Dear Yapa,

How can that be?

I am being completely logical, while you are illogicaly rampaging.
The two are not compatible.

So, since I can clearly see the difference, how can it be that I am trying to impose what I am doing on you?
🙂

Notice also that you are now commiting a kind of an ad hominem fallacy!

Dear Wijayapala,

You really believe that Sinhala-Buddhist propaganda?

Of course the LTTE under Prabhakaran killed Tamils too.

But the Sinhala-Buddhists and SL armed forces (which can in the socio-political context be taken as representing the Sinhala-Buddhists) killed far far far more (and they also killed babies).

Do a number check for yourself!

Also the SL armed forces/Sinhala-Buddhists raped many Tamil women. etc. etc.

PP,

“In 87/89 an estimated number of 30,000 Sinhala youths were killed by the Armed forces and Pro-Govt paramilitary forces. Do you consider the people, who ordered them to be killed, as equal to Prbakaran? Ofcourse not. Why?”

There is one factor you have neglected. The politicians, for better or worse, operated within a democratic setup. The parties responsible for the deaths of those youth were the UNP and JVP, and the electorate has accordingly punished them.

This environment/setup did not exist within the north. Prabakaran killed anyone who was not with him to become the “sole” Tamil leader. As far as I know, no Sinhala leader has ever claimed that distinction for the Sinhalese. Prabakaran thus ensured that no matter what mistakes he made, the LTTE would be the ONLY option the Tamils had. He arranged things such that if he were to be killed, Tamil society would have NOTHING. We are seeing the results today.

MR was not one of the politicians who murdered the Sinhala youth (although in those years he played an opportunistic role hobnobbing with the JVP, much like Mano Ganesan with the LTTE). Some people, even myself, have compared MR with Prabakaran in terms of ruthlessness. But again, the different political setups led to different outcomes. MR was elected in 2005 on a platform of dealing firmly with the LTTE, and when the war started the next year he had popular support (whether right or wrong). Prabakaran on the other hand had no such popular support from the Tamils for war, and it is not surprising that he lost.

Dear PitastharaPuthraya;

Do you think politicians of so called counties are better than ours, keep aside forces?

http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=32215

Thanks!

Dear sambar;

Are you sure you are not trying to induce what you are doing – upon me?

Thanks!

Dear PitastharaPuthraya;

I don’t know what yardstick you are using to measure SL forces. If you measure them by the yardstick you use to measure the civilians and say SL forces are brutal or whatever it is, that conclusion could be correct. However, the forces should be evaluated using the common yardstick used to measure forces, not anything else. Forces are not supposed to be pious as civilians, that is why forces are not civilians and they are called forces, and they are supposed to be “forceful”. However, if you measure SL forces in terms of the common yardstick of forces of the world, SL forces are very much advanced in many of the facets, including discipline.

Sl forces are more advanced than all the forces of the Europe in the history. All those forces killed millions of people to capture the world for their benefits. In WW-1 and WW-2 how many people were killed by those forces, just to divide the world among them. In the present US, UK, French, Italian, Canadian forces are engaged in killing people in foreign countries. You cannot find a moment, one of these forces engaged in destruction somewhere in the world. Their killings are just for economic and power gain and these forces have no value for human lives than a dollar they gain through war activities.

Do you say our forces are not more disciplined than the IPKF? Can you show ten more civilized and disciplined forces than SL forces among the forces of the 3rd world countries?

They are forces, not saints.

Our forced did not invade any land, but they did their expected duty to protect the country.

I never said everything was started by Prabakaran. He was just an instrument in the arms of the educated Tamils who brainwashed him with false theories to gain power by dividing this country. They poisoned the Tamil youth against Sinhalese creating false theories like “Traditional Homeland Theory” and teaching a created history to them.

Really colonials are the root of evil of the problem. Prabakaran was an illegitimate son of colonialism/imperialism.

It is true that there are other reasons behind the evils other than that of the underworld leader in the case you have mentioned. However, it also does not justify that underworld leader himself is not one of the reasons behind the evils. Otherwise all the people of the particular surrounding should have become gangsters. It does not happen so. So, though Prabakaran is only an instrument, it does not mean he is free of guilt.

Only potential killers become killers when the appropriate surrounding is set for them.

Thanks!

Sambar,

“Since in the final analysis it is these deluded wretches (the ruiners of Lanka) and their influence that Prabhakaran stood up against, he must be regarded as first and foremost a Lankan hero!”

Then why did Prabakaran kill more Tamils than these “Sinhala Buddhists”?

