• Cat's Eye
  The peace movement and women
• The UNP's Electoral prospects: talking of the leader
• The Sinhala theatre has lost a true friend

• A problem of history
• Business leaders rekindle hope
• The Tamil Homeland Concept
• A Tamil heroine unmourned and the sociology of obfuscation....
  Burying a heroine

A problem of history
By Nalin de Silva

It was announced recently, over the Rupavahini that an association from Anamaduwa has published a booklet on teaching of history in schools. They have had a seminar or workshop or whatever, under the chairmanship of Dr. Sasanka Perera of the University of Colombo, in the absence of Mr. Reggie Siriwardhana, where a discussion had taken place on some of the material included in the booklet. As I understand there is a recommendation to drop the Dutugemunu - Elara story from the school texts. It appears that this story in the form it is taught today is an obstacle to bring ‘peace’ to this country. So they want a new story to be taught in the schools and already some people have created a story that is in agreement with their project, namely to erase the Sinhala Buddhist history of the country in order to appease the Tamil racists.

The Tamil racists would very much like to erase the Dutugemunu Elara story from the history books, as it is the corner stone of the formation of the Sinhala Buddhist unitary state of this country. The Tamil racists of the so-called moderate variety want to create a separate state going through a federal state while the LTTE kills people to establish it without an intermediate phase.

All histories are stories told by people. Some of these storytellers are called historians. The stories whether told by the historians or the others are relative and there is nothing to hide about it. The history as revealed in the Mahavansaya is relative to the Mahaviharaya just as much the present day histories created by some of the so-called historians and the others in the universities and the NGO’s are relative to the project of Tamil racists. However any history has to be consistent with the evidence present in various forms such as archaeological (‘historical’ or ‘pre-historical’) artefacts. In this regard the Mahawansaya stands like a giant whereas the new history created by the Tamil racists has no credibility what so ever.

The history of the Dutugemunu - Elara new history starts with an article (sometimes these articles are referred to as research papers) presented by Dr. W. I. Siriweera at a seminar organised by the social scientists association way back in December 1979. In that article, probably he wanted to establish that Dutugemunu and Elara were participants in a feudal power game. This is how he has stated this ‘impression’ in the above-mentioned article. (I quote from a book entitled "ethnicity and social change in Sri Lanka" published by the social scientists association, in which the articles presented at the above seminar appear). "However, reading between the lines in the Mahawansa account, one gets the impression that both Elara and Dutthagamani were participants in a feudal power game and not in a racial war fought between the Sinhalese and the Tamils" (page 57).

This impression of Dr. Siriweera, which he has acquired by reading the Mahawansaya ‘between the lines’, has now become the gospel truth of the Tamil racists. As far as I know no new ‘material’ has been found since 1979 on this all-important impression of Dr. Siriweera, but based on that, various people are agitating to recreate the Dutugemunu - Elara story claiming perhaps that their new story constitutes the objective history. It is not worthwhile to analyse these impressions that people have got reading between the lines, which passes for the new history written by the Tamil racists. However following the editor of the Mahavansaya, for the ‘serene joy and emotion of the pious’ (hudeejana pahan sanvegaya), let us go through some of the reading between the lines of Dr. Siriweera.

At the outset one must give credit to Dr. Siriweera for being consistent in his basic premise. On the Deepavansaya he says the following. "The objective of the Dipavamsaya was to relate the history of the visits of the Buddha and the introduction of Buddhism into the island which ‘existed as Sihala after the lion.’ Thus the author of the Dipavamsaya gave articulation to the Sinhala-Buddhist consciousness which was strengthened by subsequent chronicles." Dr. Siriweera observes that the Mahavansaya "was more a national epic of the Sinhala Buddhists of the orthodox Theravada sector than a dynamic history of the island."

While he does not admit that the Deepavansaya and the Mahavansaya reveal the history as such, the ‘unbiased history’, he has no hesitation in accepting the fact there was a Sinhala Buddhist consciousness even in the fourth century A.C. This implies that contrary to what many others who are either supporters or sympathisers of the Tamil racists have to say, the Sinhala Buddhist consciousness is not something that the British created in the nineteenth century. Those who are of the view that the Sinhala Buddhist consciousness was created by the British have to explain why the editors of the Deepavansaya and the Mahavansaya wrote those books as ‘national epics of the Sinhala Buddhists’, the way these classics are described by many of them. Dr. Siriweera unlike the others in his camp appears to be more consistent in this regard.

