 In a open letter, V.Anandasangaree, the Leader of Tamil United Liberation Front has alleged the V.Prabakaran, the reclusive leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, should be held responsible for the deaths of over 70 thousand people of all faiths, of all age groups, of both sexes of all communities in Sri Lanka not only at the battle front but also in land and claymore mine attacks, hand grenade and bomb attacks and also massacres of innocent ones in buses, and trains.
In a scathing attack Anandasangaree has pointed out "One of your most cruel actions was the assassination of the Ex-Prime Minister of India the Late Hon. Rajiv Gandhi with which you lost the support of all Indians. Those who still support you in India are only pretenders. The next thoughtless step was your decision to eradicate all the other Tamil groups without realizing that rightly or wrongly they came forward to fight for a cause like you and your cadre."
Anandasangaree a veteran Tamil politician has said that it was not his intention to ridicule or to expose Prabakaran. He added that he wants Prabakaran to improve and mend his way.
He advised Prabakaran" you know fully well that Tamil Eelam is not achievable or feasible. Neither the International Community nor India will ever allow it. It is not possible without their concurrence. Hence forget about it."
The Full text of the letter to Velupillai Prabakaran by V. Anandasangaree is given below:
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Mr. V.Prabaharan,
Leader - LTTE,
Kilinochchi.
22-06-2007
My Dear Thamby
The Only Way Open
It is very unfortunate that you had not replied to any of my letters sent to you during the past three to four years. I do not expect a reply for this letter either, but I will be satisfied if you would kindly take the trouble to read it carefully, although it may appear to be bitter. Please understand my concerns, for the Tamil Speaking people in particular and of all Sri Lankans in general. Since things seem to be going out of control, please take suitable remedial measures to bring back peace and tranquility to a suffering nation, with-out any further delay.
Some of the matters I am referring to here were not brought to your attention in any of my previous letters. The time has now come for you to take full responsibility for the present precarious condition in which our people live. Although unpalatable, please act with responsibility and caution, forgetting all what had happened in the past and work for a prosperous future of all the people of Sri Lanka. Like some others who project the LTTE as the sole representatives of the Tamil people, I will not do so, because you are not considered by the Tamil people as such, mainly due to your ruthlessness. You know very well that you have earned the name as the most ruthless person in the world. Are you not aware that you are fast losing your credibility day by day, by causing terror and tension to the people? By your reign of terror you have silenced every Tamil voice except a few of which I am one. If you are not going to help to find a solution for the ethnic problem during my life time, you will never find one. Please give up your demand for separation and accept a federal solution within a United Sri Lanka, which will receive very wide support, surprisingly even from un-expected quarters.
Please permit me to bring back to your memory some incidents of the bitter past, not with a view to insult or embarrass you, but to help to open the eyes of some who still think that the Tamils can be treated as second class citizens. This is contrary to the thinking of a large majority of the Sinhalese, who are very fair and reasonable and want to live as equals with all the others.
People are changing day by day. Some come out with fantastic ideas and new theories. History is getting distorted. Some say that Portuguese brought Tamils to Jaffna to plant tobacco. Some even say that this land of ours belongs only to the Sinhalese and only Sinhalese can live here. I am not going to stoop low to meet these arguments. It is enough for one to know that only 20 miles of Palk Strait separate Sri Lanka from Tamil Nadu in India, where 60 million Tamils live. There are many who had swam across from Tamil Nadu to Jaffna and from Jaffna to Tamil Nadu and some of my classmates used to tell me that their brothers and close relatives got across to India after an early dinner in a country boat and returned before dawn after seeing an M.G.R. film. Further more the five Easwaran Temples Vishnu Devala in Devinuware and Lord Murugan at Kataragama are a few ancient temples existing from pre-historic times. I always look at our problem as a patriotic citizen of Sri Lanka and never as one who belongs to a particular community or group. That is patriotism! By making any irresponsible statement, I don't want to provoke or insult any moderate Sinhalese and thereby aggravate the situation at a time when calm and patience is needed most to solve our problem.
