Tamil Racism is the Kami-kaze of Tamil Federalist Politics

By Sebastian Rasalingam, Toronto
February 22, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian

When the first tiger plane appeared in the Sri Lankan skies two weeks after the Ides of March, 2007, client intellectuals of the LTTE cooed glowingly and applauded the "innovative engineering skills" of the emerging Eelam. Kumar David, an engineering professor whose vain effort has been to engineer the "permanent revolution", wrote in the Tamilnet extolling the innovative engineering that had gone into it.

When I, a non-technical old fogie inquired from my more tech-savvy grand children, the facts seems to be quite the opposite. Apparently, one can buy kits for less than the cost of a motor bicycle, together with instructions on how to fit them together. Dime a dozen magazines like "Popular science", "Popular mechanics" etc. discuss these hobby kits all the time It seems that undergraduate students have small hobby clubs where they assemble such planes for fun, during the Canadian summer holidays. So then, why did this Professor Kumar David rush to extol the adaptation of these hobby planes into weapons of terror and suicide?

Kumar David is arch-typical of the lost intellectuals of the Colombo set. They read and write for the benefit of self-anointed "cosmopolitan people" of Sri Lankan extraction who are actually "Scotch" by absorption. Their biggest horror is being bed fellows of the "Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinists" (SBCs). These SBCs were the people who took control of government in 1956, and whose regime was threatened from three sides. First of all there was the Sydney Soyza-Jungle Dissnayake-Anghie types, representing the right-wing Christian groups who felt that the country had "gone to the dogs". Then there were the Marxist elders of the Kumar David types, thinking that the SBCs are like the Menshevik government that proceeded the "Great October Revolution" of Lenin. The great dialectical sages argued that "according to Historical materialism", it is the turn of the "true revolutionary left" to come to power next, displacing the SBCs. The third force was the Tamil Sovereignty lobby, led by Samuel J.V. Chelvanayagam, E.M.V. Naganathan and others who had belonged to the Christianized governing classes of the Tamils.

Today we see Kumar David, Wickramabahu Karunaratna, Vasudeva Nanayakkara and other left-over stumps of the old left become clients and fellow travelers of the LTTE. How did this happen? How can so called "word revolutionaries" who do not even recognize national boundaries gradually come to support a racist, fascist outfit and even accept the territorial claims of the Eelamists? Why does Wickramabahu K go to Kundasle with Ranil Wickremasinghe to say that Sinhala youth are dying in a "land which is not theirs". These Marxists differ from the "Sinhala" Marxists of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) because they do not have any links with the majority, but are themselves a minority, largely coming from the English educated scotch loving community. Many journalists like Tissaranee Gunasekera, "Shanie" etc., belong to this culture. They are still fighting the battle they began in 1956 against the "Sinhala Buddhists". Hence they see the LTTE as natural allies .

It should be emphasized that a good section of the English educated Tamils were NOT racists, but cosmopolitan individuals who had middle-of-the-road liberal views. There were also many English educated Sinhalese who held similar liberal views. Politicians like the Senanayakes, Arunachalam Mahadevas, civil servants like the Kanagasundarams, and their immediate kith and kin were probably in that class. Also, one can say that the middle and lower classes among the Sinhalese, as well as among the Tamils, were people who were tolerant individuals, NOT bitten by the scourge of racism which was at the root of the "Arasu katchchi" campaign of Chelvanayagam et al.

The racist program of the Arasu Kadchi had, already in 1949, stated an exclusive claim to the North and East of Sri Lanka as "traditional homelands" of the Tamils. Even though the name "Tamil", "Dameda", or "Dravida", had not even been used until about the "cankam period", circa 1st century CE,, the Arasu Kadchi writers claimed that the "original inhabitants" of Sri Lanka prior to the arrival of Vijaya were Tamils. Thus Ravana was claimed to be a Tamil king, and Kuveni was conscripted as a Tamil princes deceived and discriminated by Vijaya, the first Sinhala. The stage was set for the "struggle" to drive out the Sinhalese, the Muslims and other "invaders" from "The Tamil homeland".

The British historian Jane Russell states that "Ceylon Tamils had no written document on the lines of the Mahawamsa to authenticate their singular and separate historical authority,... a fact which (they) found very irksome". The many stone inscriptions and Buddhist ruins attesting to this irksome history were also very inconvenient. Thus arose the early campaigns of G. G. Ponnambalam against the "mahavamsa mindset", which later developed into the extensive
territorial claims regarding which K.M. de Silva says "in less than a decade of its enunciation in 1949, [this] theory became an indispensable and integral part of the political ideology of the Tamil advocates of regional autonomy and separatism".

Victor Karunairajan, certainly a cultured Tamil who is clearly no supporter of violence, writing in the Sri Lanka Guardian (Link ) on the 3rd of February 2009, discusses the French-English problems of Canada as a prelude to discussing the ethnic problems of Sri lanka. Karunairajan wants to "recognize three primary stratifications in the ancient order of the Kotte, Kandy and Jaffna kingdoms in a political structure with considerable powers vested in the central government to ensure this evolves progressively into a proper federal state over a period of time". Other writers often quote the discredited "Cleghorn minute" of the 18th century to justify and validate the idea of a Tamil nation. Should we then, at the same time attempt to rectify the deep malaise of the Quebec separatists who have even refused a re-enactment of the battle of the Plains of Abraham? Should we revert to the French, English, Spanish possessions of the Americas that prevailed in 1759 CE? In the same vein, should we return to the political boundaries that prevailed in Europe within the old order of Metternich, to appease the Austrian nationalists and the Hapsburg loyalists?

Political solutions have to be built on existing realities and NOT on what existed at the time of the arrival of Chandrabhanu, Chankilli, Cleghorn or even Brownrig.

Just as there were Kingdoms of Kotte, Kandy and Jaffna in the 15th century, there were also even more important divisions into caste enclaves at that time. Are we to recognize those hierarchical structures as well? Where do we draw the line? The need to legislate the caste system into the constitution was held to be paramount by a number of prominent Tamil leaders including Ponnambalam Ramanathan who led delegations to London on that very issue. Did not this question come up even in front of Soulbury who found the very idea repugnant? If Tamil leaders could, as recently as Vadukkoddei-1976 embrace the concept of a mono-ethnic, racially exclusive Tamil Eelam whose logic is exactly the same as the Afrikaanar-Apartheid idea of separation of races, anything can happen. In fact, a recent e-mail letter circulated under the hand of "son of Eros" argued for an Eelam where the traditional concepts derived from the Law of Manu should be imposed! However, I believe that just as the issue of enshrining caste in the constitution has more or less disappeared today, the need to institutionalize the ethnic divide (and there by buttress the divide) would also disappear within one generation. Here we should note that the division between the Kandyan Sinhalese and the low-country Sinhalese has virtually healed, although this too was thought to need a "federal solution".

Victor K, as well as Ms Sharma, a "student" of Satchi Sithananthan have also taken up a defense of Federalism and argued that federalism is in no way a racist option. Indeed, this is entirely correct if taken "tabla rasa", i.e., free of context. But unfortunately, this is NOT the case in Sri Lanka where federalism was merely the English language masquerade of the Eelam objective of the Arasu lobby. This objective of the Arasu Kadchchi, and the roots of the "Tamil-nation mindset" had been identified by historians like K. M. de Silva and political scientists like A. J. Wilson (see the discussion by Michael Roberts, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Vol.XXVII, no.1, April 2004).

Initially, this "Tamil-Nation mindset" had no fuel to fire upon. The moderate Tamils did not take the Arasu Kadchchi seriously, while the Singhalese thought of them as a "fringe group". In 1956 the "Sinhala-Buddhist" ground-swell came up with the Sinhala-only cry and provided Chelvanayagam with the fire that he had been waiting for. The "sathyagarahas", "civil disobedience movements", tar-brushing of Sinhala street names etc., taunted the Sinhala majority and produced the violence and "state terror" that the separatists actually called for. The Chelva-Banda pacts were NOT trusted by both sides of the ethnic divide, while they were hailed as the right thing by the English educated urban set who could not read Tamil and had no knowledge of the clearly Eelamist program of the Arasu Kadchchi. Thus the polarization of the nation into two warring factions, gored into increasing frenzy at each race riot, was well on its way. Even the 1983 Black July riots were provoked by the Tamils AND certain sections of the Jayawardene government who probably thought that the Tamils can be "cowed down by suitable intimidation".

It is in this context that the word "federalism", as applied to Sri Lankan politics, has become a corrupt cover for Eelam. In fact it is even worse. One has to only read S. Makenthiran, (I believe an accountant turned political commentator) who writes in the 19th February issue of the Sri Lanka Guardian (Link) to see that Tamil chauvinism is inexhaustible. Just as Chelvanayagam labeled Ponnambalam a "traitor", Makenthiran labels Ananadasangaree a "traitor". If Chelva and Ponna had lived a few more years, they too would have been labeled traitors by the LTTE. While the Sri Lankan government issues stamps commemorating these individuals, the LTTE stamps them out! The racist, fascist nature of Makenthiran's writing is evident. Sentences like "Tamil Nadu Tamils have come out in full support of their Eelam Tamil brethren. Blood is thicker than water" etc., show the level of jingoism, self-deception and deviation from reality that is possible. The Eelam supporters are now hoping for a "federal solution" with India as the central government. That is, they envisage separation from Sri Lanka and annexation to India. I think neither Victor K, nor Renuka Sharma thought of "Tamil federalism" as a process leading to joining up with India because "blood is thicker than water". But that is the Sri Lankan reality of "federalism".

The argument that "blood is thicker than water" is just a racist idiom. In Sri Lanka's context, it is not even biologically true. Most of the Tamils in the Vanni who are considered to be Tamils today were the sinhalese who were thrown out of the Jaffna peninsula by Chankili. Names like Balasingham with the "sinha" ending, do not occur in Tamil Nadu. Such matters have been discussed by Modern sociologists as well as Swami Rasanayagam (Ancient Jaffna), and also K. Vellupillai (Yalpana Vaibhava Kaumudi). Many low-country sinhalese are descendants of the Kauvravas and other Dravidian groups. However, today they may be fiercely sinhala chauvinist, just as Makenthiran is fiercely Tamil chauvinist. So the nearest kin of the Tamils are actually the Sinhalese. Here Vicotr K has correctly pointed out that right through the ages, the Indians have used the Tamils of Lanka as pawns of their political objectives.

Today we have the chance of entirely getting rid of an armed fascist war lord who has traumatized Tamil society. Being a Tamil is a cultural thing and NOT an issue of genes or blood. We value our language, literature and our way of life. I have lived in Jaffna, Mannar, Hatton and Colombo. I found the enriching experience of multi-cultural life in Hatton and Colombo, and found that for the first time, caste and other prejudices did not really matter, unlike in our Tamil society "Race" is nothing but a bigger label similar to the caste labels of earlier times. Federalism based on racial criteria will fail in Sri Lanka.

Interview with Ragavan, LTTE co-founder, on Tamil Militancy (Early Years): Role of Caste and Hitlerian views

By Ahilan Kadirgamar , February 16, 2009
http://kafila.org/2009/02/16/interview-with-ragavan-on-tamil- militancy-part-i/

In a revealing interview tracing the origins of Tamil nationalism and militancy, Ahilan Kadirgamar speaks to C. Rajeshkumar alias Ragavan — a founder member of the LTTE — about the early years. Ragavan left the Tigers in 1984 and has since lived in exile in London. Ahilan, a contributor to Lakbimanews, offered this interview originally published on the web, for publication in this newspaper.