Now let us look at some of Dr. Siriweera’s reading between the lines. He seems to believe that the Tamils and the Sinhala people had lived together in this country during the last 2500 years or so. The Deepavansaya as well as the Mahavansaya refer to Sena and Guttika as invaders. It may not be possible to decide that they were Tamils for two reasons. The Sinhala Vansakatha (chronicles) has a tradition of referring to any foreigner as a Tamil, so much so that, as pointed out by Dr. Vimala Wijesuriya, the Rajavaliya calls even the Portuguese as Tamils. Secondly by the time of Sena and Guttika even in South India there was no tribe or race that could be identified as Tamils. However the important fact is that they were invaders.

Dr. Siriweera tries to create the impression that the Tamils had been living in this country during the time of the king Kavanthissa forgetting conveniently that according to Dr. Indrapalan, the first Professor of History at the University of Jaffna, there were no Tamil permanent settlements in Sri Lanka prior to the tenth century. There could have been few Tamils in Anuradhapura as is the case with many capitals in which foreigners are found. But that does not mean that there were Tamils in the country living side by side with the Sinhala people. The irony is that neither Dr. Siriweera nor anybody else can come out with any evidence, other than the references in the vansakathas themselves to Elara and his army, to establish the presence of Tamils (Cholas) during this period.

In the absence of such evidence one has to conclude with the Mahavansaya that Elara was an invader. The fact that there were Sinhala soldiers like Mithra, the uncle of Nandimithra, again ironically based on information given in the Mahavansaya, does not prove that Dutugemunu and Elara were only two feudal chieftains fighting for the throne. There wee Sinhala people in the British army. Even Keppitipola Disawe before he joined the Wellassa liberators was a member of the British army. However that did not make the British who violated the 1815 convention, non-invaders. Today there are so many professors and others who claim themselves to be Sinhala people working for the Tamil racists but that does not mean that the Tamil leaders non racists. The fact that Mithra was in the army of Elara only establishes that there have been political ancestors of the NGO members even then who were prepared to sell the country for a few privileges. In today’s context not only foreign trips but even recognition as intellectuals can be considered as privileges.

Dr. Siriweera says by the time Mahavansaya was written ‘the element of conflict in the relations between the Sinhalese and the Tamils had crystalized.’ However he continues to refer to the political threats posed by the Tamil feudal chiefs. His "impression" is that these so called Tamil feudal chiefs were permanent settlers in this country. The trouble with his ‘impression’ is that in order to have feudal chiefs it is necessary to have feudal Tamils living on a permanent basis in the country. When Dr. Indrapalan says that there were no Tamil settlements during this period the question has to be asked to whom did these Tamil feudal chiefs give the leadership. Dr. Siriweera prefers to make the impression that Elaras and Pandus were feudal chiefs and not invaders. This is not very much different from the BBC reference to the LTTE terrorists as liberators or freedom fighters.

contrary to Dr. Siriweera’s impression does not say that ‘Elara and Dutugemunu were participants in a racial war fought between the Sinhalese and the Tamils.’ This assumes that the Tamils and the Sinhala people were living in Sri Lanka and that there was a racial war. No, it is very clearly stated in the Mahavansaya that Elara came from Chola and that he was an invader Even if he did not come from Chola he would have come from some part in South Asia as an invader. Dutugemunu fought to defeat the invader and protect Buddhism. There was no symmetrical relationship between Elara and Dutugemunu. One was the invader whereas the other was the liberator.

Dr. Siriweera mentions Bhalluka also in his article. He says: "The name Bhalluka , which is given to the general who is said to have arrived from South India after Elara’s death to fight Dutthagamani, bespeaks a non-Tamil origin. The Dravidian or Tamil equivalent of Bhalluka would have been Phalluka". Dr. Siriweera who is very good at creating impressions, by using phrases like the ‘the general who is said to have arrived from South India’ wants us to believe that Bhalluka was a resident in Sri Lanka. His only argument in this connection is that the Dravidian or the Tamil equivalent of Bhalluka would have been Palluka and that there cannot be any Tamil Bhallukas. According to this line of reasoning there cannot be Balendrans among the Tamils but only Palendrans. No Balasunderams but only Palasunderams.

