By S.L. Gunasekara
IF Mahinda Rajapaksa had heeded the ‘demands’ (couched as requests) made by Moon, Clinton, Miliband and Kouchner etc and declared a ceasefire while we were on the point of victory, the terrorist Prabhakaran would still have been alive and terrorism would have thrived in the country.
IF Mahinda Rajapaksa had heeded those demands:-
i. civilians of all races, ages and genders would have continued to be dismembered by bombs and explosive devices placed in buses, trains and crowded city centres;
ii. little Tamil children resident in the North and East would have continued to be kidnapped by the Tigers for use, inter alia, as canon fodder;
iii. those Tamil and Muslim civilians resident in the North and East who displayed any kind of dissent to or in respect of the LTTE would have been continued to be murdered;
iv. the hard earned money of Tamil civilians resident in the North and East would have continued to be extorted from them by the Tigers;
v. Tamil civilians resident in the Northern and Eastern Provinces would have had no freedom of movement, of speech or any other freedom to which they and all other citizens of the Country are by law entitled;
vi. the Tamil and Muslim civilians living in areas controlled by the LTTE would have continued to be subjected to a rule more repressive than any experienced by any segment of our populace in any part of our Country at any point of time in our history;
vii. the Tamil National Alliance, and in particular its leadership, which sought and continues to seek to distance itself from the Tigers ever since their defeat, would have continued to praise the Tigers to curry favour with them and to hail them as being the sole representatives of the Tamils thereby representing to one and all that Tamils are and can only be represented by a gang of ruthless murderers and thugs.
FORTUNATELY, Mahinda Rajapaksa did not heed those unconscionable demands of the West but only the best interests of the People of this Country of all races, ages and genders. In short, he snubbed the West and their puppet Moon and continued to combat terrorism and restored peace in our land. Hence, the appointment by Moon of his panel of his own “Three Stooges”.
IF Mahinda Rajapaksa had been so stupid and/or so timorous as to heed those demands as his pusillanimous predecessors would have done, terrorism would have continued to thrive in this country and civilians as well as unarmed solders, sailors and airmen on their way home on leave and while returning from leave would have continued to be slaughtered willy nilly according to the whims and fancies of the terrorists for an open ended period, as they are being slaughtered in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gaza, Libya, Syria and Yemen which were all ‘blessed’ with the ‘bounties’ of Western interference.
Had terrorism continued to thrive in this country and civilians and unarmed soldiers, sailors and airmen continued to be slaughtered, the puppet Moon would not have appointed his panel of “Three Stooges”. The West would have been satisfied that Sri Lanka was no better than any of those countries where they had interfered resulting in endless loss.
Moon’s panel was clearly and indisputably a first step in the revenge of the West against Sri Lanka for the well deserved snub they got from Mahinda Rajapaksa as well as from the Human Rights Commission of the United Nation at a later stage. It is the revenge of the West against Sri Lanka for having been successful in ridding this country of terrorism when they have failed in every such endeavour.
It is the revenge of the West for their successive failures which were shown up by our magnificent success. It is no doubt the desire of the West to further this revenge by using some stratagem to persecute the President and the Commanders and other Senior Officers of the Armed Forces for having been successful in defeating terrorism. It is the duty of one and all to stand behind and defend those targeted by the scheming West and their puppet Moon. Let us not forget that the TNA did support the candidacy of General Sarath Fonseka for the post of President.
Despite having so extended its support to General Fonseka, in the immediate wake of the issue of the report of Moon’s “Three Stooges”, the one time lackey and stooge of the LTTE, the Tamil National Alliance lost no time in according to the report of the ‘Three Stooges’ a character certificate full and overflowing with the use of the hyperbole and the type of filthy insults to Sri Lanka that their former masters, the LTTE, were accustomed to hurling at us.
It is pertinent at this stage to delve, albeit briefly, into the history of the TNA, when assessing the value of those accolades. While the LTTE kept kidnapping Tamil children, extorting the hard earned money of Tamil civilians and committing theft and burglary of food, drugs and medicines sent by the government for the civilians of the Northern and Eastern Provinces, the TNA breathed not one word against them or on behalf of the affected Tamil civilians. They only attacked the government for fighting those oppressors of the Tamil civilians, while protecting and praising the Tigers who oppressed those civilians and robbed them of what was being sent for them.
When the Tigers murdered members of other Tamil groups such as the EPDP and the EPRLF in cold blood, the TNA sought to justify those murders. They never breathed a whimper of protest when the Tigers suppressed all the democratic rights of the Tamil people living under their thrall and even refused to permit the veteran Tamil politician V Anandasangary to cast his vote.