As the Tamil community in Lanka is at the crossroads with twenty five years of war nearing an end with the increasing marginalization of the LTTE, I would like to do a series of interviews on the social, economic and political conditions that led to the emergence of armed politics and militarization of the Tamil community. Returning to those years in the seventies and early eighties then is an attempt to also think about ways forward out of the militarized and armed politics of the last few decades. I intend to do a series of interviews to capture that important political period for Lankan Tamils. This important shift in Lankan politics and the decades of war that followed it did irreparable damage to the Lankan Tamil community and all the peoples of Lanka.

I begin with an interview of Ragavan, a founding member of the LTTE, who left the movement in 1984 and has since moved to London where he lives in exile. In this first interview, Ragavan speaks about his background and early years of militancy.

This is an interview by Ahilan Kadirgamar of Ragavan at his London home on 25 January 2009.

AK: Given the current political moment where we could be ending a cycle of a different form of political engagement by the Tamil community, where politics was very much militarized, I am interested in speaking to your generation in particular. I would like to hear your thoughts on the formation of Tamil militancy in the 1970s and 1980s; the social, economic and political conditions that led to the emergence of a very different kind of politics from Tamil politics during the previous century. I want to begin by asking you a biographical question, about your own background.

R: I should start by saying that I am looking at the past through the present. My knowledge and experiences have been different, and I may have answered your questions very differently if you had asked me the same questions in the seventies.

The seventies were the time of economic changes as well. The import-substitution economy was implemented by the Sri Lankan government at that time. There was an uprising in the South with the JVP, due to the disgruntlement of the Southern youth. That also perhaps had an impact on us. The state was unable to address the growing unemployment crisis at that time. Due to the disenchantment of the Southern youth, the state introduced a standardization scheme, which stated that Tamils should get higher marks to get into the university. In a post colonial setup, without a vibrant economy and a strong national bourgeoisie, the job opportunities were limited and there was much competition to gain employment in the state sector and the growing middle classes competed for state jobs. Entering university to become a doctor, engineer or getting a job in a bank and other state departments were the few options available for the middle class to climb the social ladder. Until 1970, Sri Lanka mainly relied upon exporting raw materials such as tea and rubber and the prices were determined by the world market. The growing oil prices in the 1970’s further affected the third world countries. The newly formed United Front government in 1970 consisted of the SLFP, CP and LSSP which introduced the import substitution economy. I would say that it was ideologically a nationalist project with a socialist tint.

However, the United Front government faced serious economic and political crisis due to the global economic crisis. After they crushed the JVP uprising in the south, the state introduced standardisation policy in order to satisfy the unemployed Sinhala middle class in the South. In a sense, it mainly impacted the Tamil middle class youth particularly from Jaffna and the Sinhala middle class youth in Colombo, with respect to university admissions. The Tamil middle class youth, especially from Jaffna perceived this as an act against Tamils… Tamils from the East, Mannar, Vanni or upcountry were not bothered about the standardisation policy. Students from those areas were rarely admitted to the universities at that time. The standardisation policy, which affected Jaffna Tamil middle class students, was the main catalyst for the militancy. Although the Sri Lankan state disenfranchised Up-Country Tamils in the past and there were colonisation programs in the east, the Jaffna middle class Tamils did not take those issues to form a ‘Tamilness’ or to fight for the rights of Tamils. Secondly, although the Tamil United Front (TUF) started talking about Tamil rights and the federal set up and so on, at that time in the early seventies, they had not started talking about a separate state. However, there was another organization at that time called the Suyaatchi Kazhaagam (Self-rule Forum), under the leadership of V. Navaratnam, who propagated the idea of a Tamil nation.

Firstly, the Tamil youth, particularly the educated Tamil youth, took up this idea of a Tamil nation after the introduction of standardisation. However, their social composition was Tamil middle class, and upper caste as well, that is the university aged youth and Advanced Level students. These students took up this cause and there was a major protest in Jaffna against standardisation in 1970. I was a student at that time and I remember going to the protest march. It was a reasonably peaceful march in which thousands of students from 8th Standard to University participated, and it was organized by the Maanavar Peravai (Student Front) led by Sathiyaseelan. I can recollect some of the slogans which claimed that Tamils were a great educated people. For example, people shouted whether Baddiuddin Mohammed (Education Minister) knew “Alpha Beta” implying that the Tamils are great mathematicians but that this Minister did not know mathematics. It also had an anti-Muslim character in the way they attacked Baddiuddin Mohammed. At that time, I was not fully aware of the nuances of such rhetoric. One year later the government changed its standardisation policy and introduced district quotas and as a result, students from the underdeveloped villages were able to enter the university. However, the Jaffna Tamil middle classes did not want to acknowledge this, as this was against their own interests.

The violence started from there as well, where the armed movements’ goal was to kill the traitors; those who were working with the State. So, there were three attempted assassinations, where, Duraippa was the primary target.

AK: Stepping back a bit, your own family background, did that have any impact on your affinity towards Tamil nationalism at that time?

R: As with any Jaffna Tamil middle class family, their aim was to educate their children and make them a doctor or engineer, there was a production line mentality. At least one child, the elder child, should try and become a doctor, an engineer or at the least an accountant. Due to the lack of resources or social limitations, that was the only goal. There is a proverb in Tamil, “Kolzii meinthallum govermentil meikavendum” (even if you are going to have a chicken farm, you should do it for the government), that was the middle class aim, and had become the Jaffna Tamil mentality. Next there was the family structure, with the authoritarian father figure, and I wanted to leave the family soon. You cant question the father. And I also had a rebellious character and I wanted to leave the family as soon as possible, even before I joined the LTTE, I wanted to leave the house. I was even thinking of getting a job after I passed my O’levels. During this time I was inspired by Tamil nationalist ideology and began to read papers such as ‘Suthanthiran’ and ‘Viduthalai’. When I was a student at Central College, I would go to the Jaffna Library which was close by and read the news papers, particularly ‘Viduthalai’ (Freedom) inspired by the idea of nationalism.

AK: In your formative years, how did the issues of class and caste play out in your local community? Were you conscious of such issues at that time?

R: I was very conscious of caste at an early age. My village, Punallaikatuvan, which was divided into various areas, and Punallaikatuvan did not have one identity, there was the North side and South side of the village and marriage customs were different and restricted. So when I was quite young, there was a man called Thuraisingam, an upper caste man and a Chandiyan (a local village thug), my mother told me that he murdered a man long ago. He also owned land and the Dalits were the service caste and they would work for him. At that time I was about six or seven years old, in the early 60’s, and one day, there was some problem with the Dalits, possibly because they didn’t want to work as he hadn’t paid them properly. The outcome was that the entire Dalit community was chased away from my village. If you look at our recent history, it is like the manner in which the Northern Muslims were chased away. So, all the Dalits were chased away from my village and their belongings were taken away by the Chandian and his followers. And it took them a long time before they could come back and resettle. No one challenged that eviction at that time and that had a lasting impact on me even though I was also from a Vellala middle class family. In a certain sense the Tamil nationalist ideology claimed that all Tamils should be united, and while we did not think about the caste contradictions at that time, we nevertheless thought that everyone should join the struggle without considering the structural inequalities and the caste hierarchy

In the seventies, while it was already in law, the government of Sri Lanka attempted to implement equal access for Dalits in temples and public places. Temple entry in my village was out of the question, as no one was willing to challenge it because of the strength of the caste system. I remember going to a barber saloon (barbers belonged to the oppressed castes), when I was small, and asking the barber if he will allow Dalits into his saloon. There was a big muscular farmer standing next to me and he slapped me, because he was angry that I would even ask such a question. Ultimately, the barber saloon was closed, as the barber was scared of the upper castes. And after the saloon was closed, the barber started visiting people’s houses and performing his work. So, particularly in the villages, the caste system was very strong. With the service castes at that time, there was no question of workers rights, whether you were paid or not, you were expected to work.

At the same time, then in the seventies, there was no strong sense of Tamil identity; the village identity and caste identity were much stronger than Tamil nationalist identity. I believe that it is still the case; as in practice the cultural and religious festivals are caste orientated and the identity is preserved. Although Tamil identity in a sense is there, it is the outer layer, rather than the substance of the Tamil community. The social practices such as festivals, marriage and death are arranged according to the caste and village hierarchy and what you practice is what you are. And although Communist parties in the north at that time talked about class, there was no real working class formation at that time, and only a few factories, like the cement factory, so I would say class was subsumed under caste. While there might have been class divisions, there wasn’t a strong class consciousness, where as caste consciousness was very strong. So, class was seen through caste, with caste more dominant than class. Even a worker from the upper caste would not allow a Dalit to marry his daughter or to even allow him inside his house. I would say that when the Chinese Communist Party took up temple entry, caste took a prominent role, and the caste issue was dominant even though the Communist Party interpreted it in class terms. Without the elimination of the caste system, I believe that class unity is not possible

The other important factor was the independence and formation of Bangladesh. India’s role was admired by the Jaffna Tamil community, and many politicians began referring to India as the motherland.

AK: Moving onto the Tamil political formations at that time. Particularly the dominant role of the Federal Party, how did that influence youth like you?

R: Although the Federal Party was talking about Tamil nationalism, they did not have any organized program. They did not even have a committee or village level organizational structure. What they would do is, come every now and then, and say this is our agenda. Even at that time, the Federal Party did not create the democratic political space, because there was no political participation by the people in the organisation. I would say the Federal Party just made decisions at the top, and was merely passed down. I often compare the difference with the DMK in India, while I don’t agree with DMK’s politics, they did have a strong organizational structure; there are committees at the village level, there are different layers of organizational structures. The Federal Party did not have that, and may be they would have one person in each village, and the Federal Party Member of Parliament will come and talk to him, and he will arrange a meeting once in a blue moon. So, the democratic space or democratic culture was not there. I am exclusively talking about Jaffna society at the moment. Anyway, neither did we have the democratic culture, there was the repressive character of the caste system, so the democratic mindset was also lacking. So, everything from caste to the family, it was a hierarchical structure and the hierarchical system was designed in such a way to obey the order than to discuss or criticise. I believe that the LTTE’s political ideology reflected the Jaffna Tamil middle class and upper caste interests and their pride while its authoritarian structure stemmed from the family and caste hierarchical system. So while we are talking about the need for democratic culture at the current moment, I would say we did not have it at that time either. Electoral democracy was there, but not a democratic culture, and even grassroots civil society organizations did not exist. There were only the state structures.

AK: What was the politics that came down in this top down manner from the Federal Party and the Tamil Congress, and how did it impact your politics?

R: Tamil Congress was seen as a Colombo based party for the elite. But the Federal Party was seen as a party of the Tamil people. At that time, people would say that G. G. Ponnambalam was great orator and a lawyer. In those days, the issue was about who is clever. They would say Chelvanayagam (leader of the Federal Party) is only a civil lawyer where as Ponnambalam has been to the UN. People would argue about such matters. I can still remember, the symbol of the Tamil Congress was the bicycle, where as the symbol of the Federal Party was the house, and people would argue about that as well. What is the use of the cycle, but the house you can live in it. (Laughter…) These arguments were about who you should vote for and not about Tamil rights. But after a while the Federal Party and then the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) played an important role in the rise of Tamil nationalism, particularly in the seventies.

I can say this, that the ruling government in the South had a vision about non-alignment and interest in nationalisation in opposition to the legacy of British colonial influence. So there was a progressive content to it. But unfortunately, it was mobilized as part of Sinhala nationalism and not as a Lankan nationalist consciousness. Instead of challenging the Sinhala nationalist ideology, the Federal Party was opposed to nationalisation; for example, the nationalisation of the Trincomalee Harbour under the control of the British.