Then he mentions that Gamani and Dighabaya, two Sinhala generals of Elara have been referred to as Tamils along with thirty other generals in the Mahavansaya. It cannot create such suspicion or surprise as even today those Sinhala professors and others who write on behalf of Tamil racism are referred to as Tamil racists along with those Tamils who are Tamil racists. Dr. Siriweera appears to be puzzled with the Velu part in the name of Velusumana. Since then many people have wondered whether Velusumana was a Tamil. Perhaps these people have never heard of the Veluvanaramaya in the Dambadiva. I am told that Velu means bamboo (Una) and if I may also try to create an impression following Dr. Siriweera, Velusumana could mean Sumana who had something to do with bamboo. Even in names such as Kavanthissa, Dutugemunu the parts Kavan and Dutu describe those particular persons by the names Thissa and Gemunu. In today’s context we have people referred to as Kaluathula, Polsumane etc.

The rest of Dr. Siriweera’s article deals with Mahavansaya in general and has no direct reference to the Dutugemunu- Elara story. His main interest is to create an impression that the Mahavansaya is not impartial. However what transpires is nothing but the partiality of Dr. Siriweera towards Tamil racism.

The NGO’s and organisations with NGO connections campaign to eliminate Dutugemunu-Elara story from school texts, based on so-called research papers in history, which try to ‘create impressions by reading between the lines’. Has Carr or anybody else has defined history is nothing but impressions of a few people who call themselves historians? The rewriting of history relative to Tamil racism is a project which itself has a history. The people involved with this project now clamour to include the history, that they have created, in the school texts. It is the Sinhala Buddhist history of the country that the Tamil racists refuse to accept.After all the Tamil problem in Sri Lanka is a problem of history.

It was an ironic turn of events , and indicative of how topsy turvy everything in Sri Lanka has become in this time of deep rooted crisis. The business leaders who convened the all party conference at the BMICH last Thursday spoke more in the spirit of religious leaders than of profit makers. The Coordinating Chairman of the group, Lalith Kotelawela, spoke from the heart about peace and non-hatred and touched many hearts that were present.

In a healthier society this would have been the task of religious leaders. Unfortunately, many of our religious leaders are like the American preacher Billy Graham who blessed the US troops during the Gulf War, and led President George Bush in prayer as the first bombs were falling on Baghdad.

Despite the boycott by the UNP and some left and nationalist parties, there is no doubt that the all party conference convened by the leaders of commerce, industry, employment and exports was a success. The event was one very clearly led by civil society, and not by politicians who had to await their turn to speak from the floor and not from the podium.

The only exception was for Prof G.L. Peiris, but no one would have grudged that exception, as the minister came in late, and in any event, many would have wished to hear what he had to say. After all, unlike Helen of Troy, it was he who kept the UNP away! Prof Peiris made no direct reference to the UNP, but his tone was conciliatory and his ideas were elegant, as usual.

The business leaders also had the confidence to throw open the meeting to public discussion right from the beginning. They had sufficient trust in their audience not try and "stage manage" the proceedings from behind. As a result of the open forum style of discussion, the comments made were wide ranging. But remarkably, with one or two exceptions, they did not stray very far from a clear consensus—the country has had enough of war and bloodshed, it wants peace; the country has had enough of division among political parties, it wants unity.

Accordingly, a very healthy sign at the conference and a hope for a renewed democracy was the willingness of representatives of the Tamil people to speak and assert their rights and their vision. They raised the issue of the suffering people in the war zones, deprived of adequate food and medicine and no prospects of an improvement in their lives. They spoke about the harassment of Tamils in other parts of the country and their sense of not being treated as equal citizens. Most of those present were prepared to listen and to empathise, and the urgency to join hands to find humane answers to these problems predominated over fault-finding.

