Good morning. Sri Lanka Air Force base sir. Duty officer speaking, the officer at an air force base somewhere in the north said automatically after picking up the insistently ringing phone, on what he thought was a routine call one day last week.

Suddenly, he stiffened. At the other end of the line was a senior army officer, asking urgently whether the air force had any helicopter gunships airborne over the Operation Jaya Sikuru area. Troops and officers had just spotted such an aircraft.

The air force officer barked out a terse order to the men sitting at maps around a table in the room, asking the question, whether any SLAF choppers were in the air. ``Negative, sir," came the response.

Quickly, urgent calls were put through to Palaly, China Bay, Hingurakgoda, Ratmalana and Katunayake to find out whether any unscheduled flights were in the air. ``Negative," came the reply. The helicopter was definitely not one belonging to the Sri Lanka Air Force.

The duty officer called the base commander, who quickly informed air force headquarters that the army had spotted an unidentified aircraft. A Y-12 reconnaissance plane on patrol off the Mullaittivu coast was called up and ordered to enter the area and find the intruder.

These SLAF machines make things easy for the troops

An urgent radio message then went out to the Indian Air Force's main base in Southern India, to find out whether any of their aircraft had strayed into Sri Lankan airspace. ``Negative," came the reply, ``All our aircraft are accounted for." But by the time the Y-12 plane reached the area, the strange helicopter had vanished, flying over LTTE territory. More SLAF aircraft joined the hunt, including MI-24 helicopter gunships, pilots and gunners looking earthward for any sign of a parked helicopter. If they spotted anything, they were prepared to rake the area with rockets and destroy the intruder.

Meanwhile, a pair of Kfir jet interceptors was on standby at Katunayake, waiting for the order to take off and bomb the chopper. If it was in the air, their powerful cannons would hack it from the sky. Orders went out from the new Joint Operations Command for all army camps and navy bases and ships to watch out for the helicopter, and sentries as far away as Mannar and sailors on gunboats off Mullaittivu strained their eyes at the sky.

On the Indian side, the Indian Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard watched, in case the aircraft tried to sneak through to India. But the helicopter was gone. Search as they did, nothing was found. Days after the incident, Sri Lanka's armed forces are still unsure where the helicopter is. That there was a helicopter flying over the northern battlefield is not in doubt. Dozens of soldiers, including officers, saw it and reported it, flying fast and low over the jungles.

What is also not in doubt is that it was definitely not an air force aircraft. The SLAF keeps strict records of where their aircraft are at all times, and while a few harebrained pilots have been known to go joyriding to land at their parents houses and show off in other parts of the country, none have been caught doing anything silly over the northeast.

The Indian Air Force and Coast Guard are also emphatic in their answer that none of their aircraft strayed, and there is no reason to believe otherwise, given the close co-operation between the two countries in recent times.

The pity is that the chopper flew so fast that none of the troops could identify it for certain, apart from being able to say from the engine noise that it was a large helicopter, such as the MI-24 gunships or the MI-17V transports. What many senior officers in the armed forces now fear is what this column wrote about a year and a half ago: that an SLAF MI-24 which went missing over the sea near Mullaittivu on March 19, 1997, fell into the hands of the LTTE. That helicopter, piloted by three Ukrainians, was on a routine run from Palaly to Hingurakgoda, and was taking a circuitous route over the northeast coast in order to avoid contact with the LTTE.

On board as passengers were five other SLAF personnel, who were hitching a ride. The aircraft disappeared without a trace, and no wreckage was ever found. However, three days later, the decomposed bodies of three men, dressed in SLAF uniforms, were found by Indian fishermen, presumably having drifted close to India with the ocean currents. They were too decomposed to identify. The air force closed the matter there, believing that the chopper had crashed. However, the distinct possibility remained that it could have fallen into Tiger hands.

Bearing in mind the fact that the Ukrainians were mercenaries who were flying only for money, it is quite possible that they hijacked the chopper and landed it in LTTE territory. Camouflage nets would have concealed it from any search. The government was well aware of the possibility of LTTE attacks from the sky, and an elaborate system of anti-aircraft guns and other defenses was put in place around key locations in Colombo, including parliament. Anti-aircraft guns were well evident at many ceremonies, which President Chandrika Kumaratunga attended.