Next, the Federal party or then the TULF did not have a political programme to continue a sustained campaign such as the civil disobedience movement in India or the civil rights movement in the USA. I believe that the TULF disseminated Tamil nationalist ideology without realising the consequences as their main goal was to win seats in parliament. Although they addressed these issues in the parliament, when the state failed to address the grievances, the leadership did not have any alternatives but to talk about Bangladesh and mother India. Tamil rights or minority rights could have been fought politically with a sustained civil rights campaign. Due to the lack of political commitment from the TULF leadership a political gap was created and inexperienced adventurous middle class youths took up the role to file the gap, which in turn created Tamil militancy. I believe that the rights of Tamils or other minorities should have been fought democratically and the TULF should have taken a lead role. My contention is that, in the context of Sri Lanka, it is a folly to describe the struggle of the rights of minorities as a national liberation struggle. However, in a colonial setting you may call it a national liberation struggle. In our case, there was ample space to fight for the rights of minorities within the democratic terrain and this was not done.

Now, if you take district quotas in education introduced by the government in 1972 instead of standardisation, that was not seen as a progressive step. Particularly the Federal Party leadership did not see this as empowering the youth from the rural areas. On the other hand, perhaps the Federal Party was concerned only about the Jaffna Tamil middle class upper caste youth, even if it might help Tamils in other areas. The nationalisation policies of the State were also seen as anti Tamil by the Federal Party and the TULF.

AK: Expanding more on Tamil nationalism in the 1970s, you mentioned how “traitors” were constructed and targeted, and you mentioned the idea of the Tamil nation that began to emerge. What other concepts became important and was the Federal Party actively cultivating and pushing these concepts?

R: Maanavar Peravai (Student Federation) led by Sathiyaseelan was formed in order to oppose the standardisation policy. Tamil nationalist ideology was also part of the program of the Maanavar Peravai. Although, there was no direct link between it and the Federal Party, it was a separate formation, but ideologically they shared the same view. Whoever was opposed to the Federal Party and later the TULF, the TULF would claim that they are traitors, and that they should not die naturally, so that kind of rhetoric seems to have tacitly encouraged violence. And the Maanavar Peravai was working actively to eliminate such traitors.

The Sri Lankan government also made a blunder when they introduced the Republican constitution of 1972, where Buddhism was given a prominent role. So, in addition to standardisation, these issues also contributed to the formation of a Tamil national identity.

AK: Was the State identified with the Sinhala community?

R: It is a complex issue. Of course the ruling class from the Sinhala community constructed Sinhala nationalism. However, whether the State identified with the Sinhala community is questionable as the Sinhala community is not a monolithic whole. The caste, class and regional differences were there. However a certain social class consisting of the Sinhala middle class and the Bikkus (Buddhist clergy) were able to disseminate Sinhala nationalist ideology and was able to consolidate power. We should not forget that the same State killed more than 70,000 Sinhala youths in the insurrections of the 70s and 80s. Therefore to answer your question, the State identified with Sinhala nationalism but not with Sinhala community.

I would say the Tamil nationalist ideology became a mirror image of the Sinhala nationalist ideology and there emerged a Tamil versus Sinhala framing. The Tamil nationalist leadership instead of challenging Sinhala nationalism and its ideological and political content, inverted the same ideological framework and started its political campaign from the same premises. Racist slogans and rhetoric were liberally used by both Sinhala and Tamil nationalists. Dutugemunu Ellara episode to King Changilian and Pandaravanniyan’s epics were reinterpreted, constructed and used for a modern nationalist construction.

I should tell you this story. My father was transferred to Mannar and my father wanted me to come to Mannar as he was aware that I was involved with militant groups. I went to Mannar and joined a Catholic college named St Xavier College. After a few months, there was a drama about Changilian, and until then I knew Changilian as the last Tamil king who heroically fought against the Portuguese. However, in Mannar, for Catholics, Changillian was a villain because he executed 600 Catholic converts. His son, who converted to the Catholic faith was a hero to Mannar Catholics. I am saying this to show that Tamil nationalist ideology portrays Tamilness in a particular way by concealing all the caste, class, religious and regional differences. It is applicable to Sinhala nationalism as well.

AK: Can we talk about the shift to certain forms of violence. You mentioned violence in the community, or violence in the family, or violence of caste oppression or the violence of the Chandiyan. But when did violence become explicitly political in the mainstream. Of course as you mentioned there was the construction of the traitor and the rhetoric that traitors should not die a natural death. However, there seems to be a major shift in the seventies. Even though there was the violence of the caste struggles in the sixties which were also political, but that was of a different scale. How were the acts of violence received? Indeed, in the South, there was already a major insurrection by then.

R: I think that the Jaffna Tamil society is structurally violent because of the caste system. When an upper caste man’s honour is questioned he uses violence to assert his authority. If you look at it from the point of view of the ‘honour’ of Jaffna Tamil middle class upper caste students, the government’s introduction of standardisation was to humiliate them. Humiliation is not tolerated by an upper caste male dominated society. Therefore violence against Dalits was now shifted to the Tamil political field where you take revenge for the humiliation. In the early seventies, this became the attempted murders, followed by the arrest of the Maanavar Peravai members in the 1972, and the crack down by the State.

The other important event was the Tamil Literary Conference in1974, which was planned to take place in Jaffna, but the State attempted to block the conference and hold it in Colombo. But finally the conference was held in Jaffna, with the TULF mobilizing in a major way. On the last day of the conference, when the police blocked a protest, an electric cable fell, and nine people died of electrocution. I myself attended the conference the previous day, but I was not there on that last day. The conference could have happened without much mobilization if the State did not try to block it, but because of the State’s short sightedness, even in my village, I started organizing events celebrating the conference. We decorated the road and had booths to provide water and drinks, like in temple festivals.

During that time Sivakumar, a young Tamil nationalist, tried to assassinate one of the police officers and failed. And then he became a “wanted person” and during an encounter he took poison and died in the hospital. That was a major incident, with a mass funeral. A lot of students including myself attended the funeral. And I remember even girls attended the funeral, even though girls don’t normally attend funerals. There was always some kind of link between the TULF and these kinds of events. And the TULF called him a hero, and they compared him to Subash Candra Bose and said that although they followed Gandhian principles to achieve their goal, they respected Sivakumaran as he had the same vision.

AK: When did you become an active member of the LTTE?

R: During those days, there were two other people in my village who were older than me, and quite active. They wanted to do something as well. At that time, even I thought it was good to eliminate traitors!

There was a jail break and four people involved with the Maanavar Peravai escaped from Anuradhapura prison and there was some connection with my village. One person from my village who was involved with the Maanavar Peravai had hid one of these people in our village. That was in 1974. They knew we wanted to become active so they started to talk to us. At that time, I also bought a pistol from a local thug. I of course hid the pistol, the police was not the big problem for me, it was my father! (Laughter…) During that time I also started writing slogans on the wall, and one day a local person saw me writing on the wall, and I ran away and stayed with my aunt for a couple of days, because I was afraid of my father, that he would beat me up. Then I returned after my family was looking for me. My father was a local school headmaster, so during that time, Minister of Education Baddiuddin Mohammed was visiting and all the schools were expected to welcome him. So the previous night, I went with a friend and wrote slogans like “Baddiuddin Mohammed Get Out!” We were engaged in such activities, which were inspired by the TULF’s idea of protest. At that time, even more than opposing the State, we thought the “traitors” should be eliminated first.

So that was my first connection with the militants, when this person, Chetti, came and hid in our village, and I started helping them and then they did a Cooperative Store robbery. My role then was to take them to safe houses; I would take them on my bicycle and provide them with food and so on. And through such connections I met Prabhakaran. And Prabhakaran had also belonged to the Maanavar Peravai and it is through that connection that I met him in 1974 as well. Prabhakaran was talking about a separate state and I thought I will support him and that is how it all started.

The first organization Prabhakaran started was the Tamil New Tigers (TNT), the name was coined by Rasaratnam, who had been with the TULF and was a strong Tamil nationalist. Rasaratnam fled to India after Maanavar Peravai members were arrested and lived there until his death. Although the TULF was talking about federalism, I must say that the Suyaatchi Kazhaagam (V. Navaratnam’s organization) always compared the Tamils with the Jews. So, the ‘Exodus’ was translated into Tamil. And if you read ‘Viduthalai’ papers at that time, they always related the Tamil people to the Jewish people. We are intelligent and they are intelligent. We are a small minority and they are a small minority. They do fasts and do not eat meat during fasting and we do the same. They were able to form a country of their own and we should do that. Therefore Tamil identity is also mixed with Hindu Identity or Saiva identity. So Prabhakaran, Kuttimani and Thangathurai all took up this idea. Prabhakaran and Thangathurai were from the same village. But Thangathurai was not part of the TNT, because he thought Chetti who was in our group was sent to a rehabilitation school for young people and was a thief.

So there were so many factors and relationships. For example Valvettithurai was important, it was a smuggling village, and an army presence was always there. So, there was some tension. Whereas in my village, I would hardly ever see the army. At that time, the army was a symbolic force not a fighting army. And there were only a few thousand soldiers in the entire country, and to my recollection there were only 6000 armed forces personnel; including the army, navy and air force. But in Valvettithurai, there was always tension between the army and the people, and that is one reason why the young people from Valvettithurai became active. Thangathurai was pro-US and pro-Israel. Prabhakaran also had that idea, but strangely, he was also inspired by Hitler, so he had a copy of Mein Kampf. He also was inspired by Bhagat Singh and Subhas Chandra Bose. It was a strange combination at one level. I think his idea was about Jewishness and the State and the formation of Israel on the one hand, and then the idea of eliminating the “other” came from Hitler. So, there was a connection in his mind. Anyhow, I was an early member of the TNT, as it had been formed in 1974, and I joined them soon after. However I was not a full time member until 1976. None of us were mature enough to understand what we were doing. Part of the problem was the TULF, in that it did not have any concrete plans either to fight for federalism or a separate nation. The TULF just used all this rhetoric to gain parliamentary seats, but as a result these young people inspired by the TULF ideology wanted to fill the gap and this became a very dangerous problem.

AK: The iconic figures that you mention like Bhagat Singh or Hitler etc, were outside figures, were there any figures from the Tamil community that inspired the TNT?

R: No, even the Tiger, the flag comes from the Chola kingdom, so it was always inspired by actors outside. All this is part of the mythology, particularly when we claim, that we were two nations before the British came. We were unable to even identify with someone like a king from that nation.

AK: When did the interaction with India and Tamil Nadu begin? When did you first go to Tamil Nadu?

R: There was no direct interaction with India and Tamil Nadu. But in the early seventies itself, they would run to India to find safe haven. It had nothing to do with the Indian state or politicians; it was mainly through the smuggling links. They would go and stay with the Indian smugglers. I became “wanted” in 1976 and I went to India for the first time in 1976 in a boat from Mannar, which was arranged by Thangathurai. At that time, there were only a couple of local politicians who were sympathetic towards us.

AK: How did you become “wanted”? How did the police get to know about you?

R: On 27 July 1975, Duraippa was killed. I was not aware that he was going to be killed, but after he was killed, Prabhakaran came and hid in my grandmother’s house. I used to stay with my grandmother and give students tuition and I used that cover to hide these people. Again, so I can tell my father that I was teaching them mathematics, when he asked me about them. All though the TULF would claim to support us, they did not give us even fifty rupees. Once I bicycled from my village (Punallaikatuvan) to Valvettithurai to get ten rupees from a man, because we did not have any money.

