Threat Projections:
The ‘Mahinda’ camp brings out the threat of an imminent military coup, to be led by Sarath Fonseka and urged by the JVP. These guys are not beyond this type of treachery. The Mahinda camp claims that such a coup was being attempted recently, only to be averted by alerting India. They portray Sarath Fonseka as a tool of US and Western imperialist powers. They blame him for the militarization of the country, and for setting up a military regime in the North and East. They accuse him of being a rabid chauvinist and a hard-line militarist, guilty of horrible war crimes against the Tamil people. The Mahinda apologists claim that the principal contradiction, the central focus of the up-coming presidential election is between Mahinda Rajapakse who represents the only hope for restoring peace, stability, freedom and democracy, while Sarath Fonseka projects a military dictatorship with a Sinhala supremacist fascist agenda.

The Game of Deception:
The Ceylon Communist Party (Maoist) rejects both these candidates, since they represent two sides of the same coin- or as Comrade Wickremabahu of the Left Front, the common candidate of the independent progressive, democratic, revolutionary alliance has aptly said, they represent two heads of a viper, both with deadly fangs. So, we shall not favor any one these candidates. However, let us examine these arguments to establish some irrefutable facts, to rip apart the blood-stained fabric of diabolical deception that is being played out in this election.

Sinhala Supremacy:
Sinhala supremacy is best represented by populist Mahinda Rajapakse. It was he who announced in his inaugural Presidential address that he does not recognize the concept of a Tamil nation, nor of a traditional Tamil homeland and therefore rejects the demand for the right of self-determination of the Tamil people cohabiting in the North- East. This stand set the stage for a military solution. But the good general is no better. He asserted, in no uncertain terms, that this country belongs exclusively to the ‘Sinhala-Buddhist’ nation and that all others are aliens who have impinged on this country at various times. On this basis, he proclaimed that these aliens should not demand equal rights. Poor Hon. Mano Ganeshan, tailing behind the UNP and US imperialism, says he is willing to dismiss these statements as a slip of the tongue ( ‘misquote’ says Sarath) and advance to the future in good bourgeois faith. You can forget and forgive, Sir. But those who still  suffer the thousand crimes of a brutal, all-out war will not forget nor forgive!

The point is that H.E. president Mahinda Rajapakse, as the Executive Head of State and Commander in Chief did not disavow himself of these rabid, blood-thirsty, racist positions announced by his erstwhile colleagues, but indeed, promoted this policy. He went to the extent of proclaiming that there are no minorities in this country, thus liquidating the national democratic rights of the Tamil nation, the Hill Country Malayaga Tamil nationality, the Moslem nationality and all other ethnic-religious communities. Under this regime the whole social order degenerated as never before. It was under his regime that churches were attacked. It was under his regime that monks fuelled the flames of war, while there was still room for negotiations. It was under his regime that Buddhist monks imported super luxury Mercedes Benz cars and made profit from them, thus defiling the Buddha, Dhamma and the Sangha. By the way, it was reported that the good  General Fonseka also imported such a super luxury Mercedes Benz to enhance his ego to the tune of some 40 million Rupees, while the rank and file soldiers were fighting the LTTE in swamps- and fighting off mosquitoes.

War Crimes:
As to the accusation of war crimes, first of all it is the State and the Mahinda Chintanaya Regime, and H.E. President Mahinda Rajapakse as Commnader-in-Chief himself and his Defense Secretary and brother Gotabhaya  Rajapakse that are collectively accountable for leading the war. It was this regime that drove the war in such a pitiless, merciless manner, until the Tamil national struggle and its leadership as it existed was decimated. It was the office of the Secretary of Defense that designed and coordinated the grand strategy. It was the President himself who directed the war politically, and even when the ‘international community’ appealed for a negotiated settlement in the face of the colossal suffering of civilians and gross violations of human rights, pressed for an unconditional military solution. This does not belie the fact that the good General waged war with pure, undiluted, blood-thirsty racist gusto, or is absolved of responsibility. He is just as much a militarist-chauvinist war-monger as the regime he served. All these honored representatives of this defunct and corrupt  neo-colonial Capitalist state shall be held accountable to the people for the monstrous crimes against the people and all humanity!

Tool of Imperialism:
The claim that retired General Sarath Fonseka is a tool of US-Western Imperialism is correct. No doubt about that! But what about incumbent president Mahinda Rajapakse? It was his ‘patriotic’ government that entered into the “ Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement” with the United States, which is a military agreement that allows the US free access to all military facilities –land, sea and air- in the island, to the  number 01. terrorist-imperialist state in the world. Remember that this agreement was first being about to be signed by that stale UNF, led by good old yankey-dickey, the then Hon. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe, when the Left progressive, patriotic  forces, spearheaded also by the Ceylon Communist Party (Maoist), agitated and succeeded in tearing up the agreement.

Human Rights, Corruption and Abuse of Power:
Now, the bankrupt ideological agents of the reactionary chauvinist Mahinda camp appeal to us to forget and forgive the unprecedented corruption and abuse under this Mahinda Chintanaya regime. Who is responsible for Lanka Logistics, Mihin Air, Maga Naguma? At no time did reeking corruption reach such pitiful heights. Then again, who is responsible for the continued incarceration of some 200,000 internally displaced Tamil persons in concentration camps in the North, including elderly, children, wounded, sick and pregnant women, under pitiful sub-human conditions? Who is to be held accountable for the horrible massacre of seventeen humanitarian aid workers, the murder of five Tamil students, the assassination of Hon. Joseph Pararajasingham, Hon Raviraj, Mr. Lasantha Wickrematunga and others? Along with these abominable crimes, is the crime of keeping some 12,000 political prisoners in various detention camps and prisons, against whom no legal charges have been filed. Releasing Tissainayagam or addressing the issue of some 12, 000 political prisoners NOW will not serve to bite the bullet. These are just sick manipulations for election gain. However,  we have, and will continue to agitate for these demands.

The Real Choice:
No body needs to bring in a military-fascist dictatorship. It is already being established. We remember how Tamil civilians were simply packed off from Colombo. We remember the fascist repression against the media, how public meetings were brazenly attacked. We remember how the military victory was celebrated, building up a mass war hysteria, with posters, banners and cutouts glorifying the President and the armed forces, irrevocably militarizing the whole political-social order.  We remember the sheer arrogance of power. The choice for the people is not between either of these militarist-chauvinist-fascist agendas represented by both these Comprador Capitalist candidates. The real and only choice is to raise the voice and gather the forces for the defense of freedom and democracy. This independent stand shall be the foundation for building a mass people’s revolutionary struggle that will hold the system accountable for all the diabolical deceptions and monstrous crimes committed against the people.

• Presidential hopefuls and escape-routes for the ‘hopeless’
• 10 reasons why you should celebrate Mahinda Rajapaksa’s victory
• Visualising Mahinda Chintanaya 2010: The President’s election manifesto
• The up-coming Presidential election and the aspirations of the people
• HAS MAHINDA RAJAPAKSA BEEN A TRAITOR TO SRI LANKA?

Historically, every successive government has failed to fulfill these aspirations of the people. Each successive government has intensified division and violent conflict through  supremacist politics. . They have multiplied corruption and abuse. They have made the country ever more pitifully dependent on international finance capital and world imperialism. They have intensified poverty, indebtedness, misery and degradation of the vast majority of toiling people. This process has occurred alongside an increasing tendency towards concentrating state power in the hands of a ruling oligarchy. This has been the historical trajectory of the governments led by the UNP and the SLFP, and their various coalitions. The end result has been a society at war with itself, decomposing through rapid moral decay; a political  order ruled by terror and deception, raining horror and suffering on the masses of people. So, what can we expect at the end of this presidential election?

