, harmonious relations with the other communities? Why did they drag their own people through a futile war into the abysmal depths of Nandikadal? What did they achieve? They went to destroy the Sinhalese whom they had demonized globally and in the end it boomeranged on them. Their violence turned inwards and they lost their entire leadership, they lost their kith and kin, and they lost their self-respect and dignity when they were forced to surrender to the fascist terror of a pathological serial killer. Now that we have gone through the worst phase the time has come for the Jaffna Tamil leadership to consider how the other two-Tamil speaking community leaders have succeeded in guiding their communities to constructive and promising ends and why only the Jaffna Tamil leadership failed? Why is it that reconciliation was possible with the other two-Tamil speaking communities and not with only one community in Jaffna?

The answer can be found in the intricacies and the complexities of peculiar peninsular political culture which dragged the Jaffna people from colonial times to mono-ethnic extremism. In summary it can be demonstrated that reconciliation with the northern leadership was doomed to fail because of their intransigence and extremist mono-ethnic ideology that refused to compromise anything short of their fancy state of Eelam.

Jaffna jingoism was the most destructive and counter-productive of all the political cultures of the Tamil-speaking communities.  Their ideologues and intellectuals who rationalized the mono-ethnic extremism of Jaffna demanded that reconciliation should be based only on the terms dictated by the extremist agenda of the Jaffna-centric politics. This intransigence was one of the primary causes that led to the failures of any moves towards reconciliation.

Reconciliation has been viewed, argued and projected as a one-way process – i.e., the government of day should give in to the demands of only one Tamil-speaking community disregarding or marginalizing the aspirations, the historical grievances, and the needs of the other minority and majority communities whose main objective has been to co-exist in harmony with each other, sharing the land in common with all those who consider the entire 25,000 square miles, from Point Pedro to Dondra, to be their homeland without any divisions.

Successive governments have gone down this one-way track without any success. Every national, regional and international endeavour to bring about reconciliation failed because each move was aimed at appeasing the intransigent leadership of Jaffna. The Indian move to bring about reconciliation ended in assassinating Rajiv Gandhi. The Premadasa moves to reconcile ended in assassinating Premadasa. The Chandrika-Neelan move to produce a charter for reconciliation ended in assassinating Neelan and nearly getting Chandrika.  The last major one-way attempt at reconciliation was when Ranil Wickremesinghe signed the CFA with Prabhakaran conceding almost the next best thing to Eelam. It failed because the Jaffna Tamil leadership, as usual, refused to accept it as the route to reconciliation.

Besides, the undeniable fact is that these reconciliatory moves, signed by the Tamil leadership, were approved by the Tamil people and their fellow-travellers in the NGO circuit.  So what is the logic in saying that the Sinhala leadership had not made genuine moves at reconciliation? The Sinhala leadership had even gone as far as dismissing or marginalizing the aspirations and needs of other Tamil-speaking and Sinhala communities.  Ranil  Wickremesinghe, for instance, committed crimes against the nation when he authorized the supply of arms and ammunition, duty free, to the Tamil Tigers. He even put the Navy Commander, Wasantha Karannagoda, on the mat for sinking a Tamil Tiger boat smuggling arms and ammunition. He should go into the records of the Guinness Book for being the first prime minister in any part of the world who had pulled up his Navy Commander for defending the territorial integrity and security of the nation. It is the innocent youth in the Security Forces who had to pay with their lives to repair the damage done in the CFA.

However misguided he was Wickremesinghe’s actions prove that he was bending over backwards to appease the Tamil leadership – a task that was doomed to fail. Successive Sri Lankan leaders have gone out of their way – sometimes under international pressure – to reconcile with the Tamil separatists. But they never succeeded. Though the evidence is loaded against the Jaffna Tamil leadership for deliberately pursuing a military solution, refusing a negotiated settlement, it is the “Sinhala state” that is blamed for each failure to reconcile with the Jaffna Tamil leadership.

The Nordic peace-makers are on record saying that 95% of the terms and conditions of the CFA were violated by the LTTE.  So who should take the responsibility for the failure to bring about reconciliation?

It was the Tamil leadership that decided to seek a military solution when they passed the Vadukoddai Resolution on May 14, 1976. It is this notorious Resolution that endorsed unanimously the decision to wage a war against the rest of the nation. Prof. A. J. Wilson, son-in- law of Chelvanayakam , the father of separatism and the man who posed as Gandhi, states in his biography that Chelvanayakam went through every word of the Vadukoddai Resolution.  It specifically urged the Tamil youth to take up arms and never rest until they achieve their goal of Eelam.

