In december 2004 , tsunami wreaked a great loss to the many lankan lives irrespective of their ethnicity.Its estimated that LTTE and tamils shared about 50% of the damages caused . Italian embassy collected a huge amount of money and gave it to LTTE for reliefs. Chandrika bashed them with anger for doing this " inhuman" act without consulting her. LTTE had huge economical losses , lost many weapons and about 1200-1500 cadres were dead due to tsunami. ( December 29 , 2004 report) . But the whole international arena appreciated LTTE for its painstaking efforts to provide relief measures. Disaster Management System of them became a role model to may countries in the world.
In november 19 , 2005 mahinda became the president and this was because of LTTE's announcement to tamils , they asked them to boycott the polls otherwise ranil could have won this election and the latest humanitarian crisis could have been avoided.February 2006 , both the sides went to geneva for a peace pact and it didnt work out.
In april 25 , 2006 sarath fonseka the army chief was attacked by a human bomb and he was severely wounded and 9 were dead. The big shock to them was the location of the attack , army head quarters.Mahinda rajapakse started his count in august 8 , SLA's air force attacked mavilaru due to a water dispute between tamls and sinhalese and won the battle by a huge margin.. October 16 , 2006 LTTE resonded back by the biggest suicide bomb attack , a person drove the lorry towards an army camp and killed about 129 army persons and in the same day SLA responded by killing 61 kids in sencholai. Totally the air force dropped 16 bombs there in sencholai and throughout the world this barbaric act was vehemently condemned.
When SLA attacked vaharai and mattakalappu about 60,000 tamils turned as refugees and 43 LTTE cadres were found dead and the biggest victory for GoSL came when they drove tigers out of triconamalee . Tigers were then considered to be weakest in their history until this happened.
In march 26 , 2007 LTTE bombed katunayake international airport , news may be similiar but this time they did it through air, 3 were dead and 16 wounded.The jet is a glider type and they altered the seating positions to drop bombs and in october 22, 2007 there was another attack through air.
In november 2 , 2007 su.ba.tamilchelvan along with 5 others was found dead due to an air attack in killinochi and earlier in december 14 , 2006 anton balasingham died due to cancer. Rest at the present we all can get the news about the humanitarian crisis and war front news happening now in lanka.LTTE was an organisation started with 30 and its now having more than 25,000 members. They are virtually running a government with police stations and courts , colleges and schools. But theres a great economic depression in their region , one Kg of rice costs 180 Rs and its 400 , 650 for sugar and petrol viz due to the economic constraints place on their region.
Thank you mate , if you have read all my stuffs from the beginning.As i have already said am not here to present anything in my perspective and I took maruthan's book as my reference and started this 4 days ago. But I really had to face a lot of troubles due to my limited vocabulary. Earlier in my school days i knew LTTE as a terrorist organisation having child suicide bombers and they killed rajeev and I thought that they are trying to separate a good innocent country and all the credits goes to the media persons like ram and cho.They had their criticisms but they didnt tell about the genocide happened ( happening) which according to me is a biased journalism. When i joined TNP in orkut , lot of arguments were going on about eelam and i was unable to participate in all those topics and when i was almost convinced that LTTE is completely legitimate , Srinivasan ramani ( my college senior) showed me the other side of the coin. I knew nothing about the genocide happened and thanks to people in TNP for constantly bringing up this issue. My works are definitely not for experts , but there are a lot of people like me still unaware of whats happening in lanka and I hope that atleast some people would get a birds eye view of what happened there.
Thank you all
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Peace pact - A mirage
When the whole world was celebrating millennium , colombo and yazhpanam were burning as usual. In January 1 st 73 bodies were found in yanayarivu inclusive of army men , tigers and tamils. 40 were dead in vavynia post office due to a parcel bomb and a black tiger killed 12 in the prime minister office.On the same year a LTTE symphathiser kumar ponnambalam( political leader) was killed by some person and LTTE gave ponambalam "maamanithar" tag.
Chandrika announced JUNE 7 , 2000 as martyr's day for SLA and on the same day cabinet minister C.V.Gunaratne along with 21 other people were blown off and these things form the third part of oyatha alaigal moondru.
Fourth part of the oyatha alaigal moondru started in december 26 , 200 LTTE started it in muhamalai kilali and 150 army men were dead and 500 from both sides were wounded . In october 23 LTTE started attacking eastern ticonamalee and this was compensated when a violent sinhalese mob bet 29 children to death in a juvenile jail in pinthanuvo.
Then came the significant decision form chandrika , she called norway to facilitate peace ( oslo pact aalamaram pugal norway) Eric solheim arrived in october 31 and eric was good enough to handle the situation. As expected inDECEMBER 21 , 2000 LTTE announced that they were ready for peace and there would be no offences from their side.But in january 16 , 2001 SLA tried to capture yanayarivu and LTTE retaliated back quickly , both violated the peace pact and the initiative was from GoSL.In march 31 , tigers gave back by blowing up a ship( Dvora fast attack craft) worth 500 million dollars ( People say that SL navy shot bullets against tigers) . In april 24 , operation rod of fire was started by SLA and LTTE quenched the fire with black tigers.
May 4 , collin powell , external affairs minister condemned both sides and asked them to find a peaceful political solution.JuLY 4 , LTTE attacked bandaranayaka aerodrum and wreaked a loss upto 500 million dollars . In september 26 , SLA killed an important commander sankar. Eric solheim warned both the sides and irritated by this GoSL asked norway to change the person and thorbjoern jagaland replaced eric.
December 7 , 2001 UNP won the elections and Ranil wickramasinghe became the PM and in january 2002 , he lifted all bans on western provinces and in return LTTE released 10 captured prisoners. In february 22, 2002 LTTE and GoSL signed in the peace pact and the A9 road was opened for public and GoSL got back its army men. In april 23 , 2002 LTTE and Ranil signed in a MoU.September 5 , 2002 ban on LTTE was lifted and in november 27 , prabhakaran gave an interview. The crux of his talk was , he made it clear that LTTE was ready for peace and it was upto the GoSL to decide about separate eelam or allowing a federal system of government. Sounds sweet right? Yet one person was discontented about all these development and it was none other than the president chandrika , because....no war , no politics in lanka.
Chandrika waited for that opportunity and in november 4 , 2003 when ranil went to USA , chandrika announced " emergency" . She then joined with JVP ( Janatha vimukthi peramuna) and formed an allaince called UPFA ( United People's Freedom Allaince) and she became the president inapril 2 , 2004 and mahinda rajapakse was the PM.
In march 2004 TMVP ( Tamil makkal viduthalai puligal) was formed by karuna and the reason he gave was that prabhakaran was not paying proper attention to eastern province tamils. Karuna joined LTTE in 1983 and was a special commander in mattakalappai and ambarai . He is accused in many cases like getting bribes and he played a key role in 90's in the muslims massacre and his group killed 400-600 SLA men in the same year.
The next one would probably be the concluding article mates.
Chandrika announced JUNE 7 , 2000 as martyr's day for SLA and on the same day cabinet minister C.V.Gunaratne along with 21 other people were blown off and these things form the third part of oyatha alaigal moondru.
Fourth part of the oyatha alaigal moondru started in december 26 , 200 LTTE started it in muhamalai kilali and 150 army men were dead and 500 from both sides were wounded . In october 23 LTTE started attacking eastern ticonamalee and this was compensated when a violent sinhalese mob bet 29 children to death in a juvenile jail in pinthanuvo.
Then came the significant decision form chandrika , she called norway to facilitate peace ( oslo pact aalamaram pugal norway) Eric solheim arrived in october 31 and eric was good enough to handle the situation. As expected inDECEMBER 21 , 2000 LTTE announced that they were ready for peace and there would be no offences from their side.But in january 16 , 2001 SLA tried to capture yanayarivu and LTTE retaliated back quickly , both violated the peace pact and the initiative was from GoSL.In march 31 , tigers gave back by blowing up a ship( Dvora fast attack craft) worth 500 million dollars ( People say that SL navy shot bullets against tigers) . In april 24 , operation rod of fire was started by SLA and LTTE quenched the fire with black tigers.
May 4 , collin powell , external affairs minister condemned both sides and asked them to find a peaceful political solution.JuLY 4 , LTTE attacked bandaranayaka aerodrum and wreaked a loss upto 500 million dollars . In september 26 , SLA killed an important commander sankar. Eric solheim warned both the sides and irritated by this GoSL asked norway to change the person and thorbjoern jagaland replaced eric.
December 7 , 2001 UNP won the elections and Ranil wickramasinghe became the PM and in january 2002 , he lifted all bans on western provinces and in return LTTE released 10 captured prisoners. In february 22, 2002 LTTE and GoSL signed in the peace pact and the A9 road was opened for public and GoSL got back its army men. In april 23 , 2002 LTTE and Ranil signed in a MoU.September 5 , 2002 ban on LTTE was lifted and in november 27 , prabhakaran gave an interview. The crux of his talk was , he made it clear that LTTE was ready for peace and it was upto the GoSL to decide about separate eelam or allowing a federal system of government. Sounds sweet right? Yet one person was discontented about all these development and it was none other than the president chandrika , because....no war , no politics in lanka.
Chandrika waited for that opportunity and in november 4 , 2003 when ranil went to USA , chandrika announced " emergency" . She then joined with JVP ( Janatha vimukthi peramuna) and formed an allaince called UPFA ( United People's Freedom Allaince) and she became the president inapril 2 , 2004 and mahinda rajapakse was the PM.
In march 2004 TMVP ( Tamil makkal viduthalai puligal) was formed by karuna and the reason he gave was that prabhakaran was not paying proper attention to eastern province tamils. Karuna joined LTTE in 1983 and was a special commander in mattakalappai and ambarai . He is accused in many cases like getting bribes and he played a key role in 90's in the muslims massacre and his group killed 400-600 SLA men in the same year.