One thing I was quite amazed by Prabhakaran at that time. He would come and hide in my grandmother’s house. I would go to college and return, and he would not have moved, he would be sitting in the same place. He was disciplined and extremely careful about his own safety in that sense. We did not have any money to run the organisation as we needed weapons, and so we robbed banks. So, in 1976 the Puttur bank was robbed.

Prabhakaran liked English movies not Tamil movies. He liked these Western and war films. That is where he learned to plan the robberies and to kill traitors. And he had very good memory power. If he met someone once, he will never forget them. We were a small organization and he would give ten bullets to one person and twenty bullets to another person and then he will remember exactly how many bullets we have left. He was also very organized.

So, after the Puttur bank was robbed, we started small farms with the money, and we cultivated onions and chillies. So, that was the cover, and it was our training camp. At that time, the TNT had about eight members and five of them were in the central committee, which included Prabhakaran, Aiyar, Pattanna, Kumarachelvam and I cant remember the fifth person. I was the youngest and a couple others were also in the group, including Chellakili. Then one person who was part of the bank robbery was caught. And he had given my name and I became “wanted”.

Right to Reclaim – Right of the Sri Lanka government to reclaim its historical sovereignty over North of Sri Lanka

by. PBS. Hemachandra, M. Com, Post Grad Dip in Bus, MCP, MACS, retired. Lt. Commander of Sri Lanka Navy

I have read with great sadness various unsupported attempts to re-write the history of Sri Lanka by some Sinhalese, Tamils and others in the recent past, mainly to support their political agendas without any respect for basic historical facts.My experience in the Navy has helped me to grasp the realities of history from a grassroots level. I am a retired Lt Commander of the Sri Lanka Navy and worked in the Navy from 1971 to 1986. I have worked about 10 years of this period in shore establishments, Naval ships attached to North and East of Sri Lanka, which are the parts claimed by separatist Tamils to be their homeland without any incontrovertible historical evidence. During this period I had the privilege of being the first Commanding Officer of surveillance command ship SLNS Wickrama, which was deployed as a task group commander to start the surveillance zone between Sri Lanka and India in 1984 to prevent gunrunning, smuggling (contraband and humans as well) and drug trafficking by Tamil terrorists.I also had the privilege of being the Navy representative to General Weeratunga’s coordinating office established in the North of Sri Lanka to eradicate terrorism, with responsibilities to coordinate naval operations to support ground operations conducted by distinguished army officers including General Hector Kobbakaduwa. I also worked as the executive officer (Second in Command) of the Sri Lanka Navy’s Northern command, which was originally a part of the Task Force to prevent Illicit Immigrants from South India (they were called Kallathonis) after independence in 1948.

I have had the privilege of travelling extensively in the north and east of Sri Lanka and was fortunate enough to visit every corner in the north and east and seen many remains of our unique history, partly because I had the Naval transport facilities and partly because my father, who was a history teacher, stimulated a great interest in me to see engineering marvels of our ancient kings. But during these visits I have failed to see any historical evidence of a separate independent Tamil Kingdom in Jaffna. If anyone can tell me, or show me the places where I could find artefacts, epigraphs, or inscriptions of an ancient Independent Tamil Kingdom in North or East, or a single tank or irrigation system developed by the so-called Tamil kings of an Independent Tamil Kingdom in the North or in the Dry Zone, I will be most grateful as such evidence would help to review my understanding of history. If any one can tell me where I could find a treaty signed by the so-called Tamil kings with Portuguese, Dutch or English who ruled our country, to assert their sovereignty, I would like to examine them to find out the truth about the claims of an independent kingdom. As far as I know I have found treaties signed with foreign powers only by Kings of Sri Lanka. As far as I know Portuguese historians have recorded that the fiefdom of Jaffna had agreements to pay tribute to the kings of Lanka, like the other chieftains of other regions in the Vanni. So where was this independent kingdom with the power to resist the invading forces of the West and force them to make treaties? In fact when the Portuguese marched into Jaffna it was the Sinhala forces led by Mudliyar Atapattu who reconquered Jaffna, though these forces were defeated later. The march of Mudliyar Atapattu confirms that it was a part of the Sinhala Kingdom that had to be reclaimed from the invading Portuguese forces. There was no necessity for the King of Kandy to send Mudliyar Atapattu to risk his life and the lives of a few thousand Sinhala soldiers if they did not consider it to be a part of the Sinhala Kingdom.

This proves the historical claim that though there were chieftains in the province of Jaffna and the Vanni, Sri Lanka was a sovereign state ruled by the Sinhala kings. Any threat to its sovereignty, whether from the rebel chieftains or foreigners, was resisted. The intervention of Mudliyar Atapattu also confirms the historical fact that the province of Jaffna fell into the hands of the Portuguese from the defeat of the Sinhala forces and not the forces of the Tamils. In the last analysis, sovereignty of the province of Jaffna was passed over to the Portuguese not by the Tamils but by the Sinhalese who drove the Portuguese out of Jaffna and held it for several days before it fell into their hands again. A few thousand Sinhala soldiers, including Mudliyar Atapattu, sacrificed their lives to protect Jaffna. Portuguese historian Queyroz states about the Jaffnapatan “It remained under the Portugezen sway for upwards of 40 years, wrested from the Emperor by Philippo d'Olivero when he defeated the Cingalezen forces near Achiavelli (Achuvely) by the great pagoda”. So by any legal, political and historical assessment it is clear that sovereignty passed to the Portuguese from the hands of the Sinhala king who was the last ruler of Jaffna. It is, therefore, the right of the Sri Lankan government to reclaim its historical sovereignty over Jaffna if it is threatened by any invading or rebel forces.

The forces of Mudliyar Atapattu are not different from the forces of the Sri Lankan government fighting to restore national sovereignty and territorial integrity threatened by Tamil Tiger separatists. It is a case of history repeating itself. Historical myths, manufactured to support a separatist political agenda, have been one of the fundamental causes for misleading our people into this futile war.

What we require today is for Tamil and Sinhalese leaders to get together and develop a new vision based on historical facts.

These myths, of course, have helped the new mudalalis (businessmen) in the war industry from both sides of the fence. There is no point writing and teaching fiction about past history. Many of us do not care about being an Aryan or a Dravidian. What matters is that we share a common human heritage and primary duty in this day and age, where weapons of mass destruction can be used by any combatant and threatens the survival of the human race. Our moral duty therefore, is to learn to co-exist with mutual respect for cultural differences, sharing our planet as one world. Peaceful coexistence is the only way forward and Sri Lanka is a classic example which can show the way to the future by proving that it is not separate political entities that create peace, but the willingness and the commitment to share the island as the common property and homeland of all communities. As the founder of Sri Lanka, Arahant Mahinda said we are here as trustees of the land, protecting its environment and heritage to be passed on to future generations.

Imagine if both Tamils and Sinhalese got together and spent the money wasted for this unwanted war to develop Sri Lanka. Probably, we could have built at least a few thousand schools for the children who are sacrificed as the first wave in the war, started a few more universities and technical colleges for all our youth to study rather than getting their lives and limbs blown up in land mines and senseless suicide bombs. If their talents were developed we could have exported brains to the world, develop a few more highways to connect all major cities in Sri Lanka, restored all tanks and irrigation systems developed by our fore fathers to make Sri Lanka self sufficient in food, developed industries to employ all our unemployed youth and spent some money for research into harvesting natural sources of energy such as solar, wind and waves. But the war provides opportunities for only a few hundred people to make money out of arms deals, illegal narcotic trade, arms and human smuggling etc. Some leaders use children who should be at school to fight this unwanted war, and use them as the first wave in attacks on military establishments or as suicide bombers while their own children are sent abroad to acquire a good education and a future in affluent Western countries.

During my service in the north of Sri Lanka, the Navy had excellent relations with Jaffna Tamils, especially the fishing folk (Vaadis) as they needed our help to save them from Indian fishermen who used to cut their nets & harass them, search for and rescue their missing boats etc and we depended on them for information about smuggling and illicit immigrants. We did not have the cooperation of the smugglers, most of whom later turned into terrorists. I have interacted socially with a lot of Tamil friends who used to visit our camp, and in fishing vaadis I have met many migrating Sinhalese fishermen from the south who used to come up north for fishing during monsoonal periods, and many of their descendants who could not even speak a word of Sinhalese. During these times I have met many Sinhalese and Muslim people happily living together and carrying on their fishing, bakery and other trades in the north and east. All the communities lived in the north and east very peacefully. Before the 1977 communal problems, there were well over 30,000 Sinhalese and over 100,000 Muslim families living and working in Jaffna alone.

I wish to recall these times of peaceful co-existence and record the times we shared together because there is a sad attempt to engage in the lucrative business of re-writing history to deliberately distort history in order to create deep divisions between the two communities. I thought it is my duty to write my personal experiences to at least clarify some basic facts.

This analysis is in no way a criticism of patriotic Tamils like our ex- Foreign Minister Mr Kadirgamar who exposed extremist Tamils, or Muralidaran who tries his best to bring honour and glory to Sri Lanka in international cricket or my good friend and my room mate during navy training Admiral Sundaram, or many other Tamils who live peacefully with others in Sri Lanka and help to develop Sri Lanka. This attempt is only to expose the racist extremist Tamils and a few Tamil expatriates who fund LTTE terrorist activities and some Sinhalese alleged to be on LTTE payroll through Norway.

The aim of this analysis is purely:

1. To refute the claim of those who re-write the history of Sri Lanka that there was an independent Tamil kingdom in the north or east – a myth which is at the root of the current crisis. I wish to establish that there is no substantive historical evidence that can be drawn from Tamil, Portuguese, Dutch and English historians, or any other credible sources that can give credibility to this claim and definitely not an attempt to say that Tamils migrated to Sri Lanka recently.

2. To provide a better understanding about the history of Sri Lanka so that the international community can appreciate the nature of the Sri Lankan crisis and take appropriate action to stop more blood dollars (very similar to blood diamonds) flowing into the hands of LTTE terrorists and to stop refuge traffic.

3. To expose LTTE terrorists who exploited the safe havens of the West to run passport rackets, credit card rackets, human smuggling rackets, gunrunning rackets, drug trafficking rackets, techniques for suicide bombing etc to collect blood dollars. The attack on USS Cole is a good example. If one examines travel details of LTTE bomb experts one will realize that the boat that rammed USS Cole was set up by them for money.

4. To open the eyes of the small minority of professional Tamils who are able to live in the Western countries only because they got their qualifications from the Sri Lankan free education system, and to inform them that they have a moral duty not to create misery for the lives of the Tamils who were left behind by funding the destabilization of Sri Lanka which has resulted in the deaths and destruction of mainly the Tamil population.

5. To educate these professional Tamils that their blood dollars can help in better ways to provide life opportunities to children in the north and east if their funds are not diverted to the Tiger terrorists who are waging a war for the elusive and unattainable Eelam.

6. To inform everyone that all communal problems in Sri Lanka were initiated by the Tamil-dominated north, which provoked other communities to react violently. For example in 1983 if the LTTE did not kill 13 soldiers and provoke the Sinhala mobs to react, this crisis would not have reached this level of violence. It is common for critics to point the finger at the Sinhalese without giving due recognition to the underlying primary cause of Tamils deliberately provoking the Sinhala majority to react violently to gain political mileage and sympathy from the international community, as stated by Prof. A. J. Wilson, son-in-law of the father of separatism, S. J. V. Chelvanayakam. Besides, when I was working up north I witnessed at first hand some of the racist violence committed by the Tamils. The racist violence against Sinhalese students at Jaffna University or poor Sinhalese women and children who lived in the Kent and Dollar farms, 600 Police personnel who surrendered to the Tamil Tiger terrorists on instructions of President Premadasa, are well documented.