So it is not the “Sinhala state” that adopted the military solution. Historical documents record that it was the Tamil leadership that deliberately and consciously decided to go down the path of violence.  It was the Tamil leadership that provided the ideology to instigate the Tamil youth to take up arms. It was the Tamil leadership that financed the bullets, the guns, landmines, hand grenades, the boats and all the other firearms when the doors were open to them to negotiate like the other two Tamil-speaking communities. It was the Tamil leadership that gave the silent assent to the killings of Tamil leaders.

Having reneged on national, regional and international agreements, having rejected all reasonable offers for reconciliation, even those offers that came with international guarantees, the Tamil leadership and their fellow-travellers in academia, media, NGOs etc refuse to accept responsibility for the horrendous political crimes committed in the name of the Tamil people.   Not surprisingly, the intellectuals, academics, NGO pundits produced volumes rationalizing their divisive politics and justifying Tamil violence by blaming the Sinhalese.

Blaming the Sinhalese is the most common feature of the Jaffna Tamil political culture. Jaffna-centric politics thrived on targeting the Sinhalese. It eventually turned into a cult of hate. The ultimate expression of this anti-Sinhala politics was encapsulated in the Vadukoddai Resolution. It is the most decisive document to come out of Jaffna defining their political goals, violent strategies and the cult of hate. It produced an ideology based primarily on the fictitious history and the concocted geography.

A whole new ideological industry grew round the Vadukoddai Resolution. The pro-separatist seminars, lectures, researches, publications were aimed at blaming only the Sinhala-Buddhists. The Vadukoddai ideology was designed to exonerate the Jaffna Tamil leadership from all blame and any analysis of subsequent studies will reveal that academics and public intellectuals never deviated one inch from the fictions and concoctions laid down in the Vadukoddai Resolution. In the end they blamed Prabhakaran also as a creation of the Sinhalese. If Prabhakaran was a creation of the Sinhalese his bullets should have been directed only at the Sinhalese. But why did he turn his guns first on the fathers of Vadukoddai Resolution which endorsed Tamil violence? Did the Sinhalese instruct him to target the entire Tamil leadership? If, as claimed, he came out of Sinhala violence, why did he target the innocent Muslims? What had they done to him? Why did he pluck Tamil children from the breasts of Tamil mothers? Was it the Sinhalese who prompted him to commit these crimes against humanity?

Demonizing the Sinhala-Buddhists was a necessary strategy to justify Tamil violence and extremist demands. At the root of Tamil violence and extremist demands was this Vadukoddai ideology which  defined and laid down the road map to Eelam which, contrary to their expectations, ended in Nandikadal.

The Vadukoddai Resolution produced the Vadukoddai War which lasted 33 years and four days. It had a definite beginning (MAY 14, 1976) and it had a definite ending on May 18, 2009. I consider this as one continuous War and not as four Eelam Wars. The fact that Vadukoddai War see-sawed between low-intensity and high-intensity phases does not add up to four wars. It was just one continuous war led by the Jaffna war-mongers who deliberately declared war on the rest of the nation in the Vadukoddai Resolution.

This Commission and the nation at large are now engaged in working out modalities for reconciliation. There are many roads to reconciliation, ranging from state initiatives to organised activities at the grass root levels. Reconciliation is also not one-way traffic. It takes two to arrive at reconciliation. Reconciliation, it should be noted, is a process that begins in the minds. Breaking down the mental barriers, misperceptions, prejudices and fear-mongering are some of the essentials needed to bring about reconciliation. Above all, no reconciliation is possible if the ideology that led to the Vadukoddai War is left unchallenged.

 Vadukoddai Resolution was not meant for reconciliation. It was meant to demonize the Sinhalese, rewrite their history to suit the agenda of Jaffna-centric politics and whip up anti-Sinhala sentiments to keep Vadukoddai violence at boiling point.   In fact, when the Tamil separatist decided to go down the path laid out in the Vadukoddai  Resolution they opened up two fronts: 1. The military front on the ground where the Tamil youth took up arms as stipulated in the Vadukoddai  Resolution and 2. the ideological front which justified and fuelled the Vadukoddai War for 33 years. We have won the war on the ground. But we have yet to win on the second front  — the ideological front which is as formidable as the defeated military front.

The Vadukoddai ideology hangs like a Damocles sword over the head of the nation. The Tamil diaspora is driven primarily by the Vadukoddai ideology. That is their one and only reference point. The Provisional Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam is designed to achieve the goals of the Vadukoddai Resolution. Though the Tamil Tigers – the misled children of the Vadukoddai Resolution — are dead the ideology is still alive.

Combating this ideology is a sine qua non for the nation to advance toward reconciliation. The primary task of the second front, which the government has not yet opened in any effective way, is to demolish the political myths and fictions woven round the Vadukoddai Resolution.   No amount of legislation can win this ideological battle. It is going to be a battle for the hearts and minds of the people. Reconciliation is possible only when the minds are liberated from myths of divisive and violent politics embedded in the Vadukoddai Resolution. The removal of the Tamil Tiger terrorists from the political equation helps. But the ideology that fired them up continues to linger on in various shades and manifestations.

