Renounce separatism for de-proscription

Vellupillai Prabhakaran cooed notes of peace as melodiously as Colombo NGO activists on Tuesday. This year’s ‘Heroes’ Day’ speech was not the usual blood and thunder stuff’ - ‘If , even I stray away from the sacred path to Eelam, kill me.’. Instead, this mass murderer of tens of thousands of innocents, posed off as a man of peace.

He said: ‘We are not enemies of the Sinhala people, nor is our struggle against them... We are fighting this war against a state and its armed forces determined to subjugate our people... Thousands of innocent Sinhala youth have perished as a consequence of the repressive policies of the war mongering ruling elites... we call upon the Sinhala people to offer justice to the Tamils in order to put an end to this bloody war and bring about permanent peace’. For the Prabhakaran converts, this will be proof of his ‘humanity’ and desire for peace. And the pro-Prabhakaran website Tamilnet projected the peace message well enough even for some Colombo newspapers to fall for it and failing to note that his basic position remains the same.

In between the paragraphs pleading for peace came statements to reveal that nothing has changed. ‘For us to participate in political negotiations as equal partners, as the authentic political force with the legitimate status as the sole representatives of our people, the ban imposed on our movement should be lifted...... There is a possibility of peace in the island only when the LTTE is de- proscribed.’ ‘He has also reiterated his demand, for the umpteenth time, that ‘peace talks should be take place in a conducive atmosphere of peace and normalcy in the absence of war and economic embargoes.’ Thus,it is seen that shorn of the peace rhetoric, it is quite apparent that the Tiger has not changed his stripes.

Prabhakaran’s sudden devotion to peace became evident last November when the proscription of the LTTE in Britain was pending. But neither the Sri Lanka government nor the British government fell for it and the organisation was proscribed. After the September 11 attacks on America, the LTTE was proscribed in Canada that hosts the biggest number of Tamil expatriates. Action is proceeding fast for funds of terrorists organisations to be frozen in the US, Canada, Britain and many western countries. The LTTE obviously fears that they too may be subjected to the same treatment. Hence, Prabhakaran’s demand for de-proscription of the LTTE here in the hope that western countries could be persuaded to do the same. Prabhakaran had also argued that since western nations had taken the stand that the Sri Lanka government should negotiate with the LTTE, it is an admission that they recognised the LTTE as the sole representatives of the Tamils. So what’s the logic in banning the LTTE? Prabhakaran had asked.

Prabhakaran’s advisors should have told him that the LTTE was not banned in these countries because of Sri Lankan President Kumaratunga’s winsome smile or their love towards Sri Lanka. The proscription was enforced because the LTTE as a foreign terrorist organisation posed a definite threat to the security of these countries. The US laws governing such proscriptions call for evidence of these organisations posing a threat to the security of the United States. The LTTE’s international network of collecting finance through contributions, extortion, people and narcotics smuggling, its clandestine international shipping line and its connections with other international terrorist organisations obviously brought its own downfall. The Thambi had got too big for his boots.

While Prabhakaran wants de- proscription, the lifting of embargoes on goods to LTTE controlled areas etc, he should also realise that any kind of negotiations is a two way process. If he wants de-proscription as a terrorist organisation, he should first declare that his organisation would give up the call for a separate state and pledge to forsake the armed insurrection.Decommissioning of weapons is also fundamental to any such political settlement, he wants. The recent decommissioning of arms by the IRA finally abiding by the Good Friday Agreement is one such example.

Camouflaged under his peace rhetoric, he is attempting to hijack peace negotiations at gun point : De-proscribe or it will be war.

No party should succumb to such threats.

With elections round the corner Prabhakaran has also addressed the Sinhala electorate. He has called upon the Sinhala people to identify and renounce ‘the racist forces committed to militarism and war and to offer justice to Tamils’. This could be interpreted in many ways - about which side Prabakaran is backing. While the existence of ‘racist forces committed to militarism and war’is needed by the LTTE to justify its terrorism, both the UNP and the PA have openly declared their resolve for the settlement of the Tamil problem through negotiations and it is Prabhakaran’s intransigence that is the stumbling block.

If Prabhakaran wants de-proscription as a pre condition for negotiations, then he should renounce his call for a separate state and agree to spike his arms.

Your comments to the Editor