by Namini Wijedasa
So, for God’s sake, stop fighting. Time-out, truce, CEASE-FIRE. Comprende?

Tilak Marapana in his "winding up speech" on the motion of no confidence against him, had some interesting things to say about the "short history" (there is a "long history" too, which we will deal with later) of Dravidian invasion. His lengthy exposition, the simple-minded character of which is no secret to the general public can be paraphrased thus: "The LTTE wanted to set up a separate state, using force. We opposed. They captured certain areas. We liberated these areas. They captured other areas. We liberated them and so on. Today we have frozen the situation. Whatever problems that the government faced as a result of the LTTE dominating certain areas, which problems the government was previously attempting to solve by force, we agreed to solve through negotiation, not force."

He is of the view that "it is partly the international support that the LTTE got on alleged human rights violations by the government that kept them going for so long". He believes that "they" have put the record straight and that the "international community" is monitoring the LTTE: "they are required to subject themselves to international scrutiny; this I believe is a great achievement".

Political history

Marapana may have survived the no-confidence motion, but he has nevertheless missed the bus. He doesn’t seem to know or is pretending not to know anything about political history, recent or otherwise. First of all there is nothing to celebrate about putting this record straight. Secondly, the UNF certainly cannot make any claims on this account. Let us peruse the history book.

Since it is "recent history" that Marapana chooses to be ignorant of, let us begin with Prabhakaran. It was Indira Gandhi who fondled and fattened him into being the No. 1 terrorist in the world. Later, Prabhakaran went international, courtesy of Balasingham and his Norwegian missionary friends, riding the wave of sympathy following UNP-led violence against Tamils. The "golden period" lasted more than a decade, from 1983 to 1995. In Sri Lanka, they ran a parallel regime with the tacit approval of the then UNP government. The UNP regime actually funded the LTTE machinery using money taxed from the Sinhalese during certain periods. Marapana could not have been ignorant of all this. The then UNP leadership, like their political progeny who are "ruling" what’s left of the country today, kept the ordinary people either drugged through tamashas or blind through censorship of the media. Even BBC and CNN reports were blacked out during this period.

Building on the political mileage provided by the UNP by way of "ethnic riots", the LTTE went on to establish themselves internationally, crying to the entire world that the Tamil people’s human rights, including the right to live in Sri Lanka, were being violated by institutions sponsored by the state. Thereafter they went about establishing the Tamil Nationhood that people like Chelvanayagam had conceived, building the "scientific basis" so that the "international community" could be persuaded to listen to Tamil "grievances" and thereafter help set up the "Tamil Nation" in the so-called traditional homelands. Both Chandrika and Ranil accepted the "legitimacy" of these claims of Tamil Nationhood, as evidenced by the proposed New Constitution of 2000.

Eelamist Wasantha Raja

Chandrika’s regime won the 1994 election with the tacit approval of the LTTE (which is how prominent Eelamist Wasantha Raja ended up as Chairman of the Rupavahini Corporation). She envisaged the granting of Eelam without the LTTE being the "sole representative". This is why the LTTE had to eliminate the "other" representatives such as Neelan Thiruchelvam and return to war. It was in this murderous environment that the USA and other countries banned the LTTE, labelling it as a terrorist organisation. Heavy lobbying by Lakshman Kadirgamar and Indian diplomatic efforts were key to this eventuality. The fact that the LTTE had already won a reputation for people smuggling, arms smuggling, drug smuggling, sea piracy, money laundering, and gangsterism in the West, made things easier. Four billion US dollars were frozen.

All this happened during the Chandrika regime. So, the "monitoring of the LTTE" by the "international community" started long before the UNF came to power and Marapana became Minister of Defence. To call the current "monitoring" (itself a joke) a victory, is laughable. These setbacks were only minor hiccups as far as the Tamil invaders were concerned. What really mattered for them was that no government had made a case to dispute Tamil claims on Sinhala land, nor had pointed out that 70% of the Tamils are living in that part of the Sinhala Nation lying outside the area currently claimed as "traditional Tamil homelands". Had JR, Premadasa, Chandrika or Ranil demolished these arguments (and they could easily have done this) the LTTE would not have won any sympathy, and no one would have batted an eyelid about human rights violations etc. In fact Marapana would have nothing to brag about.

"International community"

As a result of these acts of omission the "international community" has accepted Tamil Nationhood and the right of self-rule. This is why Balasingham is able to say "Our leader has very clearly stated that self-rule should be given to us under a federal set-up, or we will go for a separate government". He is right when he says, "I have trapped them (the government) with this demand of self-rule". Prabhakaran’s definition of "self-rule" is as follows: "as a distinct people the Tamils are entitled to the right of self-determination; the right to self-determination has two aspects, internal and external; internal self-determination entitles people to self-rule".

Marapana’s mind and memory might have frozen. However, everyone knows that since the MoU was signed the Tamil invader, up to that point trapped in pockets of the Northern Province, were able to move in like a plague to take control of not only the North and East but practically the entire country, politically speaking. The MoU, in effect, allowed the Tamil invader to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Balasingham knows that the "scientific base" for Tamil Nationhood is already embedded in the Chandrika-Ranil constitution of 2000. He knows also that any future constitutional dialogue will be based on this document. So, the baseline of his invasion plan is already secured. What is left is maximisation of further concessions from the state, as per G. L. Peiris’ "devolution to the maximum". He also knows that this requires a two-thirds majority vote in parliament. He knows that given the "unstable political situation" in the South, the numbers might not work out, for Chandrika might back track. He has a remedy should these political developments undermine his diplomatic moves.