This is why the ideological battle has to be taken seriously and fought relentlessly like the recently concluded war on the ground. The common thrust of the anti-Sinhala ideology is based on the allegation of discrimination against the Tamils. Apart from the concocted historical and geographical fictions, Jaffna-centric politics has consistently accused what they called the ”Sinhala state” on grounds of discrimination. It is the rationale on which Jaffna-centric politics took to violence. This accusation has been accepted uncritically by the assorted pundits who found it very lucrative to toe this line.

It has become an integral part of conventional wisdom that hardly anyone dares to challenge it. I have no time to cover all the issues of discrimination raised by the Jaffna Tamil lobby. But let me deal with the main accusation based on the Sinhala Only Act.  As a result of the massive propaganda the world has come to know this as the symbol of discrimination against the Tamil-speaking people. But the two other Tamil-speaking communities – the Muslims and the Indians – did not consider this as an issue on which they could take up arms or demand a separate state. What should be noted is that all the issues of discrimination were raised and pursued relentlessly, ending up in the Vadukoddai War, only by the Jaffna Tamils. Practically every one of the issues of discrimination raised by the Jaffna Tamil political caste/class – except the citizenship issue of the Indians – were irrelevant to the other two Tamil-speaking communities. This is one of the reasons why the issue of discrimination sounds so hollow. If two out of three Tamil-speaking communities pursued consistently a political programme of peaceful co-existence whilst gaining their rights by non-violent politics what was the justification of the Jaffna political caste/class to go all the way from Vadukoddai to Nandikadal?

Take the example of the Sinhala Only Act which is cited as the mother of all evil in Sri Lankan politics. It was not just the Jaffna Tamils but the entire Westernized, English- educated ruling class of all communities, including the Sinhalese, that rebelled against it. Even among the Tamils the language issue was confined essentially to the English-educated professionals, particularly those in the public service. The vast majority of the Tamils who lived among the Sinhalese had no problem with Sinhala as the language of commerce. When I grew up my barber, my corner store grocer, my thosai boutique man, my rickshaw man who took me to school, the botal karaya, — you name it – were all
Tamils and they had no problem with Sinhalese. My mother who shopped for her jewellery at Sea Street had no problem in bargaining with the Tamil jewellers in Sinhalese. In fact, it was a problem confined only to the 6% of the English educated elite who resented and resisted their power and privileges being taken away by enthroning the language of the majority of the people. They were bent on retaining the colonial privileges which would deprive the 94% of the people to communicate with the language of their elected government in the mother tongue. Which democratic, or for that even a dictatorship, would continue in the unfair practice of running a government in an alien language? Is France run in English? Is England administered in Welsh? Is China run in Japanese? Why is it right for all other nations to run their governments in the language of the majority but not Sri Lanka?

But let me hasten to add that the Tamils also had the right communicate with their elected government in their mother tongue. And provision was made for it by S.W. R. D. Bandaranaike, the greatest Sinhala liberal leader who was demonized by the Tamil lobby as the sole author who deprived them of their rights. Bandaranaike did not overthrow the Tamil language. He only dethroned the English language. His mission was to redress the imbalances left behind by centuries of colonialism. The pendulum that swung to the West under colonialism was swinging to the East in all ex-colonies. One of the first rights of the people was to be governed in their own language.

When Sinhala Only act was passed Chelvanayakam went from kachcheri  to kachcheri urging the Tamil public servants not to learn Sinhala. This is typical of the narrow-minded, divisive politics of Jaffna-centric politics that took them eventually to Nandikadal. It is the duty of all public servants to serve the public and it was duty of all public servants to serve 75% of population in Sinhala. Chelvanayakam and the English-educated ruling class did not want to change the colonial practices. They were for retaining the status quo. In other words, Chelvanayakam wanted the public to learn the language of public servants instead of the public servants learning the language of the public. How fair is this by the public? In fairness to Bandaranaike, it must be stated that he made it compulsory for Sinhala and Burgher public servants to learn Tamil and even provided free classes in the departments for public servants to learn the languages of the public.  It was this policy of democratizing the administration and making the administration accessible to the public without any language barriers that was vilified as a racist act by the “Sinhala state” against the Tamils.