In making Lalith Kotelawela the Coordinating Chairman and spokesperson for the group, the business leaders could not have done better. He had the credibility to speak of peacemaking as a person who had been a direct victim of terrorism. In January 1996, when LTTE suicide bombers rammed their truckload of bombs into the country’s Central Bank, the Ceylinco building across the road also disintegrated in flames.This building, which for many years was Sri Lanka’s tallest building, housed the headquarters of the Kotelawela business empire.Kotelawela himself was almost done to death and had to be hospitalised.

Some people suffer loss and become bitter. Without justifying atrocity with atrocity henspoke inspirationally of a new begining. He pledged to find ways and means to get food and medicine across to the north-east with government sanction. He put

seven of the ten points of the action programme of the business leaders on the backburner, and said that the three points devoted to peace would be the first priority.

Danger signs

In the enthusiasm generated at the conference the absence of the UNP and other parties was not very much felt. This is a danger sign that the UNP must be alive to if it is not to become irrelevant to the aspirations of the people. The vast majority of people at all ends of the political spectrum and all economic and ethnic communities want a quick end to the war and a better standard of personal living.

The UNP cannot stand aloof from this mainstream sentiment and remain a viable force at future elections. The people desire a pro-active political leadership, not a reactive and withdrawn strategy that the UNP appears to be relying on at present. The task of leadership is to accept any challenge and face upto it well, and turn it resolutely to one’s own advantage.

The opening for the UNP to re-enter the process initiated by the business leaders may well be the invitation to the PA and UNP to nominate two members each to form a national commission for peace. This parallels a proposal made by a powerful coalition of civic organisations under the umbrella of the Alliance for Peace.

This coalition has proposed the setting up of a peace task force composed of two members each from the PA and UNP to work out the basic principles from which a political solution to the ethnic conflict can be arrived at. It will be holding a public convention on November 11 at the Public Library to generate popular support for the concept.

The protracted and ultimately unsuccessful deliberations of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Constitutional Reforms were a major disappointment and setback to a renewed peace process. Perhaps the PSC was too big in size (with over 40 parliamentarians) for it to reach any sort of consensus.

The more the numbers of persons involved, the more difficult it becomes to arrive at a consensus. If Sri Lanka is to be brought back from the abyss of poverty, division and increased reliance on the military, the business community’s proposal of a bipartisan and small sized national peace commission makes a lot of sense.

I refer to the anonymous article under the above mentioned caption that appeared in "The Island" magazine of 07/11/1998. The introduction, however, gives away the author as Mr. E. A. V. Naganathan as there is reference made to previous correspondence between himself, Mrs. Kamalika Pieris and Mr. V. K. Wickramasinghe in regard to the same subject. There seems, however, to have been a printer’s devil at work in so far as the caption is concerned, as it would have read more meaningfully as "Mr. V. K. Wickramasinghe and the Tamil Homeland Concept’, with "Known Parties" following as the first sub-caption.

Be that as it may, I find the theory advanced by Mr. N. that the Sri Lankan Tamils are, by and large, not alien to this country but native, most attractive and enlightening, and very relevant to the basic problem of our times, which is the acceptance by the Sri Lankan Tamils and the Sinhala people of each other as kindred, albeit differently typed or identified today by a dichotomous historical evolution. For, if this premise is endorsed by both peoples, it would open the door to the political and constitutional relations between them being regulated by a consocianalist or concensual approach, in place of the present confrontational and controversial attitude struck by each vis-a-vis the other. The present perception by the Sinhala people of the Sri Lankan Tamils as an "Immigrant Minority, and the latters’ acceptance of this definition by and large, without much demur till recently, is identified by Mr. N. as the cause of all the trouble. This attitude, he castigates as ‘stale and arid’. I would add, however, that in the present context, it has also proved extremely mischievous in its consequences.