The Sinhala people have been thrown into a pit of confusion and despair. They were told that the end of the war would bring peace, stability, security, democratic freedom and prosperity. Yet, these aspirations have not been fulfilled. They were told to bear any sacrifice to defend the motherland; to defend the Land of the Buddha; to defend the unassailable unity, integrity and supremacy of the Sinhala Buddhist nation. The bitter truth is that the vast majority of the Sinhala people have been thrown into a desperate crisis of economic survival. The Sinhala-Buddhist nation has been polarized and splintered  as never before. The Land of the Buddha has been militarily contracted to the United States through the “Acquisition and Cross-Serving Agreement” which gives it free access to all our military facilities on land, sea and air. India has gained a powerful political, economic and strategic foothold in the country. Vast billions are being robbed through various contracts and commissions by the ‘saviors of the motherland’, while the people are being ground to the dust. Robed monks  fan the flames of racial-religious division and war just to carve out their share of hegemonic-fundamentalist space in the power structure. This is the true essence of the politics of the ‘patriotic holy war’  to liquidate the Tamil nation and its struggle for national liberation, in order to defend the Race, Land, Language and Religion. Now, the guns, batons, tear gas and riot squads of the Sinhala-Buddhist state have been turned against predominantly Sinhala workers, students and graduates, who have taken the streets to demand their rights. It should be remembered that it is this very same Capitalist State that massacred over hundred thousand Sinhala youth in the South to drown two insurrections  in rivers of blood.

The Tamil people have also been plunged into a pit of division, confusion and despair. They have yet to be honored with a political solution that recognizes their political status as nation. Hundreds of thousand Tamil people remain in concentration camps and thousands in prison and detention camps. Their claim to a historical homeland and nationhood is being physically dismantled by Sinhala colonization, military encirclement and by lucrative mega agro-industrial, energy and infrastructure projects. This policy shall inevitably and irrevocably  refuel the aspiration for separation.

The JVP has decided to share common ground with the UNP and endorse retired General Sarath Fonseka to bring down the Mahinda Chintanaya regime. This must be the bottom pit of opportunism. It is the JVP that was the main force in formulating the Mahinda Chintanaya and for bringing Mahinda Rajapakse to power. It was the UNP that ruthlessly decimated the JVP in the second aborted insurrection. Now the JVP has joined the camp of the ‘traitors and conspirators’ to save their mangy skin, and so has the UNP wriggled itself into common ground with its arch enemy. General Sarath Fonseka is a confirmed, born again racist, an unbridled chauvinist and a hard-line militarist, equal to his one-time boss, Mahinda Rajapakse.  General Fonseka is bound to teach Ranil Wickremasinghe and Somawansa Amarasinghe a classic lesson in deception and how to execute ‘ open-market/ liberal pluralist democracy’ in good old open military fashion- ala Myanmar.

Whatever the outcome of the presidential election, the aspirations of the people will be betrayed by a corrupt and defunct neo-colonial Capitalist state and system, and its bloody ruling class. Whoever wins, the system will be plunged into even more instability and crisis. The prevailing imperialist global political order, of which the Sri Lankan state functions as a dependent  Comprador agent,  can only rain destruction  and devastation on the people in the insatiable search for domination, plunder and profit. This truth is proven by the fountain of blood, sweat and tears, the endless poverty, misery and degradation, of the vast billions of people of the world, perpetually defiled and enslaved under this Capitalist –Imperialist system. The global system of Imperialism and neo-colonialism can only compound and intensify the contradictions that propel the world towards ever more devastating crisis, perpetual state of war and catastrophic human suffering.  Neither this comical presidential election, nor any other such bourgeois election can fulfill  the democratic aspirations of the people. The only way out for the people is to rely on their own conscious strength in organizing  and mobilizing their  independent political power to resist and overcome the deadly game of deception, and the system,  once and for all,  and so charter their future and conquer their freedom.

• The Presidential Election: A Diabolical Deception!
• Blinkered vision of Tamil nationalists and socialists is self-defeating
• An Unprecedented Presidential Election and the Future of Sri Lankan Democracy
• Are alliances the key in Sri Lanka’s up-coming Presidential election?
• THE DEEPEST DIVISION IN SRI LANKA

Do the Tamil people who consider the North-East as their areas of historical habitation (homeland) constitute a nation? This question cannot be resolved by piling up archaic archaeological or historical evidence. It is not a question of who came first.  The fact is that the modern Tamil nation has been forged through six decades of political struggle, including nearly three decades of armed struggle, at the cost of immense sacrifice and suffering, against systematic discrimination, national subjugation and violent suppression by the State. If we go by archeological and historical evidence, then the United States would belong to the American Indians, Australia to the aborigines, and Israel would simply lose its right to exist. Modern nations and nation states were forged either through colonial conquest, military aggression and occupation, or by oppressed nations fighting for national liberation, as throughout Asia, Latin America and Africa. Recognition of the political status of the Tamil nation remains a cardinal principle for solving the National Question in Sri Lanka. The Sinhala nation will be dignified by according recognition of the Tamil nation, along with the Hill Country Tamil nationality and the Moslem nationality. This recognition will not diminish, but enhance the political status of the Sinhala nation, and create the democratic foundations for building national unity and reconciliation.  Besides, this supremacist-militarist ideology and politics only serve to deceive the oppressed and exploited Sinhala masses, who will continue to drown in a sea of poverty, indebtedness and degradation. This ideology and politics as concentrated in the political agenda of the present regime will drag the country into even more anarchy, chaos and terror, while the powers that be shall continue to feast on the spoils of blood, profit and plunder.

The fact is that the demand for recognition as a nation had been raised as far back as the 1940’s, when the Tamil national leadership felt that it was to be effectively marginalized and subordinated by the Sinhala hegemonic Comprador ruling class, under the neo-colonial state rigged up by the British. The fact is that the demand for recognition as a distinct nation came to be endorsed by every single Tamil political party and organization that signed the Vadukkodai Declaration in 1978. The immediate background for this assertion was the adoption of the 1972 Republican Constitution, which relegated the Tamil nation to a subordinate status and the Standardization policy which clearly discriminated against Tamil students from accessing university education. Following the police intervention against the International Tamil Literary Congress in 1974 resulting in the death of 12 delegates, the deliberate sabotage of the Jaffna DDC elections by the state and the subsequent burning of the Jaffna library, the LTTE, and several Tamil youth organizations, initiated an armed political struggle to gain recognition of the status of the Tamil nation. The truth is that they resorted to armed struggle only when every other constitutional/ political means to advance the cause of the Tamil nation had been blocked by the state. This was after the adoption of the 6^th Amendment, which simply outlawed the demand for a separate state, which had been mandated by the majority of the Tamil people, and the flagrant sabotage of even the cosmetic District Development Councils elections offered by the State. The LTTE is a product of this intensifying discrimination and violent suppression of the Tamil nation, carried out by every successive government, and now crowned by the present Mahinda Chintanaya regime. Its demand for recognition of Tamil statehood and nationhood is an aspiration shared by all self-respecting Tamils.  All those who love this land and its people, who stand for truth and justice, all genuine patriotic-democratic  forces will continue to struggle for a political solution that recognizes the dignity, equality, security, autonomy and democratic freedom of all the diverse nations, nationalities and communities of Sri Lanka. This is the only way to build a united, independent and democratic Sri Lanka. This is the only way to overcome the politics of division and separation.

The war against the LTTE waged by the present regime was defined as a war to eliminate ‘separatist terrorism’. However, in effect and purpose, the war has been waged to eliminate the political status of the Tamil nation, along with the military liquidation of the LTTE. As a consequence, Sinhala supremacy and hegemony has come to be entrenched as the official state ideology and political policy-as never before. The underlying principle of this ideology and politics is that there is but one, and only one, nation, and that is the Sinhala-Buddhist nation, which alone has the exclusive right to form a state, while all others are to be regarded as aliens. According to this definition, there could be no sharing of state power, except perhaps, on a purely cosmetic administrative basis. Given that the war has been waged on this premise, the regime cannot now compromise on this principle, without provoking violent resistance by the militarist-chauvinist camp which it represents , including within the armed forces. This is the reason that the regime is unable to present a political solution. The irony is that it is this very same ideology and politics of Sinhala supremacy that led to the demand for a separate state in the first place, and rained division and destruction upon our Land and people.