Let us also not forget that it was the Sinhala youth that took up arms first on the cry of discrimination. They too raised the language issue but on a class basis. They said that English was the language of the ruling class that denied opportunities to the lower classes. The Jaffna Tamils took up the same issue on an ethnic basis and accused the Sinhalese of pursuing racist politics. Even the Marxist leaders eventually came to the conclusion that it was a class issue and not an ethnic issue. And despite all these allegations of discrimination on a language basis the nation is still run in English. The judiciary, the executive and the legislature are ruled by and large in English. Even the bulk of the evidence recorded in this commission is in English. So where is the discrimination if all three languages are used in running the administration to this day?

Let me highlight some key aspects which debunk this myth of discrimination.  There are 192 flags flying at the UN. Of all these flags it is only the Sri Lankan flag that has given the Tamils a place of respect, dignity and honour. A flag is the highest symbol of any nation. When the President salutes the national flag he salutes the Tamils and Muslims also. So has “the Sinhala state” excluded the Tamils and given them a lesser status nationally or internationally? Take the case of currency – another symbol of national recognition. Every currency note gives Tamil it due recognition as an equal partner. So where is this discrimination? This place of honour is not there for the Tamils even in India – the ONLY homeland of the Tamils.

In what way have these unique symbols denied the Tamils of their rights, their culture, their identity? On the contrary, in building this nation have not the “successive “Sinhala governments” placed the minorities on equal footing at every critical level? This is confirmed by the fact that two Tamil-speaking communities have refused to join the Jaffna Tamils in their violent campaign against Sri Lanka. They had no reason to join hands because the issues of discrimination and other allegations were not valid. If the allegations of discrimination and oppression of the minorities were valid it would have been felt right across the board among the minorities. But it didn’t. They all spoke the Tamil language, they all faced the identical Sinhala majority and they lived in the same political space. Their refusal to join hands with the Jaffna Tamils on allegations of discrimination and oppression refutes conclusively the concocted allegations of the Jaffna Tamils.

As a result of the distorted ideologies of the peninsular political culture the nation was put through the most traumatic period in its history. The Jaffna Tamil political parties have survived in the past on this culture of blaming the Sinhalese. If they are to learn from history the one outstanding lesson they must accept is that there is no future in the ideologically misguided past. They have pushed their mono-ethnic politics to the extreme and they have lost.  Their task now is to re-imagine their place in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious state.

But to sum up, their politics of mono-ethnic extremism will not end as long as their second front – the ideological front — is left wide open. Reconciliation can be built only by abandoning the Vadukoddai ideology which has no future. Those who are still committed to this ideology have not grasped the geo-political realities that went against the Vadukoddai ideology. The Tamil leaders knew that the international community was against a separate state but they never told that to the Tamil people. They kept the illusion of Eelam alive for their own self-interest without any regard for the suffering of the Tamil people.

Let us not forget that in all this it is the Jaffna Tamil people who suffered most.  The Jaffna Tamil leadership must apologise on their knees to the Jaffna people for leading them to Nandikadal.  Jaffna deserves a more enlightened leadership that can save them from going down the same old route from Vadukoddai to Nandikadal. Blaming the Sinhalese is not going to pay them any dividends any more.  They must take responsibility for manufacturing the Vadukoddai ideology that took them nowhere. No one asked them to pass the Vadukoddai Resolution. They did it on their own. No one asked them to drag the Tamil people, using them as a human shield, to Nandikadal. They alone must take full responsibility for what happened to the Tamil people.  They must not only apologise but also promise their people never to take them down the path to another Nandikadal.

Another Comment
In UNP Rukman Senanayake stands out from the rest- a probable leader to save UNP from collapse.

 In 1986 there was a coalition Government in France. The late Mr.Francois Mitterrand was the President, and his Prime Minister was Jacques Chirac. The President was from the Socialist Party and Chirac from the Conservative Republican Party. Their politics were poles apart.

 Despite their being in a cohabitation government they criticised each other politically within France with out coming down to personal levels . But out side France they never criticised each other. They were very honourable politicians, speaking in one voice for France and defending its foreign policies.

 Even within France, the Prime Minister Jacque Chirac’s political speeches were measured and critical of Socialist Policies, but never promoting any political measure to embarrass the Socialists, because Jacques Chirac had to be conscious of the fact that he should be acceptable to the people as an alternative to Mr. Francois Mitterrand .

 Jacque Chirac was perfectly aware that the President Mitterrand had been elected for seven years and he was abiding time to seek nominations for the next Presidential election, but he never tried to create political tension to precipitate an early election by making antagonistic criticism against the President, or resorting to Trade Union action. Those were real political strategies of intelligent politician. When there was a National issue the Socialists and the Conservatives acted together, such as in the case of American decision to wage war against Iraq.

 But UNP, JVP and other opposition political parties in Sri Lanka have no such mature political strategies.

 At every press conference one or the other of the spokesman for the UNP criticises every aspect of the government, minimising the importance of the government’s progressive development projects subjecting them to ridicule, or as mere wastage of public funds, without a word of appreciation for any of those massive undertakings which will have a long term benefit to our country.

