Thoughts from London

Such idiocies are common TNA currency

Thamilselvan arriving in Wanni, courtesy the Sri Lankan Air Force, after his visit to Geneva and Oslo last month. Pic by Ranjith Jayasundera

That's a hell of a how do you do, no. A contemporary of mine at the Peradeniya campus and an ardent Trot (that is Trotskyite to you, you ignoramus), was how he prefaced his opening remarks when agitated by local or foreign events that did not fit into veteran Samasamajist Doric de Souza's scheme of things.

A dedicated Trotskyite though he was his, my friend's signal contribution to the cause of the permanent revolution that was permanently round the corner but could never enter the home stretch, was to sell the party newspaper, the "Samasamajist", at the Kandy bus terminus whenever it hit the streets.

Though he has now passed onto the great beyond and is probably engaged in analysing with Leon (that is Trotsky) and Doric what on earth happened to that revolution, I could well imagine what he would have said had he heard the words of that parliamentarian of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) the other day.

I cannot for the love of me remember the TNA chap's name. Not that it matters because they all have the deadpan appearance of a ventriloquist's dummy, the way they keep parroting their master's voice -- you know who I mean, no.

Their contribution to the furtherance of democratic politics would certainly make their leader proud, not to mention Joe Stalin and Pol Pot had they been alive.

Anyway this TNA chap, whose name like his politics is inconsequential, took umbrage that one of the gods from his pantheon -- the LTTE's political wing leader Thamilselvan -- and a motley group of sidekicks that returned from Oslo after the Geneva talks had been subject to the normal Customs examination on their arrival at Katunayake.

According to this nondescript MP who would probably have been minding his chilli plants and onion plots had the Tigers not pushed him to the frontline as they do child soldiers, Thamilselvan and boyos should have received VIP treatment because they deserve diplomatic status.

If he is one of the TNA fellows who came to parliament a couple of months ago and made a nuisance of himself when he should really have been ejected from the chamber for behaving like cantankerous schoolchildren, he could not be entirely ignorant of developments in this country.

Still it does not seem to have penetrated the half inch of human skull that surrounds what he might be pleased to call his brain, that Ranil Baba and that millstone Moragoda are no longer in control of affairs in this country and that times have indeed changed.

Sure, there was a time when Thamilselvan and his cronies were treated like foreign diplomats and could return to the country with 30 to 35 pieces of baggage without having to go through the customary formalities of a Custom's examination.

Readers might recall the unprecedented facilities accorded to another dubious character called Anton Balasingham who was flown in by seaplane from the Maldives and landed in some man-made reservoir at Iranamadu.
Immigration officials had to be especially despatched to stamp his passport.

While Ranil Baba's administration not only bent over backwards but even paid pooja to members of a terrorist organisation as though they were visiting potentates, they eventually dismissed Wickremesinghe and his cohorts as traitors or a similar uncomplimentary appellation.

Why the Wickremesinghe administration and its Norwegian friends got into a huddle and surreptitiously provided the Wanni wallahs with communication equipment that has, according to some, being used to track down political opponents, dissidents and possibly security personnel and eliminate them in the best traditions of the mob.

It is incredible how some of those involved in this deal could still write books about their great service to the country and continue to show their face in public.

In the past returning Tiger delegations were waved through like royalty, aided and abetted by officials at the airport and even provided with passage back to the Wanni where they then sit down and plot how to shoot down the self-same helicopters and their crew.

Here we have a group that has taken up arms against the State. Some may justify such an act. Yet the fact of the matter is that the Tigers have declared the Sri Lanka state their enemy, have launched an armed struggle, wish to establish an independent Tamil Eelam which they have not renounced and killed thousands of their own people as well officers of the state, political leaders and civilians.

In fact they have loosed acts of terrorism upon the state and its people.
Now along comes some idiot from the TNA and demands the Tiger delegation be treated differently from the rest of the people of this country and be showered with respect.

The day these people could publicly swear or affirm that they have not murdered people, that their hands are not tainted with the blood of innocents from all communities in this country and that they renounce violence once and for all, perhaps they might be received with less suspicion.

The problem is that most people in this country, not to mention in several other countries, do not believe them farther than they could throw a burly Prabhakaran.

The path to peace is strewn with broken promises and statements that have later been changed or doused in ambiguity by denials and fresh interpretations.

But this is not what concerns us right now, though suspicions of LTTE conduct will forever remain to haunt efforts at peace. What does matter immediately is why the TNA expects that returning Tigers should be treated differently from any other Sri Lankan or foreigner arriving in this country.

What is it that makes them a superior breed than the average citizen of this country who has not tried to compromise its sovereignty and territorial integrity or unleashed a terror war on their fellow beings?

Is this how the Wanni is ruled? The Tiger leadership is more equal than any other person who resides behind the barbed wire curtain -- is that what is meant by the sole representative of the Tamil people?

And those backboneless parliamentarians from the TNA whose sole survival obviously depends on kowtowing to the Wanni leadership, mouths inanities in the hope of gaining some crumbs from VP's table.

Those were the days when we could meet and talk with respected and reputed politicians from the north. There was so much that one learned from them not only about northern society interwoven with deep divisions of caste, about discrimination in their own community and about Tamil aspirations.

Today we are saddled with bigots and fools whose only interest appears to be their own survival and not the furtherance of the interests of the Tamil community as a whole.

That is why even within the Tamil diaspora new voices that oppose the hegemonistic politics of the LTTE and the total subservience of the TNA are emerging and being organised as a coherent opposition to the Tigers.
Talking of bigots and fools, it seems that the South has its fair share of the same within its political establishment and among those parasites that feed on politicians.

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