October 6, 2008 @ 9:45 pm

“Sri Lanka is a small country. It can not be partitioned. We are not in Europe. If Tamils needs a separation, other minorities would follow suits. What will then happen.”

So the best thing would to create a political climate that will not induce anyone of any minority community or majority community to think in terms of “taking-up arms” to solve his/her problems. For which the “Rule of Law” must be established. To establish the “Rule of Law” we must establish “good governance” in the country. To establish “good governance” we (particularly the “majority” community) must change our ‘attitude’ towards others around us and think in terms of “justice to everyone” and discard ‘racial supremacy’.

This Island that was once known as the “Paradise Isle” is not only a beautiful island but also a bountiful island where there is ENOUGH SPACE for everyone to lead a peasant life on their own and not at the expense of others.

As Lord Buddha said “Greed is the cause of all Grievances”

This bountiful island has enough resources to satisfy the NEEDS of all its inhabitants but a few are trying to “grab” all the resources o themselves by false slogans to make the “common people” their slaves in their pursuit of power.

Let us – the common people – of this bountiful country , be vigilant to avoid becoming slaves without our knowledge.

Sri Lanka is a small country. It can not be partitioned. We are not in europe. If tamils needs a seperation, other minorities would follow suits. What will then happen.

“tamil speaking survive and may partake in the life of the country at the pleasure of the sinhala minority ”

- we are allowed only what they see fit to share with us
-our freedoms are those that they allow us

and we should like it and thank them for it…

like dayan said somewhere on this site: (paraphrasing) federalism, separation etc will not work because the majority sinhalese will not allow it. The 13th amendment is what was approved and that is what the tamils must accept. NOthing else will pass with 2/3rds majority in parliament and/or at a referendum.

in his and most sinhalese persons views it is their country and they can dictate to the “minorities” the conditions of their “servitude”.

the fact of the matter, which the LTTE recognizes and fights for, is that the tamils have the right to self determination. The East Timorese & Macedonians did not have to get the approval of the Indonesians or Yugoslavia/Serbia. They had referendums and then separated. in 1977 the tamils voted for the TULF on the platform of separation – and won.

The LTTE & Prabakaran understand that the statement by Fonseka is what all sinhala leaders since independance have believed, it is only this administration that is frank enough to say these things out loud. and due to the recent GOSL military “successes” there are many in colombo who i once thought were enlightened, western educated, reasonable persons, with similar worldviews who have turned out to be closet sinhala-nationalist racist and the sad thing is that they don’t see that they are.

“I strongly believe that this country belongs to the Sinhalese but there are minority communities and we treat them like our people…We being the majority of the country, 75%, we will never give in and we have the right to protect this country…We are also a strong nation … They can live in this country with us. But they must not try to, under the pretext of being a minority, demand undue things.”

At least let this be a lesson to the UNP that it must belatedly stop contributing to the alarming militarisation of Sri Lanka in every aspect including electoral politics. The bigger problem, as I noted in my comment of Aug 10 (see above), is not the likelyhood of the individual called Sarath Fonseka taking over the country as military dictator. It is the military – all three armed forces – slowly and insidiously militarising our nation. Few have noticed their gradual encroaching of the civilian spheres in administration, media, disaster management, etc, etc.

For now, at least, one overambitious ex-general has been stopped in his track by nothing more than the combined ballots. But don’t expect ANY of these generals – current or serving – to have much faith in the ballot or any other democratic systems. They have for too long ruled by the bullet, terrorising innocent Tamilians, and they will always be tempted to resort to the bullet to achieve their own selfish, dangerous ends!

PS: I feel rather sorry for Ranjan Ramanayake, a good man and non-politician who hitched his fortune on to the miserable UNP of Ranil Wickramasinghe.

Let us for a moment consider this to be true. Then compare this to National Party Government in South Africa led by the likes of FW de Klerk. The African Black population, could not vote, could not live where they wanted, could not travel without a pass, were only entitled to go to school until the 7th grade, could not go to the same universities, could not learn or use their languages, were brutally oppressed, were not allowed to form political parties, did not have press freedom, could not use the same toilet, could not use the same public transport, couldn’t stay in the same hotel….. etc etc…

With all this, after 30 years of imprisonment, Nelson Mandela led what was primarily a political struggle based on fairness and respect.