The next one would probably be the concluding article mates.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
War , War and more War
We have to go back to the place where we have left earlier and the place is a five star hotel called hilton. In may 1989 premadossa invited LTTE for talks and he wanted to use tigers to drive IPKF away . In fact more than premadossa , prabhakaran used this offer well and strengthened his army.
In march 2nd , 1991 rajan vijarathne's( minister) mercedes blew up along with him .Then in april 23rd, 1993 lalith athulathmudali was shot dead in colombo.He was the opposition party leader and the party's name is DUNF ( Democratic United National Party) which came away from premadossa's party.In the same year in the may day when premadossa was campaigning in the armor street there was a huge traffic jam. He came out of his car to clear it and suddenly a cycle came by the way and after an hour the guards were unable to find even parts of his body . LTTE immediately released a report saying that they are not responsible for this but people were extremely certain that this was done by LTTE.
In may 7 , Dingiri banda vijathunga became the temproary president and he was there for the next 6 months of the interregnum and he just acted like a military chief and LTTE captured 3 important army camps in these days.
Chandrika kumaratunga was the daughter of srimavo bandaranayake and she became the president in august 19 ,1994.She relaxed the economic constraints in tamils region and she was the first to talk about ' peace '. September 2 , 1994 prabhakaran sent a letter to her asking her to take all the economic constraints and he also said that he was ready for peace talks and as a signal to that he said that LTTE will release 10 captured police men. She replied to him in september 9th welcoming his decisions .
In october 23 , 1994 kamini dissanayaka along with 56 other people was assassinated , she was an opposition party leader but there was no solid proofs on about LTTE's nexus with this incident .In november 12 , 1994 chandrika became the president and LTTE announced peace for a week and they wrote to chandrika that there would be no offences from their side through ICRC ( International Red Cross Committee ) and GoSL presented them with the head of chinnathambi padmanaban ( mali ) , a LTTE cadre throug the same ICRC. Tamil chelvan wrote to GoSL asking them the body of mali and he condemned their act claiming that this was against peace , but there was no positive response from the other side.
OYATHA ALAIGAL ONDRU :
In march 2nd , 1991 rajan vijarathne's( minister) mercedes blew up along with him .Then in april 23rd, 1993 lalith athulathmudali was shot dead in colombo.He was the opposition party leader and the party's name is DUNF ( Democratic United National Party) which came away from premadossa's party.In the same year in the may day when premadossa was campaigning in the armor street there was a huge traffic jam. He came out of his car to clear it and suddenly a cycle came by the way and after an hour the guards were unable to find even parts of his body . LTTE immediately released a report saying that they are not responsible for this but people were extremely certain that this was done by LTTE.
In may 7 , Dingiri banda vijathunga became the temproary president and he was there for the next 6 months of the interregnum and he just acted like a military chief and LTTE captured 3 important army camps in these days.
Chandrika kumaratunga was the daughter of srimavo bandaranayake and she became the president in august 19 ,1994.She relaxed the economic constraints in tamils region and she was the first to talk about ' peace '. September 2 , 1994 prabhakaran sent a letter to her asking her to take all the economic constraints and he also said that he was ready for peace talks and as a signal to that he said that LTTE will release 10 captured police men. She replied to him in september 9th welcoming his decisions .
In october 23 , 1994 kamini dissanayaka along with 56 other people was assassinated , she was an opposition party leader but there was no solid proofs on about LTTE's nexus with this incident .In november 12 , 1994 chandrika became the president and LTTE announced peace for a week and they wrote to chandrika that there would be no offences from their side through ICRC ( International Red Cross Committee ) and GoSL presented them with the head of chinnathambi padmanaban ( mali ) , a LTTE cadre throug the same ICRC. Tamil chelvan wrote to GoSL asking them the body of mali and he condemned their act claiming that this was against peace , but there was no positive response from the other side.
OYATHA ALAIGAL ONDRU :
Chandrika had promised prabhakaran that she will get back her troops from vavunia but that didnt happen and in fact he gave her time till march 28 , 1995 but she didnt care about that and he extended his dead line till april 19 but still there was no response. LTTE started asking questions in a different way , they blew up the ships surya and ranasuru in tricanomalee . Those were gifts from china worth 20.85 crores . When SLA was about to retaliate LTTE destroyed a couple of brand new AVRO jet flights. The worst part of this is LTTE raided a lot of army camps and plundered mmany weapons and in 1995 alone sinhalese lost 2026 army men and LTTE wreaked them with a loss of billion dollars. January 31 , 1996 LTTE sent six to eight suicide bombers in a lorry and it killed 80 near central bank , colombo.
SLA began effectively retaliating in december 5 , 1995 and they called it as operation sunshine and within 40 days they announced that yazhpanam is under their contol . LTTE in july 18 , 1996 started attacking mullaitheevu and during this period they raided important army camps and took 2 artilleries from them. After all this rampage SLA sent its troops through sea and named that operation as " thrivida bagara " but in fact LTTE's navy was very strong to respond to this and this cost 1200 soldiers to SLA and in all these attacks LTTE lost a lot of suicide bombers ( karumpuligal) . Upto 1995 , from the IPKF debacle the war is named as " Oyatha alaigal ondru " ( Incessant waves part one) by tigers.
OYATHA ALAIGAL IRANDU :
Then came the second portion in which through sathyajaya operation 3 troops were sent and vavunia and killinochi were captured by SLA and following that was operation jaya sikuru which intented to capture the intermediate portions. In february 2 , 1998 LTTE started their account to capture killinochi back and later in september 26 killinochi was under their control . Part 2 of the oyatha alaigal ends here.
OYATHA ALAIGAL MOONNDRU :
This one comprises of 2 portions. The first one is the war to get back ottuchuttan captured by SLA and after huge losses they captured it in november 1 , 1999 and gradually they captured mangulam , kanagarayangulam puliyangulam areas.
The second portion of this is from november 7th when mannaar and pallamedu , periamadu , dakshamruthamadu were captured by LTTE from SLA.
கர்ண மோட்சம்
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siG-AL5mAF8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OlJ--rWWEQ
கர்ண மோட்சம் ,இந்த படத்தை விமர்சிக்கும் அளவுக்கு உலக சினிமாக்களை கரைத்து குடித்த ஞானி இல்லை நான் , ஆனால் என்னளவில் தோன்றியவற்றை எடுத்துரைக்க முனைகிறேன் .நலிந்த நாட்டுபுற கலைகளில் ஒன்றான , கூத்து கலையை ஒட்டி எடுக்கப்பட்ட அருமையான "குறும்படம்".படத்திற்கு எஸ்.ரா தான் கதை மற்றும் உரையாடல் , நான் அவரின் துணை எழுத்தை தான் முதலில் படித்தேன் . அவர் எதையுமே ஒருவிதமான குற்ற உணர்சியை ( guilty consciousness) மய்யமாக வைத்து எழுதுபவர் . அவர் கோவில்பட்டியில் பாவை கூத்து பிரபலம் என்றும் அதற்காகவே மந்திதோப்பில் தங்கியிருந்து அதை பார்த்தார் என்பதையும் அவரது எழுத்து மூலம் அறிந்தேன்.நானும் எங்கள் ஊரில் நிறைய பேரிடம் விசாரித்து பார்த்தேன் பாவை கூத்து இருந்ததற்கான அறிகுறியே இல்லை. வீட்டின் அருகாமயில் இருக்கும் அயர்ன் தாத்தா மட்டும் " சின்ன வயசுல பார்த்ததுபா .....இப்போலாம் எங்குட்டு நடக்கும் , மறந்தே போச்சு " என்றார்.
இந்த கதையும் ஒரு கூத்து கலைஞனின் வலியை , கலை நலிவடைந்து போனதை ஒரு அழகான , ஆழமான கவிதை போல் சொல்கிறது .முதல் காட்சியிலேயே காலி பெப்சி டப்பாவை குடிக்க முயலும் மகனை தந்தை தண்டிக்கும்போதே அவர்களை சூழும் வறுமை நம்மையும் ஆட்கொள்கிறது . மகன் ஒருபுறம் கிரிக்கட் மட்டை வாங்கி தர சொல்லி நச்சரிக்க , கர்ணனாக எல்லாம் தருகிறேன் என்று வாக்கு கொடுக்கும் தந்தை , பள்ளயில் கூத்து இல்லை என்ற செய்தியில் நொடிந்து போகிறார் . கூத்து கட்டமுடியாமல் , மகனை த்ரிப்திபடுத்த முடியாமல் அவர் தவிக்கும் தவிப்பும் , அந்த ஒப்பனையை மீறிய அவர் முக பாவனையும் .......ஆஹா , அனாயாசம் ! யாரய்யா அந்த நடிகர் ?
இன்னுமொரு முக்கிய கதாபாத்திரம் அந்த டீக்கடை சிறுமி , மௌன மொழி பேசி அவர் அடி வாங்கும் கதாபாத்திரங்களில் விழியில் நீர் வழிவதை தடுப்பது சிரமம். ஆர்வத்துடன் அந்த பெண்ணிற்கு கூத்து கற்று கொடுப்பதிலும் , உடைந்த குரலில் கூத்து கலையின் வீழ்ச்சியை சொல்வதிலும் , அந்த பெண்ணை கடைகாரர் இழுத்து செல்லும் பொது ஒரு விதமான சோக இழையோடு பார்ப்பதிலும் , அந்த கூத்து நடிகர் ஜொலிக்கிறார் . கதைக்கு உயிரோட்டம் தருவதென்றால் இது தானோ ?கடைசியில் அந்த ஒரு ரூபாவை அந்த பெண் கொடுத்து குரு தச்சனை தருவது படத்திற்கு முத்தாய்ப்பு .