Under the sub-caption "Immigrants" Mr. N. has commented on the reference in the Mahavamsa to the three visits paid by the Buddha to the Naga states in Yalpanam, Kelaniya and Mahiyangana. All evidence taken totally, however, is to the effect that there were several other such Naga polities coexisting in Puttalam and Vilpattu, (being the Tambapani where Vijaya chanced upon Kuveni, who, in incidentally, was engaged in the delicate and difficult art of weaving), and Mannar (Manthai), Vanni, Thirukonamalai and Mattakkulappu, etc. Then, again, the Ramayana epic is a strong pointer to the existence of technologically highly advanced polities co-existing in several parts of the country under the Asuras. Their paramount ruler, Ravana, is credited with divine powers, and one member of the ruling family, Vibishana, is worshipped as a deity to this day. What happened, one may ask, to these several organised and efficient congeries of ancient peoples? It would be a gross simplification to assume that they just lay down and died, or vanished into thin air, without a trace for no apparent reason!.

There is a parallel with the cases of the ancient Egyptians, Syrians, Babylonians (Sumerians) and Anatolians (Hittites) etc. In the last two millenia they have been successively Christianised and Islamicized, and continue into our times intact, albeit with the admixture of Iranian, Hellenic, Semitic, Turanian, Mongol and Circassian etc. blood, due to migratory invasions. So, may we take it, was the case in Sri Lanka. The Hela (Eela) peoples were singly and severally acculturated and survive today as "Sinhala" and "Tamil" in their respective areas of majority habitation.

Under the sub-caption "Homelands" Mr. N. has referred to the special Sri Lankan Tamil ethos. I should like to endorse this view as a member of a family with four generations of residence in the former Madras Presidency and now Tamilnadu. There can be little doubt to one who is sensitive to the nuances of Tamil semantics that there is a wide gulf between Tamil as practised in Tamilnadu and in "Eelam’, respectively. I have chosen to use the latter term advisedly, as describing the contiguous territory of Tamil habitation in Sri Lanka, as identifiable by a census. Such a disparity in the use of the language is, in my view, not accidental nor even circumstantial but demonstrative of a differential origin and growth. A Tamil from "Eelam" has only to open his mouth in Tamilnadu to be identified as a visitor. One of the reasons for the late Dr. Naganathan’s defeat at the general elections of 1970, it is said, was that he spoke "Tamilish" (Tamil and English in almost equal proportions) as in Madras. Besides, his accent was all wrong, from an "Eelamist" standpoint.

The importance of land-related issues, as highlighted by Mr. N., is paralleled in the on-going peace talks between Israel and Palestine in Maryland, which seem to be dead-locked over exactly the same question of land, namely, the West Bank territory (described by Netanyahu in biblical terms as "Judea and Samaria") and the percentage to be yielded to Palestine beyond the presently agreed 1 3 per cent.

Mr. N. is correct in inferring that Nallur ante-dated Kotte, Sitawake and Kandy as a seat of government, though he may have added Yapahuwa, Dambadeniya, Kurunegala, Gampola and Raigama.

For the Indophilia of all previous Tamil political parties a fair share of the blame must be fixed on Dr. Naganathan with his 'Lanka Lodge' upbringing in Madras, and social and familial connections with the leading Christian Brahmin families in the Presidency, not to mention Dr. S. Radhakrishnan and Mr. C. Rajagopalachari, besides the childhood memory of Gandhi visiting his home and inscribing on his autograph album the legend, 'They are slaves who dare not be/in the right with two or three'. To the end of his days he could not be dissuaded that India was right on all points in regard to Kashmir.

On the subject of 'Eelam' it may be germaine to take note of a point made by Mr. N. in another context that the name as shared by the newer Tamil Parties is symptomatic of a patrial affinity to the soil, as the term is not only the pristine Tamil name for the island, but, also, semantically akin to the term 'Elu'.

Mr. Wickramasinghe's fear that the demand for an 'Eelam' or next best alternative is a step in the direction of 'Enosis' with Tamilnadu is misplaced. This will become patent to him if be cares to visit Tamilnadu and spend some time there. Sometimes, in life we tend to create the conditions we wish to avoid by our emphasis or excessive use of the negative or opposite, as in the case of the boy who cried 'Wolf' once too often. The apparent paranoia evinced by Mr. Wickramasinghe should not be allowed to justify itself in hindsight. Such a denoument would be self - defeating, to say the least.

