Acknowledging your legal training that urges you to only ask questions you know the answer to, I must once more point out that you only seem comfortable addressing statements you CLAIM I’ve pronounced, rather than the ones I actually have. I urge you to point out anywhere in the blogosphere I’ve done either of your above allegations. Victory, and heroism, like beauty, is only in the eye of the beholder, I’m afraid.

” I’d rather discuss the details of the 13th with someone a little more familiar with it’s details.”

I suggest you discuss it with someone who gives a toss.

“Ciao. My apologies for forcing you to engage politics, and apologies to the editors of this blog for the same”

Ta ta. See you in a few weeks.

What is disappointing however, is that the exchange of views is confined to just a few persons in a country which has a population of nearly 20 million, quite a few of them being intellectual giants. Although there are orators breathing fire against the LTTE on soap boxes, there is only one gallant voice ‘defending the fort’ against a few concerned Tamils. It is the same courageous few that seem to enter the fray in connection with other similar entries in Groundviews. Where are our stalwarts on both sides, including the Diaspora?

Now that the government appears to be fighting to a finish and the APRC is dragging its feet ad infinitum, at least the intelligentsia has a duty to engage themselves in the search for a consensus to the vexed problem of our ethnic conflict, if the Tamils are not to be left at a dead end at the end of the fight. One way to begin the search is for an informed representative of the moderate Tamils (even anonymously) to set down a minimum package with which the majority on that side can be expected to agree. It is pathetic that after decades of argument, we are still not possessed of such a basic document.

Intellectuals on both sides can use the minimum package as a starting point to debate out a mutually acceptable solution. Such a resolution would be naturally acceptable to the international community which at the going rate of state procrastination, is very likely to become the final arbitrators of the dispute, as has already happened in other theaters of ethnic conflict. No self-respecting nation could be happy about such an intervention. The best way to prevent such humiliation is for opinion leaders on both sides to engage themselves in a brave and open debate on the minimum mutually acceptable package.

I have no doubt that Groundviews would be pleased to play host to such a venture.

Somapala Gunadheera

Hmm, then I guess you were either smoking, drinking, or riding when you typed this: “i think evrry one of your response to one of my comments follows the above pattern machang, it’s a bit tedious”

So are my answers the same or different? Lol. I think you need to make your mind up as to what exactly your argument is if you’re gonna follow me around the blogs repeating your mantra.

“They are trying to get some Tamils into the police force, some Tamils into the army”

Aadhavan, you and Sam can put diminutive and other adjectives into your theories to slant things, but that won’t make it true. The TMVP is trying to get the bulk of its fighting strength into the police and CDF, and later into the regular Army. In other words, legitimacy.

“The party in power in the East is the UPFA, of which the TMVP is a smaller constituent party member”

Of course. The UPFA itself is made up of constituent parties. Nowhere did I suggest that this was federal rule, did I? There are many forms of self-rule, just as there are many forms of federalism.

“you’ve retreated from self rule has been achieved to self rule is in it’s nascent stages, to Tamil’s need to do more to achieve self rule.”

I haven’t. You seem forced to resort to the deception of pretending I said something whenever you respond to my comments, Aadhavan. I understand it’s easier to argue with something you yourself put into your opponent’s mouth, sort of like scripting a fight, but it just makes you look juvenile, machang. Argue with what I said rather than what you wish I said. I withdrew my first comment, ‘cos I admit it sounded like self-rule was a done deal, and reworded my comment. From then on I answered specifics. YOU say that the East isn’t on a satisfactory road to self rule, not I. If so, I think it’s upto you to then engage with that rather than expect solutions to be dropped in your lap, and I said so, If you want to call this a retreat, go for it.

“perhaps it’s best to allow you to engage yourself in an internal debate”

Well, we’ve had this same debate over many blogs, Aadhavan, but you seem to insist on popping up every month or so to refight your battles. It’ll take more than a few weeks to revive that dead horse 😉

The party in power in the East is the UPFA, of which the TMVP is a smaller constituent party member. They are trying to get some Tamils into the police force, some Tamils into the army and are asking the President that the laws that have been around since 1987 be implemented vis a vis land. Real exec power is with the Governor, legislative power is held by the UPFA and is subject to the whim of the central government . If that’s self rule, and if Uva has been enjoying self rule for the last two decades, that’s really good news. In any case, you’ve retreated from self rule has been achieved to self rule is in it’s nascent stages, to Tamil’s need to do more to achieve self rule. With a shifting target like that, perhaps it’s best to allow you to engage yourself in an internal debate. Sorry for interrupting that process. Ta.

Well I’m afraid if you ask the same questions, you get the same answers. I believe one of the definitions of insanity is to do the same thing every time, but somehow expect the result to be different. Perhaps you should ask fresh questions.

“…may i venture to say that merely having a Tamil CM is not the kind of self rule” etc

Well then I suggest that the sort of self rule that is wanted and needed should be explored, now that there is some basis for progress. Clearly, fighting for it isn’t working. And to say that all the East has is a Tamil CM is ridiculous. For one the East isn’t totally Tamil, but nevertheless the TMVP (a Tamil majority party) is in power, a party which is working towards having a Tamil police force and a Tamil Army, along with other land powers. Surely you’re not expecting to have a neatly packaged present of Tamil rule plonked in your laps? It’ll take a bit more work, and a bit less rhetoric.

If it is arrogance to choose one’s own path and not that of the majority, then we are arrogant, as is the Tamil nationalist movement that chose a path removed from the country’s majority. However, the majority of the world has been open in its condemnation of the LTTE and it’s terrorism. The continuous arrests of LTTE operatives, shutting down of TV stations such as Tharisaram, the banning of the WTM, etc are all proof of this. Yes, there is the lip-service paid to political correctness in the form of suggestions that diplomacy is better than war. But it is just lip service, and the very countries that pay this service, train our soldiers and arm our Air Force. On the other hand, there was almost no protest at the GoSL refusal to implement a SAARC truce.

“You fail to understand that GOSL sent desperate text messages forced into all subscribers calling for “patriots to come and fight””

I’m quite aware of this method, and it was more of a test run really to gauge response than a serious attempt to recruit. Walk-in enlistment at the moment is satisfactory. I notice you’ve tried to dramatise all this with some addition of adjectives. Lol.

“a) Has tamil self rule aspirations been fulfilled in the East ?”

Perhaps I was hasty in using the past tense, but I think it’s safe to say that the aspirations are being fulfilled. Of course, it’ll be a long process, made longer by the LTTE’s attempt to sabotage the process, the general corruption of the GoSL, the ineptness of the TMVP, etc, but it’s still Tamil self-rule of a sorts and is a beginning (that goes for you too, Aadhavan, before you get your hobby horse into full gallop).

“b) LTTE will always exist and it will always have mass support. Could it be ever eliminated?”

Optimism is always charming, Sam, but your panties are showing I’m afraid. If you’d said that Tamil aspirations will always exist and will always have mass support, I’d agree with you. Only the LTTE feels that the LTTE must always exist. They are barely existing now, and they have very little support.

I will not respond to your personal attacks on me, Sam, as I think you have enough ways of fueling your stupidity without my help.

“the Karuna group doesn’t consider the thirteenth to be sufficient either.”

I didn’t say I did either, Aadhavan. I believe I’ve already answered the rest of your comments in my response to Sam.