The regime is being besieged by an insurmountable political crisis, an engulfing economic crisis and a volatile moral crisis of legitimacy, for which it has no solutions, except to intensify state repression against any and all resistance. The oppressed masses, including the Sinhala masses have come to recognize the true nature of this corrupt and arrogant Capitalist dictatorship. The regime is facing increasing resistance by the working class, students, graduates and others. It is being seriously challenged by new contenders to the throne in the person of  General Sarath Fonseka, who is also revered by the same Sinhala chauvinist-militarist camp, including within the ranks of the armed forces. The UNP and JVP are also seeking common ground to resist the regime. Under these circumstances, the regime can only survive by intensifying its Sinhala supremacist-militarist-terrorist agenda – at all cost. It can survive only by manufacturing and magnifying the threat of an imminent resurgence of the LTTE, backed by an international conspiracy of traitors to the ‘motherland’, and, on this basis, maintaining the triumphalist war hysteria and relentlessly pursuing its supremacist-militarist-terrorist agenda. This process of creating and magnifying bogeys serves to displace all other burning issues such  as the unprecedented rotting, rampant corruption and abuse, the abysmal failure on the economic front and intolerable burdens heaped on the people, the spiraling crisis of human rights and the damning humanitarian catastrophe. Given these insuperable contradictions, the regime hopes to maintain some degree of legitimacy and popularity by perpetuating myths and creating bogeys. It  survives by manufacturing the bogey of an international conspiracy being hatched by traitors to the motherland. The regime needs to magnify these myths and bogeys as a basis to increasingly militarize and politicize the social and political order, as the one remaining way to maintain its iron grip on state power.

This is one of the reasons why the regime will not release and resettle the internally detained persons, who will continue to languish in the swamps in utter misery, degradation and insecurity. It is patently clear that there is no justification for detaining children, aged, sick and disabled other than to maintain the process of militarization, under the guise of hunting and eliminating the LTTE. If de-mining is the obstacle, just simply on humanitarian grounds, launch and intensive international project to de-mine these areas. Permit us, as citizens of this country, to visit and talk with, and share the suffering and grievances of these detainees, who are an integral part of our human family. Let the independent media and the Opposition have access to these detainees, so we can witness and testify, and serve the cause of truth and justice. Why the enforced militarization and perpetuation of a humanitarian catastrophe, which brings such shame on, and which defiles, all of us. This enforced militarized detention is part of the political agenda of the regime. The release of these detainees is bound to intensify the issue of human rights violations and war crimes- if the truth gets out by those who witnessed and suffered its worst consequences.

So, there will be no acceptable compromise political solution under this regime, even within an undivided country, for which we stand. There will be no immediate release and resettlement of the internally detained Tamil citizens. There will be no justice for Tissainayagam. The war against the free media and against freedom and democracy will only intensify. Beyond that, this process will succeed only in planting the seeds of separatism more deeply and on even more fertile soil, drenched by blood and nurtured by such human sacrifice and suffering.

All those who cherish freedom and democracy, who are nurtured by the milk of humanity, who stand for the unity and integrity of this country, should unite to resist and defeat the supremacist-militarist political agenda of the regime. Equally, they should struggle to ensure that this regime is not replaced by a very same supremacist-militarist coalition of political forces. It is time for the people to think independently of the terms presented and enforced on us by a parasitic and defunct ruling class and advance towards a profound, radical democratic transformation of the prevailing State and political order, where the diverse nations, nationalities and ethnic-religious communities shall share this land as their undivided and inseparable homeland.

• The Presidential Election: A Diabolical Deception!
• TNA’s Failure to Seize the Moment: Who Will Fill the Vacuum?
• TNA and the New Era of Tamil Politics: Are They Living Up to the Challenge?
• The Present Political Conjuncture: Fatal Delusions, Momentous Challenges and Historic Opportunities
• The Case of Tissainayagam: Who is on Trial?

Are we to deny that there was no such crisis, when there was incessant bombing of Tamil populated areas and selected assassination of individuals, including eminent political representatives such as Hon. Joseph Pararajasingham and Hon. Raviraj? Now, if we are to argue that no such crisis existed, and that, as the regime has claimed that this war has been waged with a policy of zero civilian causalities, then I say that this is an exercise in crass self-deception. The whole world knows that the war created a colossal humanitarian catastrophe for hundreds of thousand Tamil civilians, and that both the LTTE and the State engaged in massacre of civilians. Leading representatives of the regime have publicly boasted that ‘ you cannot defeat terrorism, without resort to terrorism’. Even now, it is reported that the security of those who are kept in detention in barb-wired concentration camps face a threat of human security and gross violations  of human rights.

Is it treachery to stand for the independence, freedom and security of an oppressed nation, which they feel is under military subjugation and suppression? Is it a crime to feel anguished and cry out for justice in the face of wanton, wholesale violation of human security and basic human rights? Even in the United States, the No 01 imperialist-terrorist super power, the media and civilian lobbies openly and constitutionally advocate for the truth and for justice against the horrible human rights violations committed in Abu Graib and Guantanamo and on the battlefields of Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan, and against its own people. Even though there exists the draconian Patriotic Act- much like the PTA- there the masses still enjoy the right to protest and resist any form of imperialist military aggression or any other violation of human rights. Besides, to refer to the crimes against humanity committed by the US and the NATO in Iraq and Afghanistan as a means of justifying the same here, expresses a twisted logic. Whether in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan, or in Vakarai, Mullaitivu or Sampur, such terrorist crimes against the people are to be condemned. Here, in Paradise, anyone who resists and opposes the political agenda of the regime is hunted and hounded as a terrorist and a traitor. Well, who is a traitor to some is a patriot to another. Who is a terrorist to some is a freedom fighter for another. Depends on where you stand at the barricades.

If we are to imprison people for cavorting with the LTTE, then none other than Hon. Basil Rajapakse, Hon. Mangala Samaraweera and the late  Hon. Sripathi Sooriaratchi – all part of the top leadership of the People’s Alliance government at the time- could be the first to take the hike for 20 years. All these three individuals had allegedly entered into a secret conspiracy with the LTTE, on behalf of Presidential candidate  Mahinda Rajapakse,  to prevail upon the LTTE to ensure a boycott of the Presidential elections by the Tamil people of the North-East, in order to ensure his electoral victory. Taking this legal logic further, the entire People’s Alliance regime could be jailed for 20 years for this type of duplicity and conspiracy. This whole issue was publicly debated in Parliament, only to be effectively sabotaged and suppressed. Now, I may be taken to court and sentenced to 20 years on the argument that none of these allegations have been proven in a court of law. Or, I could be made to be killed in a motor accident, or be abducted by a white van. As a citizen, I can say, please file a case in court, or appoint an independent commission of inquiry, and let the public know the truth of the case. Then, what about the conscious, planned and deliberate provocations to incite communal violence as in the case of Bindinuwewa, Maligawatte, Kandapola, those who attacked and torched churches and so on and on? Has any one being sentenced to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment? What about the statements by Sarath Fonseka and Champika Ranawaka, at the height of the war, to the effect that this is the exclusive homeland of the Sinhala-Buddhist nation and all others are alien minorities who live here by default? Would this ideology and politics not inflame passions and incite communal violence? This is the putrid Comprador bourgeois ruling class ideology and politics that has provoked communal violence beyond anything anyone can even imagine. Why do we not even think of sentencing Cyril Matthew and J.R. Jayawardene- and others-  for fermenting communal violence on a horribly brutal scale? What about Black July, and the wholesale rigging of the cosmetic DDC elections and the burning of the Jaffna library- a form of cultural genocide against a nation? Who is to be sentenced for such abominable crimes, and yes, treachery?  What about the massacre of 17 humanitarian workers, of five Tamil students, of the series of abductions, extra-judicial killings, extortion and torture? These bestial violations have the potential to incite communal passions, breed hatred and distrust among the people. They serve to fuel the politics of separatism. So then, who is on trial? Now, when Hon. Rohitha Bogollagama pronounces in Parliament that challenging the verdict by the District court may be in disrespect of the rule of Law, he is presenting a threat to all of us. Let it be known that we shall not be intimidated  by these types of threats. And also, we shall tell him to read the Constitution, to which he is also subject.

