Its amazing that you include me among those who criticise the LTTE as ” boys from the lower castes”. i actively supported the EPRLF when it was the first to organise the so-called lower castes, and was condemned in jaffna as a movement of those castes ( though its leaders were from the so-called high castes). I was also a prominent supporter of presdent premadasa. so if anyone can be accused of caste-ism, it ain’t me. by the way my mother came from the so-called karawe caste, though my father was goigama.

as for education and literacy, that’s another matter. it counts. just recently fidel castro made much of the fact that john mccain by his own admission, came fourth from the bottom in his class at the naval academy.

isn’t it amazing, dear Amazing, that after 35 years of being in the liberation struggle business, mr prabhakaran and the Tigers have not achieved recognition as a fraternal movement by a single national liberation movement anywhere in the world?

isn’t it also amayzing that the most successful guerilla leader in the south asian region, prachanda, (pushpa kumar dayal) now prime minister of nepal, said on the recod to the hidu, that his orgnasation has nothing in common with the tigers which has no “political programme”?

My comment back at Mr. Dayan was that his view is one that is common to the colombo, pseudo-intellectual elites, especially those from the colombo 7 tamil community such as Mr. N. Thiruchelvam, Mr. L. Kadigamma, and others, who have privately (to me in stark terms) and publicly (in more refined terms) stated that the LTTE leaders do not/did not have the intellectual capacity or educational background to really know what was “good for the tamil people” and that they were “uneducated boys from the lower castes” (envision the snooty facial expression, wrinkling of the nose etc) and it was best that now that they have made their point with the armed struggle they let the “intellectuals” negotiate the political solution.

Whether many like to admit it or not much of the criticism over the years of the LTTE by Tamils has come from the “higher caste” and must be viewed in this context… this war is not only an ethnic conflict but also a conflict of class and caste.

so, dayan’s criticism of Mr. P as being uneducated and not “well-read” falls into this category.

“can anyone pl. tell me why Dr Dayan Jayathilake has turned into a someone who glorifies and justifies war, especially under a regime that is infamous for its corruption?”

Yes. The LTTE killed off just about every Tamil leader who could’ve worked with Sinhala progressives to reach a political solution, most recently his old friend Ketesh Loganathan.

Then later in life, I met him as an impressive intellectual, but can anyone pl. tell me why Dr Dayan Jayathilake has turned into a someone who glorifies and justifies war, especially under a regime that is infamous for its corruption?

as for federalism, the truth is that balasingham wrote a tract and then a book ( war and peace) which denied that there had been any agreement to explore federalism. at which point, the royal norwegian govenment produced the minutes of the december 2002 meeting, and disproved his assertion.

there is a reason that Prachanda is PM of nepal and prabhakaran is unsure where he’ll be on his upcoming birthday. the former is educated, well-read, articulate, politically savvy and realistic, while the other wasn’t/isn’t…and he killed off all who were.

ok, if secession doesn’t succeed at first , let them try again. but before that let whoever look at the statistical results to the aspirant seceding community of this recent attempt at secession. prof ratnajeevan hoole’s recent speech sets them out. what would be the demographic cost of another attempt?

Probably the only chance for a lasting peace is if a “True Statesman” comes along and genuinely devolves power! For a “True Statesman” to be able to devolve power…the majority, or the “Buddhimath Janathaawa,” as they are called by the Sinhala politicians have to use their ‘Buddhiya’ and give their consent to devolve power!

Otherwise the only option the Tamils will have will be, “If at first they don’t ‘SECEDE’….TO TRY AND TRY AGAIN!”

Millions of years ago Pangaea gradually separated during the Mesozoic period into two smaller supercontinents, Laurasia in the north and Gondawanaland in the south, separated by the Tethys Sea in the east. Today we have North and South America, Africa, Australia, Asia, Europe ect. The number of countries have increased throughout the years…not decreased! If the majority don’t agree to devolving power, the North East will someday go the way of East Timor or Kosovo! All we in Sri Lanka have to look forward to in the future is more bloodshed! SO DEVOLVE POWER NOW!

and why did the LTTE not come to Tokyo?
hmmmm, let’s see, could it be because they were excluded from the Washington meetings? by design of the GOSL/US who knew they couldn’t come due to the ban.

for the first time ever the LTTE in Oslo said “federalism” was on the table – and what was their reward? the US & GOSL held the next meeting in Washington DC so that they could set the scene/agenda for Tokyo without the LTTE present

Indian development funds and South Indian capital were poised to pour into the NEPC after the Accord, except for the fact that the LTTE went to war against the IPKF.
Then again, huge monies were lined up at the Tokyo donor conference in April 2003, but the LTTE boycotted it.

So, you wanna blame someone , go blame Prabhakaran.

“if it didn’t work in the past what makes you think it will work now?”

There were no provincial govts before the war, and the first proportional representation election was in 1989. Neither of these had been tried before the war. You are slighly correct that PR elections would not help the N-E Tamils a great deal, since they are concentrated in that region and not spread out in the country like the Muslims.

“but i KNOW that you KNOW that if the LTTE is finished off not even YOU will be able to contain mahinda and his crowd”

There is a very bizarre notion among LTTE supporters and even among a few Sinhalese that LTTE violence is somehow preventing Sinhala violence against Tamils. As evidence they show that there haven’t been large-scale riots against Tamils for the past 25 years since 1983 (forgetting the fact that there had been no anti-Tamil riots in the 19 years between 1958 and 1977, or that there were anti-Tamil riots in Trincomalee two years ago).

This argument completely neglects the fact that the Tamil suffering before 1983 was absolutely nothing compared to Tamil suffering since then. This war has devastated the Tamil population. The CFA was welcomed by the Tamils, but the LTTE was determined to return to war after seeing that it would not get the ISGA and total control over the N-E. The LTTE simply cannot exist without being at a state of war, regardless of how many Tamils get killed. The Tamils can only move forward after the LTTE leaves the picture.

“THIS IS THE STORY OF NORTHEAST SRI LANKA FOR THE LAST SIXTY YEARS, NOT JUST POST-TSUNAMI.”

This is factually incorrect. Jaffna was fairly well-developed, and GG Ponnambalam had managed to build the N-E economy by participating in the first post-independence govt.- Valaichenai paper factory, KKS cement factory, and Paranthan chemical factory. Unlike the ITAK dimwits, Ponnambalam understood that the Tamil areas had to be economically developed before shrieking about self-determination (the DMK had a similar emphasis on economic development/industrialization).

The Sinhala areas in Ruhuna, including Uva Province and many parts of Southern Province (from where the JVP got its members) were definitely more neglected than Jaffna.

pity that prabhakaran ain’t into joe heller, or literature in general, unlike many guerrilla/liberation movement leaders.

And why do I have to have a war plan? I’m not running this war; I’m just an interested observer like you.

“Nothing succeeds like failure” and … Nothing does succeed as planned and every good intention does go awry. …

ps: So you better have a plan A, B and C…may be even a D,E and F as well! Don’t put all your eggs in the ‘war’ basket!