He said “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.”

For those who say that Sarath Fonseka (Commander, Sri Lanka army) or Gotabaya Rajapaksha (Secretary defence) should be brought to International Criminal Court, I find it surprising why they turn a complete blind eye to all the inhumane atrocities committed by LTTE. If anyone is interested in what those are just go and look up LTTE on Wikipedia. The list is very long and goes back 3 decades. The number of people (men, women, children and infants) blown into pieces, shot, literally hacked to death is in the thousands. What is worst is it is still continuing. This year alone more than 100 commuters have died of bombs in trains and busses (public transport). So why not first bring Prabakaran (LTTE leader) to ICC? Therefore it is very clear who wants Army commander out of the country in one way or another.

Lot of people, especially in other countries have opinions about Sri Lankan conflict without knowing head or tail about it. Most recently, democratic presidential candidate Barak Obama has said people in Sri Lanka cannot understand the problem of the other. Well, I think more so than Sri Lankans that is true about Americans. Here we are poor Sri Lankans getting murdered in numbers by LTTE yet, we have Hillary Clinton saying that LTTE are freedom fighters and cannot be put together with Al-kida. What would happen if Sri Lankan government were to do the same about Bin-Laden? Huh? Had we even whispered you know who’s name we would be erased from the world map– then no human rights, no-media freedom nothing. So it is very clear who doesn’t understand whom.

let me very humbly suggest a way to channel it

deep down inside –

sarath fonseka is one of us – an ordinary lankan – this is the truth

lets not lose him th way we lost Prabakaran

glorify him and you glorify yourself – off the mark – sorry

demonize him and you demonize yourself – didn’t think about it did you?

take the difficult middle path – and try and engage him as a human being – the way you would want to be engaged if you were in one of those high places – be honest but be realistic as well and very very patient – dont let your emotions get the better of you

the world moves according to the patience of man – not according to his impatience

impatience leads to waste – example prabakaran

on more stone into the whirlpool

may be you will not ignore me this time – an ordinary lankan ????

Are you kidding me? You’re saying that a Sinhalese Buddhist farmer from, say, Dabana who went to school until grade 7 has more rights than an English speaking Sinhalese Christian Engineer from Colombo 7 who went to Peradeniya? Are you saying that that particular Sinhalese Buddhist farmer is treated better by the state (and society) than the English speaking Sinhalese Christian businessman ‘mahaththaya’? Are you saying that the Sinhalese Buddhist woman who leaves her a whole family behind to work as a maid in the Middle East so she can feed her family has more rights than a Sinhalese Christian woman who went to Bishops College, then university in England and now runs Hi magazine?

In Sri Lanka people are divided into “first class” and “second class” on account of whether they can speak English, the amount of $$ they have and whether they come from elite familes. Religion has very little if anything to do with it. There are plenty of ‘first class’ Sinhalese Christians and plenty of ‘second class’ Christians just as there are plenty of ‘first class’ Sinhalese Buddhists and ‘second class’ Sinhalese Buddhists. Nothing seperates the poor Sinhalese Buddhist villager from the poor Sinhalese Catholic villager except the way they are treated by both the government and the “first class” section – with disdain. Infact the “first class” Sinhalese Buddhists and Sinhalese Christians prefer to mingle with each other and intermarry over mingling with the “second class” Sinhalese Buddhists and Sinhalese Christians. Just go to a Colombo party and see both groups spend thousands upon thousands of rupees on wining and dining each other while a few blocks down the street are the shanties which home to hundreds of Sinhalese Buddhist and Sinhalese Christian families who struggle to have one square meal a day and are under continuous threat of being kicked out by the authorities. Do you honestly believe that a Sinhalese Buddhist family from the slums has more more rights in our lovely Sri Lanka than a Sinhalese Christian family like the Kotelawalas?