 The UNP’s political strategies takes the form of calumny, slander, denigration and defamation directed at the President. UNP does not realise that their political strategies should be planned not only to maintain the support of the UNP block votes, that would swallow any misinformation fed to them, but also to win over at least a part of those who voted to elect the President Mahinda Rajapakse and his Government.

 Through out the military operations against the terrorists the UNP ridiculed the army underplaying the successes of the Valliant troops of the Government Armed Forces.

 The UNP did that to make the President and the Government unpopular with the people. But the UNP forgot that the soldiers who died in these military operations, others who lost their limbs, while yet others who risked their lives were from the people, they are the ones who had kept the country united and peaceful for UNP and other political parties to form governments and govern a unitary country with a united communities of people.

 The UNP criticises the major development projects of the government in the same way it criticised the military operations of the Government Armed Forces, when every intelligent man and woman in Sri Lanka is aware of the fantastic development projects, never seen before taking place before their very eyes.

 To-day the UNP ( not to speak of JVP already a failed political movement, which has no future in Sri Lanka), is praising and defending as a great hero Sarath Fonseka as he alone was responsible for the elimination of terrorism. But it was the very same man who was ridiculed by the UNP as not fit enough to be the Commander of the Salvation Army. That is their short sighted political strategy.

 These Political strategies of UNP are not well planned. Any intelligent person could see that the UNP is not sincere in its criticism of the government, but using such criticism as a mere political gimmicks to “fool” the people. UNP does not appreciate Sarath Fonseka for what he was, but makes use him now for its own political advantage over the President Mahinda Rajapakse.

 Through out the Presidential election of 2005, the Political Strategies of the UNP were ill chosen and ineffective. The UNP was turning its political campaign to criticise the person of the rival candidate, not to show that the UNP has political plans and projects which are better than those of the SLFP candidate.

 UNP invited enemies of Mahinda Rajapakse- Chandrika Bandaranaike, to promote the UNP Presidential candidate. Chandrika was already an unpopular political figure, she could not contribute any thing beneficial to Ranil Wickramasinghe’s election campaign, other than driving away possible voters from him.

 Ranil Wickramasinghe was defending the Tamils with an eye to win over Prabhakaran to get the Tamil votes from North and East. That was not a wise strategy when terrorists were blasting bombs every where massacring innocent men, women and children.

 The only wise politician the UNP had was Rukman Senanayake. He did not criticise the Government’s military operations against the terrorists. The people were ready to listen to him. But the UNP shelved him. Today no one even speaks of Rukman Senanayake.

 Rukman Senanayake was the only politician of the UNP who did not break away from the Party to join the government, but yet stood by the UNP supporting the Government, giving credit to the President Mahinda Rajapakse for the conduct of the successful military operations against the terrorists.

 Even Sajith Premadasa whose ambition is to take over the leadership of the UNP from Ranil Wickramasinghe, did not show himself to be as astute a politician like Rukman Senanayake .

 But can the people really depend on Sajith Premadasa to be a good alternative to Mahinda Rajapakse. His father R.Premadasa, changed when he became the President. His helping Prabhakaran by providing him with arms to fight against the IPKF does not give him much credit other than that it helped Sri Lanka to get rid of an unwanted Indian Army imposed on us by Rajiv Ghandhi.

 Premadasa carried out some progressive development, but at the same time he was too much of an authoritarian President, that is without calling him a Dictator. The Media Federation accuses the President Mahinda Rajapakse for the repression of media freedom. But under Premadasa it was worse, it was said that a journalist who photographed his wife playing tennis, disappeared overnight. There were dead bodies floating in the rivers and burnt on mounds of tyres…..

 An ordinary MP is different from an MP who becomes a President, the power is some times too much to keep people normal.

 The President Mahinda Rajapakse is in that respect an exception. He is determined to develop Sri Lanka without any ulterior motive for self aggrandisement. It is evident from his simple, spiritual and pragmatic approach to problems.

 He is patient as much as he is determined. He shows an ability to control his emotions under all circumstances which has given him the strength to traverse the path he has chosen to reach the goal he had set. He is different from any previous Presidents. R.Premadasa, JRJayawardhana, Chandrika Kumatratunga are miles apart in comparison to the President Mahinda Rajapakse. He is even different from SWRD Bandaranaike.

 Therefore, if Ranil Wickramasinghe, Karu Jayasuriya or Sajith Premadasa are proposing to replace him, they have to adopt different political strategies, to convince the people they are better than the President Mahinda Rajapakse.

 Some times the strategies the UNP thinks out are so simplistic one wonder how it has managed to come so far in its political path. To propose an increase of salaries of the public servants by Rs.10,000.00 would be suicidal to any government, let alone that of the President Mahinda Rajapakse.