The general blase if not callous attitude of all Sri Lankan Governments to the priorities of the Tamils and their leadership in recent times had its rehearsal in the episode of 1958, where the Government of the present President's father and its law and order apparatus looked the other way while the satyagratis were being mauled on the Galle Face in full view of the two Legislative Chambers and the Secretariat, the arbiters of the norms of decency in government and politics, and the late Dr. Naganathan was stripped and caused to run for decencies sake into the G.F.H., being a man who had spent a life time healing the sick and comforting the afflicted in Bambalapitiya, for a modicum of fees.

A Tamil heroine unmourned and the sociology of obfuscation....
Burying a heroine
Continued from yesterday

A strange event of June 1997 provides an interesting backdrop to contrast reactions to Sarojini’s murder. For nearly a year there had been widespread complaints of corruption against a key government official in Jaffna at a time when shortages were felt acutely. Following a high level investigation it was rumoured that the official, who was good at keeping the right people happy, was to be removed. A very unusual felicitation was organised for his benefit where his services, abilities and dedication were extolled (Uthayan 4.6.97). All leading sections and institutions in Jaffna society were represented. The Roman Catholic bishop was represented by his vicar general. The two leading Hindu religious dignitaries in Jaffna spoke. There were school principals and administrators. The University of Jaffna was represented by a senior academic and the vice chancellor. The latter presented the administrator with a ‘Ponnadai’ (gold embroidered shawl) conferring a mark of distinction. Hardly a more distinguished gathering could have been put together to conduct this festival of flattery - a seedy affair that did little to improve the reputation of the participants. Notwithstanding the high praise, the beneficiary was removed from office.

In contrast when Mrs. Yogeswaran, a lady who sacrificed her life and was worthy of the highest praise was killed, there was not a hum of protest or condemnation, individually or collectively, from these persons or the institutions they represented. She was after all a prominent public figure and it is these institutions that owed it to the people to condemn the murder and give a lead to the public in demonstrating their sorrow and contempt for the act. It was moreover these institutions that could have done it with the least risk, and there was no need then to name the perpetrator. Their silence was not because they thought of Mrs. Yogeswaran as some kind of an undesirable woman who deserved to go unmourned.

Here we encounter the triviality, silliness and craven opportunism of public life under fascism. Even the leaders of civil society are constrained by terror from discussing matters crucial to the life of the community - not even in closed circles such as the University and the churches. To compensate their loss of self-esteem they are provided with enough platforms for mutual flattery. Nothing serious is ever said in public.

The ordinary people felt very angry about the murder, but in the absence of leadership, were gripped with fear. The stony silence of the leaders of society was itself a strong indication to them that the LTTE were the killers. Hardly anyone dared to go to Mrs. Yogeswaran’s house on the first day. On this day it was only the EPRLF that condemned the murder in Jaffna and named the LTTE as the killer. The PLOTE followed suit the following day. The EPDP condemned the killing but did not name the LTTE. It was the EPRLF and PLOTE who put up banners of mourning and helped with transporting the body. On the third day the body was kept in the Municipal Council. It was then that following council employees, crowds started going there in increasing numbers to pay their last respects before the body was flown to Colombo for cremation. One of the speakers at the Municipal Council was TULF secretary Mr. Anandasangari who had come from Colombo. Another was S. Namasivayam, (57), vice president of the TULF branch in Jaffna and secretary of the Jaffna Traders’ Association. He was about the only local person to play a prominent role at that time. Through his initiative Jaffna traders closed their shops - the only public protest to mark the occasion.

Namasivayam resigned as secretary to the Traders’ Association at the end of May. While cycling home to lunch on 5th June, he was cut to death.

Whoever had killed him, it is certain that the silence of others better placed than he was, had left him isolated and vulnerable. We learn that there was a condemnation of the murder of Sarojini by the Peace Committee of which the Roman Catholic Bishop is chairman, and includes several religious leaders.

Sarojani's mission was to rehabilitate Jaffna

But hardly anyone from Jaffna is aware of it and it certainly did not reach the press when it was meaningful. Moreover, no one of any standing from the body participated in the public condolence meeting. The condemnation is in effect, one for the record.