Yapa,

you have perhaps heard of the well known Sinhala saying:
“kohede yanne? malle pol”

You raised the matter of the SL forces mindlessly and heartlessly going on the rampage killing CIVILIANS.

I pointed out that in trying to deny that, your mind went on a rampage too.
But now you are trying to talk about SL forces fighting the LTTE cadres and vice versa. Not the same thing is it? So you are still rampaging!

Dear sambar;

It seems you are fond of simple logic. But Logic is not that simple dear sambar.

We will analyze and see your simple logic and the conclusions, a bit.

You say: “1) If the killings were the result of provocations then surely they were intentional!

I.e. the SL forces were provoked and therefore responded to the provocation and intentionally killed.
You can’t have unintentional killings if they are conscious responses to provocations!”

Answer: Yes!, when the SL forces were provocated by LTTE terrorists, SL forces responded appropriately. The responses were intentional and aimed at killing the enemy. So what was wrong in there? Did LTTE or you expected SL forces to meditate when enemy attacked and provocated them?

These killings are surely intentional and obviously justifiable and correct.

You say: “2)If the SL forces didn’t go on rampage kilings then those killings were methodical and cold blooded! So you, Yapa, are saying that the Sl forces are cold blooded murderers!”

Answer: Forces are meant to kill, this is the hard reality. Didn’t LTTE carders were trained to kill? Can you tell me any army not meant for killing?

If you brand SL forces as “cold blooded murderers”, no forces in the world could be exempted from the label.

The general label does not make our forces an exception over others and hence we are not worried but proud of them. You also can be proud of them as they are the people who saved the country from that cancer of Terrorism.

You say: “3) On the other hand, would you like to say that the killings were due to the SL forces going on wild semi-conscious reactive emotional rampages?”

Answer: I don’t say so. I think you have interpreted what I said, the way you like. SL forces targeted enemy forces intentionally, however, there may have had obviously inevitable civilian killings in any war that are un-intentional.

You seems again to fond of arriving at conclusion on average. You added up intentional to unintentional and taken the average as “semi-conscious”, No, they are two different things and their average is never “semi-conscious”.

You have made arbitrary assumptions in your process of arguments and you go your own way to gain conclusions, not the conclusions implied in the argument.

Have you heard of “Logical Fallacies”? Your conclusions are a result of logical fallacies, not of arguments.

See what happen when you try to handle things you are not familiar of. Logic is not a thing that can be handle by every Nick and Harry, my dear sambar.

Thanks!

I defend your right to choose your own heroes. I have put forward my views on your choice of Prabhakaran as a hero which clearly are in conflict with yours – which is fine because my intention is not to ‘convert you’.

It is in this context that “I would like to hear a rational argument proving otherwise” – given you bear the opposite view. I am sincerely curious to understand the reasons have inspired you to argue that VP is a hero given his demonstrable failuers in terms of
1) strategic incompetence: inability to identify the core and seeking a separate state (least probable outcome) rather than dignity and equality for Tamils (an achievable goal), killing of RG, unilaterally pulling out of negotiations, employment of terrorist tactics and failure to transform the organisation even after 9/11…..
2) poor leadership: inability to unite Tamil movements, choosing to eleminate – instead of utilise – all other militant, democratic and intellectual resources that could have contributed immensely towards a common objective due to his own incapacity to tolerate openions that differed from his own, the only common objective that he was able to inspire his supporters to embrace was the idea of a “heroic death”!!!
3) Immoral actions: choosing to deliberately attack civillian targets and maximise civilian casualities in attackes carried out hundreds of kilometers away from the battle front, choosing suicide terrorism as a means to achieving liberation, blatant disregard for the sanctity of life in general, failure to live by his own edicts and changing them to suit his momentary needs and circumstances, child conscription which has debilitated the Tamil community in the North and East in a way that they may not recover for at least an unborn generation to come…

I have putforward – what I hope would be – a reasonable argument why i do not consider VP to be a hero. Nelson Mandela is my hero. His words as he stepped out of 27 years in prison was not of incitement to violence, retribution or of vengence, but he said “I have come to liberate the opressed as well as the opressor”. It is that attitude which ensured the success of his movement and elevated the self-respect and dignity of his people. That is how great heroes have gained the respect and appreciation of not only their own people but also of their enemies.

I will repeat mysef once more – that “the Tamil struggle for dignity and equality is significantly weaker today than it was before the war as a direct result of strategic incompetence and immoral actions of Prabhakaran.”