 Ranil Wickramasinghe must be out of his mind even to think that it would be a strategy that will allow him to get more votes at a future election. He should make proposals that UNP could respect if it comes in to power.

 Another , curious and a morbid political strategy of UNP is to take over the coffins of any assassinated or a dead MP or a journalist who had some anti-government connection and make the funeral procession an occasion for a political manifestation against the President and his government, with slogans and placards.

 UNP made lot of mileage in vain with the assassination of Lasantha Wickramaratne. It was afterwards taken over by the International Media Federations, the Human Rights Watch, and the UNESCO- which even awarded posthumous medals to his second wife, who made capital of the situation to live in cosy comfort abroad, collaborating with the anti-Sri Lanka elements in the West to discredit the Government of Sri Lanka and its President.

 From 2005 to the 2009 UNP did not stop for an instance to deviate from its reactionary , non-profitable political strategies to at least make the people believe that the UNP of today has some thing positive to give to the people and the country, other than its unpatriotic moves to put the people against a progressive and a popular President and his Government.

 The political strategies of the UNP were adopted not with any patriotic love for the motherland, but with the only desire to grab political power for the UNP by discrediting the progressive development projects that are being carried out by the present government of the President Mahinda Rajapakse.

 Those political strategies of the UNP had been and continue to be motivated by a personal vendetta against the President and his brothers who largely contributed along with the Armed Forces to eliminate terrorism from Sri Lanka.

 Did UNP change its political strategies in the 2009 Presidential election campaign ? Yes it did, but to the worse.

 The UNP was by 2009 a spent force without new ideas misguided and misdirected. Still UNP wanted to defeat the rival candidate Mahinda Rajapakse of the UPFA. Though it could marshal some will it still lacked ideas to plan an effective political strategy to defeat Mahinda Rajapakse. The UNP still had no patriotic motives to change things for the benefit of the people and the country, but UNP had vengeance in heart to chase Rajapakses out of power.

 While the SLFP put forward the Mahinda Chintanaya as its political manifesto, the UNP had nothing positive to put to the people to win their votes. They had no political manifesto. The UNP had already accepted defeat.

 The only idea UNP could concoct as a political strategy, was to prostitute itself by aligning with the JVP, and acclaim a new political leader as their Presidential Candidate- Sarath Fonseka. UNP was foolish to the extent to even sacrifice its party colour and the age old Elephant Symbol to float a new Political Party to defeat the rival Presidential Candidate Mahinda Rajapakse.

 The UNP and the JVP and of course Mano Ganeshan , and Rauf Hakim, believed that best political strategy to defeat Mahinda Rajapakse was to present Sarath Fonseka as their Common Candidate. Ranil Wickramasinghe was pushed out as he had failed 16 times over to win any election.

 That was the worst political strategy of the UNP (and JVP). Tissa Attanayake, Lakshman Kiriella and Gayantha Karunatilleke etc of the UNP were no better than Tilvin Silva, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Vijitha Herath of the JVP as political campaigners and made the worst political speeches through out that political campaign.

 The Presidential Candidate UNP and JVP had selected had no political speech writer. He was not a politician. He was astonished by the large crowds that attended his meetings. He thought large crowds meant equal number of votes and became confident of his victory.

 His political speeches were a disaster. He as well as other UNP, JVP speakers, thought that criticising the Government, accusing the President and his family for corruption and portraying Mahinda Rajapakse as a man with dictatorial tendencies and if elected he would be a Dictator, would make the people vote against him.

 It was however written on the wall that there candidate will end up as the looser. Both the UNP and the JVP knew it but nevertheless bellowed anti Rajapakse rhetoric until the end, and continue to do so unable to stop their ridiculous momentum of the disastrous election campaign.

 The UNP still thinks that Sarath Fonseka has some value in him for UNP to rise from the depth of the “stinking” pit into which it has fallen. Ravi Karunanayake and Ranil Wickramasuinghe continue to visit Sarath Fonseka in the prison, and tells the press the terrible condition of his imprisonment still hoping the people may sympathise with the Prisoner bringing along with it some respect and prestige to the UNP as well.

 In fact UNP as a political party does not exist to-day. It is only a name. It is a monument of hatred. It is boiling with hatred within and hatred outwards. It exists because of its hatred towards the President Mahinda Rajapakse and his Government. It has to change, if it has to exist as a political party. It has to change its political strategies.

 If all those political strategies of the UNP were bad, what should have been the good political strategies. Of cause a good political strategy would be when criticising the government for a wrong action to propose an alternative action.

 The SLFP had the Mahinda Chintanaya as its political Manifesto. A good Political Strategy would have been for the UNP to present an election manifesto to counter Mahinda Chintanaya.