The TNA though posing and claiming to be the elected representatives of the Tamil civilians in parliament, were in fact only the representatives of the Tiger terrorists who oppressed the Tamil civilians and not of those civilians. In short, they represented the oppressors of the Tamils and not the oppressed.
The TNA was well “rewarded” for their treachery. Many of them became quite at home in foreign capitals wherein they got free board and lodging in return for defaming Sri Lanka in foreign climes. Indeed, there was a time when more Members of Parliament of the TNA were out of the country than in.
Despite many of their leaders including A. Amirthalingam, Neelan Thiruchelvam and A Thangadorai having been murdered in cold blood by the Tigers, they never ever had a single commemorative meeting for any of those past leaders or even mentioned their names in any connection. While those leaders were alive they fawned on them and tried to get what they could out of them.
Getting a “character certificate” from the TNA can only be a likened unto a person applying for a job armed with a character certificate from the synthetic ‘doctor’ Mervin Silva – for such a certificate would only damn the bearer thereof irretrievably rather than enhance his chances of acceptance. There can be no doubt that if there be any person whomsoever who was so obtuse as to think that there was some modicum of substance, bona fides or merit in the report of “Three Stooges”, he would have had his mind completely disabused of such a fantasy upon reading the character certificate given to that report by the vermin called the TNA.
For that much we must thank the TNA. But at the same time, the character certificate given by the TNA to the rantings of Moon’s “Three Stooges” places beyond all manner of doubt the fact that they are not for this Country but against this Country as they have been all these years. This raises the question why does the government continue to engage with them and have discussions with them ???
The TNA and its leaders in particular, should be ostracised not only by the leaders of the country and by all political forces in it but by all civilians as well. – for they never ever had the interests of the Tamil, Sinhala or Muslim people at heart. All they wanted was to feather their own nests as they have done in the past, and to gain political power for the sake of enjoying the perceived fruits of that power. Let the government and political parties even at this stage take heed of this fact and avoid the TNA like the plague in all matters.
Proceeding from that garbage dump to another, let us now consider for a moment the validity of report of the three stooges. I will content myself in this instance with two matters. Firstly we must remember that Ban Ki-moon had and has no authority whatsoever over Sri Lanka which is governed by those elected by the people of this Country to do so. Ban Ki-moon is not a member of that government. He is simply a foreigner who holds a big job temporarily in an international organisation. He had no power or authority whatsoever to appoint his stooges to inquire into any matter pertaining to Sri Lanka.
The so called “war” with the LTTE” was in fact an operation by which the government sought, successfully, as was its duty, to suppress and overcome a gang of underworld criminals called the Tigers. It was a ‘crime busting’ operation to save the lives of civilians now living and to be born in future. That was entirely an internal matter. It was not a matter for Moon, for Miliband, for Kouchener, for Clinton, for Cameron, for Carl Bildt, for Obama, for Sarkozy or any other person/persons whomsoever. It was solely a matter for us. Hence, Moon, who never thought of appointing any panel whatsoever to inquire into the horrendous breaches of all kinds of humanitarian laws by the United States of America at, inter alia, Guantanamo Bay, had not the remotest semblance of a fraction of a right to appoint any body to inquire into our affairs which are our business and ours alone.
The appointing authority of these “Three Stooges” having been without power to appoint such a panel, the panel itself was wholly illegitimate and nothing whatsoever can in law flow from the purported findings of those “Three Stooges”.
The second factor of importance is that while there is peace in Sri Lanka which snubbed the West, there are daily terrorist bombings and other murders of civilians in those countries where the West did actually interfere, such as Iraq, Afganistan, Gaza, Syria, Yemen and Libya.
Had we been unsuccessful, nobody would have cared, but since we were successful they who have suffered failure upon failure are jealous and want their revenge. Hence, the panel of “Three Stooges” and their report.
The report of the “Three Stooges” have made manifest the fact that we are today faced with hostile foreign foes from the West. The TNA has characteristically thrown in its lot with those foreign foes. It behooves the rest of the populace of this Country to unite as we have never been united before to defeat the intentions of those foes. It behooves all political parties and civilians to forget our differences and throw in their weight behind the Government.
The Government including Mahinda Rajapaksa is by no means perfect – no, not by a `long shot’. The faults of our leader Mahinda Rajapakse and his Government are legion, and would take too long to catalogue. However, those are as nothing compared to the dangers faced by us from foreign interference. To combat that we must be together and speak with one voice and one alone, condemning out of hand the interference of foreigners in our internal affairs and their impertinence in getting Moon’s “Three Stooges” to submit their purported report.
TC