Saturday Nov 16, 2024
Saturday Nov 16, 2024
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The above article was published in Daily FT on 15 October. He refers to a statement I made in the Parliament with regards to the 13th Amendment and Indian PM and asks whether this or any other state minister attacks President Trump or President XI in the manner Weerasekera attacked PM Modi and India? Would the President and the PM have let him?
The colours of DJ are too many given his past records of alliances and allegiances. Not too long ago he was also standing on ‘Viyath virus’ and because he became a virus he was promptly ousted.
DJ’s entire article reeks of anger and resentment, may be, in not holding any position of power to enjoy public privileges at the State’s expense. So he is using his AK47 vocabulary to attack all and sundry.
Not too long ago DJ was reading out a message of the ‘regime leader’ on a stage in Nugegoda. From the array of words plucked from the dictionary, we can assume where the Opposition leader today sources his words.
Obviously DJ, who has an affinity to India, gets agitated and excited whenever someone criticises the 13th Amendment, for, he was one of the strong promoters of 13A and a Supra class federalist who had tried hard and still lobbying to federate this country.
Jayathilaka had been a supporter of Tamil militancy for some time and had argued that their actions were a ‘war of national liberation’ not ‘terrorism’. He and others found ‘wikalpa kandayama’ and it formed a relationship with the Tamil militant “Elam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front” (EPRLF). Wikalpa Kandayama was banned in 1986 and DJ was indicted in absentia by Colombo high Court on 14 counts including conspiracy to ‘overthrow the state through violence’. He went into hiding in Sri Lanka and India and finally pardoned by President JR Jayawardena.
Jayathilaka was the Minister of Planning and Youth Affairs for the North Eastern Province under the Chief Minister Varatharaja Perumal who declared Unilateral Declaration of Independence and fled to India.
My statement in Parliament was purely personal and I don’t require DJ’s permission to voice my sentiments. When both my government and Indian government were not worried, why only DJ is getting excited? He, is very childishly, trying to show that my statement was made with the knowledge of the President and ‘we’ timed it to coincide with the visit of the Chinese envoy.
DJ deliberately uses the words (that I) attacked, lashed out, went head-on and spoke with disrespectful testiness against PM Modi and in a very sympathetic note, says that Modi was only reiterating, what he has said many times more.
DJ must be frankly thinking that after his dream of ‘full implementation of 13A’ comes true, Modi would help him getting elected as the Chief Minister in the merged NE!
When talking about PM Modi, he definitely knows how to differentiate a genuine person from a conner. He has provided enough evidence that he would be a hard task-master who cannot be tripped or taken for a ride by anyone, whether they are American politicians, Australian diplomats, Japanese bureaucrats or Sri Lankan stoogers.
DJ was the mastermind behind the inclusion of 13A to the Resolution 11/1 passed in UNHRC on 27 May 2009. This resolution, adopted eight days after we won the war, praised and congratulated the Government for defeating LTTE and condemned the terrorists for their atrocities including recruiting child soldiers and keeping innocent Tamils as a human shield.
It was DJ, as the Ambassador in Geneva, on his own, who manipulated to provide a clause in it indicating the full implementation of 13 A. DJ boasts that the above Resolution was a big victory during his time, but in actual fact, he let down the entire nation, because, even after comprehensively defeating the most ruthless terrorist organisation in the world, it had paved the way for separatists to demand an independent state in the north. Because of his treacherous act he was very rightly sacked and recalled from Geneva. In keeping with the norms/much valued traditions of a diplomat, he should have been blacklisted, tried for treason and sentenced to jail.
It is a known fact that 13A was a hurried one and coercively introduced. Reconciliation doesn’t mean pandering to ahistorical claim or to Eelamists mythology to which DJ amply subscribe. Even much before the word ‘Reconciliation’ came to our vocabulary, the ordinary Sinhalese and Tamils have been living in peace and harmony for hundreds of years. Whatever the meaning of the word, Sinhalese and Tamils are more than willing for ‘reconciliation’ that is not bastardised by formulations promoted by third rate diplomats.
My full speech which I tabled in Parliament is now in Hanzard. First I paid tribute to India and Indian Navy for their contribution towards my professional naval career. What I said was that Modi’s interference into our ‘internal affairs’ must have been based on the authority India wields via Indo-Lanka accord and if the accord has become null and void, India has no moral right to insist on 13A. Then I continued to say, in my opinion, how it has become obsolete, as it was signed under duress. The following were some of the editorials published on 9 July 1987.
“Ships loads of food arriving in kks. Already sent 3 ship loads carrying 1300 metric tons since the infamous Indian air dropping of food, which brought India into opprobrium in the eyes of the world community. More and more Indian ships were coming to kks. India says mass starvation, when Sri Lankan government consistently denied. To continue sending food and other assistance in the face of this denial is tantamount to a calculated affront to Sri Lanka’s sovereignty. India failed to stop LTTE massacring innocent people while sending food. It is widely acknowledged that India has ceased to be a mediator in the Sri Lankan crisis and has become a part to the dispute and part of the problem.”
In 1987 April Sri Lankan Government declared ceasefire. A busload of civilians were massacred in Habrana while ceasefire was on, followed by equally brutal massacres such as Pettah bomb blast and slaughter of many civilians. Indian government expressed regret but never mentioned name of the killer. Only after those incidents that Wadamarachchi operation was launched. when we were about crush LTTE, India violated our air space and dropped food and medicine. When their own people were starving in Tamil Nadu without food and water India continued to send ship loads of food and water to people in Jaffna, who had enough and more food .
This is ample proof that the accord, which was signed a couple of months later, was signed under duress.
Full implementation of 13A with land and police powers mean independent provinces and with a little more thrust, Northern Province can then even secede.
When talking about session, India herself doesn’t tolerate separatism or secession.
Indian PM Modi, in order to prevent secession, put the Kashmir Valley on lockdown, placed the two chief ministers in J&K under house arrest, kept it on the President’s rule, deployed 35,000 para military troops, blocked internet and phone services and finally a abrogated Art 370 by revocating J&K’s special status. Modi who insists on 13A in Sri Lanka implying autonomy to Tamils, stripped J&K of autonomy and downgraded them into Union of territories status with the slightest sign of danger. Now J&K is not a state of India.
India should now be cognisant of the fact that we too see the ‘danger’ due to the behaviour and attitude of Tamil politicians. The TNA and the former CM Wigneshwaran continue to demand self-determination to the North. They keep commemorating the dead terrorists and even took oath at Mulliweliwaikkal cemetery, where scores of terrorist s were killed during the battle, before taking oath in Parliament. So if that is the attitude of the Tamil politicians, we should seriously think of following India and abrogate 13A.
Indo-Lanka Accord makes no mention of 13A and it serves no purpose to the country. What is the merit DJ sees in its continuance? More important question is when NE merger was demerged, why were India and DJ silent? What needs to be said and reiterated is that Sri Lanka cannot be divided into mono-ethno-linguistic faith States and if so the PCs cannot be also demarked in the same manner.
DJ before further promoting 13A must first study the history of the country and read about all our valiant men/women who fought to preserve the unitary nature of our motherland.
It is nothing to be surprised, that even during the period of subjugation, most of the time, it was a Sinhalese who betrayed the side. Such people were ever ready to lick the boots of their Masters and go to any extent for personal gains. Past history shows us how such people were spiked to death as punishment. Recent history shows us how they were stripped naked and humiliated in public gathering .The irony is, for some unknown reasons, they keep on coming in different forms. It may be the DNA.