As the repository of the people’s mandate, the state and as the regime in power, are constitutionally obligated to prosecute and reveal the truth to the people. In law, the state, including the legislature, executive and the judiciary, and all other bureaucratic appendages of the state, are there to execute the will and sovereignty of the people and to ensure their freedom and human security. These institutions, even according to bourgeois democratic theory, exist to protect, serve and enshrine the supreme sovereignty of the people. Yet, at present, there are close to 300,000 Tamil citizens who are being detained and fenced in barb-wired concentration camps simply for the crime of being Tamil, and inhumanely victimized for being deliberately manipulated by both sides to be trapped in the crossfire of a brutal war. These are the pitiless consequences of seeking a military solution. The military solution has simply nurtured the aspiration for a separate state as never before. The seeds will be replanted, only that much more firmly and on fertile soil by the generations to come. So, the question of who stands for the unity, integrity, equality and dignity of the nations and communities of Sri Lanka remains to be adjudicated. The question of who stands for truth and justice remains to be adjudicated.. The question of who are the real patriots who truly love their country and the people of Lanka, and stand for their unity, independence, dignity and freedom is to be decided. The question of “Who is On Trial” remains to be adjudicated. As it is, there are some 25,000 political prisoners, added to nearly 300,000 detainees. This is an intolerable violation of human and democratic rights. Believe me, the people will have their day, and they will file their suit against all imposters, gangsters and murderers, and history will deliver its verdict. For now, the People’s Tribunal is in formation. That is one of the supreme  tasks and responsibilities of the People’s Movement for Freedom and Democracy to hold the state accountable for its crimes against democracy and humanity. This is the political essence and the historic challenge presented by the Tissainayagam Case.

The Case of Tissainayagam is a concentration of the systematic, gross and intensifying discrimination, political repression and armed suppression of the oppressed Tamil nation carried out deliberately by the Sinhala chauvinist, hegemonic, Comprador Capitalist unitary state, executed by every successive government and brought to a culmination by the present Mahinda Chintanaya regime. All those who stand for the national-democratic rights of the Tamil nation, and thereby, for truth and justice, and for the unity, integrity, independence and sovereignty of the country, and all those who stand for freedom and democracy, should take up the struggle to free Tissa, to free the Tamil nation and to free the people of our beloved Lanka from the political agenda of the putrid and parasitic Comprador state.

The war is said to be won. There have been victory parades to establish this fact. President Mahinda Rajapakse is hailed as a new king who has vanquished the alien invaders. Then, what is the need for such revenge against Tissa? Is it not time for forgiveness and reconciliation? What is the real intention of extending the PREVENTION OF TERRORISM ACT-PTA and Emergency regulations, instead of presenting a political solution that recognizes the legitimate status of the Tamil nation? As Lenin analysed, whatever the form, the essence of the Capitalist state is that it represents the terrorist dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The PTA and Emergency regulations serve merely to legitimize the terrorism of the state against the people. The case against Tissa and his abominable rigorous imprisonment for 20 years reveals the essence of the political agenda of the state and the regime. This agenda consists of liquidating Tamil nationhood, establishing the undisputed hegemony of the Sinhala-Buddhist theocratic unitary state, dismantling the Tamil homelands by colonization and militarization of the entire region and selling this land to multi-national corporations for fat commissions and profits, continue and multiply corruption and abuse, and to instill terror on any one who would dare to oppose and resist. So Tissa is paying the price for all of us. It is in this historic moment that we have joined together in struggle as the People’s Movement for Freedom and Democracy. We shall honor those who have dared to stand for truth and justice, along with Tissainayagam and thousands of other freedom fighters who pay the price for the cause of human liberation.

• A travesty of justice: The sentencing of J.S. Tissainayagam
• 100 days in hard labour and counting: The plight of J.S. Tissainayagam
• Journalist J.S. Tissainayagam released on bail: Implications for freedom of expression
• Has journalist J.S. Tissanaiyagam really received a Presidential pardon?
• On Lasantha Wickremetunge, media freedom and human rights in Sri Lanka: Interview with Dilrukshi Handunnetti

The Rise of the LTTE:
This form of national subjugation   and state repression resulted in the birth of new  generation of Tamil militants, bearing various political visions and ideologies, agendas- and buyers and backers. From the very beginning, the emergent new Tamil National Movement was dominated by bourgeois and petty-bourgeois class forces. Contention and rivalry for dominance was promoted by the various powers and agents vying for influence over the Tamil National Movement and over the politics of the country. In this deadly contention, the LTTE emerged as the most ruthless force, eliminating and subjugating all other organizations. The LTTE remained the only force that decided to carry out the mandate of the Tamil nation to achieve the right of national self-determination, in the form of a separate state, through an armed struggle against the state. During the 25 years of armed struggle, the LTTE achieved some spectacular military victories and gained ground politically. The LTTE had stood up to the state militarily on all fronts- guerilla warfare, positional warfare and conventional warfare. The LTTE had stood up to the combined might of both the Indian army and the Sri Lankan armed forces, when India deployed its army to help resolve the issue. The so-called Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) became the Indian People Killing Force. The LTTE won the respect of the world by its daring political will, and unrelenting military capacity to take on the Indian state and the 4^th largest army in the world. The LTTE had established a de facto state in the North-East, operating their own ministries, banks, police, courts, tax collection etc. The LTTE even commanded its own shipping fleet. Although being banned in several key countries such as the USA, UK, France, Canada, Australia, India and Sri Lanka as one of the most ruthless terrorist organizations, the LTTE came to be recognized diplomatically as the leading force representing the Tamil cause by the world powers, and the Sri Lankan state. It was supported by literally millions of Tamils living abroad-both Sri Lankans, many of whom who have had to flee the country to seek refuge in other countries, and who had suffered irreparable loss to their loved one’s and their property, and also Tamils, and others, from other countries. It even built up its own rudimentary air force, with which it challenged the skies and dealt some deadly blows to the state.

New Military Doctrine:
Now the LTTE has been militarily liquidated and its leadership decimated by the State. In a most serious sense, the LTTE did not have a chance. The new regime led by President Mahinda Rajapakse, overhauled the whole political approach to the national question. It simply and categorically denied the Tamil national question by rejecting any claims to Tamil nationhood and statehood, and unequivocally asserted Sinhala-Buddhist supremacy as the ruling principle. The war against the LTTE was declared to be a patriotic war of national liberation. This reinvigorated and unequivocal official chauvinism injected life and soul to the predominantly Sinhala armed forces of the state, who believed that they were fighting and dying to save their motherland-equated as the exclusive home of the Sinhala-Buddhist nation- from the mortal threat of ‘separatist terrorism’. Based on this slogan, the broad majority of the Sinhala people, and others, were mobilized for the war effort. The majority swing was towards putting a final end to the ideology and politics of ‘separatist terrorism’. The new regime could sell this war agenda because it was in alliance with the most rabid chauvinist political parties,- the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) made up of Buddhist priests, and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramune (JVP), who claimed to be the ‘one and only, grade 01,  purest of all Socialist parties’, – and with the Trotskyite Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) and the revisionist Communist Party of Sri Lanka. The red banner was conjoined with Fascism. So the regime was blessed and the war sanctioned by both sides- extreme Sinhala Buddhist chauvinists and down right class collaborationist “Left” traitors. The highest religious authorities of the Buddhist priesthood ( Maha Sangha) invoked blessings on the armed forces of the state and sanctioned the new regime with a ‘messianic’ legitimacy. The war against the LTTE was dressed up as a continuation of the ‘historic’ wars of national liberation fought against the Dravidian invaders. Mahinda Rajapakse was dressed up as descending from the line of the heroic king Duttagamani, who had slain the Tamil ‘usurper’ Elara, in direct combat, and unified the Land and the ‘race’ under the banner of Sinhala Buddhism! The entire ideological apparatus of the state, including the media, schools, temples, and the state administrative machinery was unleashed with concerted fervor to whip up the war hysteria.