என்ன செய்ய நிஜ கர்ணர்களுக்கு கொடுக்க வசதியில்லை .ஆமாம் படத்தின் இசை யார் அந்த பிரபாகர் ? சக்கை போடு போடுகிறார் . ஆரம்ப காட்சியின் வரும் மிருதங்கத்தில் இருந்து , படத்தில் சோக இழையோடு வரும் அந்த மெல்லிய ராகம் தொடர்ந்து , கூத்தின் இசை வரை புகுந்து விளையாடி இருக்கிறார் . குறும்படத்திற்கு இவ்வளவு தரமான இசையை தந்திருக்கும் அவரது உழைப்பும் , அர்பணிப்பும் போற்ற தக்கது .நான் நான்காம் வகுப்பு படிக்கும் பொழுது கூத்து பார்த்தது , இப்பொழுது மான்கள் மயில்கள் என்ற பெயரில் நடக்கும் " கூத்துகளை" தான் பார்க்க வாய்த்திருக்கிறது .
நம் மண்ணின் கலையை , நம் வாழ்வியலை , நம் பாரம்பரியத்தை , நம் வரலாற்று சிறப்பை , நமது கலைஞர்களை பாதுகாக்காமல் போனது நமது குற்றமா ? அரசின் குற்றமா ? ஊடகங்களின் குற்றமா ? தெரியவில்லை , எஸ்.ராவுடன் சேர்ந்து நானும் அதே குற்ற உணர்ச்சியின் பிடியில்.........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OlJ--rWWEQ
கர்ண மோட்சம் ,இந்த படத்தை விமர்சிக்கும் அளவுக்கு உலக சினிமாக்களை கரைத்து குடித்த ஞானி இல்லை நான் , ஆனால் என்னளவில் தோன்றியவற்றை எடுத்துரைக்க முனைகிறேன் .நலிந்த நாட்டுபுற கலைகளில் ஒன்றான , கூத்து கலையை ஒட்டி எடுக்கப்பட்ட அருமையான "குறும்படம்".படத்திற்கு எஸ்.ரா தான் கதை மற்றும் உரையாடல் , நான் அவரின் துணை எழுத்தை தான் முதலில் படித்தேன் . அவர் எதையுமே ஒருவிதமான குற்ற உணர்சியை ( guilty consciousness) மய்யமாக வைத்து எழுதுபவர் . அவர் கோவில்பட்டியில் பாவை கூத்து பிரபலம் என்றும் அதற்காகவே மந்திதோப்பில் தங்கியிருந்து அதை பார்த்தார் என்பதையும் அவரது எழுத்து மூலம் அறிந்தேன்.நானும் எங்கள் ஊரில் நிறைய பேரிடம் விசாரித்து பார்த்தேன் பாவை கூத்து இருந்ததற்கான அறிகுறியே இல்லை. வீட்டின் அருகாமயில் இருக்கும் அயர்ன் தாத்தா மட்டும் " சின்ன வயசுல பார்த்ததுபா .....இப்போலாம் எங்குட்டு நடக்கும் , மறந்தே போச்சு " என்றார்.
இந்த கதையும் ஒரு கூத்து கலைஞனின் வலியை , கலை நலிவடைந்து போனதை ஒரு அழகான , ஆழமான கவிதை போல் சொல்கிறது .முதல் காட்சியிலேயே காலி பெப்சி டப்பாவை குடிக்க முயலும் மகனை தந்தை தண்டிக்கும்போதே அவர்களை சூழும் வறுமை நம்மையும் ஆட்கொள்கிறது . மகன் ஒருபுறம் கிரிக்கட் மட்டை வாங்கி தர சொல்லி நச்சரிக்க , கர்ணனாக எல்லாம் தருகிறேன் என்று வாக்கு கொடுக்கும் தந்தை , பள்ளயில் கூத்து இல்லை என்ற செய்தியில் நொடிந்து போகிறார் . கூத்து கட்டமுடியாமல் , மகனை த்ரிப்திபடுத்த முடியாமல் அவர் தவிக்கும் தவிப்பும் , அந்த ஒப்பனையை மீறிய அவர் முக பாவனையும் .......ஆஹா , அனாயாசம் ! யாரய்யா அந்த நடிகர் ?
இன்னுமொரு முக்கிய கதாபாத்திரம் அந்த டீக்கடை சிறுமி , மௌன மொழி பேசி அவர் அடி வாங்கும் கதாபாத்திரங்களில் விழியில் நீர் வழிவதை தடுப்பது சிரமம். ஆர்வத்துடன் அந்த பெண்ணிற்கு கூத்து கற்று கொடுப்பதிலும் , உடைந்த குரலில் கூத்து கலையின் வீழ்ச்சியை சொல்வதிலும் , அந்த பெண்ணை கடைகாரர் இழுத்து செல்லும் பொது ஒரு விதமான சோக இழையோடு பார்ப்பதிலும் , அந்த கூத்து நடிகர் ஜொலிக்கிறார் . கதைக்கு உயிரோட்டம் தருவதென்றால் இது தானோ ?கடைசியில் அந்த ஒரு ரூபாவை அந்த பெண் கொடுத்து குரு தச்சனை தருவது படத்திற்கு முத்தாய்ப்பு .
என்ன செய்ய நிஜ கர்ணர்களுக்கு கொடுக்க வசதியில்லை .ஆமாம் படத்தின் இசை யார் அந்த பிரபாகர் ? சக்கை போடு போடுகிறார் . ஆரம்ப காட்சியின் வரும் மிருதங்கத்தில் இருந்து , படத்தில் சோக இழையோடு வரும் அந்த மெல்லிய ராகம் தொடர்ந்து , கூத்தின் இசை வரை புகுந்து விளையாடி இருக்கிறார் . குறும்படத்திற்கு இவ்வளவு தரமான இசையை தந்திருக்கும் அவரது உழைப்பும் , அர்பணிப்பும் போற்ற தக்கது .நான் நான்காம் வகுப்பு படிக்கும் பொழுது கூத்து பார்த்தது , இப்பொழுது மான்கள் மயில்கள் என்ற பெயரில் நடக்கும் " கூத்துகளை" தான் பார்க்க வாய்த்திருக்கிறது .
நம் மண்ணின் கலையை , நம் வாழ்வியலை , நம் பாரம்பரியத்தை , நம் வரலாற்று சிறப்பை , நமது கலைஞர்களை பாதுகாக்காமல் போனது நமது குற்றமா ? அரசின் குற்றமா ? ஊடகங்களின் குற்றமா ? தெரியவில்லை , எஸ்.ராவுடன் சேர்ந்து நானும் அதே குற்ற உணர்ச்சியின் பிடியில்.........
Criticims on LTTE and the reality behind.
People here have asked me time and again about my criticisms on LTTE and yes , i do have my own versions.But things have to be analysed in depth rather than saying that they are terrorists , blah ,blah , blah. The book which am having as my major source " Viduthalai puligal " by Maruthan has shown both the sides of the coin and again i do refer links continuously to substantiate my views. Enough of my vetti puranams and lets get into some action.
The most common criticism on LTTE is that they have killed many tamil leaders belonging to other liberation organisations and they have wiped out many groups. This statement is a bit gross generalization and lets get deeper into this .
1. July 13 , 1989 TULF leaders amirthalingam , siva chidambaram were shot dead in amirthalingam's residence. This act was done by tigers visu and alosiyas and they were shot dead by the guards of amirthalingam.
2. In july 18 , 1989 in a place called mambalapatti PLOTE's leader uma maheshwaran was found dead but none suspected LTTE as there was a great enmity within the group itself.
3. Santhan allegedly a spy from LTTE joined with padmanabha the chief of EPRLF and in june 6 , 1990 padmanabha and 12 others were shot dead in their residence in soolaimedu. Varadharajan perumal later flew to india because of fear and many EPRLF cadres were killed.
4. Much earlier in april 20 , 1986 LTTE started attacking TELO . Their camps in alavetti , ariyaalai , kattuvan , vattukottai , maanipai , koppai , mayilitti , naavanthulai and mirugavil were destroyed and about 250 people were killed. TELO's leader srisabharathinam was shot dead by kittu in konda.
5. EROS dismissed their organisation and voluntarily joined LTTE
In may 21 , 1991 rajeev gandhi was murdered and am not going into this issue as it will lead to arguments/ counter arguments and to be honest am not sure about the entire thing and so do others , period.
6. In anuary 13 , 1993 kittu's ship was stopped by indian navy and he imediately blew himself and the ship. LTTE started its search to find the balck sheep and it was matthaya. He was constantly monitored and degraded in ranks and later found out to be an informer to RAW and in march 31 , 1993 he was arrested and in december 28 he was given death penalty by the tigers.
But the most important and the major crime committed by them was the forced eviction of muslims.
In october 30 , 1990 they asked muslims to evacuate their residence within 48 hours . Muslims constitute about 7% of the population in lanka and they lived in places like kilinochi , yazhpanam , mullaitheevu etc. They were not even allowed to take their belongings and there are many reports about the massacre of muslims and 58,000 people were made as refugees.
Later in 2002 , Anton balasingham said this "நாங்கள் செய்த இமாலய தவறு இது . எதை சொல்லியும் நாங்கள் ஞாயபடுத்த விரும்பவில்லை ""
According to geneva pact in 1948 , children less than 15 should not be employed in armed struggles. During the IPKF period itself this charge was made against LTTE and by april 2000 , LTTE is accused of having more than 1000 child soldiers and most of them were under the age of seven.