Public anger and protest against the murder of Mrs. Yogeswaran was thus so successfully damped. While the generality of the people continue to be silenced and key issues concerning the future of the Tamils cannot be discussed, what the outsider could hear by talking to people is either LTTE propaganda or the face-saving rationalisations of people who have surrendered their sanity in order to live with day-to-day reality. It is an abnormal society that one encounters. One could see all the elements of censorship through fear, ad hoc rationalisation, insanity, callousness and outright propaganda is the impressions gathered by the Hindustan Times correspondent:

"One of the disturbing facts in relation to the cowardly killing of Jaffna’s 61 year old female Mayor Mrs. Sarojini Yogeswaran on May 17, is that it evoked no revulsion among the Tamils in general and the people of Jaffna in particular.... Very few said that democracy had been throttled by gun-toting extremists who had a vested interest in keeping Jaffna and the Tamils in turmoil.

"Day after day, Tamil newspapers complain bitterly about the absence of basic facilities in their areas and put the blame squarely on the Sri Lankan Government.... But when the LTTE brazenly thwarts the government’s attempts to provide supplies or restore normalcy, and the world condemns the LTTE for its depredations, the Tamils swing to the LTTE’s support. They would suddenly turn around and say: We want a permanent political solution, not relief and rehabilitation ".

On the murder of Mrs. Yogeswaran, the report notes that some said she deserved it while others said she had been foolhardy in contesting the Mayoral election in the face of LTTE threats. They said it was just as well she was killed.

"A supposedly ‘moderate’ Tamil MP was brimming with joy and went into peals of laughter when he heard of the killing". The TULF MP who felt ‘vindicated’ by the assassination had noted that he had been always against the TULF’s contesting in the face of LTTE disapproval.

P. K. Balachandran, the Hindustan Times correspondent draws the conclusion that the more substantial cause for the absence of revulsion is political. He quotes a journalist in Jaffna: "According to a seasoned north-based Tamil scribe, all this flowed from one fact - the general conviction among Tamils is that any attempt to weaken the LTTE would be detrimental to them. The scribe says, "If the Tamils have to walk with their heads held high, the LTTE should not be weakened" Balachandran concludes, with the very quintessence of fascism, "Every dictat of the LTTE however gruesome or unsettling is accepted without question."

The task of the foeces is to win them ouer

What most journalists have been missing arises from the immense gulf under fascist control dividing what people say with what is really in their heart. Do people want the LTTE to come back to Jaffna, hold meetings in schools and take their children away to an unknown fate, so that "they could hold their heads high and the LTTE will not be weakened"? Is this not the very reason that many people are anxious to get out of the Vanni today, as was with Jaffna in the past? The feeling that Tamils have something to lose if the LTTE is weakened, comes mainly from the barrage of propaganda in the Tamil press that subtly puts across the message that the Sinhalese are a barbaric and implacable menace. None of the healthy changes in Sinhalese society are acclaimed or acknowledged. The Tamils are hung in confusion in the dichotomy between propaganda and what they feel and experience. To a reader of the report above, honest answers from Jaffna to the questions "Do you want the Army to leave Jaffna?" and "Do you really want the Army to open the road to Vavuniya, which would mean weakening the LTTE?", would bring surprises.

The most immediately pertinent point missed or ignored by most observers is that if the people are so spontaneously pro-LTTE as is often held, what is the significance of the ubiquitous network of terror maintained by the LTTE, the intimidation, the systematic manipulation of the media, deliberate distortion of news and the sowing of confusion? When people say cruel things such as that Mrs. Yogeswaran or anybody else was wrong to challenge the LTTE because it is foolish and suicidal, and indeed deserved what they got, is it not because they already accept that the LTTE is leading the Tamils on the path of tragedy?

Then here we have a society so tragically miscommunicating its own wishes, and so grossly misrepresented by its spokesmen and its would-be-friends worldwide. And a noble lady was allowed to pass from our midst, orphaned it seems by the very people she sought to serve.

AFTER THE MURDER

Mrs.Yogeswaran was shot dead during the morning of 17th May by two killers who called at her residence. She had been talking to the deputy mayor. When she came out, the second person who was behind the first pulled out a T56 (as reported) from hiding and sprayed Sarojini, after which they escaped through the back. The same day a note claiming to be from the Sangiliyan Force was delivered to Uthayan press next door to Sarojini’s - in a lane in front of Kailasapillaiyar Kovil. The note stated that the victim had disregarded their warnings to resign, including the final one, and they therefore ‘dispatched her to the world of Yama’.