The arsenal of cannons, machine guns and rockets, which the MI-24 carries, is among the most devastating on attack helicopters anywhere in the world. This, together with its armor plating, earned it the name ``the flying tank, from the west. For more than a decade, it was the mainstay of the Warsaw Pact air forces' ground support craft. Only the U.S. Air Force's Apache helicopter can match it.

When the chopper was spotted over the north, it did not attack army troops, or behave in any aggressive fashion. If it is indeed an LTTE machine, either the missing MI-24 or some other aircraft, which the Tigers have got, then it was probably doing a test run when it was spotted. Will it ever fly again? What will its target be? Where will it be sighted next? Or, as in the case of the mystery light plane, which was sighted in 1996 over the same area, will it disappear without any trace, leaving everyone scratching their heads? That the LTTE has tried for years to get a plane or helicopter airborne is not in dispute.

An airfield was built near Iranamadu, and has been bombed several times in the last eight years by the air force. The pattern has been that the Tigers suddenly repair it, it is spotted from the air, and bombed again. In addition, among the LTTE camps captured in the Jaffna Peninsula in 1995 was an elaborate aircraft engineering training workshop, showing that the Tigers were in an advanced stage of learning to fly.

President Kumaratunga who shared a table with Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela during her recent visit seems to have had quite a successful trip. She has regaled the international press which is very well disposed towards her about the recent past history of Sri Lanka. The familiar refrain about how the government offered concrete proposals on resolving the crisis several times to the LTTE and how that organisation rejected them outright has been heard again too. Although the gist of what Kumaratunga said is substantially true it also has shades of confused ambiguity about it.

For instance there is nothing on record to show that the government had really offered concrete proposals again and again to the LTTE during negotiations. At least not in any news report about the talks between the government and the LTTE during the period Jan. 8th 1995 to April 19th, 95. The thrust of those talks catered primarily to the LTTE agenda of resolving immediate problems as a prerequisite to fundamental problems. The immediate problems according to the LTTE were four. Removing the embargo, relaxing the fishing ban, shutting down the Pooneryn camp, allowing LTTE cadres in the east to carry arms, etc. were the four bans.

Of these the government agreed to remove the embargo on almost all goods except a dozen or so. The fishing ban was relaxed greatly except for the waters in close proximity to military and naval installations. The Pooneryn camp’s forward defence lines were to be reduced greatly. The question of Eastern cadres being allowed to bear arms was to be reviewed in three months. The situation on Pooneryn and the fishing ban too were to be reviewed in three months.

It was at this stage that the LTTE went ahead and broke the cessation of hostilities agreement without giving adequate notice. Although the LTTE had been threatening to adhere to its original warning of being compelled to break the ceasefire, unofficial emissaries had indicated to the government that the Tigers would not do so. The so-called LTTE political adviser Anton Balasingham had apparently told some of these unofficial emissaries that if the embargo and fishing ban were lifted the LTTE would be able to overlook the other two for a while, while negotiations could continue. Kumaratunga’s last missive to Prabakharan was drafted in accordance with this situation. But Prabakharan proved once again that it is he and he alone who calls the shots by acting in a manner totally different to that of what Balasingham indicated. The war began again in earnest.

It is true that the PA govenrment had by that time become disappointed at the LTTE attitude and was pressing for the talks to change focus. It wanted the Tigers to enter negotiations on fundamental problems and not concentrate on immediate problems alone. But before this course of action could be pursued meaningfully talks broke down. So from all available public reports there is no indication of the government putting forward a devolution package to the LTTE during the talks as such. In fact there is every reason to believe that a comprehensive package of proposals would not have been submitted to the LTTE as it would have been akin to presenting it with a “fait accompli”. The approach at that time was to formulate one through consultative negotiations with the LTTE. Therefore it does seem improbable that such sets of proposals could have been put forward during the official talks.