UNICEF vehemently condemned this act of having child soldiers and in april 2003 LTTE allowed about 200 children to join their families . UNICEF has constantly warned LTTE on this regard and LTTE has now reduced its number of child soldiers.
By this time , we have missed the main war fronts by discussing about the criticisms and we have to go back to 1989 .
The most common criticism on LTTE is that they have killed many tamil leaders belonging to other liberation organisations and they have wiped out many groups. This statement is a bit gross generalization and lets get deeper into this .
1. July 13 , 1989 TULF leaders amirthalingam , siva chidambaram were shot dead in amirthalingam's residence. This act was done by tigers visu and alosiyas and they were shot dead by the guards of amirthalingam.
2. In july 18 , 1989 in a place called mambalapatti PLOTE's leader uma maheshwaran was found dead but none suspected LTTE as there was a great enmity within the group itself.
3. Santhan allegedly a spy from LTTE joined with padmanabha the chief of EPRLF and in june 6 , 1990 padmanabha and 12 others were shot dead in their residence in soolaimedu. Varadharajan perumal later flew to india because of fear and many EPRLF cadres were killed.
4. Much earlier in april 20 , 1986 LTTE started attacking TELO . Their camps in alavetti , ariyaalai , kattuvan , vattukottai , maanipai , koppai , mayilitti , naavanthulai and mirugavil were destroyed and about 250 people were killed. TELO's leader srisabharathinam was shot dead by kittu in konda.
5. EROS dismissed their organisation and voluntarily joined LTTE
In may 21 , 1991 rajeev gandhi was murdered and am not going into this issue as it will lead to arguments/ counter arguments and to be honest am not sure about the entire thing and so do others , period.
6. In anuary 13 , 1993 kittu's ship was stopped by indian navy and he imediately blew himself and the ship. LTTE started its search to find the balck sheep and it was matthaya. He was constantly monitored and degraded in ranks and later found out to be an informer to RAW and in march 31 , 1993 he was arrested and in december 28 he was given death penalty by the tigers.
But the most important and the major crime committed by them was the forced eviction of muslims.
In october 30 , 1990 they asked muslims to evacuate their residence within 48 hours . Muslims constitute about 7% of the population in lanka and they lived in places like kilinochi , yazhpanam , mullaitheevu etc. They were not even allowed to take their belongings and there are many reports about the massacre of muslims and 58,000 people were made as refugees.
Later in 2002 , Anton balasingham said this "நாங்கள் செய்த இமாலய தவறு இது . எதை சொல்லியும் நாங்கள் ஞாயபடுத்த விரும்பவில்லை ""
According to geneva pact in 1948 , children less than 15 should not be employed in armed struggles. During the IPKF period itself this charge was made against LTTE and by april 2000 , LTTE is accused of having more than 1000 child soldiers and most of them were under the age of seven.
UNICEF vehemently condemned this act of having child soldiers and in april 2003 LTTE allowed about 200 children to join their families . UNICEF has constantly warned LTTE on this regard and LTTE has now reduced its number of child soldiers.
By this time , we have missed the main war fronts by discussing about the criticisms and we have to go back to 1989 .
IPKF debacle and the colossal failure of the peae pact
The biggest forced eviction happened when tamils were driven off from western provinces and sinhalese farmers made the same as their residence. ( Courtesy : SLA) .Dileepan , the leader of LTTE's political wing was really concerned about this and questioned IPKF that this is not the proper way to bring ' peace '.
He announced 'fast until death' in september 15 , 1987 asking for three important promises from indian government.
1. There are many innocent tamils captured as prisoners with false cases filed against them and as per the peace pact they should be released without delay.
2. In the eastern provinces GoSL should stop making forced evictions of tamils and increasing sinhalese residences.
3. The police and army camps in tamils places should be closed immediately.
4. Federal form of government as promised should be implemented immediately as promised.
IPKF 's general was Dhibendar singh and Indian army general was Gen.Sundarji and both of them were perplexed in this issue and they dont really know what to do.As a result of all these hue and cry and confusions , exactly after 12 days at september 26 dhileepan died. The whole yazhpanan was burning due to this , all tamils were restless due to this arrogant and careless attitude of indian government which caused them the valuable life of dileepan.Dileepan is still now recognised as one of the greatest martyrs in eelam history.
The IPKF debacle started with this incident on october 3rd when 17 LTTE cadres were arrested by SLA. It included kumarappa ( commander in chief for triconamalee region) and pulenthiran ( commander in yazhpanam region).IPKF rushed to the spot and LTTE condemned this by saying that it is clearly against the peace pact and asked GoSL to release them.Dhibendar singh was there in the spot and even the indian ambassadon for lanka Mr.Dixit was there but jeyawardane didnt allow them to perform their duty.Subsequently in october 5 anton and matthaya met them at balali camp and returned.GoSL was later shocked to hear the news that 12 out of 17 have tasted cyanide and they are dead and remaining 5 were hospitalised.They were alarmed when they heard another news , 8 sinhalese officials were hanged in yalpanam bus stand. Peace pact was torn into pieces.
Then came the order from india to exterminate LTTE and the marauding indian army now replaced the SLA. About 8000 people were killed and there were 3400 rapes . In the name of decimating LTTE it did nothing but raped tamil women and killed them mercilessly.This was the time when virtually tigers hit back the indian army with great rigor.
In october 12 , 1987 IPKF stealthily moved forward towards prabhakaran's place . The first troop consisted of 72 members and it was 91 in the second troop and some 103 were dropped from helicopters.
Start was the command from prabhakaran and he had matthaya , pottaman and other cadres with him , the soldiers trying to come down from helicopters were shot dead instantaneously. Only 2 IPKF men returned to their camp alive that night.
Later in november 1988 EPRLF and ENDLF participated in the elections and won it eventually ( LTTE boycotted the same ) and varadharaja perumal became the minister of state.In january 2 , 1989 premadassa became the president and he was the one who was more irritated by the indian intervention than the tigers. In fact prabhakaran and premadassa joined hands in a point to drive IPKF away from lanka. After rajeev's tenure in march 24 , 1990 IPKF came out of lanka. Karunanithi met V.P.Singh and asked him to get back the IPKF.
In the 1971 war against pakistan india lost 1047 soldiers from their side but IPKF lost 1115 men and they candidly conceded that they have under estimated the tigers.
He announced 'fast until death' in september 15 , 1987 asking for three important promises from indian government.
1. There are many innocent tamils captured as prisoners with false cases filed against them and as per the peace pact they should be released without delay.
2. In the eastern provinces GoSL should stop making forced evictions of tamils and increasing sinhalese residences.
3. The police and army camps in tamils places should be closed immediately.
4. Federal form of government as promised should be implemented immediately as promised.
IPKF 's general was Dhibendar singh and Indian army general was Gen.Sundarji and both of them were perplexed in this issue and they dont really know what to do.As a result of all these hue and cry and confusions , exactly after 12 days at september 26 dhileepan died. The whole yazhpanan was burning due to this , all tamils were restless due to this arrogant and careless attitude of indian government which caused them the valuable life of dileepan.Dileepan is still now recognised as one of the greatest martyrs in eelam history.
The IPKF debacle started with this incident on october 3rd when 17 LTTE cadres were arrested by SLA. It included kumarappa ( commander in chief for triconamalee region) and pulenthiran ( commander in yazhpanam region).IPKF rushed to the spot and LTTE condemned this by saying that it is clearly against the peace pact and asked GoSL to release them.Dhibendar singh was there in the spot and even the indian ambassadon for lanka Mr.Dixit was there but jeyawardane didnt allow them to perform their duty.Subsequently in october 5 anton and matthaya met them at balali camp and returned.GoSL was later shocked to hear the news that 12 out of 17 have tasted cyanide and they are dead and remaining 5 were hospitalised.They were alarmed when they heard another news , 8 sinhalese officials were hanged in yalpanam bus stand. Peace pact was torn into pieces.
Then came the order from india to exterminate LTTE and the marauding indian army now replaced the SLA. About 8000 people were killed and there were 3400 rapes . In the name of decimating LTTE it did nothing but raped tamil women and killed them mercilessly.This was the time when virtually tigers hit back the indian army with great rigor.
In october 12 , 1987 IPKF stealthily moved forward towards prabhakaran's place . The first troop consisted of 72 members and it was 91 in the second troop and some 103 were dropped from helicopters.
Start was the command from prabhakaran and he had matthaya , pottaman and other cadres with him , the soldiers trying to come down from helicopters were shot dead instantaneously. Only 2 IPKF men returned to their camp alive that night.
Later in november 1988 EPRLF and ENDLF participated in the elections and won it eventually ( LTTE boycotted the same ) and varadharaja perumal became the minister of state.In january 2 , 1989 premadassa became the president and he was the one who was more irritated by the indian intervention than the tigers. In fact prabhakaran and premadassa joined hands in a point to drive IPKF away from lanka. After rajeev's tenure in march 24 , 1990 IPKF came out of lanka. Karunanithi met V.P.Singh and asked him to get back the IPKF.
In the 1971 war against pakistan india lost 1047 soldiers from their side but IPKF lost 1115 men and they candidly conceded that they have under estimated the tigers.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Roots of the ethnic conflict- Part 8
Atel's " Women and Revolution" impressed prabhakaran very much , as much as mathivathini.She came to TN following the GoSL order to close yazhpanam university along with 3 other girls.Prabhakaran sent them to anton's residence in thiruvanmayur and in one fine day when he went there during holi , madhivathini didnt even hesitated to pour colors on prabhakaran and yes they were in love.
Uma maheshwaran was eagerly waiting for such an occasion and he pounced on prabhakaran that he himself has violated the rules. Anton came to their rescue , he spoke with all the cadres personally and the tough marital rules were relaxed .Later mathivathini gave birth to charles antony and dwarakai.In october 31, 1984 Indira gandhi was shot dead and rajeev came to power.