7. To re-educate professional Tamils in the Western world who take great delight in boasting about attacks by LTTE on innocent Sinhalese civilians who lived in harmony with the Tamils for centuries.

8. To record that the death toll of all nationalities during the 1983 communal riots, which was provoked by LTTE was around 450, according to BBC reports. S Chandrahasan, son of Chelvanayakam and V. Anandasangaree, President of the Tamil United Liberation Front, are on record saying that Velupillai Prabhakaran has killed more Tamils than all Tamils killed during all communal problems and by provoked return fire from Indian and Sri Lankan armed services put together.

9. To show every one that only racist extremist Tamils and others who finance this needless war can stop the suffering of people (especially Tamils) in Sri Lanka. This problem can never be resolved until racist extremist Tamils drop their arms and accept the principle of co-existing in harmony with the other communities.

10. To explain to all Tamils and Sinhalese that in the past we have inter-married and integrated and have blood relations and share a common heritage, with Hindu gods being worshipped in Buddhist temples. Genealogists have recorded that the elite Sinhalese and even the lower classes have inter-married or are direct descendants of Tamils and vice versa. Even the Tamil castes like 'Kovia', 'Tanakaras' and 'Nalavas' are descendants of Sinhalese. (page 382 "Ancient Jaffna" by Mudaliyar C Rasanayagam 1926) It is also known that the fisher castes like ‘Karreyar’ Parawer’ and Timilaer’ are descendants of migrating fishermen from South India as well as the South of Sri Lanka.

11. To educate everyone that the less Sri Lanka deals with Norway the faster we can resolve Sri Lanka’s problems.

History

Historical evidence found in forms of ruins, inscriptions, pyramids, tanks and irrigation systems, man made canals, fortresses, epigraphs etc provide ample evidence to the claims of all communities sharing Sri Lanka with majority Singhalese as a common homeland. This evidence is available mainly in Anurdhapura, Polonnaruwa, Sigiriya, Dambulla, Kantalai, Nagadeepa, Mannar, Tiriyaya, Polmodai, Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Mulaitivu and many other places in and around Jaffna. There are many ancient inscriptions found in Jaffna such as Vallipuram gold plate inscription found in Point Pedro in Jaffna or Sinhalese inscriptions found at Kandarodai, the ancient Kadurugoda Vihara, a Buddhist Temple in Uduvil or the inscription found at Tunukai in the D.R.O.’s division of Punakari or the Tiriyaya Sanskrit inscription of Aggabodhi VI or the Tiruketisvaram Pillar inscription of Sena II or the Mannar Kacceri pillar inscription of Kassapa IV or the slab inscription at Kurundanmalai near Mulaitivu or the Palmottai slab inscription of Vijayabahu or the Kantalai stone seat inscription of Nissankamalla will prove that there were Sinhalese people living in the north and east long before Tamils encroached and started living there.

In Mr Tambiah’s words "The Dry Zone was the ancient site of a much glorified Sinhala Buddhist civilisation” (“Buddhism Betrayed” by D. Tambiah). One can find millions of artefacts, inscriptions and other proof of a Sinhalese civilisation there. Proof of the history remains in those places and not in Mahawansa or Ramayanaya.

Any one can see the ancient glory of Sri Lanka on the web now. These are some links one can visit to see this glory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Heritage_Sites_of_Sri_Lankahttp://www.travel-images.com/unesco-sri-lanka.html

http://www.baurs.com/travel2/historical%20places.htm

http://www.angelfire.com/wi/SriLanka/historic_sites.htm

http://www.sacred-destinations.com/sri-lanka/anuradhapura.htm

This link will indicate all ancient Buddhist temples in Trincomalee and Batticaloa

http://www.lankalibrary.com/heritage/temples/trinco.htm

I have copied below information from Portuguese, Dutch, English and Tamil historians to prove that the north of Sri Lanka had never been the traditional home land for Tamils although now LTTE has done a complete ethnic cleansing of all other communities from north of Sri Lanka. Some Tamils like LTTE Leader Mr Prabhakaran who cannot even prove two or three generations of residence in Sri Lanka are now trying to claim north of Sri Lanka as their traditional homeland.This map below is from “A true and Exact description of great island Ceylon” written by the Dutch priest Baldaeus in 1672. He accompanied the Dutch forces, which took over Jaffna from the Portuguese, and worked as a missionary. He did a lot of work for the people living in Jaffna. Fortunately he has left details of Jafnapatnam complete with a map.

According to Priest Baldaeus Jafnapatnam had four provinces. Look at the names of these provinces which were Tamilised later. How can these places have Sinhalese names if Tamils lived there???

1. Beligamme or Weligama (now Valikamam)

2. Tenmarache (now Tenmaradchi)

3. Waddemarache (now Vadamaradchi) and

4. Patchiarapalle (now Pachchilaippali)

This is what Captain Robert Percival wrote about the people who lived in Jaffna as late as 1805 A.D. in his book entitled an 'An Account of the Island of Ceylon' (1805). Even as late as 1805 A.D. the Tamils and the other minority communities who had settled in the Jaffna peninsula have been referred to as 'foreigners'. While giving an account of the population of Jaffna he states that the inhabitants of Jaffna consist of a collection of various races. The greatest number are Malabars of Moorish extraction, and are divided into several tribes known by the names of Lubbahs, Belalas, Mopleys, Chittys, Choliars and a few Brahmins; they are distinguished by wearing a little round cap on their close shaven heads. There is also a race of Malabars found here somewhat differing in their appearance from those of the continent. These different tribes of foreign settlers greatly exceed in number the native Ceylonese in the District of Jaffna (pp. 71).

The Honidus map of Ceylon below is on page 2 of “Fatal History of Portuguese in Ceylon” by George Davison Winius. This map was a work of CYPRIANO SANCHEZ (c 1560 A.D.). This map indicated that there were nine principalities in Sri Lanka with only one of them indicated as "emperor"- Imperio de Cota or Emperor of Kotte. These nine principalities were; Imperio de Cota (Imperial King of Kotte), Reino de Ceitaabaca (Ruler of Sitawaka), Reino de Candea (Ruler of Kandy), Reino de Jaffnapatnum (Ruler of Jaffna), Reino de Setra Coralas (Ruler of Seven Korales), Chilao Reino (Ruler of Chilaw), Reino de Triquilemale (Ruler of Trincomalee), Reino de Baticalou (Ruler of Batticaloa, Reino de Yala (Ruler of Yala).

This map is supported by the French Cartographer Sieur Sansen's map of 1652. This is a clear indication that during the Portuguese era, the Jaffna kingdom was under the Emperor de Cota, and ruler of Jaffna is merely a chieftain or Vanniyar in that area under the Sinhalese emperor.This paragraph below is from 'The Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of Ceylon' by Father Fernao de Queyroz, a much quoted contemporary Portuguese historian. According to Father Fernao de Queyroz, local Tamil leaders had ruled that region not as independent rulers but as vassals of Sinhala kings.

As long as Rajapura (Anuradhapura) was the capital of Ceylon the whole island was subject to one king; but after the inundation of the lowlands and after the city of Cota (Kotte) became the metropolis, there were in the island 15 kinglets, subject to the king of Cota, who therefore was considered to be Emperor, and the same title is in these days claimed by the king of Candea (Kandy). The kinglets were, he of Dinavaca, Uva, Valave, Putelao (Puttalam), Mantota, Tanagama, Muliavali, Triquilimale (Trincomalee), cutiar (Kottiar), Batecalou (Batticaloa), Paneva (Panama), Vintena (Bintenna), Orupala, Mature (Matara), Candae(Kandy) and of the point of the North Jafanapatoa (Jaffna peninsula) which together with the kingdom of Cota makes 16 (De Queyroz I, p.101).

The following statement in his book confirms that the official language of Sri Lanka in 1560 was Singalese and not Tamil during handing over of Jaffnapatam to Portuguese. "These terms written in the Portuguese and Chingala languages were signed and authenticated." (Queyroz p.371). He further states about the Jaffnapatam that “It remained under the Portugezen sway for upwards of 40 years, wrested from the Emperor by Philippo d'Olivero when he defeated the Cingalezen forces near Achiavelli (Achuvely) by the great pagoda” Which is clear evidence that Jaffnapatam was captured by Portuguese from Sinhalese forces.

'An Historical Relation of Ceylon' by Robert Knox confirmed the authority of the Sinhalese King in Kottiar bay in the east of Sri Lanka where he says that he and his companions were taken into custody by men of Sinhalese King and not by men of Jaffna ruler.( pp.189-192).

This is what the inscription found in Medavala Rajamaha Vihara in Kandy district indicates about a treaty between the king, Vickramabahu III, and an Aryacakravarti named Martanda (Sin ai Ariyan) of Jaffna. In this inscription while Vikramabahu III is referred to there as "Cakravarti Swaminvahanse' (the Universal Lord), the Ariyacakravarti is referred to as ‘Perumalun vahanse’ only. This fact and the fact that it is dated not in the regnal year of Ariyacakravarti but in that of Vikramabahu III indicate that the dejure right of that king to the sovereignty over the whole island is recognised by Martanda Singai Ariyan by this treaty.

Jaffna Tamils also take advantage of the Thesavalami law (codified by the Dutch in 1707 to protect Mohammedans in Jaffna). The right of pre-emption among co-owners is derived from Muslim customary law personal to Mohammedans in India and unknown to Hindu customary law.This is what written in the thesis by Dr Indrapalan, a Tamil professor of History in Jaffna University, submitted to the University of London in 1962 (Unpublished S.O. 15.1. 84) about Tamil invasion of Sinhalese area in the North, which they claim to be their homeland. This is very true and you can still see some of them.