It was nearly four months after the war broke out on Aug. 3rd, 1995 that the government released its list of proposals. Again it was made public but not sent officially to the LTTE which was then in control of the greater part of Jaffna peninsula. If the LTTE had any political savvy it should have stayed put as the government had not sent it directly to them. If it had announced that it was not in a position to comment on the proposals as it had no opportunity to peruse them as yet. This would have resulted in a lot of pressure being exerted on the PA government to submit the proposals for LTTE consideration. But the LTTE which thought it was invincible at that stage indulged in a stunt that was politically an unmitigated disaster.

The LTTE called a press conference of its own volition in Jaffna. There it announced very clearly that it was rejecting the government proposals. Even a tyro in statecraft would have been appalled at such a monumental lack of political acumen. By announcing its unilateral rejection of a devolution package that was yet to be submitted to it the LTTE in one single act provided Kumaratunga with a political bonanza. Thereafter the government was able to project easily to the world that the LTTE had rejected the peace package and that continuing the war was inevitable. Kumaratunga herself was able to promote her international image greatly because of the LTTE action.

In that context it is certainly puzzling that Kumaratunga should consistently proclaim in international fora that the Tigers had rejected her comprehensive proposals when the perceived reality is that the LTTE was never formally presented any devolution package. It is also interesting to note that these statements are made only to ill-informed foreign journalists or friendly Indian and Sri Lankan journalists. If these claims were made at conference where informed and intrepid journalists were present it is certain that they would not have gone unchallenged.

The only other probability is that these proposals were presented to the LTTE in secrecy. If that is correct it is for the government to reveal any possible behind the scene happenings. Earlier in Feb this year the “Time” quoted Kumaratunga as having said that she had offered at one stage ten years of uninterrupted rule of the northern province. Despite a controversy she is yet to explain and clarify what exactly she was planning to offer Prabakharan and the modalaties involved. Likewise she is also duty bound to illuminate the public about what she meant when she said recently that the LTTE had spurned her earlier initiatives for peace. Did Kumaratunga directly submit comprehensive proposals to the LTTE overtly or covertly and if so what was the LTTE response? This is the crore rupee question.

But what seems to be happening now is that Kumaratunga is continuously blaming the LTTE and claiming that the Tigers rejected her proposals. It looks like that these views are unquestionably accepted only by the international media.

Although the LTTE is certainly to blame for the undermining of the devolution process the blame cannot be solely laid at its doorstep for the current impasse. Kumaratunga may have credibility internationally but that commodity is certainly depleted nationally when it comes to issues like this.

There is no denying the fact that the LTTE by commencing war and rejecting the proposals upset the climate of peace and reconciliation. Also the chief opposition party the UNP by not co-operating with the government in supporting its proposals is also hindering the ushering in of peace. At the same time it must be accepted that the Kumaratunga regime also has to bear some share of responsibility for the current impasse. The twin factors contributing to the current crisis of consensus are the unwillingness of the government and LTTE to suspend war and enter talks on the one hand and the inability of the major Sinhala parties the PA and UNP to achieve a bipartisan consensus on a settlement to the ethnic question.

With the wisdom of hindsight it can be said now that the peace constituency and attended lobby abandoned its enterprise in effective terms after Kumaratunga came to power. The peaceniks abdicated their role to Kumaratunga who in turn transformed the momentum for peace into her partisan political project. Once the large goal of a peaceful settlement was narrowed down into a partisan political goal the inevitable bane of political upmanship set in. Thereafter it was a case of one party trying to make political capital out of the issue while the other tries to undermine or thwart the efforts of the other. The casualty in this is the unfortunate peace process and the victims the innocent people.

If the PA is really sincere and does not care about political gain then it can even start implementing meaningfully the laws introduced by its predecessor in power the UNP. It can remove the concurrent list of powers within the provincial councils and get them working. It could set up an interim administration in the North - East and begin development schemes. Also it is absolutely inexplieable as to why Tamil is not being implemented as an official language. For all these things it does not need the elusive two - thirds majority in Parliament. But the trouble is the successful working of 13th amendment provisions is anathema to the PA because it fears the UNP will then gain political credit.