WAR FRONT :
Exactly in august 4 , 1984 the first phase of war started between tigers and SLA. First SLA started the game they shot 2 LTTE cadres near poligandi and tigers quickly responded by killing six SL army men.For this encounter GoSL arrested 300 innocent tamil youths tagging them as " terrorists".The war was extremely rigorus as the lankan goverment responded by raiding tamil villages and destroying them completely. Tigers hit back by planting land mine bombs. Due to the continuous war all the organisations decided to come under a single umbrella namely ENLF ( Eelam National Liberation Front ).
ENLF at that point of time is a group of 5 major organisations namely
1. TELO
2.EROS.
3.PLOTE.
4.EPRLF.
5.LTTE.
1984 could be strategically the most important year in the struggle for separate eelam. Prabhakaran gained succesfully in three important arenas
1. In expanding the number of members in his organisation. ( Courtesy : Jeyawardane and SLA for their atrocities)
2. He was able to use the training by india completely , remember how they lost a lakh in lebanon. Training was absolutely free of cost and it was extremely sophisticated.
3. The support of MGR and the funds he gave to Anton balasingham . About 4-5 crores of money was transacted during this year alone.
LTTE grew in numbers during this years , they had two training camps in TN ( Madurai and Salem viz) .About 1300 members were there at that period of time .They strengthened their navy during this time , they got a ship from china and registered the same in panama.People felt safe under LTTE's regime and started paying taxes. Virtually GoSL was alarmed at this situation.
Indian Intervention :
In 1985 , july 8 the first round of talks started between GoSL and ENLF.
ENLF emphasized four important points such as federal form of government , granting citizenship to all the ethnic minorities , recognizing separate eelam and recognizing tamils as a separate nationality.
When the second round of talks were going on , there was a bomb blast near vavunia near an army camp . The response epitomized stupidity, SLA burnt the vavunia library along with 200 people in it. Tamil representatives boycotted the second round of peace talks held at timbu.
January 1 , 1987 LTTE gave an announcement to GoSL claiming that they are going to govern yazhpanam from that day. Jeyawardane’s lost his temper after this announcement and waged an air attack. Tigers responded by bombing Colombo bus stand in april 21 and 200 were dead. GoSL started the ‘ Operation Liberation ‘ at this point of time to liberate valvettidhurai .India sent a ship full of medicines and food stuffs and GoSL sent it back .Irritated by this move , Indian ariforce crossed borders and supplied food parcels via air. A helicopter picked up prabhakaran from sudumalai amman temple and dropped him in trichy. Then he was taken to delhi and was asked to sign in papers containing the peace agreement as he found that some parts were not acceptable , anton and him refused to sign it. But rajeev’s government persuaded or convinced him to put his signature.
The key points of that agreement included the joining of east and western provinces temporarily and it will be made permanent after a plebiscite. War between tamil liberation organisations and SLA would be suspended and india will send its troops as peace keeping forces.Liberation groups should hand over their weapons and SL police officials should hand over the political / liberation prisoners and should release them permanently.Indian army will then train the SLA.
Exactly in july 27 , 1987 peace pact was signed by Rajeev and jeyawardane.In july 30 , 1987 he was attacked by a Sinhalese navy person namely vishayamuni vishitha rohana de silva and the blow was on his left shoulder ( He used his gun’s rear side) .But Rajeev didn’t mind that . On the same day IPKF came to lanka , all the tamils were happy and they shared all their happiness with the IPKF. The only organisation which was skeptical about IPKF was LTTE .
In august 5 , yogi representing LTTE handed over the weapons ( partially) , on the other hand RAW came up with a machiavellian strategy it supplied weapons to ERPLF to counter LTTE .( Reason was prabhakaran’s obstinacy in signing the pact , but the pact really had flaws as it was neither beneficial to sinhalas nor to tamils but had some underground benefits to india.).
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Roots of the ethnic conflict - part 7 ( Black july )
Tamil people's distress and anguish reached its culmination when the library in jaffna was burnt completely , about 97,000 books turned into ashes in july 1 , 1981 , all those books were very rare collection of tamil literature.
In august 21 , 1981 hindu released this news " For the past 15 days , GoSL is killing tamils with no mercy , lot of tea estate workers are escaping through forests as refugees which is a natural habitat for posionous snakes
Prabhakaran was there with anton and atel in chennai and uma was there in chennai too. Prabhakaran met uma with kannan in a hotel in pandy bazaar , before uma maheshwaran , prabhakaran took his revolver and shot 6 bullets directed towards kannan's leg.Both of them were caught red handed by pandy bazar police.Jeyawardane was so happy at this news and he asked TN govt to hand over prabhakaran.Prabhakaran's dad rushed to TN and spoke with M.karunanithi ( opposition party leader ) .Baby subramaniam and pala.nedumaran took strenuous efforts to release them. Indira gandhi after being contacted by MK had already decided to release them because GoSL was leaning towards america , china and israel at that time which she felt as perilous to india's sovereignty.Both of them got released and amirthalingam came to chennai to recreate a bond between uma and prabhakaran which didint worked out.Prabhakaran was there with nedumaran for about 7 months in trichy.
October 1982 , sankar's house was rounded up by the army and he was shot in his stomach , he ran for about 3 Kilometers with bleeding and handed over the weapons to his fellow men and announced that he has finished his duty.He was taken to madurai , prabhakaran for the first time faced a blow , sankar was dead at his age of 22. At that point of time they cant announce this to anyone as LTTE hardly had 30 members . After 7 years they announced sankar's death ( november 27) as " Martyr's day " ( Maaverar thinam).
1983 july also called as Black july was the most organised pogrom in the history of tamils in lanka.It was said that , black july was a result of LTTE's ambush in july 23 which killed about 12 army men . Sinhalese started things in july 24 and they didnt stop for the next seven days. They all had a ferromagnetic effect in these days , they vandalised tamil shops and houses and they never forgot to burn the same after they finished their job.Rapes were much more common in these days and this incident made a strong impact and even convinced tamils that armed fight is the only solution for their problems.
The genocide was at its peak when 35 tamil prisoners in weliakde were beaten to death by sinhalese prisoners under the proper guidance and ashirwatha of the police officials .All of them knew kutti mani and hence they tortured him by first taking his eyes off the body with knife .Jail warden himslef bet mayilvaganan , a teen age boy ( 16) to death and all the corpse were buried under buddha statute
GoSL announced that 350 people were dead , 18000 houses and shops were destroyed and one lakh tamils are now refugees .But every sane person across the globe knew how to multiply these stats to get the real picture. Atleast 2500-4000 were dead and more than 1.5 lakh people turned out to be refugees.M.karunanithi pressurised indira to take action and MGR said that all 5 lakh tamil hearts are shedding tears of blood for what happened in lanka.
August 2nd Indira gandhi called upon amirthalingam and promised that india would give medicines and financial support. Jeyawardane was really irked by this meeting and indira spoke to him but there was no positive response.She decided not to interfere in the internal affairs of lanka ......... explicitly!
September 1983 , TN was full of refugees from lanka , RAW cautiously separated common people form people belonging to liberation organisations and took them to delhi.The training period was really a boon to them as it covered a lot of activities including handling various revolvers , guerilla war methods etc.This was the time when Anita pratap met prabhakaran.She was really surprised to know when prabhakaran said that LTTE may have to fight with india.( She was a courageous reporter who revealed about many balck july incidents to this world)
P.S : Thank you dinesh for your valuable suggestion .Am adding photos now.Links will be given later people. :)
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Roots of the ethnic conflict - part 6
Jeyawardane was indeed a record breaker , he killed more tamils during his first six years tenure than it was done in the previous 30 years.TELO ( Tamil Eelam Liberaion Organisation ) was formed in 1977 by thangadurai. TELO , LTTE and EROS exchanged informations between each other when required. Uma maheshwaran was introduced to prabhakaran by amirthalingam and due to his prowess in politics and english , he became the chairman of LTTE ( shared this with prabhakaran) straight away.
Meanwhile LTTE killed karunanithi ( on feb 4th ) and two shanmuganathans on may 18th , both of them were police officials appointed to enquire about alfred durayappa's murder.Their next target was kanagrathinam ( given a traitor tag , as he did nothing after elected in pottu but joined with jeyawardane ) , in jan 26 , 1978 he was shot but he survived that attack and gave information about the incident.
Police official basthiyampillai & co went to mannar and reached prabhakaran's place with great caution and stealth . When he was enquiring chellakili he wouldnt have thought that something would be in the small hut and he went inside , bullets were fired and all his men were dead.Their car was burnt in killinochi.Basthiyampillai chapter closed.
Uma maheswaran wanted LTTE to be a people's organisation and hence he asked prabhakaran to come out of his shackles to reveal himself.In april 25 , 1978 prabhakaran came out with a report claimng that" LTTE was responsible for the death of alfred durayappa to basthiyam pillai.Others cannot claim for this murder , if they do so they have to face severe consequences."
Meanwhile LTTE killed karunanithi ( on feb 4th ) and two shanmuganathans on may 18th , both of them were police officials appointed to enquire about alfred durayappa's murder.Their next target was kanagrathinam ( given a traitor tag , as he did nothing after elected in pottu but joined with jeyawardane ) , in jan 26 , 1978 he was shot but he survived that attack and gave information about the incident.
Police official basthiyampillai & co went to mannar and reached prabhakaran's place with great caution and stealth . When he was enquiring chellakili he wouldnt have thought that something would be in the small hut and he went inside , bullets were fired and all his men were dead.Their car was burnt in killinochi.Basthiyampillai chapter closed.