To those journalists from~Colombo who heard about the Sangiliyan Force during the elections, the note confirmed their earlier suspicion that the LTTE were the killers. The claim was bound to be authentic as no one trifles with the LTTE. The fear in Jaffna and the reluctance of people to go to her home was again a clear indication that they believed it was the LTTE. The BBC Tamil Service, also on the same day, interviewed the TULF Secretary and the Jaffna based reporter whom they regularly contacted. The latter had until the LTTE quit Jaffna in 1995, worked for the LTTE paper ‘Eelanatham’. The lady from the BBC (TS) asked the party secretary, "who killed Sarojini?" The Secretary replied, "I have no authority to say who did it". He was then asked what they were going to do about the vacancy created by the murder. To this an indefinite answer was given.

The reporter from Jaffna answering the question who were the killers, said that it could not have been the LTTE! His reasoning was that since there was a sentry point at the junction, LTTE cadre carrying a T56 could not have come that way. This was obviously not a seriously thought out answer if the truth was the objective, since many other questions arise: Did the assassins have to pass the sentry point?, Were bags being checked?, Who would then be allowed to pass the sentry points with a T56? etc. To those who are politically alert, the TULF Secretary’s answer indicated his belief. But the effect of the second interview sowed confusion.

Two days later (19th), Uthayan received a second letter from the Sangiliyan Force written in cruder handwriting. It made the following claims: "All local councillors who have been sent warnings by us, including Sarojini Yogeswaran, are on our hit list. As we were about to deliver our punishment, somebody else cut short our work by killing her, for which we are very grateful. This killing must have been the work of one of the Tamil parties greedy for ‘position-chairs’. Since Sarojini Yogeswaran was leading our list, on hearing of her assassination our Jaffna district leader issued a statement to the Uthayan on the mistaken premise that we were responsible. We express our deep sorrow for this. We deny that there is any connection between us and the Tigers as alleged in the press and broadcasting media. We have had no contact with the Tigers from the time we started functioning on Jaffna soil, but we fully endorse their policies which are in agreement with ours .

On 19th May, the same day the second letter was delivered, a staff member of the Uthayan (evidently Paasupathan, the columnist) went to Pungadutivu to meet an LTTE leader (evidently Thooyavan). Such meetings are sought from time to time by the LTTE. As reported in the Uthayan the following day, the spokesman declined to comment on the alleged connection between the LTTE and the Sangiliyan Force. He accused all Tamil parties of co-operating with the Government to show that there is normality in Jaffna and so betraying the struggle. The pertinent comment he made was: "It is inevitable that when selfish people like Mrs.Yogeswaran try to seize positions against the wishes of people in order to quash their struggle, there will emerge from among the people as a countermove, organisations like the Sangiliyan Force. That such selfish persons would be killed by such Forces is also inevitable".

This amounted to an admission by the LTTE that it was they who killed Sarojini Yogeswaran. For the reasons we pointed out earlier, the LTTE admitting an independent force sharing its ideology and objectives is sheer nonsense. Ample confirmation that the LTTE were the killers was available when the Uthayan was distributed in Jaffna on the morning of 20th May and in Colombo the same afternoon. But this confirmation was totally ignored by the Tamil press, columnists and the TULF. We will subsequently examine the consequences of this. Even the second letter was often distortedly reported by merely saying that the Sangiliyan Force disclaimed responsibility, while it conveyed much more.

Why the LTTE went through this rigmarole is a question that naturally arises. We can only make a fair guess. The LTTE being accused of the killing in international news networks and broadcasting media seems to have rattled them. This arose from the first letter and the fact that for-eign correspondents who covered the Jaffna elections had already linked the Sangiliyan Force and the LTTE. That the LTTE was getting worried and hence the second Sangiliyan letter is suggested by its reference to the press and broadcasting media. The LTTE in Pungudutivu appears to have overplayed this game in summoning the Uthayan.

(Continued tomorrow)