Taking the passage of the Sinhala Only Act as the Starting Point, the ethnic problem is now 50 years old. There was absolutely no need for that new Law because all schools in Jaffna that had classes up to Senior, present day G.C.E(O/L) had graduates in their academic staff to teach Sinhala for Tamil students. You were either not born then or must have been a toddler. At that time the Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and many other small groups lived in absolute peace and harmony with mutual love and respect for each other. Except over one minor incident relating to a temple festival in the South, that too long ago, communal riots was unheard of in our peaceful country. I don't want even to mention as to who and who clashed at the time.
It is only the passage of the Sinhala Only Act that brought ruin to our country, where all communities lived peacefully. That too could have been saved if the remedial measures taken were not disrupted by some chauvinist forces which you find at least in small numbers in almost every group all over the world. Left alone, under the renowned non-violent leader-ship of the Late Hon.S.J.V.Chelvanayagam Q.C., the newly formed alliance the T.U.L.F. would have sorted out the Tamil problem peacefully but it is you who aggravated the situation by taking drastic steps, never heard of in the history of Jaffna till that time.
Things took a violent turn with your introduction of gun culture by gunning down the Late Hon. Mr. Alfred Duraiappah, Ex-Mayor of Jaffna who became the M.P. for Jaffna by defeating the nominees of the two major political parties the All Ceylon Tamil Congress and the Federal Party led by two prominent Queen's Councils the Late Hon. G.G.Ponnambalam and the Late Hon. S.J.V.Chelvanayagam. The only known crime Mr.Duraiappah committed was defeating the nominees of both the Leading Tamil parties in Jaffna. I wonder whether even you knew as to why you gunned down Mr. Alfred Duraiappah, a popular political figure, while he was praying before Lord Vishnu at the Ponnalai Varadarajah Perumal Temple, another name for Lord Vishnu. People believe that the high toll of death and loss of properties among the Tamils were inflicted as retribution for assassinating Mr. Alfred Duraiappah right in front of the deity Lord Vishnu and for driving away the Muslims from the North, depriving them of all their possession and preventing them from taking even the ear-studs of Muslim kids. You should be held responsible for the deaths of over 70 thousand people of all faiths, of all age groups, of both sexes of all communities in Sri Lanka not only at the battle front but also in land and claymore mine attacks, hand grenade and bomb attacks and also massacres of innocent ones in buses, trains, etc. The Kepitigolawa and Aranthalawa massacres, attempt to sink the ship carrying 700 service personnel in mid-sea, the killing of the hundred odd Navy personnel going on leave and returning for duty and many other massacres in the Mosques etc. cannot be justified. What harm did the 31 innocent Buddhist Priests you slaughtered at Aranthalawa did to you? Can you cite one single incident of this nature in which a Sinhalese civilian got involved. Further more please take it for granted that up to now not one Tamil life was taken by any one of those so called Buddhist Sinhala Chauvinist although some talk irresponsibly. I am not unaware of the "Kumuduni" Ferry massacre, the Velanai, Suruvil and Mankumban incidents, and the mass burial of Tamils at Navatkuli by the forces. The Sinhalese civilians had never been implicated in any one incident of this nature but as far as the civilian killings are concerned your hands are bloody. The curse of the victims will not spare anyone responsible for these heinous crimes. That is why I say, "Let us now forget everything and turn over to a new leaf and earn the admiration of all Sri Lankans and the International Community, all of whom are yearning for peace".
One of your most cruel actions was the assassination of the Ex-Prime Minister of India the Late Hon. Rajiv Gandhi with which you lost the support of all Indians. Those who still support you in India are only pretenders. The next thoughtless step was your decision to eradicate all the other Tamil groups without realizing that rightly or wrongly they came forward to fight for a cause like you and your cadre. You by being so selfish and greedy brought only ruin for yourself by hunting for them and thereby lost the public support that you had, if any. By your latest action you have made things worse. Please do not expect any government to help you or to supply you with equipment for aerial attacks. As far as I am concerned your attack can only be taken as an air-display and not as a serious aerial attack. You are only tightening your noose by engaging in such activities and also earning the wrath of the International Community, which will never give any support to strengthen you.
I now wish you to cry halt to everything and look-back at your achievements. Please assess for yourself the damage you and your cadre had caused to your own people and to the country as a whole in various ways. I will deal only with a few matters, may be just a fraction and leave the rest for your guess. The following list, with my comments, should open not only your eyes but also the eyes of those who want to keep the issue dragging without finding a reasonable and immediate solution, whether they are from the Government or the opposition side. As for the ordinary people they all want peace at any price.
