Thoughts from London

Bala’s baloney and tales from the Wanni
Interesting fellow this Bala anna. Now he wants his Tiger fellow travellers in the name of peace to take a seaplane ride to the Maldives before heading out to Geneva.

Just because Ranil Wickremesinghe's assorted peaceniks changed the rules (and I dare say the law) and allowed Balasingham and adoring Adele to land by seaplane in the Iranamadu tank the man thinks the rules should be bent again and again.

Sitting here in London twiddling his thumbs until he starts on his next work of fiction or jawing with some visiting Norwegian bearing the monthly stocks of fish and kroner, this guy spends his hours plotting new ways to be a nuisance.

With time on his hands and nothing in his head except cunning schemes, Bala anna, the Tiger's intellectual Godzilla and doctor without a doctorate, has carefully crafted a way to make himself virtually indispensable to the Wanni wallahs.

Bala anna has made sure that those in the Wanni jungles don't know any or enough English to be of much use in the conduct of diplomatic business with all those visiting busy bodies who turn up here like obsequious white men of yore paying homage to Chinese emperors on the other side of the great wall.

Bala anna had made it known that he improved his knowledge of the white man's tongue at the British High Commission in Colombo and learnt of the art and craft of political murder from the great English Bard himself.
Known to his detractors as Anton "Stanis the Louse" Balasingham sent an unmistakable smoke signal that even the great Indian chief Geronimo could not have confused. When the clashing clans last gathered in Geneva in February to smoke the peace pipe and give Minister Bogollagama -also known as Boggy-and family a gratis holiday at the Geneva Hilton, Bala made his pitch.

It was there in the great Chateau de Bossey, where the Tigers had complained of the lack of en suite toilets like they are accustomed to in the Wanni jungles, that Bala anna sang his song of self praise (and by extension of darling Adele too) when he told the only woman in the government side to switch to the Tamil channel as though Ferial Ashraff was a woman of many tongues.

Aah, said Bala anna like a triumphant King Kong beating his hairy chest, only I know enough of the white man's tongue not to be fooled by these Colombo kanganies, while these lesser apes on my side of the table are in elementary stages of evolution and only grunt monolingually.

Now "Stanis the Louse" might have had a point there, a point he will surely make relentlessly until he is put to pasture when Velupillai P's children, now studying in Ireland and England as some Tamils claim, or Suppiah Tamil c's child enjoying the hospitality of Norwegian nannies leaves with a doctorate in democratic studies or some such subject utterly useless in the prospective Eelam.

But in the meantime Bala anna is king of languages and he likes everybody and his second cousin to know it. The trouble is that not everybody in Kilinochchi's tribal village has taken kindly to anna's cosmopolitan posturing. Another big black mark has been ticked against his name.

Last November Bala made a bad faux pas when he claimed during his Heroes Day speech in London that he alone among the LTTE delegates that participated in the peace talks in Thailand was interested in peace or the talks.

While Bala wanted to show his audience that he was the only Tamil patriot, others- apparently including Thamilselvan and Karuna- were more interested in savouring the pleasures of Thailand.

If what some Tamils here say is true, Bala anna suffers from foot in his mouth disease. Now here was the man dismissing other Tiger delegates as linguistically illiterate and a burden he must surely bear.

Word has finally got through to Bala that the knives are drawn and it might not be long before what happened to old Julius (of Caesar fame) happens to him, metaphorically speaking of course.

So what does Bala anna, the fox that has survived many an internal conflict do? He tries to endear himself once more to those he has denigrated now and then in public.

He gets hold of his old buddy Erik Solheim, Norway's Tiger collaborator never mind under what cloak he appears in public. Solheim is one of those types that Mangala Samaraweera once referred to in that colourful phrase about salmon or sardine eaters.

Here in London the two plan how to save Bala anna's skin from his own Wanni wallahs. They came up with this plan that would not only restore faith in him back in Kilinochchi but put new pressures on Mahinda Rajapaksa already dubbed in western media circles as a "hardliner" and "hawk" in cahoots with Sinhala Buddhist chauvinists.

So Bala anna tells Solheim to tell Rajapaksa that if he wants the Wanni wallahs to return to Geneva they should sally forth from the Iranamadu waters to the Maldives on their way to Cuckooland where fund raising will be more important than talking peace.

Over here people say that creating a new air passage has nothing to do with the security of Suppiah Thamilselvan and the boys. It is because Bala anna would run out of Umbalakada (Maldive fish) after the coming Sinhala/Tamil New Year what with katta sambola being consumed by the tablespoonful.

Not that Bala anna has many friends to celebrate the occasion with, say his Tamil critics. That is all rubbish of course. Just because Bala anna has now forgotten those who helped smuggle him out of Sri Lanka via Bangkok and Singapore to London and then assisted in getting him and adoring Adele passports, is no reason to knock him.

There are two reasons why they insist on the Maldives route. It puts new pressures on President Rajapaksa. If he concedes this demand it will drive another wedge between him and those who believe that he has already conceded too much to the Norwegians and LTTE.

So it puts an additional strain on attempts to reach what has been called a southern consensus. The other is very personal to the Tigers. When the Tigers returned from Geneva via Oslo they were subject to Customs examination at the airport. The Tigers did not carry too many controversial items that time because they were not certain how they would be treated under a new dispensation. Now they know they cannot bring prohibited goods or those with military use unless they have guardian angels awaiting their arrival.

Therefore they want a route that will eliminate the routine that every arriving passenger at Katunayake would be subject to, theoretically at least, allowing them to bring into the country illegally goods that should never be permitted.

If President Rajapaksa creates conditions for the Tigers that are not available to law abiding citizens of Sri Lanka he would be sending a dangerous message to the country.

Those who take up arms against the state and murderers are more equal than others and laws could be bent and rules and regulations dispensed with for their benefit.

Is that the message that Mahinda Rajapaksa wishes to broadcast to the people? Curious, is it not. Those who take on the state militarily, challenge the authority of the state and establish their own administrative organs, appeal for security from the very same state.

Who are they really afraid of? Frankly they are scared to death of other Tamils who oppose the Tiger's dictatorial ways. So much for the sole representative of the Tamil people.

Back to Columns