The Naked Terrorist Dictatorship of the Bourgeosie:
This new military doctrine was to be under-girded by a new and higher level of exercising the naked terrorist comprador/capitalist dictatorship of the ruling regime- and of the state. This policy was carried out with the doctrine of complicity. It allowed the armed forces and other paramilitary agents to act freely, knowing that they will not be held accountable by the state, the people, or by any of the double-edged international human rights institutions, commissions or councils.  This was a policy of freeing up the reactionary repressive power of the state to wage an all-out, no-holds barred war against the declared ‘enemies of the state’ as traitors to the motherland. In essence, this was a policy of consolidating the parasitic, blood-soaked, Sinhala hegemonic, Comprador Capitalist Dictatorship. Tamil members of parliament were assassinated in broad daylight, some in high security zones of the state.  Tamil humanitarian workers were assassinated. Tamil students were hunted and slain. Lawyers who appeared for “terrorists’ were listed on the web site of the Defense Ministry as traitors. Media institutions that did not toe the line were attacked by government ministers in broad daylight. Media personnel that differed, or refused to comply were beaten up or killed. Those who stood for a democratic political solution to the national question were all lumped together as traitors. The new military doctrine was formulated in terms of “ no concern for collateral damage”- whether it be the death and suppression of innocent civilians, the indignity and degradation of the people, the militarization of the social order, the death of human and democratic rights, the humanitarian catastrophe, or any other such ‘human’ concern. The international community of imperialist/ neo-colonial, reactionary powers and their various international human rights agencies, commissions and councils all complied with this policy, with the adequate doses of concern for human rights and humanitarian law, just to save their skin and legitimacy in the eyes of the world. Neither the degenerate politicians of Tamil Nadu, nor the billions of dollars of sympathy and support of the international Tamil Diaspora, nor the sophisticated international logistical network, nor even the national-democratic aspirations of the oppressed Tamil nation which had been temporarily concentrated in the LTTE, could withstand the new military doctrine, line and strategy of imperialism, as realized through the Sri Lankan State.  The regime knew they had finally decisively cornered the LTTE politically, and was out to settle scores, once and for all, militarily.

Summing Up Experience:
The new regime summed up some two decades of military experience with the LTTE and  adopted a new military doctrine, line and strategy. This new synthesis was not produced by some ‘genius’ in command of some local planning/strategizing laboratory. The new synthesis was a product of a collective effort between masters of mass death and destruction- masters of genocide- the CIA, MOSSAD, RAW and the Sri Lankan military. This cooperation resulted in modernizing the intelligence and espionage apparatus, along with a qualitative upgrading of hi-tech weapons of mass death and destruction, combined with precision targeting, including laser-targeted bombing, along with the use of incessant aerial bombardment as a form of terrorizing populations. The new doctrine combined elements of guerrilla warfare and  positional warfare, tactics of deep penetration and surgical strikes at key military targets.  The enemy was to be attacked and destroyed by a three-pronged policy of encirclement and destruction, piece by piece, by land, sea and air, until it is literally bled to death.  Lessons had been learnt. This was to be a war of attrition and annihilation- as opposed to a war for territory. This represented a major paradigmatic shift. This involved a policy of terrorizing the masses into mute submission, silencing the media through terror, murder and intimidation, monopolizing access to information, forbidding any alternative or oppositional politics at the cost of being eliminated, through exercising the naked terrorist dictatorship of the comprador state – and the regime-  without let or limitation.

The Line and Practice of the LTTE:
This article has so far discussed how the new regime took command, and that the LTTE had no chance against this combined international imperialist counter-insurgency strategy. However, the liquidation of the LTTE has to be principally analyzed in terms of its internal class basis, and the ideological, political, strategic and military line it applied. External forces and conditions can only act upon an internal basis. The fact is that the ideological, political and strategic-military line of the LTTE had a  fatal vulnerability. You cannot fight and defeat a more powerful enemy on his own terms. The fact is that the state pitted all its physical-technological destructive force against the LTTE. It was far superior in manpower ( some 200,000 armed forces as against at most 20,000 ), it acquired hi-tech weaponry and commanded superiority on land, sea and air. It had the backing of world imperialism, and regional powers such as China, India, Pakistan, Malaysia and Thailand. Even though the LTTE displayed military superiority for a long time by applying principles of guerrilla warfare, which it combined with positional and even conventional warfare in a really creative way, ideologically and politically, it was fighting on the terrain of the enemy. Ideologically and politically, the LTTE remained trapped within the system, and paid the ultimate price. You have to wield philosophical, ideological and political  superiority over the enemy, if you wish to maintain long-term strategic superiority, sustain military gains and advance towards victory. The success of a revolutionary struggle for liberation depends on its philosophical-ideological-theoretical basis.

Class Basis:
The ideology and politics of the LTTE had developed from a petit-bourgeois romantic perspective in its early formation in the period from 1976-1980, and transformed quickly into a bourgeois nationalist class perspective. At this stage, it combined both national bourgeois and comprador aspects. It did have some important anti-feudal, anti-caste orientation, but not about overthrowing or overhauling the prevailing feudal-colonial social order. Women were accorded respect and played a key role in the armed struggle, but this did not mean that women were liberated from the shackles of feudal oppression and patriarchy.  It wanted to develop a rational, self-reliant national economy. However, in its principal aspect which defined its class essence, the LTTE transformed into a comprador bourgeois class that relied on imperialism and regional reactionary states to wage its struggle for national liberation, as opposed to mobilizing the masses to win genuine independence and democratic freedom.

Narrow Bourgeois Nationalism:
The LTTE never had an anti-imperialist internationalist perspective, which viewed its struggle in the context of the struggle of the people of the world for liberation. What originated as a demand for national self-determination of the Tamil-speaking people, to include both the oppressed Tamil nation in the North-East, and the Moslem and Hill Country Tamil nationality, was transformed exclusively into a struggle for national liberation of the oppressed Tamil nation. While the question of the Hill Country Tamil people was dropped, the Muslim nationality came to be targeted as enemies. Some 40,000 Muslim families – around 100,000 oppressed Moslem people-  were forcibly evicted from the North on command by the LTTE. No doubt, external conditions played a role in this transformation. The state was trying to manipulate Muslim elements against the LTTE. The correct way to deal with this policy is to win over the broad oppressed Moslem masses into a common front of struggle, in order to expose and isolate the state.

Terrorism as a Policy:
The LTTE practiced an extreme form of terrorism against the civilian population, including slaughtering pregnant women and dashing babies. This line alienated them from the broad Sinhala,  and Moslem masses, and sections of the Tamil masses as well. No doubt the state is the generative factor in the politics of terror, and had unleashed  terror against the masses on a far more systematic and systemic level than the LTTE. It is true that the state had succeeded in mobilizing broad Sinhala masses against the Tamil National Movement and against the LTTE, and that the so-called “Left” had betrayed the Tamil national struggle and had become agents and enforcers of the state. Yet, it was not the case that the Sinhala people could not be influenced to sympathise and even support the Tamil national liberation struggle, if it also stood for the liberation of the oppressed Sinhala people. What ever the case, a liberation force cannot ever degenerate to the level of a fascist state.  It cannot apply terror against the masses as a policy. The enemy cannot ever be the reason for your own degeneration. The transformation into an exclusively  and extremely narrow Tamil nationalist comprador-capitalist liberation movement is principally due to the evolution of the internal class character of the LTTE.

Political Line:
The political line of the LTTE relied on the heroism of the dedicated elite vanguard, along with the destructive power of technology, than on unleashing the creative revolutionary energy of the masses. In fact, the need and capacity of the oppressed masses to overthrow their oppressors and their conditions of oppression and achieve genuine liberation were never mobilized.  In fact, the historical initiative of the exploited and oppressed masses was effectively suppressed. Instead of mobilizing the masses, the LTTE relied on regional and imperialist powers to deliver liberation. They went into all kinds of deals with corrupt Tamil Nadu politicians and with the Norwegian facilitators, who were acting on behalf of the US. They also entered into deals with the Sri Lankan ruling class, and went to the extent of being bribed into making sure that the Opposition candidate would be defeated at the Presidential elections, paving the way for the victory of the current President – who later went all out to decimate them. The LTTE believed that at the crucial moment, India would intervene to suspend the war and force the Sri Lankan government to negotiate. They believed that the Tamil Nadu politicians would be able to pressurize New Delhi to intervene on their behalf. Yet, the Tamil Nadu politicians were only seeking to exploit the image of the LTTE to collect some votes, and New Delhi continued to provide diplomatic and military support to the Sri Lankan state to wage war. Pakistan and China joined in with generous support militarily, in a bid to off-set the growing strategic influence of the US and India in the Asian region. At the same time, the US made sure that they had a key hold on the Sri Lankan war effort to gain strategic control over the island. In the course of the war, the US ( and Israel) continued to supply advanced weaponry and equipment, provide combat training to the armed forces, provide advanced intelligence skills and equipment, and provided also the diplomatic-political support for this ‘war on terror’. During the course of the war, the US exploited the opportunity to enter into the “ Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement “ with the Sri Lankan state, whereby the US gained free access to all military facilities in the island-on land, sea and air. This is how the supra-patriotic regime waged war against the LTTE to defend the motherland.