Uma maheswaran wanted LTTE to be a people's organisation and hence he asked prabhakaran to come out of his shackles to reveal himself.In april 25 , 1978 prabhakaran came out with a report claimng that" LTTE was responsible for the death of alfred durayappa to basthiyam pillai.Others cannot claim for this murder , if they do so they have to face severe consequences."
Jeyawardane announced that he is going to make very important constitutional amendments such as scrapping PM post and replacing it with 'president ' tag ( effectifely used for the forthcoming genocides) and announcing tamil as official lanunage only in eastern and western provinces.The ulterior motive was to make sinhalese as the only official language and buddhism as the main religion.This was the time when amirthalingam was put to shame.Tamils hoisted black flags in all their areas and buses were burnt in mattakalappu and kates.
Prabhakaran was looking for something big ,he wanted to make jeyawardane look at him.Baby and him boarded AVRO 748 flight , fixed the bomb and went away . The empty plane bursted off in the same day , september 7 when jeyawardane was reading his amendments.Literally it took days for the sinhalese officials to recover from the shock , when they were searching for the culprits , an announcement came
"None should take responsibility for this as this was the act solely done by LTTE"
Regards ,
Uma maheshwaran "
In 1979 , TULF and LTTE sent their representatives to cuba for attending the world students conference and this was the time when anton balasingham joined them.He was then the political mastermind behind all the activities of LTTE ( Born in yazhpanam anton migrated to london) and in the same year jeyawardane announced a ban on all liberation forces announcing them as terrorist organisations which obviously included LTTE.This announcement made the job of police officials easier ( no difficulties in the past) , they raided tamil houses in the midnight and took young tamil people with them and they harassed them in the station.
A very important incident happened in the same year , uma maheshwaran and vijayendran were sent to lebanon for special training under PLO ( EROS leader sankar raju suggested this) , it cost them a lakh and all their efforts were in vain as the training was fruitless.Another incident which made prabhakaran angry is uma maheshwarans love affair with urmila as it was against organisation's rules but uma refuted it which made him a bit more angry and they decided to part their ways in 1980. Uma maheshwaran then formed an organisation namely PLOTE ( People Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam) while prabhakaran gave a strong signal to him by killing chetty ( remember that gangster who robbed the bank and bought a car)
Roots of the ethnic conflict - part 5
May 5 , 1976 was the day when TNT with larger number of people was renamed as LTTE. ( Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam). Prabhakaran had already decided the symbol as tiger , with yellow and red colors predominantly in the back ground.Flag description could be long , so better try to get a picture of it.
Then he announced the duties and goals of the organisation , they were
1. To liberate seperate eelam from lankan government
2. To establish a socialistic democracy.
3.To eradicate all forms of fascism , especially casteism.
4.To adopt socialistic economic reforms and production.
5. To wage a war with arms to attain their goals.
6. To follow guerilla war techniques in the start and to convert it to a massive war led by the people themselves.
There were so many restrictions too like , he banned the usage of alcohols , cigarette , contact with families and other organisations and even sex.
He appointed himself as the army chief of the LTTE and the duties of the army can be listed as follows
1. To get the information about the spy network of the police and to destroy the same.
2. To be a permanent hindrance to all the anti-tamil activities of the state.
3. To destroy the army camps and to capture the power from them gradually.
All these are documented policies of LTTE during that time and they extermnated natarajan , a petrol bunk owner whom they accused as a traitor in connection with sivakumaran's death.
Selvanayagam became aged and he too at this point of time realised that separate eelam could be the only solution. TULF ( Tamil United Liberation Front ) was formed ( Federal party's name was changed as TULF , nothing else it seems . :) ) headed by amirthalingam.In april 29 , 1977 selvanayagam died naturally and all the tamils were extremely depressed at this point of time.
Amirthalingam won the elections in 1977 and the basic acquistion on him was he never acted according to his words.He enjoyed the opportunity and the luxury of being an opposite party leader and people were really irritated when they saw him shaking hands with jayawardende without any solid genuine reason.
Junious jeyawardene ( a convert like solomon bandaranayake) became the PM in 1977 , he received a petty complaint at that year during august. It was " some sinhalese police officials tried to enter tamil rotary club without proper uniform and entry ticket , but they were not given a permission and they were denied an entry". Jeyawardene's wrath grew like anything after hearing this heinous ( !!!!) crime and as a result yazhpannam burned.More than 300 tamils were killed and 30,000 became refugees , more than 300 temples were damaged for this stupid complaint.
This was the time when tamils lost all their hopes in satyagraha and peaceful movement , with no reason jeyawardene showed a fascistic and racial face which resulted in a very well calculated genocide.Jeyawardene even had a personal vengeance against tamils , once in 1977 while he was campaigning , EROS damaged the stage by pulling the supporting posts and he fell down. But sadly he mistook them as " tamils " and he wanted to respond their laughs and ridicules in a severe way which he did extraordinarily well.
Then he announced the duties and goals of the organisation , they were
1. To liberate seperate eelam from lankan government
2. To establish a socialistic democracy.
3.To eradicate all forms of fascism , especially casteism.
4.To adopt socialistic economic reforms and production.
5. To wage a war with arms to attain their goals.
6. To follow guerilla war techniques in the start and to convert it to a massive war led by the people themselves.
There were so many restrictions too like , he banned the usage of alcohols , cigarette , contact with families and other organisations and even sex.
He appointed himself as the army chief of the LTTE and the duties of the army can be listed as follows
1. To get the information about the spy network of the police and to destroy the same.
2. To be a permanent hindrance to all the anti-tamil activities of the state.
3. To destroy the army camps and to capture the power from them gradually.
All these are documented policies of LTTE during that time and they extermnated natarajan , a petrol bunk owner whom they accused as a traitor in connection with sivakumaran's death.
Selvanayagam became aged and he too at this point of time realised that separate eelam could be the only solution. TULF ( Tamil United Liberation Front ) was formed ( Federal party's name was changed as TULF , nothing else it seems . :) ) headed by amirthalingam.In april 29 , 1977 selvanayagam died naturally and all the tamils were extremely depressed at this point of time.
Amirthalingam won the elections in 1977 and the basic acquistion on him was he never acted according to his words.He enjoyed the opportunity and the luxury of being an opposite party leader and people were really irritated when they saw him shaking hands with jayawardende without any solid genuine reason.
Junious jeyawardene ( a convert like solomon bandaranayake) became the PM in 1977 , he received a petty complaint at that year during august. It was " some sinhalese police officials tried to enter tamil rotary club without proper uniform and entry ticket , but they were not given a permission and they were denied an entry". Jeyawardene's wrath grew like anything after hearing this heinous ( !!!!) crime and as a result yazhpannam burned.More than 300 tamils were killed and 30,000 became refugees , more than 300 temples were damaged for this stupid complaint.
This was the time when tamils lost all their hopes in satyagraha and peaceful movement , with no reason jeyawardene showed a fascistic and racial face which resulted in a very well calculated genocide.Jeyawardene even had a personal vengeance against tamils , once in 1977 while he was campaigning , EROS damaged the stage by pulling the supporting posts and he fell down. But sadly he mistook them as " tamils " and he wanted to respond their laughs and ridicules in a severe way which he did extraordinarily well.
Roots of the ethnic conflict part 4
1974 , the year in which " Ulaga tamil aaraychi maanadu " ( Translations can mislead ) was scheduled from january 3 to 10. Lots of scholars , linguistic researchers , literature personalities were rushing to yazhpanam. The organisers didnt expect that there would be a huge crowd of about 50,000. Alfred durayappa , a tamil mayor was too obstinate that he refused to help the organisers in this regard ( There are reports about him saying that he was a sinhalese sycophant but no solid proofs are there).Infact he was not performing his duty on that time and when the meet was about to began , police force came there and shot tear gas , there was a huge hue and cry all over.About 9 people were dead due to this stampede , when their relatives were crying , Sivakumaran cant control his wrath as the death and the disruption of the meet was a result of alfred duraiappa's sycophantic obstinacy.
Eventually sivakumaran made a couple of attempts , he showed his gun to chandrasekaran ( thepolice official ) and alfred durayappa and both of them were failures.Exasperated by repeated failures , in june 5 , 1954 he went to the gobe bank to rob the same , he shot a couple of bullets directed towards the armed guard of the bank and sadly both missed the target.Guard began to chase him , sivakumaran ran faster and tasted cyanide.
All the posts in tamil areas were hoisting black flags , even the local police officials were taken aback when they saw a huge crowd of about 15,000 attending his funeral.Selvanayagam expressed his grievances by saying this " though the path taken by sivakumaran was a wrong one , I bow to his ambitions and his sacrifice"
Meanwhile , selva won a election during february 6, 1975 and prabahkaran was silent ( its said that he went to india along with periyajothi , kutimani and co , stayed in chennai and returned to yazhpanam along with chetty.Chetty was a criminal , robber and a gangster , still prabhakaran reposed faith in his as he could help him in getting guns) for the elections to be over.Prabhakaran decided to rob a bank for gettinng financial support , but chetty did a fine job of robbing it and he kept all the money with him and he even bought a car with it.Prabhakaran didnt worry about the money at that point of time , but he was skeptical about the integrity of chetty , because chetty would easily concede the facts of his whereabouts.He was thus forced to spread his group TNT to various places .
Kuttimani was arrested with a boat full of explosives and during the 1975 world cup EROS , basically a student revolutionary organisation showed banners condemning the atrocities of the lankan government and they raised it whenever the camera passed by them in order to get global attention.
On july 27 , 1975 prabhakaran made up his mind , he along with a gang of three went down to varadharajan temple where alfred durayappa parked his car near a small restaurant .When he wished these people raising his hand , prabhakaran took the gun and shot him to dead and the group ran away.The first official murder for the cause of seperate eelam was recorded.
