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Cover Feature
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On a downward spiral
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 It is extremely difficult for a sensitive Tamil to be “objective” and “dispassionate” about recent happenings in Sri Lanka. At the end of the Fourth Eelam War, when the war against the Tigers degenerated into a war against Tamil civilians, many of us were demanding that the government of Tamil Nadu should impress upon the government of India to immediately mobilise international opinion and work out a mechanism, acceptable to both Colombo and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), to rescue Tamil civilians from the war zones and escort them to “safe havens” manned by UN organisations. During this worst period in Tamil history, India did not come to the rescue of the Tamils trapped and subjected to savage bombing by the Sri Lankan Air Force. On the question of the rehabilitation of the Internally Displaced People, herded like cattle in the Manik Farm, without proper food, medicine and water and denied the basic right of freedom of movement in their own country, our plea for speedy rehabilitation has fallen on deaf ears. Tamils in Tamil Nadu are helpless and we feel let down that the self-proclaimed champions of overseas Tamils have developed feet of clay.
The degeneration of Sri Lanka from one of the torchbearers of social and human development into one of the most notorious killing fields of the world is a direct offshoot of the failure of nation building. The Mahatma once said the greatness of a nation depends upon how well it treats its minorities. The attempt to build the nation on the basis of the language and religion of the majority Sinhalese community, excluding all just claims of the minority groups, led to gradual parting of ways. The violence of the militants was met by the savage counter-violence of the state. Fanned by intolerance and self-righteousness, political assassinations became common.
When the ethnic conflict started in 1983, many of us justified the violence of the Tigers as a natural response of a victim against an oppressor. But gradually the civilian population became victims of savage acts of terrorism; the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991 created a big divide between Velupillai Prabhakaran and what should have been his support base in India. Other dastardly assassinations followed – Amirtalingam, Neelan Truchelvam, Lakshman Kadiragamar, Ketheeswaran – which created a sense of revulsion among one-time supporters of the Tigers.
If one takes an overview of Sri Lankan history, the victims of assassination were not merely Tamils, but also Sinhalese leaders. And among the heads of government who were assassinated in Sri Lanka, two are extremely important – Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike and President Premadasa – because both represent two distinct turning points in modern Sri Lankan history.
Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike was the first Sinhala leader to transform elite politics into mass politics. This Oxford-educated scholar gave up his western dress and Christian religion and championed the cause of the vernacular elite, traditional Buddhism, Sinhala language and literature.
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 He came to power on the twin platforms of making Sinhala the official language and Buddhism the state religion. The Tamil minority groups felt like foreigners in their own country. Large-scale riots ensued. Faced with Tamil opposition, Bandaranaike attempted compromise solutions, but the forces of reaction that he unleashed devoured him. On September 25, 1959, he was assassinated by a Buddhist monk in his residence. The assassin represented powerful forces – Buddhist monks, teachers and disgruntled politicians. Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the “weeping widow” as she was called, came to power on a racist platform and went further in her acts of discrimination against the Tamils.
The assassination of President Premadasa, on May 1, 1993, while he was controlling the May Day procession, at the hands of the Tigers, was another turning point in Sri Lankan politics. The first non-Goigama leader to occupy the highest political position, Premadasa was opposed to the India-Sri Lanka Accord and the induction of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka. The common opposition to India brought the hitherto two antagonistic forces – Premadasa and Prabhakaran – together. Colombo not only financed LTTE, it also provided the much-needed weapons to the Tigers. The “temporary honeymoon” lasted only for a short interval. As soon as the IPKF withdrew from Sri Lanka, the differences came out into the open and soon the Second Eelam War commenced. What distinguished Premadasa’s reign was the unbridled violence that the Sri Lankan armed forces unleashed against the Sinhala youth, who rallied round the flag of the JVP. Sri Lankan writers refer to this period as Bhishana Samaya or days of terror. More Sinhalese youth were massacred during these two years than the total number of Tamils killed during the first three Eelam Wars. The two rivers of exquisite beauty in southern Sri Lanka – Kelaniya Ganga and Mahaweli Ganga – were clogged with dead bodies and foamed with blood.
During those horrible days of gross violation of human rights,
a young SLFP member of Parliament escaped from the island and spent sleepless nights in the office of the UN Commission for Human Rights in Geneva. Two human rights activists – one a Sinhalese called Vasudeva Nayanakkara and second a Tamil, Tissainayagam, assisted him with excellent documentation of violation of human rights. The Sinhalese leader pleaded in vain for UN intervention
for protection of human rights in Sri Lanka. That Sinhalese leader was none other than the present President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa. Tissanayagam, his close comrade in arms, has been sentenced for two decades of rigorous imprisonment recently for alleged support to the Tigers.
Sri Lanka today is fast degenerating into a fascist state. The opposition has been silenced, those who dare to tell the truth are getting assassinated and the press has been muzzled. Today, the Tamils are at the receiving end but tomorrow it will be the turn of the Sinhalese. The poignant words of Pastor Niemoeller come to my mind:
In Germany, they first came for the Communists,
And I did not speak up because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
And I did not speak up because I was not a Jew.
Then they came up for the trade unionists,
& I did not speak up because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics
And I did not speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came up for me
And by that time no one was left to speak up.
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V. Suryanarayan
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