Organizational Line:
The organizational line of the LTTE flowed from its bourgeois-nationalist ideological and political line. The LTTE was organized as a highly hierarchical military command center. This was a case of extreme bureaucratic centralism, where no internal – nor external-  dissent was tolerated. The leader was elevated to a position of a god- a sun god, who was invincible, and whose wisdom was not to be questioned by ordinary mortals. The LTTE really did not develop a political party where there could be internal discussion and debate in forging a political-military line. In the end, when they were being encircled and suppressed through unceasing waves of assault on land, sea and air, the LTTE forced the civilian population of the Vanni to remain caught in the crossfire to provide them with a humanitarian shield- and shot and killed those who tried to escape to save their lives. The armed forces of the state, of course could not be bothered with civilian casualties and went ahead and deliberately bombarded this no-fire zone. The civilians literally were held hostage by both sides, and thousands were killed in the process- including the elderly, women and children. The state could get away with this type of genocidal warfare, because it claimed that the  LTTE was preventing the civilian population from seeking safety by crossing over. It provided cream and credence to the claim that the state was forced to resort to extreme measures to ‘liberate the Tamil people from the fascist clutches of the LTTE’! In the end, for all the bravado of the elite vanguard saviors, for all the spectacular military victories scored, for all the immense sacrifices made, for all the creative imagination in waging war against a vastly superior force, the ideological-political-military line of the LTTE proved to be fatally vulnerable.

Conclusion:
If we do not view and analyse the world scientifically, then we cannot achieve success in transforming it. If we do not place the liberation of any particular country or nation in the context of the historical mission of emancipating humankind from the shackles of ignorance and slavery bound up with class society, then our lenses will be flawed, and history will teach us a bitter and cruel lesson-paid in the blood of the people. The essential lesson to be learnt from the blood that has been spilt is that only the path of proletarian revolution illuminated by the science of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, led by a vanguard Communist Party, in command of a people’s liberation army and leading a united front of all anti-feudal/ anti-imperialist forces, aimed at smashing the state power – the dictatorship  of the Comprador-Bureaucratic Capitalist ruling class, in the context of advancing the world revolution, marching towards the dawn of a Communist world with the goal of emancipating humankind from the bondage of class society, can unleash the infinite initiative, creativity and daring of the masses in waging revolutionary struggle- including revolutionary class warfare- to finally defeat and bury the system of imperialism and achieve liberation.

• The fate of Internally Detained Persons and the future of freedom and democracy
• The Present Political Conjuncture: Fatal Delusions, Momentous Challenges and Historic Opportunities
• On the Air to Tamil Eelam?
• Blinkered vision of Tamil nationalists and socialists is self-defeating
• In Defense of Buddhism

To be clear, this piece is NOT meant to criticize the ordinary Buddhists who honestly practice their faith and conviction as a way of life. The vast majority of them do not realize that they are themselves manipulated as pawns  by the feudal-colonial politics of Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinism and how it serves to reinforce, perpetuate and enforce the comprador Capitalist class dictatorship over their lives. This piece is directed squarely against that fascist coterie of the ruling class that is usurping the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha to entrench and extend their fundamentalist-hegemonic authority over all of society. This fundamentalist-fascist coterie has gone to the pitiful extent of conducting a mass propaganda campaign to enthrone the President as the supreme monarch – ‘rajano’ – based on the argument that the masses have declared their aspiration to rid themselves of the colonial trappings of bourgeois democracy and to revert to the feudal age of absolute monarchy. Say hello to medieval fundamentalist-theocratic fascism in the guise of Buddhism.

Buddhism is based on a dialectical logic of dependent origination. Nothing is permanent. All forms of matter and consciousness are in a permanent state of coming into being and passing away. The ceaseless emergence and resolution of contradiction is the universal law that governs all things and processes. Every cause has its effects, every action brings forth an equal and opposite reaction. How then are we to liberate ourselves from this chain of causation and endless suffering – this sea of Sansara?  What is required is the correct scientific understanding of the underlying laws of motion, change and transformation that account for all reality, in order to be liberated from ignorance and illusion. Accordingly, the doctrine is based on conscious individual self-determination, where everyone is free to consciously and voluntarily choose their own path. Buddhism cannot be imposed, nor legislated. The very essence of Buddhism lies in negating the self and the ego through compassion and meritorious deeds, guided by correct scientific understanding and an abiding sense of humility. The Buddha preached a doctrine of overcoming all selfish desire and motivation deriving from ignorance and arrogance as embedded in the alienated ego, and all the negative and violent passions these can unleash. This is in order to seek human liberation in a doctrine of universal compassion towards all beings. This state of mind is to be achieved  through the cleansing of the mind of all negative, destructive impulses, thoughts and feelings through meditation, and the Noble Eight-Fold path of being progressively detached from mundane, material life, and offering good merit (pin) to others. In this act of selflessness, devotion and dedication to enlightened truth, one shall repose in a sublime and eternally blissful state of Nirvana- a cessation of all contradiction, duality and conflict, accompanied by a state of the most serene, blissful contemplation of the infinite wonders and mysteries of nature.  Buddhism relies upon seeking the  truth as opposed to being deceived by  lies and illusions for personal and political gain. However, Buddhism has today become a vehicle for spreading diabolical lies and fatal illusions to defend and perpetuate a corrupt  Comprador Capitalist regime and class dictatorship, with the Parliamentary Opposition supinely falling in line.

One can disagree with these doctrinal assumptions, precepts and premises. One can argue, as I would, that the path of human liberation lies in waging scientific, revolutionary – Communist proletarian class struggle to rid the earth of private property and class divisions, so that humanity can live in solidarity and cooperate in conquering  the world through collective conscious social activity. Grappling and struggling with philosophical differences is the font of intellectual life. But, we cannot allow for anyone to willfully distort the true essence of any philosophy for vile and deceitful political reasons. Well, it may be that the time shall come when the true guardians of the temple – the oppressed masses- shall rise against all imposters and sweep away the pile of rot that has accumulated. Upon the ashes and ruins of accumulated lies and  deception, and filthy parasitic privilege, they shall build a true temple of universal scientific enlightenment, dedicated to the emancipation of all humanity, where a true doctrine of solidarity shall liberate all human beings on earth from the chains of property, ignorance and slavery.

One can ask as to what right or legitimacy I claim to have to rise to the defense of Buddhism, when I happen to have been baptized as a Catholic, and have now being transformed into a Maoist-Communist. And I can turn around and say, all great philosophies, all great path-breaking systems of ideology, all advances in the fields of science and art, belong to the earth. This great and immortal legacy of human enlightenment and achievement shall not be the exclusive privilege nor sanctuary of any populist politician, self-appointed museum curator, nor robed imposter, but  to those who would have struggled to gain  scientific enlightenment and the courage of conviction to stand for the truth. Besides, there appears to be no Buddhist with the courage of conviction to speak out against this violation of the Dharma for political gain. For those who would question my credentials, I  gladly say, ‘Lets really get down and discuss some of these issues, but in an open and public way, and not, hopefully, in that all intimidating, threatening and terrorizing way, which has been the policy and attitude of the state against any form of serious and informed dissent. A good Buddhist shall cultivate dissent and difference in the search for universal truth, in the spirit of intellectual engagement and dialogue, as a commitment to human liberation. They shall not claim absolute monopoly over truth. They shall not violate the Dharma by imposing a political dogma and agenda in the name of Buddhism, at the point of a gun. Let it be announced to the authorities, in whatever robe, hue or uniform, the people  shall not relent, whatever the cost! Truth shall rise and liberate us all! That is why it is necessary to rise to the defense of Buddhism.