“But monumental remains of a different type attest to the destruction wrought by the invaders and the conversion of Buddhist institutions into places of saiva (Tamil) worship, effected by the new settlers, thus confirming the statements in the Sinhala sources. The many scattered ruins of Buddhist monasteries and temples all over the vanni region preserve the memory of the Sinhalese Buddhist settlements that once covered these parts. Several of the pilimages (image houses) attached to the monasteries in places like Kovilkadu, Malikai, Omantai, Kanakarayan-kulam, Iracentiran-kulam, Cinnappuvaracankulam and Madukanda were converted into Saiva temples, often dedicated to Ganesa. Buddha images or inscribed slabs from the Buddhist structures were used to make the Ganesa statues”

“The gold plate from Vallipuram reveals that there were Buddhists in that part of the peninsula in the second century A.D. At the site of this inscription the foundations of a Buddhist vihara were uncovered. These foundations are in the premises of a modern Visnu temple. There is little doubt that the Visnu temple was the original Buddhist monument converted in to a Vaisnava establishment at a later date when Tamils settled in the area. Such conversion of Buddhist establishments into Saiva and Vaisnava temples seems to have been a common phenomenon in the peninsula after it was settled by Dravidians. In the premises of another Visnu temple at Moolai were discovered some ‘vestiges of ancient remains of walls’ and a broken sedent Buddha image. Again in a Saiva temple at mahiyapitti a Buddha image was found under a stone step in the temple tank. A lime-stone Buddha image and the remains of an ancient dagaba were unearthed at Nilavarai, in Navakiri. Among the debris were two sculptured fragments of shaped coral stones with a stone railing design. According to D.T. Devendra, who conducted the excavation at this site, the dagaba can be dated at least to the tenth century A.D. Near these ruins are the foundations of an ancient building and in the middle of these is a modern Siva temple. It has been conjectured, and rightly so, that the old foundations are those of the vihara attached to the ancient dagaba. Buddha images have also been discovered in Uduvil, Kantarodai and Jaffna town. Kantarodai has yielded very important Buddhist finds, which prove the existence of an important Buddhist establishment in the region in early times. Such artefacts as the glazed tiles and the circular discs discovered here have helped to connect the finds with those of Anuradhapura. Sinhala Nampota, dated in its present form to the fourteenth or fifteenth century, preserves the names of some of the places of Buddhist worship in the Jaffna peninsula. Kantarodai is mentioned among these places. The others are Nagakovila (Nakarkovil), Telipola (Tellippalai), Mallagama (Mallakam), Minuvangomu Viharaya (Vimankamam), Tannidivayina (Tana-tivu or Kayts), Nagadivayina (Nakativu or Nayinativu), Puvangudivayina (Punkutu-tivu) and Karadivayina (Karaitivu). Of the Buddhist establishments in these places only the vihara and Dagaba at Nakativu has survived to this day. It is justifiable to assume that the Nampota list dates back to a time when the Buddhist establishments of these places were well known centres of worship. This was probably before the thirteenth century, for after this date the people of the Jaffna peninsula were mainly Saivas. The foregoing evidence points to the inevitable conclusion that in the Anuradhapura period, and possibly till about the twelfth century, there were Buddhists in the Jaffna peninsula. Although it may appear reasonable to presume that these Buddhists were Sinhalese like those in other parts of the island, some have tried to argue that they were Tamils. While it is true that there were Tamil Buddhists in South India and Ceylon before the twelfth century and possibly even later, there is evidence to show that the Buddhists who occupied the Jaffna peninsula in the Anuradhapura period were Sinhalese. We refer to the toponymic evidence, which unmistakably points to the presence of Sinhala settlers in the peninsula before Tamils settled there. In an area of only about nine hundred square miles covered by this peninsula, there occur over a thousand Sinhalese place names, which have survived in a Tamil garb. (page 270)

This is what DR Indrapalan wrote about people who try to re-write history of Jaffna. “It may be recollected that several writers on the history of Jaffna, basing their studies on the traditional legends found in the late Tamil chronicles, have put forward certain theories claiming the establishment of Tamil settlements in Jaffna in the period of the Anuradhapura rulers. These theories are not accepted by serious students of history as they are not based on trustworthy data. Many of these have been convincingly dismissed by scholars in recent years. It is therefore, not our intention to analyse these theories and take serious notice of writings which at best could be described as popular.” (page 266)

Dr Indraplan further explains the word ILLAM as follows

"Presumably it rests on the fact that Ilam is now used only in Tamil as a name for Ceylon. But the origin of this name, far from indicating that the island was occupied by the Tamil speaking people in ancient times, shows that the people from whose name Ilam is derived were Singhalese."

Dr. S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar of the Madras University writing on 29.8.1926 the Foreword to ‘Ancient Jaffna’ by Mudaliyar C. Rasanayagam says: "The attempt of the author to derive the name Ilam does not appeal to us as quite successful; Ilam to us seems to be directly derived from the Pali word Sihala, which in Tamil would be Singalam or even Singanam, but a strict Tamilising would make it Ilam...."(Ancient Jaffna by Mudaliyar C Rasanayagam (Foreword p. v.)

Further, these extracts are from page 382 of a well-biased "Ancient Jaffna" by Mudaliyar C Rasanayagam (1926) to prove that we are a well mixed up nation may be distant relatives killing each other in this unwanted war. (Note: Sankili was a chieftain in Jaffna and I could not find any historical evidence, which indicates that he was a king. I shall be grateful to any historian who can show me where I can find an inscription or epigraph which indicates that he was a King therefore I will refer to him as a chieftain)

"After the massacre of the Christians, Sankili's insane fury longed for more victims and he fell upon the Buddhists of Jaffna who were all Sinhalese. He expelled them beyond the limits of the country and destroyed their numerous places of worship. Most of them betook themselves to the Vanni's and the Kandyan territories (as per Yalpana Vaipava Malai by Mailvagana Pulavar translated by C Brito.), and those who were unable to do so became the slaves of the Tamil chieftains and are now known as 'Kovia', a corruption of the Sinhalese word ' Goviya' or 'Goiya' and that their original status was equal to that of the Vellalas can be inferred from customs which are still in Vogue in Jaffna. The 'Tanakaras' and the 'Nalavas' of Jaffna should also be considered Sinhalese remnants in spite of the fanciful derivation of the word 'Nalava' given by the author of the Vaipava Malai. The Nalavas were perhaps originally the Sinhalese climbers and received the Tamil name on account of their peculiar way of climbing trees. They too became the slaves of the Tamil chieftains. The Tanakaras were the ancient elephant keepers and those who supplied the necessary fodder to the stables of the king. ( Sinhalese: Tana=grass). They perhaps on account of the service rendered by them were not expelled from the country and later became inseparably mixed with the Tamils among whom they had to remain.........the fact that the Kovias, Tanakaras and Nalavas were originally Sinhalese can be seen from the peculiar dress of their women who wear the inner end of their cloth over the shoulders in a manner quite strange to the genuine Tamils.”

When Robert Knox landed in Trincomalee his party was arrested by the King of Sri Lanka and not by the Ruler of Jaffna, when the Dutch landed in Batticaloa they were received by the King of Sri Lanka and not by the Ruler of Jaffna. When Muslims were chased out by Portuguese they were resettled by the King of Sri Lanka in Batticaloa and not by Ruler of Jaffna. Although there are treaties between Emperor of Sri Lanka with Dutch, Portuguese, and English, I would like any historian to tell me where I could find any such treaty with so called chieftain of Jaffna.

In spite of all this evidence, Tamils say that Sinhalese people are encroaching Tamil areas. But the truth is that Tamils have completely taken over Sinhalese Traditional Homeland. I do not think Sinhalese have a problem with that as long as Tamils do not tell lies about the history of Sri Lanka and allow peaceful co-existence without ethnic cleansing.

History of the terrorism in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka’s population is about 74% Sinhalese, about 12% Tamils (known as Ceylon or Sri Lankan Tamils), 6 % Tamils of Indian origin who were given citizenship after independence and the balance 8% consists of Muslims, Malays and descendants of Europeans. Most of the Tamils of Indian origin brought to Sri Lanka by our British masters to work in tea plantations do not live in the North and East of Sri Lanka which Tamils claim as their traditional homeland without any historical evidence. None of the Tamil leaders cared about the Tamils of Indian origin when they promoted Tamil Nationalist Movements.

The racist extremist Tamil movement started long before our independence in 1948 from the British. It started in 1939 with G.G. Ponnambalam attacking the Sinhalese in a virulent speech, resulting in the first Sinhala Tamil Riot. Then Tamil leaders wanted 50% 50% representation in our legislature. I have not heard of any form of representation by Tamil Leaders to the British, asking for a separate state or forwarding any historical evidence of a separate Tamil kingdom. These Tamil leaders even voted to disenfranchise Indian Tamils. Then these racist extremist Tamils started singing the discrimination song to the world, though the 12 % population of Ceylon Tamils in Sri Lanka had the major share in education, jobs, business and the economy in Sri Lanka. Even The Soulsbury Commission appointed by the British observed this fact much before independence in 1948. I fail to understand why the Indian Tamils now blame the Sinhalese for their problems, which were created because our British masters abandoned them. At no stage did these racist extremist Tamils leaders say that there was a separate Tamil Kingdom in Sri Lanka and ask for a separate Tamil State because at that stage they had not had enough time to destroy all historical evidence of the Sinhalese Buddhist civilisation in the north and east of Sri Lanka. Jaffna is the capital of the northern province of Sri Lanka, which even today has more number of high schools than the entire southern province of Sri Lanka. Southern province has about 20 times the population of Jaffna.

Even as late as 1982, Tamils held a disproportionate number of positions in the public services, private sector, university admissions and business in Sri Lanka, which is the case even today. Please see the statistics I found about employment in 1982.

In these terms Sri Lanka is a good example to countries in the developed world like Australia and the USA, compared to their treatment of Aboriginal and African-American people respectively.

I have copied a few following paragraphs from the Soulsbury Commission for every one to read and understand what Tamil leaders represented and how racist they were.

Education

172. "Jaffna has benefited for over a century from first-rate secondary schools founded and endowed by missionary effort of various denominations. But the complaint was made to us that despite the immense increase in the education vote since 1931, a negligible provision of State schools had been made for those parts of the Jaffna district which did not enjoy the benefit of English elementary and secondary education".

173. "... as in the case of agriculture and health, we are more disposed to attribute the discrepancies in expenditure and disproportionate allocation of public funds of which complaint is made, to the government's desire to redeem certain localities and communities from the neglect of past years than to any deliberate partiality towards racial interests. Education among the Muslims, for instance, has in the past, for various reasons, been relatively backward. We were much impressed by the efforts of the minister for education, himself a Sinhalese and a Buddhist, to promote the educational advance of this community".

Public Appointments

174. "We received from the All-Ceylon Tamil Congress complaints of discrimination against the members of their community in regard to appointments in the Public Services. This matter provides a common source of dissension between majority and minority communities.But in this case the complaint did not, as might have been expected, disclose that the proportion of posts held by the Ceylon Tamils was smaller than the size of their community would justify. On the contrary, the Ceylon Tamils appear, at any rate as late as 1938, to have occupied a disproportionate number of posts in the public services".

175. "... The Tamil witnesses maintained that in order to improve the chances of Sinhalese candidates, various small changes in examination syllabuses and conditions of entry have been made as a result of the intervention of Sinhalese Ministers, who have also endeavoured in various ways to use their influence, e.g. with Selection Boards, to favour candidates of their own race..."

176. "It appears to us that there have been minor instances of this kind of discriminatory action by the Sinhalese... but it would not in our opinion be right to regard the Sinhalese challenge to the predominant position of the Tamils in public appointments as based on such small acts of discrimination; rather it is the natural effect of the spread of education and of the effects being made to bring other portions of the island up to the intellectual level of one portion of it..."

“In this connection, we cannot help recalling a period in our own history when, as a result of the superior educational facilities and better teaching prevalent in Scotland, a minority was enabled to secure a larger share of administrative and executive posts in the United Kingdom than could have been justified on any proportional allocation. Since then the English have made strenuous and not altogether unsuccessful endeavours to redress the deficiencies of their past".

Racist extremist Tamils and some expatriates play the same tune today and destroy beautiful Sri Lanka. All the Tamils have had their education and employment experience in Sri Lanka. 75 % of the cost of that education was borne by the Sinhalese tax payers. The Sinhalese tax payers pay today almost 100% of the cost of education of Tamils in the North where Prabhakaran collects all taxes. While children of expatriates who send blood dollars to LTTE are having a good life in Western countries, poor Tamil children are killed in thousands by using them as the first wave in attacks, cannon fodder and as suicide bombers.

Sri Lanka never sent back the Tamils like the Germans did to Turks nor did the Sinhalese, with 75% of the population, enact Bumiputra laws like in Malaysia. Nor carpet-bombed north and east like the Americans in Afghanistan or Iraq, even after 2/3rd of suicide bombings in the world were proved to have been done by Tamils in Sri Lanka.