On the other hand if the UNP is genuinely desirous of resolving the problem it can easily support the PA initiatives in trying to introduce greater devolution. But instead of co-operating in that, the UNP tries to project a picture that tit has a better method. In a remarkable flip flop the party which advocated asymmetrical devolution then changed its position to strengthening the centre. It also wants the government to initiate talks with the LTTE. Now if the UNP wants it can just support the devolution package, make it law and help it work. But it will not do so because it does not want the PA government to gain credit.

So the end result is an ongoing cycle of government and opposition trying to outdo or undermine each other at the expense of the Tamil problem or its peaceful resolution. Only the major Sinhala parties are now more sophisticated while the dominant political force among the Tamils, the LTTE indulges in crudely puerile politics that places it at a great disadvantage and by extension the Tamils. In the bad old days the opposition blocks the recognition of Tamil rights by raising chauvinist cries. But now in the good new days everything is different. The opposition UNP does not object to Tamil rights being granted but it stymies all efforts by saying than its own and not government proposals will give more.

The government is no better. It does not object to the 13th amendment because it is a UNP creation. No sir not at all. But as Professor Peiris says it is because the scheme is a fraudulent exercise and takes the moral high ground that the PA will not be a party to hoodwinking the Tamil people. Some times one may not be able to fault the ordinary Tamil person if he or she yearns for the time where Sinhala political parties were innately blunt honestly of adopting these sanctimonious positions that are in practical terms exemplified filibustering.

It’s no longer a case of you are giving more to the Tamils so we can’t support you but a case of we can’t support you because you are giving less to the Tamils whereas we are going to give more. To the Tamils the message is don’t go and accept the other party’s offer which is very much less than what we want to give you. While this sophisticate stonewalling goes on and on the unresolved problem goes on and on causing tremendous misery to the suffering Tamils.

The situation is something like a sick man trying to take some medicine being stopped on the grounds that this medicine is no good therefore wait for my medicine. So the waiting goes on in prolonged agony.

What neither the PA nor the UNP seem to be mindful is the fact that while they continue to display their pathetic inability to arrive at a bipartisan consensus the country burns. To the suffering people regardless of ethnicity the question is about resolving the crisis and not squabbling about who gets the credit. They are not for the Montagues or the Capulets. The rumbling cry of discontent is a plague on both your houses.

But the great obligation to resolve the problem lies on the PA. It was that party and its leader Kumaratunga who came to power on the promise of peace. It is also in power at the moment. It cannot and should not try to wash hands off the peace initiative on the grounds that the LTTE has rejected its proposals and the UNP is not co-operating. Continuing with a war that seems to have lost sight of the goal it affirmed to at the time of commencement is not a happy state of affairs. The reality is that this war is no longer war for peace. It has seemingly changed track. The peace oasis that lured people into trekking through the desert of war is now turning into a mirage. Those supporting the war for peace are painfully realising that there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

More importantly those Tamil parties and their constituencies tha supported the PA stand dangerously exposed. After four years nothing has been achieved in terms of peace or development. The Tamil people have been subjected to immense hardship on the basis that war was necessary to achieve peace. Whatever the theoretical merits of this argument practical experience has shown that this war and the trail of misery in its wake have not ushered in peace.

The PA government would have been in a position to continue regardless if not for the fact that it is seriously contemplating the holding of an early Presidential election next year. If and when that happens the government will need minority support. For that it must either show proof of its benefits or be able to convince the Tamil voter that it will definitely deliver the goods in the future at least. The PA has nothing tangible to show except the pie in the sky promise of the devolution package. But in recent times the whole devolution exercise has been put on hold while the war has been prosecuted with all the vigour that could be mustered.

So what the PA needs at this time is a cosmetic exercise to convince the Tamil voter that it still is concerned about Tamil welfare. Also if it wants to enable its allies the Tamil Parties to retain even a modicum of respect the only way is to demonstrate proof of its sincerity in resolving the problem. For that the sole option seems to be that of presenting the PA's constitutional reform proposals to parliament for a vote. It is correct that arithmetically the PA does not have the necessary two-third, majority required but it does have the strength to pass it with a simple majority. Thus the bill will not be defeated but not be entitled to become law.