By virture of speaking English so fluently, having access to the internet and a computer I’m willing to bet that you yourself, cheelanka, are one of the “first class” people. Let’s not pretend as if you have less rights than, say, a Sinhalese Buddhist beggar outside the Kataragama devale. It’s just wrong.

During colonial times (esp British period) the elite was made up entirely by Sinhalese Christians and Tamil Christians (and the Brits of course). The top of the elite was held by Sinhalese Anglicans and Tamil Anglicans. The ‘bottom’ of the elite was held by the Sinhalese Catholics and Tamil Catholics. During the Portuguese times the Catholics were at the top with the Sinhalese and Tamil protestants occupying second place. The majority Sinhalese Buddhists and the Tamil Hindus were the second/third/fourth class citizens of the country. Today I would say the Sinhalese elite is still dominated by the Sinhalese Anglicans followed by the noveau riche Sinhalese Buddhists and Sinhalese Catholics. I would say the Sinhalese Anglicans are the cream of the crop as they are a small community, seem to have very few (if any) poor, and are concentrated in Colombo and Kandy. Ranil Wickremasinghe comes from such a background.

I agree that there are second class citizens in our country, but I think most of the Sinhalese Buddhist masses fall into that ‘second class’ citizen category. The first class citizens are the English-speaking (and often English educated), rich, educated hoity toity who have made Colombo their home – and they can be either Buddhist or Christian or atheist or whatever.

PS I wouldn’t disagree if you argued that Sri Lankan politicians are the “first class” citizens of Sri Lanka while the rest of the population are “second class” citizens.

If there are 133,000 soldiers and 3000 are recruited monthly; assuming Rs 25,000, the monthly salary paid to the new recruits, as the salary received by all the soldiers; The total minimum monthly salary paid to the present soldiers would be Rs 3,325,000,000 or about United States Dollars 28 million.

For any one year the salary alone would be Rs 39,900,000,000 0r 336 million United States Dollars.

The world is in crisis and Sri Lanka is in a deepening crisis. Inflation is at a record high of 26 percent and the citizens are facing poverty and dying of disceases. It is definitely a failed state that does not know to solve its problems.

Japan, the EU, Britain, the USA, Iran, China, India and Pakistan gave aid to Sri Lanka not realising what harm they were doing to the country and its citizens.

There is a Tamil proverb which says that no one should pet a venomous snake by feeding it with milk. Petting the venomous Sri Lanka is exactly what the USA, Britain, Israel, China, Russia, India and Pakistan did when they gave assistance of military hardware and advise to all the governments of Sri Lanka.

They were making Sri Lanka a “Serbia” with Slobodan Milosevic (Mahinda Rajapakse), Radovan Karadzic and Ratco Mladic (Sarath Fonseka)

The matter is very serious now. The UN should take immediate action through the International Criminal Court in the Hague to arrest the war criminals in Sri Lanka and bring them to the Hague to do justice.

All the heads of state since 1956 in the island were oppressively dictatorial against Tamil civilians and their legitimate political right to rule themselves. Sarath Fonseka, Mahinda Rajapakse and the like are faithful byproducts of this evil.

If Prabaharan and the LTTE are dictatorial and fascist, the obvious reason for it is nothing but the repressive dictatorship of Sinhalese heads of state since 1956.

If any head of state would have come forward honestly to be non dictatorial and non discriminatory, he could have made Prabaharan and the LTTE to come to true democracy and win the legitimate rights of Tamils. Unfortunately it never happened and the chance is lost for ever.

Surely, we cannot come out from the present dictatorial practices of the politicos. We should ask the UN to help us draft a new constitution and instil true ddemocracy, respecting the rights and freedoms if we desire to be free from this destructive evil.

so on that day I realized that this is a desperate man fighting for his life and I thought that the only useful thoughts I can have about him are thoughts of goodwill – metta and thoughts of compassion – karuna

I also included the poor suicide bomber in my thoughts

So have things changed since then? Or is this just our perception playing tricks on us? All these big names we call people by – are they real or are they just a passing show we get excited about?

