Sumanthiran, the begging bowl and “self determination”

The Sunday Island (Dec. 23) published the speech made by Hon Sumanthiran in Parliament on the President’s policy statement. He says a policy statement of a government is a one that gives a direction, one that points in a particular way to give people confidence. “The government holds the bowl”, he continues,  “and wait out there till someone comes and gives us the next meal”.

Quoting the President’s policy statement which requests people’s representatives of N and E to shed their “political ideologies” at least temporarily, and support the government effort to provide facilities/improve the living conditions of people living in those areas, the MP says it is an insult to the people who have been struggling and fighting for their dignity, to be treated as equals in this country. Then he continues to say that the people haven’t been fighting for “facilities” but they have been fighting for equal citizenship right, right to “Self Determination” and right to “Self Rule” and that’s what he wants.

He fails to  mention the obvious when talking about economy.  We earned  4.5 billion dollars from tourism and that industry collapsed totally. Lack of tourists also drove thousands out of employment.  There was drastic reduction of Sri Lankan expatriates remittances too. These are not excuses but stubborn facts that no one can deny. The government spent a colossal amount on vaccination and apart from paying Rs 5,000/= each for poor families, and continued to pay the wages of almost 1.5 million government employees including Sumanthiran’s. Also the government never defaulted settlement of international sovereign bonds todate.

The President does show the path and plans as to how to achieve definite growth in all three sectors, ie. agriculture, industry and services. Unlike Sumanthiran sarcastically says, the country doesn’t hold the begging bowl and waits till someone drops money into it but has a meticulous plan on how to earn foreign exchange from export industry through innovations, export diversification and value adding mechanism.

Sumanthiran also very conveniently forget the fact that we compare very favourably against many countries in terms of pandemic control and 85% of our population is fully vaccinated.

Nothing else can be expected from Sumanthiran who represents a political party formed by LTTE soon after Sept 11 attack in 2001. What Sumanthiran and the rest, who still demand “self determination” for the North must understand is that the LTTE fought for this for more than 30 years. They killed thousands of innocents including pregnant mothers and infants, killed many educated Tamils and Tamil politicians, maimed thousands of innocents and destroyed government property. Tamil children were forcibly taken, traumatized through gruesome training to kill Sinhalese whom they have never met before! But yet the LTTE was defeated by the government forces together with their ideology of “self determination”. That too at very high cost, where 29,000 soldiers were killed and 14,000 severely wounded .

So the LTTE/TNA who resorted to ruthless terrorism to achieve ” self determination” in North were militarily crushed by the forces.  After the war, the government carried out a huge development plan in North, during which time the growth rate in North was 22% compared to 7% in Colombo. And we find Sumanthiran who lives in Colombo still cries for “self determination”. What is the hidden agenda?

The ideology of LTTE and TNA are the same. TNA was directly controlled by LTTE. TNA MPs took oath in front of Prabhakaran before they took oath in parliament. TNA MPs were accused of violating parliamentary privileges and SL constitution by carrying out LTTE propaganda and participating in pro LTTE events overseas in spite of these organizations being banned. TNA never condemned the atrocities of LTTE, never appealed to release civilians when used as human shields, and never gave even a packet of rice to the poor Tamils

The yearly income of LTTE was about 400 million dollars as per the Jane’s Defence Weekly magazine. Throughout the 30 years LTTE/ TNA never built a single road in Jaffna. They never built a single house for the poor. Never produced a single bright student except using children as cannon fodder. Never put up a hospital or a school. But Prabhakaran lived in a luxurious bunker with all the facilities including a state of the art swimming pool!

We know during the war, in the North, it was a one man fascist regime hunting it’s political and military opponents most of whom were Tamils. Journalist HLD Mahindapala, in his article “Tamil oppressors denied Tamils justice, equality and dignity” posted on December 21, 2021, says as follows. Quote: ” LTTE regime had law courts that dispensed laws made to sustain the one man regime in power. No professional Tamil lawyer, including the lawyers like Sumanthiran, who complains bitterly about   Tamils not having dignity, equality and justice, in the Sinhala State, practiced law in Tamil courts in North. Isn’t it because they found dignity, equality and justice only in Sinhala courts? Would the Tamil leaders send their children to study law in Prabhakaran’s law college or would they enrol in Colombo law college? What respect would CV Wigneswaran have earned if he served as a judge in Prabhakaran’s courts? What justice did the Tamil parents get from Prabhakaran’s courts when they went to courts seeking the release of their children abducted by Thamil Chelvam? Unquote.

That was the plight of the Tamils in North under LTTE/TNA. But before that what was the plight of the low caste Tamils under Vellalas?

Sumanthiran talks about dignity, justice and equality of Tamils in North but doesn’t he know that Vellalas ( the so called high caste Tamils ) have reduced so-called low caste Tamils to a subhuman outcast unfit for human society? Mahindapala in a series of articles exposes the truth, ie. the worst enemies of Tamils were the Tamils themselves.

If Sumanthiran still feel self determination is a must for Tamils he must mention what are the grievances of Tamils that are exclusive to them and denied to them exclusively and constitutionally. Are there any grievances that are not common to Sinhalese, Muslims, Burghers and Malays?

What Jaffna looks like now and what it looked like before 2009 May is something no one today can even imagine. Now there’s no threat to the Tamil civilians by terrorist bombs. Depressed caste Tamil children are saved from converting into child killers. No one touches the money deposited in their bank accounts by their relations abroad. The fishermen freely trade their catches, prawns, crabs, lobsters etc without paying exorbitant taxes to LTTE. I can write a page on how the dignity and freedom of Tamils in North are preserved today compared to what it was in the past. In addition there’s massive infra structure development that has taken place. But yet there’s still room for improvement. That’s why the President, in his policy statement , asked to set aside various political ideologies at least temporarily and support the government s effort to improve the living conditions of people in those areas. That is the least  the country can expect from all the patriotic citizens in the country. Only people like Sumanthiran think it fit to fight for “self determination” in North when,  according to his own judgment, the country is holding the begging bowl for the next meal!

I think our brethren in the North can come forward. The call must come from the Tamil people themselves. They must remember the horrendous time they lived under LTTE. They must recall how the Vellalas treated helpless, oppressed “panchamars.” They must remember that it were the Sinhalese ( and the Muslim) soldiers  who saved them from the clutches of LTTE. They must appreciate the effort taken by the Sinhalese leaders who saved them from the clutches of Vellalas by bringing an Act. They must understand that “self determination” is a ploy to bring Vellala hegemony back to North. Finally they must watch carefully and see how more than 50% of their population live with the Sinhalese and Muslims in the South and watch how the Tamils engage in various types of trades of which the customers are mostly Sinhalese. Finally the Northern Tamils must think carefully and see what they are going to gain, more than what they have now, if they get the self determination which Sumanthiran demands. They also should ask Sumanthiran, if and when the so called self determination is achieved,  whether he  is willing shift his family and live in North to enjoy the  dignity, equality and justice which he has lost under Sinhala state in South.

So it is up to the respectable Tamils to decide whether to join hands with Sumanthiran (who has never lived or never live in North) and fight for “self determination” or support the President who says leave aside all “ideologies” at least for the time being and support him in providing more facilities for the needy.

Rear Admiral ( Dr.) Sarath Weerasekera

Public Security Minister