JVP SAYS NO TALKS WITH THE LTTE
(JVP COMING OF AGE?)
The JVP has demanded that there should be no talks with the LTTE. It is one of the conditions that they have presented to the president, in order to support what is called a probationary government. It implies that the government should defeat the LTTE through military means and it is clear that the JVP has taken up a nationalist stance. If the JVP, is prepared to drop the Marxist ideology and the paraphernalia such as their red shirts that goes with it, then the former revolutionary party can play a bigger role in the politics of the nation. In 1987 also the JVP took up a nationalist stance for sometime but they were so much influenced by the so-called world socialist and Marxist movements that soon they gave up nationalist politics to engage in terrorist activities using Marxist slogans. The LTTE can be defeated only using the armed forces which according to the traditional Marxist ideology is nothing but an instrument in the hands of the capitalist state.The JVP should understand that the fight against globalisation, poverty, western cultural imperialism etc., can be won only through a nationalist ideology based in the Jathika Chinthanaya and not through the Marxist ideology based in the western Judaic Chinthanaya. It is encouraging to see that the so-called International Leninist Current, to which the JVP is affiliated, in a letter dated June 27, 2001 has criticised the "chauvinist" position of the JVP. The following sentences quoted from the letter are noteworthy.
"The entire political life of your country is turning around the war and the struggle of the Tamils. A correct position on this matter is therefore essential for all Sri Lankan revolutionaries. It constitutes the litmus test whether the Singhalese revolutionaries are democratic and internationalist or chauvinist and nationalist. We insist that your refusal of the devolution is a grave political error. This refusal, even if it gives you some support in the most nationalist and depoliticised sectors of the Singhalese population, it creates a deep hostility against you among millions of oppressed Tamils. It is not legitimate to decorate oneself with the label Marxist-Leninist if one supports the chauvinism of the dominant nationality and does not support the oppressed nationality.This is the point, comrades. Your ultra-leftist arguments regarding the national question appear as a mask for a fundamentally chauvinist position. It is not only us who is reproaching this to you. And it is not only the NSSP (with that you had been until one year in a common front which fell apart facing the national problem). The entire left of the sub continent from Pakistan to Bangladesh, from India to Nepal is doing so."
I did not know that there were Singhalese revolutionaries until I read the letter to the JVP by the so-called International Leninist Current (ILC). I had been under the impression that the revolutionaries, according to the Marxists, are internationalists and are not identified by their "ethnicity". The ILC thinks that there are millions of Tamils who are oppressed. I do not know whether the ILC has included the Tamils in Tamil Nadu who are apparently struggling to get Tamil introduced as a medium of instruction in that state. In any event the JVP, I am sure, would not be worried by the reaction of comrade Bahu and the entire left of the sub continent. Neither comrade Bahu nor the sub continent left, not to mention the NGO's supported by the western countries, is doing much about the "oppressed Tamils" in Tamil Nadu as revealed in the following news items, that appeared on the fifth of August and on the seventh of August, in the Elamnation website.
"Over fifty organizations have decided to hold fasting protest when the Tamil Nadu assembly to meet on August 16th in order to urge the Tamil Nadu Government and politicians to do needful to bring Thamil as compulsory medium language in Tamil Nadu schools from kindergarten to grade five. The protest will be held nearby Valluvar Kottam in Nungambakkam, Chennai.
The organizations said each of them would hold protest one day each starting from 9 a.m. on August 16th till the next morning 9 a.m. This protest will last until the assembly meetings are over.
The demands of the organizations are including teaching Thamil as a medium language at all schools in the State. The teachers should teach them in Thamil instead of teaching in a foreign language, which is unwanted to the students who are going to live and work in Tamil Nadu.
The organizations said they are not discrediting other languages but they are urging the Government to bring Thamil as a medium language at schools because of the students who are living in Tamil Nadu should read and understand Thamil to live in the State. They pointed out that Germans speak and read in Deutch and do well in all areas of their living. If Germans can do it in Germany, why shouldn't we study in Thamil and better ourselves in the future, they questioned.