I have a special purpose in writing this lengthy letter to you. I do not imagine that the average Sinhalese, having come to know the shabby and the degrading manner in which your cadre had been treating the Tamils and the Muslims for almost quarter of a century, will expect them to be satisfied with a half baked solution which will never bring permanent peace for them and instead leave it open for further agitation in the future too. I am sure the Sinhalese will struggle hard to solve the problem once and for all, to the satisfaction of the minorities, under a Federal System within a United Sri Lanka, since no relief had been found for over fifty years in a Unitary Constitution.
1. Education
I was present in Parliament in 1970 when the tragic decision to standardize marks for the admission of students to the Universities was taken, which prevented a large number of qualified Tamil students from getting admitted to the prestigious courses like Medicine and Engineering. The charge was that entry of large number of Tamil students would be out of proportion to their ethnic composition. This being an unjustifiable move, it precipitated a lot of heartburn among the Tamil students that ultimately turned out to be the immediate cause for all the evils of today. However the next Government in 1977 successfully introduced a new scheme to the satisfaction of students of all ethnic groups but it was too late. This was between 1970 and 1972.
What is happening today?. Are Tamil children allowed to attend school regularly by your cadre? Last year during the 1st term the children lost about 27 school days why?. They are being used off and on for demonstrations, hartals, and to antagonize the forces by defying them, casting insulting remarks, throwing stones at them etc. We should realize that we do not have Gandhis in our forces to observe non-violence. Much more can be said but I leave it at that and conclude by saying that admission of Jaffna students to Universities on merit basis have reduced considerably and it is a shame that some batches of students take ten years to complete their course due to the compulsions they had to cut classes and attend demonstrations and hartals. Where do the Tamils stand in Education after 35 years of constant struggle. Are you not aware that over 200 school going children had been handed over to the H.R.C. for safe keeping in Jaffna today to save them from being recruited as child-soldiers.
2. Intellectuals, academics government agents and government servants of all ranks, engineers, doctors heads of schools, teachers etc.
In the history of the ethnic issue of fifty years can you give one instance in which any one person of the above category was ever killed by the Government forces or by any Sinhalese or Muslims. Contrary to that such killings were by your own cadre. To mention a few, a Medical College Lecturer Mrs.Rajani Theranagama, Principal Jaffna St.John's College Mr.Anandarajah, Principal Central College Mr.Rajadurai, Government Agents Mr.Mcbool, Mr.Panchalingam and Mr.Gnanachandran and hundreds of others. Why did you allow them to be killed?.
3. Building materials K.K.S. . cement factory
All the building materials required were available at our door-step in Jaffna. Cement Factory at K.K.S. produced cement much more than required to meet the local requirements and a large quantity was sent regularly to the south and to other parts of the country. How many thousands of lives depended on it for their survival?. What happened to the Factory?. The employees have become paupers and their families suffered a lot. When hundreds of thousands of Tamils were working in the south amongst the Sinhalese you go and gun down the Sinhalese Production Manager Mr.Bogolagama which resulted in the closing down of the factory. A bag of cement that cost less than 100 rupees then now cost about Rs.1000.00. How many crores of rupees will be needed now to rebuild a factory like that?.
4. Asbestos cement industries of Punnalaikadduvan
This factory had been producing asbestos roofing sheets and could have met the local requirements. Where is it now?. What is the difference in price between now and then. How much will be needed to re-establish a factory like that?. What did you gain by destroying that factory?.
5. Sand.
An important requirement for building construction is sand, available in large quantities sufficient to last for several generations at Kudathanai, Amban, Manalkadu, Nagar Kovil etc. It is entirely in the Government's cleared areas. Are you not aware that one University student who loaded his Tractor trailer with sand for his personal use was burnt alive with his trailer by your cadre which incident his university colleagues pretended to be not knowing anything about it. Why?. Because they don't dare to demonstrate against you. If you allow normalcy to return to the North the cost of building a house will be much less than 20% of what it now costs.
Courtesy :Asian Tribune |