This exercise however will demonstrate to the minorities that Kumaratunga is sincere and may perhaps influence voting patterns. If this is not done then there are slim chances of Kumaratunga's victory as it seems certain that few Tamils will vote for her. In a recent meeting among government and minority party leaders the common request was for the PA to place before parliament the relevant bill in all good faith. If this does not happen the PA will not be supported by minorities it was point out. What will the PA do?

The non-national forces including the western Christian powers, the NGO’s, and the Tamil racists are busy trying to promote the presidential candidate that they have picked. This means that the government from now onwards will have to fight for survival. If not for the executive presidency, by now the government would have been toppled by these forces. It is only a matter of the Tamil racist parties voting against the government in the parliament.

The LSSP, as a party is very much interested in the survival of the government, unlike Mr. Vasudeva Nanayakkara and probably a few others who would like to present a bill before the parliament to abolish the executive presidency. Mr. Nanayakkara who is more interested in showmanship knows that he would not succeed and thus could become a ‘hero’ in the eyes of some ‘leftists’ while at the same time retaining his parliamentary seat.

The LSSP, the oldest political party in the country not only wants the government to last the full term but also wants the G. L. - Neelan draft constitution to replace the JRJ constitution. They have now forgotten the Colvin R. de Silva unitary constitution and would support the idea of a Federal constitution whole-heartedly.

It appears that the LSSP can think of only one alternative. In their ‘Marxist’ wisdom they have called upon the two main ‘capitalist’ parties in the country to unite in order to solve what they would like to call the national question. Of course, they have a heap of arguments to support their ‘bid to build PA- UNP peace bridge’ as “The Sunday Island” of September 27 put it. Some can come out with the old classical theories on completing the programme of the ‘capitalist revolution’ which includes the national question while some others may resort to various post modernistic re-readings of Marxism. However, in the process they would have discarded Trotsky and his theory of permanent revolution on skipping the bourgeois revolution and the theories of uneven development in the capitalist world.

The trouble with the Marxists and most of the western sociologists including the post modernists is that they want us to adopt the theories created in the west while the west itself does not have much regard for them. There have been intellectuals in the west who were not happy with the state of affairs in their countries. Some of them have criticised their societies and have come out with remedies. Despite these criticisms and remedies presented in the form of theories the western world has carried on regardless. Eventually most of these theories find admirers in the non-western world, including Eastern Europe, and they try to implement the remedies, which in the first instance were recommended to the west.

I am of the view that these theories are created in the west for exportation to the other countries This is another form of cultural imperialism and the LSSP with all their anti imperial activities is now nothing but an indirect agent of the western Christian powers. The LSSP does what these powers want them to do either consciously or unconsciously. I would not be surprised if the LSSP request the Anglo-Saxon Christian British government to mediate or facilitate or whatever with regard to the Tamil racist problem in Sri Lanka.

The Marxists, neo Marxists and those who re-read Marx are all in the same boat now. They have no revolution to look forward to. The much-adored proletariat is not to be seen. The working class was only a figment of imagination of Marx. No body could provide a working class consciousness to this proletariat. Lukacs realised that the working class consciousness was not defined in Marxism. Lenin tried to introduce this undefined element from outside. What they did not realise was that there was no working class as a class to begin with. This elusive creature failed to materialise in the evolution of capitalism. There were ‘working class leaders’ but unfortunately they had no working class to lead. The working class was only an idealistic concept originated in the head of the ‘materialistic’ Marx.

Without a revolution round the corner the Marxists and the rest have taken up arms against nationalism.

In fact throughout, what the Marxists have done is to work against nationalism in the non-western world. This has been the so-called historical role of the Marxists. Marxism in the final analysis is a weapon created in the west to suppress nationalism in the non-western world. In Sri Lanka most of the Marxists, neo Marxists and the never ending re-readers of Marx can be found in the NGO’s funded by the western Christian countries, working against Sinhala nationalism and supporting Tamil racism.

