Silence won't help the TULF

Leader of the parliamentary group of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) Joseph Pararajasingham has told The Island, warned that more youths will join the LTTE if the government fails to adopt effective measures to resolve the North and East conflict.

He had also said that the TULF was not aware of abduction of youth by the LTTE.

What does this mean? It can be granted that the TULF should no be expected to know the clandestine activities of the LTTE. But what about his claim that unless the government adopt effective measures, Tamil youths will join the LTTE in their numbers? And what does he mean by effective measures?

We are intrigued, to say the least. The queer logic of Mr. Pararajasingham is difficult to understand. One should not be faulted if one sees a non sequitur in what he says.

It looks as if he is making a vain attempt for reasons known to him and him alone, to blame the government for what the LTTE is doing or to scare the government into submission. It could also be possible that he wants to steer clear of the LTTE for fear of retaliation.

We hold no brief for either the government or the military. We are simply puzzled by the stand that the TULF has taken on the matter. It is a democratic party that is rightly crusading for the rights of the Tamil community. It is also the party that has taken up cudgels for the rights of the children in the north and east.

But puzzled is one, as was said because mum is the word on the part of the TULF about the crimes committed by the LTTE. They shut their eyes tight to reality and prevaricate at length and flog the government be it the PA or the UNP to their heart’s content, perhaps to get rid of compunction.

Why the TULF abstains from denunciating the LTTE makes misstatements from time to time may be due to the reasons that the University Teachers for Human Rights, Jaffna (UTHR) has given in its special report No 11 titled A Tamil Heroine Unmourned and the Sociology of Obfuscation serialised in The Island from today. In Chapter 11 they observe:

"The TULF was also in a trap. Although it clearly understands where the LTTE is leading the community to, it can not expose the LTTE without exposing its own share of complicity in murder and deceit in the past it shared with the LTTE. It would also nullify the moral superiority it claims over the other ex-militant groups as being non-violent, non-gun totting and moderate, for electoral reasons..."

Earlier in the report commenting on the danger this confused approach of the TULF is fraught with, the UTHR says:

"This confused approach has condemned several well-meaning TULF members to go to the grave, each saying it was not the LTTE that killed the last victim."

How true! The TULF never unequivocally condemned the LTTE for the assassination of Sarojini and Sivapalan. And being the authoritative commentators on Tamil politics that they are, the university teachers sound a warning as to the lesson that those who remain unclear about the LTTE for whatever reasons have to draw for their own good.

"The main lesson for them is that one cannot afford to be unclear about the LTTE and play with them like with pussycats. Those who do it carry a time fuse on them and the LTTE decides the time. Whoever touches the LTTE would be used, sucked dry and then destroyed. From Mahattaya and Kittu in the LTTE hierarchy, it has been the fate of many other hopefuls..."

It however compliments one particular TULF member for having no illusions of the LTTE. And that member, to be exact, is not Mr. Prararajasingham.

Let alone the youths who are said to be abducted by the terrorists and let the benefit of doubt accrue to the TULF. But that the LTTE is using children in the war is blindingly obvious. The Baby Brigade that the LTTE has at its disposal is testament for its use of child combatants. Many of them have surrendered to the military or been killed in the front.

One may be unaware of modus operandi of the LTTE in recruiting these children. But the fact remains that they are there in the LTTE ranks. Why is there a locked jaw on the part of the TULF about the use of children in war?

Silence will not help the TULF to curry favour with the LTTE in any way. For, as the UTHR has correctly pointed out, "there is also a widespread belief among the people that only the TULF has the capacity and the experience to work out a solution. So the LTTE fears its parent, the TULF, and needs to knock off its members one by one in an effort to bring it under its control."

The TULF therefore has to live up to people’s expectations. It has to condemn not merely the excesses by the military but the crimes by the LTTE as well.