 The President Mahinda Rajapakse has been able to raise Sri Lanka from a developing country, to a Middle Income Level. Hence the UNP cannot suggest political strategies to take the country back words, but it has to think out new policies to take the country forward.

 The UNP should have stood by the Government in its Military solution to eliminate terrorism, without criticising and hindering the process. It is true that the Opposition to a government should be critical of actions of the government if they are not favourable to the country, but that does not mean that the opposition should criticise the government for the sake of criticising, assuming it to be the role of the opposition.

 The Government of the President Mahinda Rajapakse has broken away from the strictly “traditional” diplomatic ties with its former colonial governments and the West, to enlarge the circle of diplomatic relations with many countries. This has to be respected by the UNP. The UNP leadership should stop its members making damaging statements against countries that have formed greater diplomatic relations with Sri Lanka.

 The UNP should adopt political strategies that would make UNP acceptable to the people to form an alternative government, if they are dissatisfied with the present government.

 When the Government gave notice of bringing a no-confidence motion against Karu Jayasuriya for his statement detrimental to the Government and the Armed forces, Sajith Premadasa and Ravi Karunanayake made statements in defence of the Government.

Ravi Karunayake had said, “ My friend and Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development Minister Senaratne has brought fish prices down at a difficult time which the price of bread is at Rs 50 and a kilo of rice is at Rs 75, ……… adding that although he is a member of the Opposition, he would like to congratulate the President on that. There is no point in being critical of everything that a government does just because one is in the Opposition camp,” he said. We shall appreciate and admire those activities that are good for their worth in spite of our political differences,”

These type of appreciation of the activities of the government should have come before when the Government was really in need of the support of the Opposition parties to defeat the terrorists.

 The West is out to discredit the Present government. The West is evidently supporting the Tamil Diaspora with the intention to divide Sri Lanka. The UNP and the Opposition Parties should unconditionally support the government now without allowing the West to discredit the President. After all the President who was elected by a majority of the people is the President of every one the UPFA,UNP, JVP,SLMC, and the TNA.

 This would also be a political strategy that will bring UNP closer to the people of all political shades.

 The UNP should not forget that it is the oldest Political Party and that it is the only alternative to the Governing Party, therefore it should adopt political strategies that would not put the people against it.

 The President Mahinda Rajapakse has been elected for a specified period of time of five years. Therefore, the Opposition parties should have to work in cooperation with him until the end of his term of office, unless of course he turns out to be a danger to the people and the country. As it is the President is well loved by the people and he is doing exceptionally well as the President of Sri Lanka.

 If there are criticisms, it is best that the UNP adopts a more conciliatory attitude and a process of dialogue with the government This will be appreciated by the people and UNP will take credit for its cordial relationship with the government.

 It will also mean more peace and happiness among the people, and a satisfaction for the politicians of all political parties.

Different Opinion
President Mahinda Rajapaksa is undoubtedly and indisputably the greatest statesman produced by Sri Lanka in the recent times.　 He not only unified Sri Lanka by liberating the country vanquishing the world’s ruthless terrorist organization, akin to our great heroes never compromised the country’s integrity and never bowed down in front of the enemy or anti national forces. President Mahinda Rajapaksa has never compromised the integrity and the unitary status of the country and never genuflected in front of a foreign power whoever and how powerful it may be, and have never acceded to foreign dictates and demands, and based on his steely defiance of foreign commands during the war period it is absolutely clear and manifest that he is a leader who would make any sacrifice for the sake of our nation. This is a fact that is accepted even by his political opponents, and indubitably he will go down in the history as the greatest post independent Sri Lankan leader and his personality and deeds will be acclaimed by the posterity forever.

　The recent incidents relating to the immoral attempts made in London by the remnants of the tiger terrorists, the ati-national blackguards, agents and nitwits of double tongued western nations revengeful of this great personality to discredit him were highly loathsome and warrants unequivocal condemnation by each and everyone who has an iota of patriotism, who has any regard for peace and harmony irrespective of petty political, ethnic and religious allegiance.

Not only the Sri Lankans but even the peace loving people the world over would have condoned such wicked acts.　

　The most despicable thing in these events is the involvement of the anti-national and terrorist slavish UNP Parliamentarian Dr. Jayalath Jayawardene, well known among the Sri Lankan community, even within the UNP as the “Green Tiger”.　 As in the case of many such events in the -past, this spiteful fellow has denied any involvement in the anti-Sri Lankan activities staged by the tiger terrorist remnants to discredit the President.　 Contrary to his denial there were many newspaper and web-reports confirming his active participation in organizing activities against the President together with the other Sinhala Tiger Dr. Wickremabahu Karunaratne.