• The transformation of Buddhism in Sri Lanka
• The Present Political Conjuncture: Fatal Delusions, Momentous Challenges and Historic Opportunities
• A Matter of faith
• Dhammapada and Other Works
• The Agnostics vs. The Believers regarding karma, reincarnation, nirvana as described in Buddhism being real aspects of this world

The End of an Era: Or Riding the Wave of  Conquest?
The decisive military liquidation of the LTTE and its leadership has certainly introduced new terms. It is presented by the State and the regime as an end to the era of ‘separatist terrorism’ and the ushering in of an era of peace, unity, equality, security, justice and democratic freedom to each and all alike. Within this, frame, it is held that given the new definition of the state and the political culture, there will not be any reference to the language of majorities and minorities. Implicitly, if I may be permitted to assume, this would mean that there would be no more reference to “national-democratic rights”, or to the existence of subordinated nations, nationalities or ethnic-religious communities. It is a new era, where all nationalities and communities are to be subsumed under an all-embracing Sinhala-Buddhist state. In essence, the new terms declare that there is no national question to be solved, but a question of how the Sinhala-Buddhist state  and social order shall ‘benevolently’ accommodate others. According to this supremely benevolent view, the new era shall enthrone and celebrate the status of the Sinhala-Buddhist nation  as the sole, sovereign and supreme nation that alone shall have the right to be a nation and, therefore, to form a state, but which shall ‘benevolently’ accommodate all others within its fold. True to the spirit and the letter of the message, the President has announced in international forums that there will be no talk of devolution of power, since this is a nation of equals-all united in a single unitary state. The President is in a sorry state. On the one hand he has to satisfy his international patrons that he is for some devolution of power, since otherwise these imperialist and regional powers will lose face, while ensuring his domestic Sinhala-Buddhist constituency, particularly the highly vocal Buddhist Sangha ( priesthood) and its political fronts, that there will be no such devolution to any Tamil national political identity. He knows that any concessions to Tamil national demands or aspirations will cause his own constituency – and the armed forces- to revolt against his rule. So, he has to juggle, in the most facile and revolting manner of a cheap political broker, out to ensure his political survival at any cost, and to gain some more heavenly fortunes for him, and family and friends while he can, before the masses catch up with the game.

We do not believe that devolution of power is any solution. The issue at hand is honoring the right of national self-determination of an oppressed nation.  This can be accomplished only by overthrowing and smashing the very state that is responsible for national subjugation. However the total suppression of nationhood and the denial of even some partial solution cannot be left unchallenged. The reality is that this benevolent  accommodation is unfolding with the extension of emergency rule, the restructuring and expansion of the armed forces- hey! In peace time!, appointing of army generals as governors of the war-torn Provinces, continued detention of some 300,000 Tamil refugees under literally sub-human conditions, the further militarization of the North-East-and the rest of the country, expansion of the powers of the armed forces, alteration of demographic patterns through colonization and resettlement, bestial symbolic revenge attacks on media, compiling and publication of lists of media personnel, lawyers, activists who are deemed to be supportive of ‘terrorism, modernization of the nationwide espionage-intelligence network, talk of extension of the mandate of the President for five years without holding an election, – with much more to come. Therefore, it is not an end of an era, but the beginning of the end of an era of barbarity and terror, of deception and corruption, of the ideology and politics of chauvinist hegemony and domination- as the people shall forge their revolutionary leadership and organization  to rise up and give birth to a new era of dignity, independence, justice and freedom for the People of Lanka in the form of  establishing a people’s democratic state, as the foundation to wage the socialist revolution in order to advance the cause of Communism.

The Banner of the Sinhala-Buddhist State:
The essential truth is that the banner of the Sinhala-Buddhist nation-state is meant to deceive the vast majority of  exploited and oppressed Sinhala –Buddhist masses- and everyone else-  to come under the domain of the feudal-colonial Capitalist state, and to fall in line with  the agenda of  the  present regime.  Let us remember, this state has also mercilessly massacred tens of thousand insurgent Sinhala-Buddhist youth who rejected the ruling that this is their state.  Life under this Sinhala-Buddhist state is a daily living hell for the exploited workers and oppressed masses, including the vast majority of the Sinhala-Buddhist masses, while a handful of ruling crony comprador capitalists monopolize political power, privilege, wealth and status. For the Sinhala-Buddhist masses, along with the vast majority of the oppressed masses and nationalities, life under this state has meant a life of brutal subjugation and violent suppression, combined with pitiless and intensifying poverty, misery, indebtedness and degradation.  This is the essence of the class politics behind the banner of the Sinhala-Buddhist state. Buddhism is here entwined with the Sinhala  nation and constructed as the ideological foundation for perpetuating a  defunct feudal-colonial state, along with its corrupt Comprador-Capitalist ruling class-and its present oligarchic-mafia  regime. This banner is a part of a deadly game of political deception. In this evil endeavor, the noble Buddhist  Dharma itself is being exploited to justify politics of conquest and domination and nakedly plundered for populist political gain. It is a perpetuation of the colonial politics of divide and conquer of the colonial-imperialist power.  Until and unless we unravel the hidden reactionary class politics and agenda behind the enthronement of the banner of the Sinhala-Buddhist State, we shall remain slaves to the existing reality, lose our independent vision and  betray our historic mission of liberating the people of Lanka, as part of our contribution towards liberating humankind from class society, and  the shackles of ignorance and slavery.  

The Beginning of a New Era:
Counter to this dominant state ideology is the revolutionary-democratic analysis that the end of the war has further reinforced the generative social structures, the system of social relations and the dynamics of the class struggle for political power, that accounted for the war. The basic Capitalist social relations of domination, exploitation and oppression shall remain, and  be intensified. The social conditions of extreme deprivation, poverty, degradation and misery shall remain, and be intensified. The political relations of national subordination shall take new and more intensified forms. The feudal-colonial state shall be reinforced. Imperialist and regional powers shall intensify rivalry to sink their fangs into the life-lines of the country to get a strategic stranglehold. The country shall be sold for profit and plunder. The rulers shall all share in the spoils. The defunct Parliamentary Opposition composed of the UNP, JVP and the TNA, is figuring out how best to join the triumphalist bandwagon, in order  to share in the spoils and survive. All these characteristic features of the parasitic, putrid and defunct feudal-colonial/ comprador-capitalist State shall be reinforced under the cloak of a Sinhala-Buddhist banner. Under these conditions, the overwhelming tendency would be towards more destructive violence, political suppression, terror and abuse, on a qualitatively new higher level- on the march towards fascism. This is the new  political conjuncture we have to confront!

The Political Playing Field:
During the war, the line of demarcation was that all those who opposed the war and stood for a democratic political solution were targeted as traitors and regarded as real or potential terrorists – to be treated as enemies. All those who upheld the military solution were regarded to be patriots- and friends to be protected and nourished. Even then, this line of demarcation was wrong and dangerous. It was wrong and dangerous because there are many valued citizens who  stood – and still stand – for a democratic political solution, who did not – and do not -  agree with the political line, strategy and methods of the LTTE. Those who called for a democratic political solution believed that the way to overcome the separatist ideology and politics of the LTTE was to integrate the Tamil nation as an integral part of the State.