What happened after Independence in 1948

Unfortunately after independence the natural effect of the spread of education and the effects by governments to bring other portions of the island up to the intellectual level of the north where Ceylon Tamils enjoyed first-rate secondary schools founded and endowed by missionary effort of various denominations were quoted by racist extremist Tamils as discrimination against Tamils.

Then Mr SWRD Bandaranayake, who was a descendant of a Tamil named Nilaperumal (http://www.lankalibrary.com/cul.html#15) became Buddhist and broke away from the United National Party. He became the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka in 1956. His government introduced Sinhalese as the official language of Sri Lanka. Had not the government done that and improved education facilities in the south, thousands of poor Sinhalese like me would not have ever gone to university and may be still in the jungle, while 12% of the population (Tamils) enjoyed first-rate secondary schools. However, Mr Bandaranayake’s action made Tamil political parties king makers in Sri Lanka. The way Sri Lankans voted made it impossible for one party to form a government. All parties had to go behind Tamil parties to form a government. Every time Tamil parties joined the government their demand for a separate state grew little by little. Sinhalese leaders made use of this to hoodwink Sinhalese people in order to come to power, and Tamil leaders use this to mislead Tamil youth for their political advantage.

Another bad practice started by the successive government was to appoint friends, supporters and relatives to government positions and jobs. I can remember early days when there were competitive exams to select people for the clerical and other public services jobs. Suddenly the government started a chit system, which continues even today. Sinhalese Ministers and Members of Parliament started giving jobs to their supporters and Tamil and Muslim ministers follow the same practice. This created a real unrest especially among university graduates and other educated youth of all nationalities. Youths including myself were taken for a ride by the socialists in the country who taught us more destruction through revolution than the development of Sri Lanka. For example, had Sri Lanka started many private medical, engineering and other universities and technical colleges, probably there would be no requirement of standardisation of university admissions, which Tamil leaders alleged affected Tamil youths very badly. Further, today Sri Lanka could save millions of dollars our children spend to go to study even in so called socialist countries like USSR and CHINA. Our socialist leaders still object to start private universities. It was only when I migrated to Australia that I realised that better socialism exists in capitalist countries.

Mr Bandaranayake, Mr JR Jayawardena, the last king of Sri Lanka and many Tamil politicians elected in Sinhalese dominated areas are good examples that Sinhalese people have no problem in selecting descendants of other nationalities who integrated with Sinhalese as their leaders. I have no doubt that had the LTTE spared Mr Kadirgamar’s life, Sinhalese people would have selected him as their leader. He surely won my heart and vote.

Even though Tamil extremists go around the world singing the discrimination song today and try to justify their terrorism, Tamils who comprise 12% of the population of Sri Lanka still enjoy a disproportionate percentage of educational, employment, and business advantage. If any one can give me statistics of another country in the world where a minority has more privileges than the majority, as Tamils do in Sri Lanka, I shall be grateful to them. I do not think the majority of Sinhalese people have a problem with that, as long as Tamil people join hands with the other nationalities and develop Sri Lanka.

Towards the late 1970s, Tamil nationalist extremist leaders were misleading Tamil youth to take up arms against the government. During 1976, by the Vadugoda resolution (Vadugoda became Vadukkodai in the same way Weligama became Welikamam) racist extremist Tamils decided to make their claim for an independent homeland. Tamils used unauthenticated Cleghorn notes, which say Tamils occupied the land from Walawe river in the south east to Chilaw, to support this claim.

TULF went to the 1977 general election asking for a mandate for a separate Tamil state but they polled only 47% (Source: Election Department) of the votes, although TULF won 18 seats. That means in the north of Sri Lanka TULF did not get a simple majority to ask for a separate state.

After the 1977 election there were no fair elections in the North. In 1977 there was a UNP government under Mr JR Jayawardena, and he became the President of Sri Lanka. Mr Jayawardena and his UNP party started antagonising the Indian ruling party on many occasions.

Indian Connection

In the late 1970s Mrs Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister of India and India was becoming a regional power in the Indian Ocean with the USSR. India also started building a big Submarine base in Vaisakpatnam from where USSR nuclear submarines could operate in the Indian Ocean.On the other hand the only way to stop any country becoming a regional power is to break that country into pieces. India had a lot of breakaway struggles in the north, allegedly supported by Pakistan with the knowledge and assistance of US intelligence. But there was no breakaway struggle in the South India.

The 1977 government of Mr JR Jayawardena in Sri Lanka allowed a Voice of America transmission station in Puttalam, and was negotiating with the US 7th fleet contractor to hand over Trincomalee oil tank farm which would have increased US navy traffic to the east coast of Sri Lanka. This would allow the US Navy to monitor very closely movements of nuclear submarines other naval ships belonging to USSR operating in the Indian Ocean.Therefore Mrs Indira Gandhi approved RAW to fund training in India and supply arms to small Tamil nationalist extremist groups like PLOTE, LTTE, TELO, EPRLF, EROSE etc to wage war by proxy against the government of Sri Lanka purely to de-stabilise the JR Jayawardnae’s government.

Indian intelligence RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) suspected that the US was trying to establish a high tech spy station in the guise of Voice of America transmitting station in Sri Lanka. Later there was a suspicion that the US was also funding LTTE leader Prabhakaran to start a Tamil nationalist struggle to establish a Tamil homeland, originally in Sri Lanka, with the ultimate goal of breaking South India from India to weaken India, on the pretext of making an Independent Tamil homeland for 50 million South Indian Tamils who do not have a country of their own. Then the RAW modified its objectives of proxy war with an additional objective to destroy LTTE leader Prabhakaran who was trying to establish a Tamil homeland in South India.Unfortunately ill-equipped Sri Lanka Army and Navy were fighting with terrorists trained, armed and financed by the two superpowers. Sikh extremists assassinated Mrs Indira Gandhi. When her son Rajiv Gandhi came to power he agreed to send Indian troops to Sri Lanka to end terrorism in Sri Lanka but he wanted Trincomalee oil tank farm to be given to an Indian company and RAW to be allowed to examine all equipment that will be installed in Voice of America transmitting station. Unfortunately LTTE members infiltrated as TELO, PLOTE, EROSE members and made it very difficult for the Indian Army to eradicate terrorism in Sri Lanka, instead they got the Indian Army to chase out a lot of Sinhalese who lived in the north and east.

Then it is alleged that US Intelligence, once again with the assistance of President Premadasa, provided the LTTE with massive stocks of arms and ammunition to hit back at the Indian Army. The LTTE uses this supply still to hit at Sri Lankan armed forces and civilians using suicide bombers. Although I do not have any evidence of US involvement, this is my analysis from information I gathered mostly from my Tamil informants. We know for a fact that RAW of Indian defence trained and armed Tamil terrorist groups in Sri Lanka though they deny it. We know now that Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had given orders to IPKF to kill Prabhakaran and destroy the LTTE. We now know that Trincomalee oil tank farm was given to an Indian company. We know now that Premadasa provided arms and ammo to LTTE to fight IPKF. We also know that LTTE assassinated Rajeeve Gandhi and Premadasa. I leave the rest to US intelligence to deny.

There is no communal problem initiated by the Sinhalese. All communal problems were initiated by extremist Tamils starting from 1939. Unfortunately, there were very bad reactions by hooligans to these communal problems initiated by extremist Tamils. Some Sinhalese leaders misled Sinhalese people to react in a bad way to innocent Tamil people. In 1983, LTTE murdered 13 Army personnel in Jaffna. When their bodies were brought to the homes of the soldiers a lot of gossip spread that Tamils are attacking Sinhalese people in the north.
Unfortunately hooligans in the south started attacking innocent Tamils and looting from businesses belonging to Tamils and also other nationalities. In the north and east Sinhalese were attacked by Tamils and their businesses were looted. This is what Mr Thondaman said about the 1983 communal problem in the Parliament:

“There are many people who claim that these disturbances are a further manifestation of the Sinhala uprising against the Tamil people. But I do not share that view. The vast majority of the Sinhala people condemn these atrocities on these innocent Tamil people and have shown sympathy and understanding. Many have been brave and given shelter in their own homes in spite of intimidation and threats. In those circumstances, to say this is an uprising against the Tamils is absurd.”

On the other hand I was present myself in Jaffna during communal problems. I have not met any Tamil leader in Jaffna who came to help poor Sinhalese who were attacked and chased out of Jaffna. Sinhalese helped all the Tamils to return back to the Sinhalese areas and live happily. Some made use of this opportunity for economic migration to developing countries. No Tamil or Tamil leader wanted to help the Sinhalese or Muslims who were chased from the North to come back and start their businesses again in the north. Historically I have proved that it was their homeland long before Tamils arrived.

My experiences

I want to write a few of my experiences in the navy relevant to the current problem in Sri Lanka and why actions of UNP leaders allowed it to become a problem beyond control, allegedly supported by two super powers namely India and the US.

In the navy there were two Tamils among 16 of us, who did the Sub Lieutenants course in India in 1971 and 1972 with me. Both are very good friends of mine. One was a direct entry officer who joined with me and was my roommate during training and who later became an Admiral. I was made to understand that he stills works for the Government after retiring from the navy. The other always complained about discrimination. Even when he got a slightly older jeep for his travelling he complained that it was because he was a Tamil. I am sure had he remained in the Navy he would have reached the rank of Admiral. But he later ran away to Canada. I have served under a number of Tamil navy officers and at no stage did I get any advantage over a Tamil officer by being a Sinhalese.

In the Navy, being a Sinhalese I did not get any special privileges or promotions over the Tamils. There were a lot of Tamil officers and sailors in the navy. Although I have seen preferential treatment to favourite officers from senior officers irrespective of race, I haven’t seen any Sinhalese officer getting preferential treatment over their Tamil counterparts certainly I did not get any.

During the 1960s and early 1970s, the Navy was completely neglected by successive governments. No recruitments were done for about 10 years. No Patrol crafts were purchased. Therefore during late 1970s, apprehensions of smugglers, illicit immigrants etc between India and Sri Lanka were reduced to a great extent. In 1977 I analysed and wrote a paper to the Navy command that this was directly due to reduction of sea hours by patrol boats between India and Sri Lanka to about 40% compared to sea hours in early 1970. Only six cheveton class Patrol boats purchased were not sufficient to supplement frequent breakdowns of old thonycroft fleet. Repeated requests by northern command to purchase boats were ignored by Navy high command and UNP government in power. Trial to build boats in Colombo Dockyard Limited took its time to produce acceptable craft, but by the time these crafts were deployed smugglers had more advanced faster crafts.

During 1977 communal problems, I was coordinating providing of boats for the disembarkation operation of all the Tamils from Colombo transferred in Shipping Corporation ships to KKS harbour. Many Tamils lost their jewellery during the voyage from Colombo to Jaffna. We were fortunate to recover every piece of jewellery lost when every one disembarked. There was one point of disembarking, therefore it was very easy to search and recover and stolen items. The jewellery was robbed by Tamils who took passage in the ships. As all the jewellery was recovered, Mr Amirthalingam and TULF members who were personally present there did not want us to hand over the culprits to the Police to charge the culprits. In Mr Amirthalingam’s words he said that they have suffered enough. But I am sure the story would have been different if the jewellery was robbed by Sinhalese people. Probably it would be headline news in all developed countries, Amnesty International and Red Cross. For a few years I used to get Christmas and New Year cards from the Tamils who lost jewellery in this voyage to Karainagar navy camp, which I have shown to a few navy people.