　The Green Tiger Jayalath bringing of his passport to Parliament itself confirms his involvement in these activities and obviously reveals that he brought the passport as an attempt to mislead even the Parliament.　 Otherwise there was no necessity for him to bring his passport to the Parliament on this particular day just after the events, and he could have come to Parliament as in other days and his passport reminds us the story of the “Puhul Hora Karen Dane” (The shoulder divulges the thief of the pumpkin).

　Despite newspaper and web reports from London that confirmed this Green Tiger’s presence in London, and addressing the Diasporra terrorists and urging the terrorist to take strong action against President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s, including urging steps to take for his arrest in London for what he has said for the war crimes the President has allegedly committed, he has even attempted to mislead the Parliament that he was in Milano on the day protest marches were held by the tiger terrorist remnants.　 Again this is the story of the man who climbed the Kitul tree and claimed he climbed there to cut grass.　 This Green Tiger must have thought all Sri Lankans including the Members of Parliament are downright fools to believe his childish fables.　

　Londonreports also confirm that the Green Tiger Jayalath addressed a terrorist sponsored meeting at Committee Room No. 8 of the British Parliament and aired venom against the President and Sri Lanka at this meeting which was also attended by the BBC News Editor Clive Lawrence.　

　This is not the first that the Green Tiger Jayalath has indulged in anti-Sri Lankan activities and openly supported and propagated the views of tiger terrorists, and betrayed this nation.　 I remember that this foul-mouthed terrorist started airing his anti-Sri Lankan venom as far back as 1993 by addressing a Tiger Terrorist Conference together with his anti-Sri Lankan companion Dr. Wickremabahu Karunaratne. Since then he had been the prime mover of activities against Sri Lanka, whatever the subject it may come across, particularly in respect of anything that may assisting in denying aid to Sri Lanka, denying market access for Sri Lankan products, in humiliating Sri Lanka on the alleged human rights issues, and especially against the war and promoting the tiger terrorists. His treacherous deeds are so many which cannot be defined one by one since it would run to so many pages.

　He had been a continuous and frequent participant in terrorist gatherings overseas and an enthusiastic orator of overseas terrorist conventions and meetings.　 He was the most traveled Sinhala person to the terrorist occupied territories and was even more zealous than Prabhakaran, Tamilselvan, Balassingham and Pottu Amman for segregating Sri Lanka and establishing the dreamland Eelam. As a Catholic rather than paying homage to the Madhu church, he made frequent barefooted homage to the terrorist graveyards in the North.　　　

　The treatment meted out to this anti-national Green Tiger in the Parliament by Ministers and the MPs is a commendable act but it should have been harsher than what actually happened.　 Any Sri Lankan would agree on this point. Minister Mr.

Dinesh Gunawardene should be complimented for initiating and leading this patriotic protest.

　It is indeed a great victory for Sri Lanka to find resurgence of Sri Lankan patriotism among the Tamil community in the North, especially in areas such as Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu through massive demonstrations they have voluntarily staged against the acts of Diaspora terrorists (which includes Jayalath and Wickremabahu).　 It is also equally happy to note that Tamil politicians in Sri Lanka virulently condemning Green Tiger Jayalath and the Terrorist Diaspora in U.K and praising President Mahinda Rajapaksa for taking countless measures to alleviate the hardships of the Tamil community suffered under the jackboots of terrorists, for improving infrastructure in the North and East and launching several projects for raising the social and economic standards of the Tamil Community.　

　It is apparent that the Green Tiger Jayalath has violated the Amendment No. 6 of the Sri Lankan Constitution by aiding and abetting the forces against Sri Lanka and promoted the segregation of Sri Lanka by his active and candid participation, assistance and collaboration with the terrorists when they were waging military operations against the country, and waging a hidden war against Sri Lanka from the foreign soil at present.　

　Therefore, it is the national duty urgent responsibility of all Parliamentarians to bring in legislation, if it is required other than the provisions under Constitutional Amendment No. 6, to immediately disenfranchise this terrorist in the Parliament, and force him for voluntary expulsion from this nation of peace loving people.　 The legislations so introduced should be a strong deterrent for other foreign and terrorist stooges living in the country.　 New strong and binding legislation in this regard is urgently required since, it has been opined by some legal luminaries that just passing a resolution in the Parliament cannot unseat an MP without resorting to a judicial process.

　In the meantime peace loving and patriotic masses should continue to demonstrate and compel the government until such measures are taken forcing this terrorist to leave our peaceful country, or to apprehend him on charges of treason.　 He actually deserves the punishment meted out by the ancient Kings for the treachery he has willfully committed, as anyone questioned on this matter would say “Oova nam Ulatiyala Maranna Ona”, and “Avanai endal thundu thundaa vetta Onum (meaning “He should be cut into pieces”).