Sinhalese government order for a vigorous search of TNT members , prabhakaran ordered them not to stay in their homes.But arumuham kripakaran and kalapathi disobeyed his orders and were eventually caught red handed by the police.Hearing about this murder , lot of young people met prabhakaran expressing their wish to join with him. He then chose vavuniya forest as his place for preparation.Its a spot called as poonthottam , covering 40 acres of fertile land about 3 Kilometers from vavunia.The training period was extremely tough covering lot of activities like judo , karate , gun assembly , shooting practise and even cooking.
But they were really running short of funds and they decided to rob a bank , they convinced themselves with a reason , though bank contains tax payer's money , the government has done nothing with that to the cause of tamils and so theres nothing wrong in robbing it.March 5 , 1976 they plundered about 5 lacs of cash and gold worth of 2 lacs.TNT was marked as the most wanted terrorist organization by the GoSL and prabhakaran was the most wanted person after this incident.
Eventually sivakumaran made a couple of attempts , he showed his gun to chandrasekaran ( thepolice official ) and alfred durayappa and both of them were failures.Exasperated by repeated failures , in june 5 , 1954 he went to the gobe bank to rob the same , he shot a couple of bullets directed towards the armed guard of the bank and sadly both missed the target.Guard began to chase him , sivakumaran ran faster and tasted cyanide.
All the posts in tamil areas were hoisting black flags , even the local police officials were taken aback when they saw a huge crowd of about 15,000 attending his funeral.Selvanayagam expressed his grievances by saying this " though the path taken by sivakumaran was a wrong one , I bow to his ambitions and his sacrifice"
Meanwhile , selva won a election during february 6, 1975 and prabahkaran was silent ( its said that he went to india along with periyajothi , kutimani and co , stayed in chennai and returned to yazhpanam along with chetty.Chetty was a criminal , robber and a gangster , still prabhakaran reposed faith in his as he could help him in getting guns) for the elections to be over.Prabhakaran decided to rob a bank for gettinng financial support , but chetty did a fine job of robbing it and he kept all the money with him and he even bought a car with it.Prabhakaran didnt worry about the money at that point of time , but he was skeptical about the integrity of chetty , because chetty would easily concede the facts of his whereabouts.He was thus forced to spread his group TNT to various places .
Kuttimani was arrested with a boat full of explosives and during the 1975 world cup EROS , basically a student revolutionary organisation showed banners condemning the atrocities of the lankan government and they raised it whenever the camera passed by them in order to get global attention.
On july 27 , 1975 prabhakaran made up his mind , he along with a gang of three went down to varadharajan temple where alfred durayappa parked his car near a small restaurant .When he wished these people raising his hand , prabhakaran took the gun and shot him to dead and the group ran away.The first official murder for the cause of seperate eelam was recorded.
Sinhalese government order for a vigorous search of TNT members , prabhakaran ordered them not to stay in their homes.But arumuham kripakaran and kalapathi disobeyed his orders and were eventually caught red handed by the police.Hearing about this murder , lot of young people met prabhakaran expressing their wish to join with him. He then chose vavuniya forest as his place for preparation.Its a spot called as poonthottam , covering 40 acres of fertile land about 3 Kilometers from vavunia.The training period was extremely tough covering lot of activities like judo , karate , gun assembly , shooting practise and even cooking.
But they were really running short of funds and they decided to rob a bank , they convinced themselves with a reason , though bank contains tax payer's money , the government has done nothing with that to the cause of tamils and so theres nothing wrong in robbing it.March 5 , 1976 they plundered about 5 lacs of cash and gold worth of 2 lacs.TNT was marked as the most wanted terrorist organization by the GoSL and prabhakaran was the most wanted person after this incident.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Roots of the ethnic conflict - Part 3.
It was in the same year prabhakaran's aunt was narrating him the story about how the near-by houses were demolished and the children were thrown into fire. It was all about blood , tissues and the body parts which were flushed down in the drainage .Her house was set to fire and her husband was beaten to death and the mob threw a child into fire and was watching it with joy.
Selva's federal party was banned for no legitimate reason .Prabhakaran's first attempt was about preparing a time bomb in his age of 14 with his mates ( one of his teachers venugopal had inspired him during these days) in his own school. They filled an empty bottle with the ingredients required for a bomb ( even chemicals from their school) and covered it with a cork and kept it in their school toilet during the lunch interval.
BOOM. Head master enquired about this and asked him to keep these stuffs outside and he exactly did the same.
Then started the professional preparation for a small group of people.It covered a gamut of practices like lying down in a bed packed with chillies to karate , judo etc. They wanted to make their preparation complete with shooting practice but unfortunately they were left alone without a gun.
In april 7 , 1969 federal party organised a three day meet under selvanayagam and prabhakaran along with his mates joined them. Hmm , lots of people have lost their hopes in gandhian way at that point of time but still selva believed that freedom can be attained through sathyagraha.
People with similar thoughts came together , prabhakaran joined with kuttimani and thangadurai and theirs was a group called as " Tamil viduthalai iyakkam" .It had about 25 members , prabhakaran was assigned a job of assembling and dismantling guns ( heavy weight point 22 and point 38 revolvers).Then he got his training under a mechanic in preparing bombs and in 1970 he got his legs hurt in a minor accident while making a bomb.
The first person to strongly raise his voice for a seperate eelam was sundaralingam. The 1958 atrocities made him to think so , he and navaarathinam raised their voice during late sixties.But the federal party leaders condemned them , in fact in april 4 , 1970 they released a report strongly condemning them and terming them as " parochial and seperatist forces".Eventually both of them lost by a huge margin in the may 27 , 1970 election and srimavo bandaaranayake ( wife of solomon bandaranayake , amen) became the prime minister at her age of 54.
She was given a huge list by buddhist monks and they asked her to take action against the injustice ( !!! ) meted out to them. The thing was " Tamils have came out with flying colors in all the fields , about 37.2% who have passed in science and technology are tamils , 40.5% of doctors are tamils , in agriculture and its related technologies they are about 41.9%" .Take action against this barbaric act was the call and this ammayar did remember what happened to her husband when he was trying to act as a moderate.
As expected , she announced separate entrance examinations for tamils and sinhalese. Federal party was reluctant to act against this as they had many other headaches other than this. This paved the way for the formation of Tamil Students union - TSU and sivakumaran joined this group.
In the same year 1970 , prabhakaran burnt an empty bus ( Route: vaalvetidurai to point petro ) and sivakumaran fixed a bomb in an empty car ( owner was none other than the cultural minister of lanka , somaveera suntharasri).But , both of them have never met each other in their life time.
Tiger could be a good symbol was the suggestion by prabhakaran and others accepted and they named their organisation as "Tamil New Tigers " ( TNT) .But those days were really tough for him , in march 1973 police came to his home , until then his father thiruvengadam velupillai ( a staunch gandhian) was unaware of his son's " deeds". He rejoined with kuttimani and thangathurai , but residence was a big problem for them during these days and it was in this period prabhakaran met his father and told him about the whole thing and he asked his father not to worry about him anymore.
Selva's federal party was banned for no legitimate reason .Prabhakaran's first attempt was about preparing a time bomb in his age of 14 with his mates ( one of his teachers venugopal had inspired him during these days) in his own school. They filled an empty bottle with the ingredients required for a bomb ( even chemicals from their school) and covered it with a cork and kept it in their school toilet during the lunch interval.
BOOM. Head master enquired about this and asked him to keep these stuffs outside and he exactly did the same.
Then started the professional preparation for a small group of people.It covered a gamut of practices like lying down in a bed packed with chillies to karate , judo etc. They wanted to make their preparation complete with shooting practice but unfortunately they were left alone without a gun.
In april 7 , 1969 federal party organised a three day meet under selvanayagam and prabhakaran along with his mates joined them. Hmm , lots of people have lost their hopes in gandhian way at that point of time but still selva believed that freedom can be attained through sathyagraha.
People with similar thoughts came together , prabhakaran joined with kuttimani and thangadurai and theirs was a group called as " Tamil viduthalai iyakkam" .It had about 25 members , prabhakaran was assigned a job of assembling and dismantling guns ( heavy weight point 22 and point 38 revolvers).Then he got his training under a mechanic in preparing bombs and in 1970 he got his legs hurt in a minor accident while making a bomb.
The first person to strongly raise his voice for a seperate eelam was sundaralingam. The 1958 atrocities made him to think so , he and navaarathinam raised their voice during late sixties.But the federal party leaders condemned them , in fact in april 4 , 1970 they released a report strongly condemning them and terming them as " parochial and seperatist forces".Eventually both of them lost by a huge margin in the may 27 , 1970 election and srimavo bandaaranayake ( wife of solomon bandaranayake , amen) became the prime minister at her age of 54.
She was given a huge list by buddhist monks and they asked her to take action against the injustice ( !!! ) meted out to them. The thing was " Tamils have came out with flying colors in all the fields , about 37.2% who have passed in science and technology are tamils , 40.5% of doctors are tamils , in agriculture and its related technologies they are about 41.9%" .Take action against this barbaric act was the call and this ammayar did remember what happened to her husband when he was trying to act as a moderate.
As expected , she announced separate entrance examinations for tamils and sinhalese. Federal party was reluctant to act against this as they had many other headaches other than this. This paved the way for the formation of Tamil Students union - TSU and sivakumaran joined this group.
In the same year 1970 , prabhakaran burnt an empty bus ( Route: vaalvetidurai to point petro ) and sivakumaran fixed a bomb in an empty car ( owner was none other than the cultural minister of lanka , somaveera suntharasri).But , both of them have never met each other in their life time.