It was very hard to convince the Navy command and the UNP government of the importance of having an effective naval blockade between India and Sri Lanka. However, when the naval command realised necessity for this requirement in 1984, the naval command and UNP government came up with this funny mothership daughter craft concept to accommodate the purchase of 3 container cargo ships MV Fransisca, MV Carenia and MV Delicia laid up in Trincomalee harbour. Unfortunately I was one of the first commanding officers appointed when these ships were commissioned as surveillance command ships. It took me around 55 hours to bring these ships from Trincomalee to Colombo for refitting accommodation for around extra 50 sailors who were going to man the daughter crafts these ships were going to carry. The concept was to use the 40 ton crane in the ship to unload the daughter crafts when a terrorist boat was sighted so that the daughter craft can chase and apprehend the terrorist boat.

Then National Security Minister Mr Lalith Athulathmudali and Admiral HA Silva who decided to purchase the 3 container ships came on board my ship SLNS Wickrama with a TV crew from Rupavahini to show this concept to poor Sri Lankans. Only then did the navy high command and Mr Athulathmudali realise that a 40 ton crane can only be used in calm waters inside the harbour, it stops working out at sea when the ship rolls and pitches as a safety precaution. The crane stoped working when we tried to unload a boat outside the harbour due to roll and pitch and the boat got almost crushed banging on the ships hull. But to hoodwink the people of Sri Lanka, a lifeboat of the ship was lowered inside the harbour and shown in the Rupavahini (around March / April 1984) that fast boats were purchased to apprehend terrorists. Believe me, the speed of that fast boat shown in the TV was less than 5 nautical miles per hour.Mr Jeff Long, Engineering Superintendent of Sea Containers London Limited, who hosted all navy officers for a dinner at Hotel Oberoi when the ships were handed over, told us that a 0.5 million US dollar commission was paid to sell the 3 container ships to Sri Lanka. I wrote to then President Mr JR Jayawardena about this and he wrote back to me informing that the matter was referred to Ministry of Defence for further inquiry, though I did not hear about any more Inquiries.

Then the navy purchased 3 more Kota class scrap ships from Singapore for this mother ship daughter craft concept. These six ships became navigational marks for terrorist groups going to India for training and escaping after attacks in Sri Lanka. They also created a massive human resources problem for Sri Lanka Navy. I have written to the commander of the navy that the efficiency or the KPIs of the surveillance zone in 1984 and 1985 was less than 5%. This efficiency was calculated by finding out the percentage of terrorist boats apprehended and destroyed by sighted terrorist boats taken from situation reports from all units in the surveillance zone.To apprehend terrorists crossing between Sri Lanka and India as we were trying to do, by deploying 12 boats and ships stationed in the northern surveillance zone, was very similar to placing 12 police cars stationed between Colombo and Galle and trying to catch dogs crossing as the distance between Talaimannar to Point Pedro is similar. Of course this could have been done if we had state of the art detection capabilities and destruction capabilities.In 1985 I personally told Mr Ranil Wickramasinghe on one occasion out of three occasions I met him to beg a school for my son before I took him to supreme court for violation of my son’s fundamental human rights by not giving him a government school, that the Indian Army trains the terrorists and if the governments does not give the navy adequate crafts to stop terrorist traffic between the two countries, Sri Lanka will have a lot of problems from terrorists. He laughed at me. I passed this information to Mr Lalith Athulathmudali and also wrote to President JR Jayawardena.After leaving the navy I tried to publish these facts in newspapers but only Ravaya newspaper on 25th August 1991 published my discussion on how we could create an effective naval blockade to prevent gun running by terrorists. Had the UNP listened and acted on my advice we would not have this problem today. Therefore before Mr Ranil Wickramasinghe starts calling Mr Gotabhaya Rajapakse or anyone else a traitor he should go before a mirror to see the biggest traitor of Mother Lanka ever produced. Further, only a traitor would sign a cease fire agreement with a terrorist group fighting against a democratically elected government and give world wide recognition.Unfortunately the UNP government, which was in power, was only interested in making money out of defence procurements as I mentioned earlier. UNP government’s failure to provide equipment capable of stopping terrorist traffic between India and Sri Lanka, to prevent terrorists being trained and armed by RAW of Indian defence on instructions by then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, created this unresolvable problem in Sri Lanka.Now I want write about my experience of political victimisation in Sri Lanka. I had to take Mr Ranil Wickramasinghe, the present leader of the Opposition (then minister of education) to Supreme Court for violation of my son’s fundamental human rights by failing to offer him a school to study in 1985. At that time I was the Commanding Officer of SLNS Jayasagara, which was deployed in the North Surveillance Zone as a task group commander. The very next day after filing the case, the Defence Ministry sent me on compulsory leave (probably on Mr Ranil Wickramsinghe’s instructions). My navy identity card was taken and I was thrown out of the navy camp. I had to catch a fish lorry to come to Colombo. I had to run away from Sri Lanka to protect my family from thuggery and intimidations my family had to face with Mr Wickramasinghe’s circle of thugs (with his knowledge or not) even after withdrawing the case. Somebody almost kidnapped my son from the school. I was compelled to retire from the Navy. I was found fit for senior appointments before the case, but after the case it was a different story. I was not given CDC, which was a requirement to find a job in the Merchant Navy. I was not given the medal given to people who worked in the Surveillance Zone though I was the first Commanding officer SLNS Wickrama started the surveillance zone. My request to grant my pension as I was politically victimised was turned down by the Ministry of Defence. We were not allowed to live peacefully in Sri Lanka by Mr Ranil Wickramasinghe’s circle of thugs (with his knowledge or not) because I produced to the Supreme Court an admission of a child of a relative of this thug from Kiribathgoda to support my case. I was not paid my legitimate reward money for apprehensions done in the north. My request to Admiral Ananda Silva to include my name for an apprehension done in the surveillance zone was refused. I had to transfer everything I had to my wife as I was told by Admiral Ananda Silva that he is going to recover nearly Rs 400,000.00 reward money already paid to me for the apprehensions done in the north. Mr Nimal Siripala de Silva was the lawyer who wrote the transfer deed.I am grateful to the Australian government for allowing my family to migrate to Australia. I had to study again for a new profession start my career all over again in Australia.

My understanding of Tamil aspirationsTherefore my understanding of aspirations of racist extremist Tamils (not all the Tamils) are as follows. If they think I am wrong I would like them to correct me with evidence it is not so.1. Tamil Extremist Leaders want exclusive right to North and East of Sri Lanka and only Tamils should live there.2. Tamils should have the right to work in all other parts of Sri Lanka. But they do not want any one else to come to the North and East to work or do business. LTTE has achieved this in the North. Probably would have achieved this in the East had the government failed to take control of the East.3. Tamil Extremist Leaders want the right to wage a war against the government of Sri Lanka and destroy everything, but they also want the Sri Lanka government to provide all facilities, pay wages to government servants and spend money to reconstruct what they destroy.4. Tamil Extremist Leaders want Tamils to study in all universities in Sri Lanka but do not want any Sinhalese student to study in Jaffna University. The last Sinhalese student is still in a wheel chair after being attacked.5. Tamil Extremist Leaders wants Tamil doctors, engineers and other professionals to pass out from university to work in all parts of Sri Lanka where Sinhalese (74% of the population of Sri Lanka) live but do not want to learn the Sinhalese language to work there. They want 74% population of Sri Lanka to learn Tamil for them to work.6. When these professionals get experience they should have the right to migrate to affluent western countries and say loud and clear that they are discriminated against by the majority Sinhalese. Even Tamils who reach the level of Attorney General or ambassadors do that.

My appeal to TamilsAt no stage I am trying to say that Tamils did not live in Sri Lanka in the past. All I am saying is that according to the available historical evidence there was no Independent Tamil Kingdom in north or east of Sri Lanka. Majority of the Tamils migrated from South India and integrated with the Sinhalese like Mr Bandaranayake’s great grandfather. Our Royal families also got married to Tamil royalty. Even our last king was a Tamil. Therefore I want to appeal to all the Tamils to read following history books written by Portuguese, Dutch, English and Tamil Historians so that you will know that Sinhalese and Tamils lived in the north under the Sinhalese Emperor of Sri Lanka (and on a few occasions a Tamil Emperor like Elara who invaded Sri Lanka). There were occasions that chieftains or vanniyars in Jaffna disobeyed the Emperor and tried to take control. Sunkilli was one such vanniyar.1. “A true and Exact description of great island Ceylon” by the Dutch priest Baldaeus in 1672.2. Fatal History of Portuguese in Ceylon” by George Davison Winius3. 'The Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of Ceylon' by Father Fernao de Queyroz4. 'An Historical Relation of Ceylon' by Robert Knox5. 'An Account of the Island of Ceylon' (1805) by Captain Robert Percival6. “Ancient Jaffna” by C. Rasanayagam7. “Laws of Ceylon” by K. Balasingham8."Thesis for the Ph.D.” by Dr. Karthigesu Indrapalan, submitted to the University of London in 1962 (Unpublished S.O. 15.1. 84).9. Buddhism Betrayed by D. TambiahTherefore my appeal to Extremist Tamils and migrated professionals who fund LTTE and try to destroy Sri Lanka and to all developed foreign countries including India that were taken for a ride by LTTE:1. To think about Jaffna in the 1970s and to bring that glory back to Jaffna. Please do not send your money to buy arms and ammunition but send money to start universities and technical colleges for Tamil students to qualify and have a decent life or migrate to affluent western countries if they wish, rather than spending their time in bunkers defending no brain leaders.2. Not to create more and more angry generations of Tamil and Sinhalese by writing fiction about history without any historical evidence but to educate them about peaceful coexistence.3. To start integration by forcing organisations like TRO to let all Sinhalese and Muslims who lived and did business in Jaffan to come back and start their businesses in the same way that majority Sinhalese looked after Tamils and helped them to come back and start there lives in other parts of Sri Lanka.4. To understand that once the LTTE disarms, Sri Lankan forces will go back to do their normal duties such as anti smuggling and anti illicit immigrant duties in the north. As there will not be any fear among every one in Sri Lanka about suicide bombers and car bombs, all the road blocks will disappear and searches, arrest and registration of Tamils on suspicion will cease. I am sure in the 1970s we did not have these problems.5. To remind Tamils who live in Western countries and fund LTTE that they should elect a leader who will not destroy Tamils in Sri Lanka like the present Mr Prabhakaran. If these Tamils who fund LTTE want to fight for a separate state, please send their children to Sri Lanka to fight but please don’t fund to get poor Tamil children in north and east of Sri Lanka to fight and die.6. To all missionaries of all denominations to help all other poor people in Sri Lanka by providing the same facilities that they provided to Jaffna Tamils.7. To British Government to provide assistance with housing and educational facilities to the Indian Tamils they abandoned.8. To all Western developed countries to stop blood dollars flowing into hands of LTTE through accepting refugees. These governments should understand that refugee traffic could be minimised to a greater extent by controlling LTTE refugee traffic.Finally I want to appeal to Indian Tamils in Sri Lanka not to blame the Sinhalese for the problems they are facing because our British Masters abandoned them, and for them to consider class action against the British government for compensation similar to French compensation to Libya.

Source (re-produced from Sri Lanka Guardian):
Part I - URL http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2008/10/rights-to-reclaim-part-one.html
Part II - URL http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2008/10/right-to-reclaim-part-two.html
Part III - URL http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2008/10/right-to-reclaim-part-three.html
Part IV - URL http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2008/10/right-to-reclaim-part-four.html
Part V - URL http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2008/10/right-to-reclaim-part-five.html