First the facts; a poll conducted by the Center for Policy Alternatives show that the overwhelming majority of the Sri Lankan people are satisfied with the current strategy. I personally don’t agree with the majority but those are the facts from a poll conducted by an organization widely believed to be credible.
See (http://www.groundviews.org/2007/12/31/poll-results-how-do-you-think-we-can-end-the-war-and-attain-peace-in-sri-lanka/)

Then when it comes to soldiers and their reasons for joining the war, Mr. Thambipillai you just cannot analyze the sentiment of people from all the way over there in Sydney. In the villages and the paddy lands the Sinhala people hark back to the glory days and invoke visions of the kings when they send their children off to fight. Again this is not my opinion but the situation. A recent Boston Globe reporter asked a disabled soldier whether he had any regrets, his answer was “I looked after my family, I served my country and I was able to raise our standard of living, I have no regrets.” Yes of course poverty drives many, but also the prospect of either being ethnically cleansed out of their ancestral homes in the North East and/or the prospect of living under a minority dictatorship drives many.

Then you say “the war during the past 25 years by the GOSL was against a liberation movement in the NE”

Mr. Thambipillai would probably like to compare the LTTE the IRA, the ANC, Hezbollah, Hamas and Nepal’s Maoists.

Then most blasphemous is the comparison of the LTTE to the ANC. Something that the LTTE peddles freely among the Durban Indians in South Africa. The ANC fought for majority rule against apartheid which was a form of entrenched and brutal minority rule. The whites in South Africa controlled politics as well as the economy. The Tamil population in Sri Lanka even now is more economically powerful compared to the majority and once constituted 60% of the civil service. A democracy, however flawed, Sri Lanka’s system is one of majority rule and its problems are in balancing majority rule with minority rights. The LTTE’s struggle is for a separate state in which the minority would be the majority. The ANC was a multiracial organization while the LTTE is mono-ethnic. The military wing of the ANC the MK was only formed as a last resort under severe protest from the ANC hierarchy (the head of the MK was Jo Slovo, a white). The MK had a strict policy on only targeting economic and military targets and doing so with minimum civilian casualties (at night etc). The LTTE mostly bombs civilian targets and does so to maximize civilian casualties (a passenger bus is hardly a strategic military target).

Then let us consider the IRA, After three decades, the IRA realized that a military victory over the British presence was impossible to achieve. The LTTE has not realized that. The LTTE murdered or attempted to murder those it negotiated with (Premadasa, CBK), moderate ethnic politicians (Amirthalingam), foreign intermediaries (Rajiv Gandhi) and its own negotiators (Mahattaya). The equivalent conduct would have been the IRA murdering Tony Blair, John Hume, George Mitchell and Martin MacGuinness. The IRA had a powerful political arm, the Sinn Fein, which had been in existence for decades. The LTTE registered a political party as late as 1990, dissolved it in short order, arresting and murdering its chairman, Gopalaswamy Mahendrarajah alias Mahattaya.
Now Northern Ireland remains very much part of the UK, the IRA shares power with their Protestant foes and Britain remains a unitary state, unconverted to federalism but with devolution of power.

Hezbollah, was formed as a direct result of and response to a cross-border invasion and partial occupation by a foreign power, Israel. With a solid political base and Parliamentary representation, it is a classic resistance movement against external invasion. The Sri Lankan armed forces have not invaded any other country so an armed movement against it cannot be resistance movement against the foreign invaders of a sovereign country, nor can it be compared with such a movement.

Hamas, though much less successful than the Hezbollah, is also a resistance movement against foreign occupation and annexation by Israel in violation of four decades of UN Security Council and General Assembly Resolutions.

Nepal’s Maoists waged a revolutionary war against an entrenched hereditary monarchy. Sri Lanka is a democracy. In any case Nepal’s Maoists have been the first to make the point, on the record to the Hindu, that the Tigers are nothing like them whatsoever, and that the LTTE has no political program or ideology other than that of separatism pure and simple.