Tiger could be a good symbol was the suggestion by prabhakaran and others accepted and they named their organisation as "Tamil New Tigers " ( TNT) .But those days were really tough for him , in march 1973 police came to his home , until then his father thiruvengadam velupillai ( a staunch gandhian) was unaware of his son's " deeds". He rejoined with kuttimani and thangathurai , but residence was a big problem for them during these days and it was in this period prabhakaran met his father and told him about the whole thing and he asked his father not to worry about him anymore.
Roots of the ethnic divide ...contd
Then in 1958 , a pact was signed between bandaranayake and selvanaayagam which was actually a machiavellian drama by the former guranteeing tamil's interests.It can be simplified as follows " in the north and eastern provinces tamil was recogonised as an additional official language". Tamils were really happy and they were very greateful to selva who made it happen , but their joy didnt last long.
O , i forgot about this bandaranaayake , this gentleman started a party called as Srilanka Freedom party ( SLFP).The biggest irony is , this person's real name is solomon bandaranayake and he was a christian who studied in oxford university and was close to the british government.But sadly he had to pull sinhalese to become a prime minister apart from british.And this brilliant elite got converted from christianity to buddhism.Eh , whats the difference between christ and buddha? . Nothing but for the spelling according to him.His prime need seems to be power and he got that in 1956.On the eve of commemerating the 2500th jeyanthi of buddha , this gentleman announced the golden scheme of sinhala being the only official language .
Lets come back to 1958 when the same soloman , sorry sorry bandaranayake ( strictly) made a tamil friendly constitutional amendment.But treating tamils as equal citizens made sinhalese angry like anything and it was in may 1958 when they started a well calculated and organised genocide.
They started putting " ஸ்ரீ " symbol ( a sinhalese letter) in all buses running in yazhpaanam.This is something analogous to " cut the tall trees "command made in the film Hotel Rwanda.Tamils decided to erase this symbol.This was it , they started vandalising all the properties owned by tamils and this was the period when raping tamil women reached its peak.
Exactly in may 25 , 1958 alone there was about 100 tamils murdered in the areas like polonnaruwa and hingurajgoda.They burnt buses , lorries along with the persons inside it.The lankan police did a fairly good job by keeping mum.
Bandaranayake tore the pact off and the reason stated by him was " this tamils are too barbaric that they even contemptuously erased the letter " ஸ்ரீ " from the buses which was a higly anti-national act". His buddhist facism paid off well , he was killed at september 25 , 1959 by none other than a buddhist monk.
O , i forgot about this bandaranaayake , this gentleman started a party called as Srilanka Freedom party ( SLFP).The biggest irony is , this person's real name is solomon bandaranayake and he was a christian who studied in oxford university and was close to the british government.But sadly he had to pull sinhalese to become a prime minister apart from british.And this brilliant elite got converted from christianity to buddhism.Eh , whats the difference between christ and buddha? . Nothing but for the spelling according to him.His prime need seems to be power and he got that in 1956.On the eve of commemerating the 2500th jeyanthi of buddha , this gentleman announced the golden scheme of sinhala being the only official language .
Lets come back to 1958 when the same soloman , sorry sorry bandaranayake ( strictly) made a tamil friendly constitutional amendment.But treating tamils as equal citizens made sinhalese angry like anything and it was in may 1958 when they started a well calculated and organised genocide.
They started putting " ஸ்ரீ " symbol ( a sinhalese letter) in all buses running in yazhpaanam.This is something analogous to " cut the tall trees "command made in the film Hotel Rwanda.Tamils decided to erase this symbol.This was it , they started vandalising all the properties owned by tamils and this was the period when raping tamil women reached its peak.
Exactly in may 25 , 1958 alone there was about 100 tamils murdered in the areas like polonnaruwa and hingurajgoda.They burnt buses , lorries along with the persons inside it.The lankan police did a fairly good job by keeping mum.
Bandaranayake tore the pact off and the reason stated by him was " this tamils are too barbaric that they even contemptuously erased the letter " ஸ்ரீ " from the buses which was a higly anti-national act". His buddhist facism paid off well , he was killed at september 25 , 1959 by none other than a buddhist monk.
The ethnic divide in lanka and its roots
It started with the most atrocious constitutional amendment in june 15 , 1956 making sinhalese as the official language which internally meant that they are depriving all basic rights of tamils there.This clearly made them at least at that time , if not before an oppressed nationality.
Selvanayagam , anticipating this amendment went a peaceful rally in june 5 , 1956 from galle face hotel where a lot of tamils gathered to the lankan parliament. Suddenly and without announcement the sinhalese gathered as a mob and began to throw stones in order to disrupt the rally. But selva , a quintessential gandhian showed a great deal of patience and its in the parliament records that amidst of great rain , amirthalingam and sundaram entered the parliament with blood inundating from their body due to the stone attack.
After hearing the news about the peace rally , sinhalese on the same day at about 5 pm in a place called Gal Oya started vandalising tamil shops , houses and indulged in looting and raping. About 150 tamilians were massacared.This is about a series of incidents which happened between 5th and 15th.
This problem , according to me has to be analysed from the pre-colonisation period. When the imperialistic forces were really under threat by natives in many countries , Srilankans ( both sinhalese and tamils) didnt wage a substantial war against british.
Even after an era of 150 years of rule by the british only 5% of sinhalese were able to read and write in english.But tamils being an ethnic minority managed well in this regard and came out with flying colors.They realised the value of education and technology and they actively joined in schools and colleges. This invigorated wrath from the other side , though sinhalese were majority in provinces like inner part of the island and the south , they occupied miniumum governtment positions.
Before selvanayagam , tamils had G.G.Ponambalam as their representative , he was a lawyer. It was in 1944 when the british government appointed Lord soulbury commission to bring constitutional amendments in lanka.GGP represented tamils in this conference and he created a party called as All Ceylon Congress.His proposition was " to give 50% representation to sinhalese and to give the rest to ethnic tamils , muslims and to indian tamils working in tea estates" . But it was rejected and yet GGP became famous among tamils as he was the only voice at that period of time.
Stephen dudley senanayaka became the first prime minister of lanka in october 1947 and during these days and even before british noticed the wealth in kandi mountains and they called indian tamils to work here. Why them in particular?.Because sinhalese were not willing to bend their backs in menial works but tamils due to their poverty rushed to lanka.
Tamils migrated to lanka , called their relations there and lanka became their home land soon.And in February 4 , 1948 srilanka got their freedom from british and to be honest they were really blinking what to do next as they were comfortable with british earlier in the past.This most inhuman act of cancelling citizenship of migrant tamils happened in 1948.In short the ulterior motive was to drive out all the tamils.
In december 10 , 1948 selvanayagam gave this speech in the parliament
" This act completely denies the basic rights of tamils. We cant remain silent just because this act was restricted to indian tamils , the same scenario may happen to us ( lankan ethnic tamils) in the future. I fear that linguistic divide will reach its culmination in the near future , as the lankan government is taking all possible steps to oppress tamilians. We have to stop it right now"
His rational fear actually became the impending reality later.
Selvanayagam , anticipating this amendment went a peaceful rally in june 5 , 1956 from galle face hotel where a lot of tamils gathered to the lankan parliament. Suddenly and without announcement the sinhalese gathered as a mob and began to throw stones in order to disrupt the rally. But selva , a quintessential gandhian showed a great deal of patience and its in the parliament records that amidst of great rain , amirthalingam and sundaram entered the parliament with blood inundating from their body due to the stone attack.
After hearing the news about the peace rally , sinhalese on the same day at about 5 pm in a place called Gal Oya started vandalising tamil shops , houses and indulged in looting and raping. About 150 tamilians were massacared.This is about a series of incidents which happened between 5th and 15th.
This problem , according to me has to be analysed from the pre-colonisation period. When the imperialistic forces were really under threat by natives in many countries , Srilankans ( both sinhalese and tamils) didnt wage a substantial war against british.
Even after an era of 150 years of rule by the british only 5% of sinhalese were able to read and write in english.But tamils being an ethnic minority managed well in this regard and came out with flying colors.They realised the value of education and technology and they actively joined in schools and colleges. This invigorated wrath from the other side , though sinhalese were majority in provinces like inner part of the island and the south , they occupied miniumum governtment positions.
Before selvanayagam , tamils had G.G.Ponambalam as their representative , he was a lawyer. It was in 1944 when the british government appointed Lord soulbury commission to bring constitutional amendments in lanka.GGP represented tamils in this conference and he created a party called as All Ceylon Congress.His proposition was " to give 50% representation to sinhalese and to give the rest to ethnic tamils , muslims and to indian tamils working in tea estates" . But it was rejected and yet GGP became famous among tamils as he was the only voice at that period of time.
Stephen dudley senanayaka became the first prime minister of lanka in october 1947 and during these days and even before british noticed the wealth in kandi mountains and they called indian tamils to work here. Why them in particular?.Because sinhalese were not willing to bend their backs in menial works but tamils due to their poverty rushed to lanka.
Tamils migrated to lanka , called their relations there and lanka became their home land soon.And in February 4 , 1948 srilanka got their freedom from british and to be honest they were really blinking what to do next as they were comfortable with british earlier in the past.This most inhuman act of cancelling citizenship of migrant tamils happened in 1948.In short the ulterior motive was to drive out all the tamils.
In december 10 , 1948 selvanayagam gave this speech in the parliament
" This act completely denies the basic rights of tamils. We cant remain silent just because this act was restricted to indian tamils , the same scenario may happen to us ( lankan ethnic tamils) in the future. I fear that linguistic divide will reach its culmination in the near future , as the lankan government is taking all possible steps to oppress tamilians. We have to stop it right now"
His rational fear actually became the impending reality later.
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