Prof. Rohan Gunaratna speaks on ‘Indo-Lanka Relations’ in Parliament
Friday, 22 August 2014 00:01
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By Ashwin Hemmathagama
Our Lobby Correspondent
The fight against LTTE separatism ending in May 2009 left “deep scars” on all sides that need healing, but not by allowing the former terrorists and their supporters to get into politics, said international terrorism expert Prof. Rohan Gunaratna on Wednesday.
“It is the biggest mistake this Government made,” he said, conducting a seminar in Parliament on ‘India under Modi: A Turning Point in Indo-Lanka Relations’.
Stressing on the importance of rehabilitation but keeping terrorists and their sympathisers out of the political process, Prof. Gunaratna said: “The TNA worked closely with the LTTE. The biggest mistake the Government made was to allow LTTE supporters into Parliament and politics. The simple reason is that they will continue to have the terrorist ideologies. They will continue to talk about terrorism and start spreading ideas, leading to insurgencies. But it is an exceptional move that the Government managed to rehabilitate 12,000 ex-militants. They will continue to live among Sri Lankans. We should consider them our brothers and sisters but not allow them to be in politics.”
Giving some advice on how the Sri Lankan Government should develop relations with India, Prof. Gunaratna wanted President Mahinda Rajapaksa to understand the big picture – a picture where Dravida Kazhagam in the Tamil Nadu is as equally important as the New Delhi-based Modi Government.
“We should forge alliances with Modi as well as the DMK and AIDMK. Modi is the first Indian leader truly committed on regionalism. All leaders after Rajive Gandhi were weak. Super power politics, geopolitics and domestic politics in Southern India are the areas we Sri Lankans should be aware of. Modi will not have the same suspicions about Sri Lanka his predecessors had over Pakistan and China though dealing with them is difficult. Modi has a third eye, which is the economic eye. He is looking at the world through this second eye,” he said.Disagreeing with the alleged war crimes and the high numbers of civilian deaths during the final stage of the war, Prof. Gunaratna said: “40,000 didn’t die. If it is so, let them come forward with the names and other details. In the absence of such details, they can’t claim 40,000.”
According to Prof. Gunaratna, the biggest damage the LTTE did was to spread the ideology of prejudice. “Seeds of suspicion will not help Sri Lanka. We need to eradicate the mentality where ethnicities don’t trust each other. The TNA is nothing more than an organisation spreading Tamil nationalism. The JHU is spreading Sinhala nationalism. Both these organisations are dividing society and creating the grounds for the next war. Sri Lanka is too small to have political parties based on ethnicities. India can have this model, being a large country. We should not have schools dedicated to ethnicities. Rename the local community centres as harmony centres,” he added.