Those on the revolutionary-democratic  Platform who protected the national struggle led by the LTTE, did so as a principle of upholding the national-democratic rights of the Tamil nation, while criticizing  the bourgeois nationalist ideological-political line of the LTTE, including the resort to terrorism as a policy. The genuine advanced revolutionary forces felt that the traditional, parliamentary  “Left” had betrayed the Tamil national struggle, and the revolutionary class struggle itself, by becoming part of the Capitalist State. They found reason for the degeneration of the Tamil National Movement  into a form of extremely narrow bourgeois nationalism  in the internal character of the class forces within the movement, reinforced by the betrayal of the parliamentary  “ Left”. They strived to build a revolutionary-democratic movement that would rupture with this history of betrayal and with the bourgeois-nationalist line and politics of the Tamil National Movement. These questions were regarded as internal questions of the national liberation-democratic revolutionary movement, and the method of overcoming differences was to carry out a very sharp ideological struggle over questions of vision, principles, line, content, direction and consequences for the revolutionary-democratic movement in Sri Lanka. These Left forces called for a democratic political solution which would be an alternative to a separate state. In fact, the Maoist revolutionary forces were seriously at variance on a principled basis, with the political line, strategy and methods of the LTTE. They tried to influence the broad revolutionary-democratic platform on this basis. Their critique was that: No nation that does not struggle for the liberation of other oppressed nations and people will never achieve liberation. No liberation struggle that turns its guns on the people will ever lead the way to liberation. The people must achieve their own liberation through waging conscious, organised mass political struggle to overcome their conditions of exploitation and oppression, and so become the masters of their environment and the world. They need no condescending saviors. Nor do they need to rely on any imperialist or reactionary power. Indeed, they need to target the system of imperialism,- the source of national subjugation- as their internationalist duty. They need to build their revolutionary leadership and organization armed  with a  scientific philosophical vision and ideological-political line of emancipating all humankind. Maoist revolutionaries held the position that it is necessary to defend and uphold the struggle for national self-determination of the oppressed Tamil nation on the basis of building the unity of the proletariat , the peasantry and all oppressed nationalities and progressive forces to carry forward the new democratic revolution. It is with this shared ideological-political principles that these revolutionary-democratic forces struggled for a political solution that would provide dignity, equality, security and autonomy to all our nationalities and communities- so there would no longer be any reason for a separate Tamil state. This is a summation of the advanced revolutionary-democratic position. To regard this whole revolutionary-democratic constituency as traitors and enemies of the state is wrong and dangerous- not only for these revolutionary-democratic forces, but also dangerous for the state and the regime.  Any effort to plunder the military victory to entrench and perpetuate the corrupt, arrogant, dictatorial  dynasty or regime will crack from within and be overcome by the collective power of a united, conscious and awakened revolutionary people.

Overcoming the Politics of Separatism:
The truth is that these revolutionary-democratic forces love their country, the people, and humanity more than any other. They did not want the country to be divided.  They wanted to unite the people and the country as a condition for advancing the revolutionary democratic transformation of the state and society. They believed – and still believe – that the way to unite the people and the country is to share this land as one indivisible home –equally of all its nations, nationalities and communities.  What they opposed – and still oppose – is the policy of imposing a highly centralized, hegemonic, feudal-colonial, Sinhala-Buddhist, unitary state, ruled by fundamentalist-theocratic principles, on all the rest of the people, including the Sinhala-Buddhist oppressed masses. This policy will continue to breed its counterpart in the form of the politics of  separatism. The only way to overcome the politics of separatism is to make that demand redundant through a democratic restructuring of the state and political order which accords pride of place to all its rich diversity of  national and cultural identities . For Maoists, this was the common minimum transitional policy and program to defend and advance the solution to the national question.

The Political Agenda Driving the Military Solution:
If the military solution has being aimed at liquidating the LTTE- and with it, the Tamil national identity, in order to super-impose a centralized, hegemonic Sinhala-Budhist State, then it is wrong, illusory and dangerous. Modern nation states have developed as a function of Capitalism and in resistance against national subjugation. The modern Tamil nation has been forged through decades of bitter political struggle and immense sacrifice. No democratic force would deny that the Tamil nation had been subjected to systematic and intensifying discrimination and violent suppression by the State. The Tamil civilization has had a most decisive impact on the formation of the Sinhala-Buddhist civilization, and in forging a sense of a shared Lankan identity. The modern Sinhala nation too has been forged through centuries of heroic national liberation struggle against colonial domination and occupation. The two nations, along with the Hill Country Tamil, Moslem and other nationalities, have all made contributions towards an articulation of the People of Lanka, and enriched our shared cultural legacy. Why should these nations kill each other over claims of ownership and legacy? Can they not work out a way to live together, where they can unite to protect and preserve our common roots and shared legacy, and stand proud and tall as one indivisible nation, as the People of Lanka? Can they not recognize the inherent human dignity of each nation, people and community, and find a solution that restores and purifies our own sense of collective dignity and humanity? Yes, they surely can and will. The problem lies not with the people, but with a corrupt and arrogant feudal-colonial/ comprador-capitalist state and its ruling class, which have taken turns in intensifying the polarization and militarization of the national question. We have to build our capacity as the People of Lanka to hold the state and the ruling class accountable for having degraded and defiled us all, through the politics of chauvinist supremacy and domination, and bring it down through uncompromising revolutionary class struggle.  If we fail in this duty and responsibility in this most momentous hour of our destiny, we would have lived and died in vain. All the blood and limbs of our poorest sons and daughters sacrificed would be in vain. This is why we must all engage in a deep and thorough soul-searching to grasp and uphold essential truths and principles that will clear the path of liberation for the oppressed People of Lanka.

Lines of Demarcation:
The line of demarcation is now being  re-drawn between those who love or do not love the country- between patriots and traitors. The underlying premise is that the state is the embodiment of the country and the nation. The state has made enormous sacrifices in protecting the Motherland. The state is the repository of patriotism. The political logic is that to love the country, one has to pledge loyalty and submit to the vision, ideology, political will and agenda, of the state and the regime! The problem is that there are many powerful political forces, and broad social constituencies, who genuinely and fervently believe that to love the country is to come under the domain of the State and the Regime. President Mahinda Rajapakse has been vested with the glory of coming in line with legendary heroes, such as Duttagamani, who ‘liberated the Land, the Race and the Religion from alien Dravidian-Hindu ‘invaders’. The regime is reified as the all-conquering  repository of the Dharma, and of the path of civilized, democratic coexistence. The danger lies in that this gives open space for extremist, fundamentalist forces, both within and outside the state, and especially the commanders of the State themselves, to advance their own political agenda, including to suppress any opposition that stand in the way, in the name of suppressing traitors. This gives rise to various hit squads and death squads- such as the Mahasona Brigade- operating under various commands, as before. Furthermore, there will appear various contenders to the throne. Some will share it, just to dig deeper into the lifelines of state power. The state – and the regime- will be strained from within. It will be difficult to hold all the reigns of power within any one institution, such as the Executive Presidency. This logic will irrevocably give rise to a state of  anarchy and terror. Even to the real possibility of a military coup-de-tat. The State and the regime will be caught in a logic of increasing centralization of political power, sinking deeper in the mire of corruption and abuse, while intensifying political suppression and violent repression against the revolutionary-democratic constituency, and the people.

The Need of the Hour:
That is why we must not lose our faith in the search for truth. We must not loose sight of our shared vision of freedom. We must grasp and build on principles. The solution lies in recognizing that Sri Lanka is the home equally of all its people and finding a way to share this land as equals- not through a policy aimed at militarily liquidating the political status of an oppressed nation. This policy will inject a level of chauvinism, intolerance, arrogance and fascist terror on a scale never witnessed before, that would  irrevocably fuel the struggle for dignity, democracy, independence and freedom.

Shall we regain the best of our collective heritage and our shared humanity, to rebuild the Land of Lanka- as the home of all its nations, nationalities and communities;- as a bastion and fortress of all that is decent, human and civilized? A human community that has learnt through decades of blood and terror, that has lived through horrifying human misery and degradation and  therefore, has found the political will and the courage of conviction to seek and define their own path of human liberation. A path that is infused with the shared vision of a Democratic Republic of Lanka- owned and governed by the People of Lanka. Indivisible and Invincible! Do we dare to grasp this rare, historic opportunity? Even at the cost of our lives? The need of the hour is for all  revolutionary-democratic-progressive social forces to come together so they may play their role, and make their best contribution, towards ushering in an era of solidarity among all nations, nationalities and communities that constitute the People of our Beloved Land of Lanka. This is a historic challenge and responsibility for all genuine democratic, progressive people who stand for freedom- with justice and equality for each and all! This is an opportunity for us to mount the stage of history so our future generations may lay claim to a Land of Freedom, as an inspiration to all humanity.

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