The western Christian countries have a problem. We all know that they are not secular countries. If they are secular then Britain cannot have the present national anthem nor can they have the queen as the head of the Anglican Church. They will have to redesign their national flag; the archbishop of Canterbury will have equal status as the chief incumbent of the London Buddhist Vihara etc. If and when Mr. Charles Windsor is crowned as the next king of England and the rest of Britain and the Northern Ireland we should be able to see the Maha Sangha chanting pirith at the coronation held not in the Westminster Abbey but perhaps in a “neutral” place like the office of “The Independent” newspaper. The coronation will have to be a Sarva Agamika function where dignitaries representing all the religions practised in Britain take part.

As pointed out by Citizen - D in “The Island” of September 28, Norway has similar problems. Since they are not secular states they want some secular states somewhere in order to satisfy their bourgeois ego. Sri Lanka is one such country. They are determined to see that Sri Lanka is not a Sinhala Buddhist country.

Recently when Mr. Kotakedeniya the DIG spoke of Sinhala Buddhist archaeological treasures there was a big cry from certain quarters to drop the words Sinhala Buddhist. A meeting was to be held yesterday to discuss the suitability of teaching of the history associated with the king Dutugemunu in schools as some ‘enlightened’ people are of the view that this history is an obstacle to achieve peace in the country. Who is being discriminated in this country by the NGO’s, the newspapers published by these NGO’s, the Tamil racists and their sponsor Christian countries? I am sure that most of the Sinhala Christians understand what is happening and that they have no sympathy with these Christian powers. We distinguish between Christianity and the western Christian culture.

The only alternative for some of the sympathisers of Tamil racism appears to be a joint effort by the PA and the UNP to adopt the G. L. - Neelan draft constitution. They seem to be coming out with the same old hackneyed theory that in order to wean the Tamil people away from the LTTE power has to be devolved to the East and the North. These people ignore the evolution of Tamil racism in this country and forget that the problem is nothing but the refusal by the Tamil racist leaders, under the patronage of the British and the other Christian powers in the west, to recognise the fact that Sri Lanka is a Sinhala Buddhist country.

When the PA came into power they thought they had the solution to the problem. However when we asked them to define the problem they could not do so. They went on talking of grievances when there were none and continued with their pronouncements even after the Tamil racist leaders themselves declared that they had no grievances but aspirations. The PA first wanted to talk to the LTTE as if the terrorists had been charmed by Ms. Kumaratunga. The PA government like their predecessors learnt a bitter lesson after paying a heavy price.

The G. L. - Neelan package was presented as the panacea for what was described as the ethnic problem and the ministry of justice went into action with a big bang. They told us only by devolving more and more power that the Tamils can be won over from the LTTE. Like a set of schoolboys yelling at cricket matches they asked those who opposed the package “what is the alternative to the package?”

When we told them that there are neither solutions nor alternatives to non -existing problems they did not understand.

Now the government finds that they just cannot ignore the Sinhala opinion and find it difficult even to present their so-called solution as a bill to the parliament. Meanwhile the LTTE continues with their killings. The LSSP seems to believe that the LTTE has the support of the Tamils because of the government’s failure to implement the “package”.

The LTTE does not need the support of the people to kill. They are a ruthless terrorist organisation. Even if the package is given neither the LTTE nor the other Tamil racist parties will be satisfied. The LTTE has already rejected the package and the others will say “too little too late” and will demand more. Their policy is ‘little now and more later’. If they had grievances then once solutions were found to those they could have stopped their so-called struggle. But they have only an aspiration and that happens to be a separate state, so they will always claim “too little too late”.

To those who wanted us to provide alternatives we said there is no ethnic problem and it was only a problem due to Tamil racism created by the British. In the evolution of Tamil racism over a period of more than hundred years a section of the Tamil racists have taken up arms against the state to carve out a separate state. It is the foremost duty of the government to protect the state by defeating the LTTE militarily. It is now abundantly clear that in the context of the recent developments, the survival of the government itself depends on whether it is prepared to take this course of actin. The only alternative as far as the survival of the government is concerned is to defeat the LTTE militarily. It will be able to survive only that way.

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