They urged the Government to pay attention to provide jobs to the people who studied in Thamil language. They said this would also encourage the citizens of the State to study in Thamil language.
They also urged the Tamil Nadu Government to bring restrictions to put up banners at the business and other places in languages other than Thamil. The Government should consider doing the prayers and other religious ceremonies in Thamil language, instead of Sanskrit.
They appealed to the Members of Parliament (MPs) from Tamil Nadu should pressure the Indian Federal Government to recognize the Thamil language as one of the oldest languages in the world. This language exists for more than 3,500 years and also it is spoken widely by the Thamil people who are living in more than 40 countries now." (August 05).
"A family of four who fled their hometown of Mullaitheevu few years ago to seek asylum in India and were lodged at a refugee camp in Rameshwaram. But these refugees went out without the knowledge of the authorities in order to obtain medical treatment to their eight years of age son Anujan at their own expense at a Hospital in Tamil Nadu. These refugees were arrested and detained under the Immigration Act on Friday, August 3rd on their return to refugee camp.
Mr. Sivakumar, his wife Mrs. Queenmary Sivakumar, their two children Anujan and Anusiya fled from their hometown of Alampil years ago from the district of Mullaitheevu. But these refugees are held in Police custody now allegedly that these people left the refugee camp without the permission of the Indian authorities.
Mr. Sivakumar, the head of the family said that he made several attempts to go out to procure medical treatment to his son at a private Hospital at his own expense. But the Indian officials refused to let them go out. Instead they advised him to admit the boy at a Hospital which is operated by the Government free of charge.
According to Sivakumar, he does not want his son dead since the Government Hospitals in Tamil Nadu do no provide medical treatment equal to other Hospitals in the State which are run privately. Due to the desire for the well being of his son, all of his family members went out to find a better medical Hospital.
He said the child is now recovered from the disease and he aimed to return to their refugee camp. But the Tamil Nadu police officials in Thanuskody described them as having entered the State without possessing legal documents and they laid charges under these allegations." (August 07).
The news item on the medium of instruction is not very clear. Does it mean that in Tamil Nadu, Tamil is not the medium of instruction in state schools? If so, Tamils in Sri Lanka must be very privileged to have their entire education from year one to university level in Tamil. Is Sri Lanka the only country in the world providing instruction in Tamil medium in schools as well as in the universities. In Malaysia where a sizable Tamil community, mainly of Indian origin, lives the medium of instruction in the secondary schools is Bhasa Malay and all Tamil students are instructed in that medium. It has to remembered that there are Tamil medium students not only the universities in the Northern and Eastern provinces but also in the University of Peradeniya. However, it is in Sri Lanka that the Tamils are supposed to be oppressed, according to the Tamil racists and the western powers. As we have established with facts the so-called oppression of Tamils in Sri Lanka is a myth created by Jaffna Vellala Tamils with the connivance of the British colonial powers. It can be safely said that the Tamils in Sri Lanka enjoy more privileges than any other community of Tamils anywhere in the world, including India. The second news item quoted above illustrates how the so-called Tamil refugees are treated in India. If it happened in Sri Lanka what would have been the reaction of the NGOs and the Tamil racists in Colombo?
The JVP is absolutely correct when it demands that there should be no talks with the LTTE. It is the pink socialist policies of the SLMP and not the nationalist policies of the SLFP since 1955, that dictates terms in the PA. People like Mr. Batty Weerakoon who cannot obtain a few thousands of preferential vote (manape) have become the "purohithayas" of the referendum. Only a few minutes before the referendum was postponed he, as the minister of justice, had said over a television channel that the referendum could not be postponed. If he is a man of principles by now he should have resigned his portfolio. Ms. Chandrika Kumaratunga should stop listening to these "purohithayas" in the tradition of Kevatta and the rest in the Ummagga Jathakaya. The JVP as the party of the children of fifty six (Panas Haye Daruwo), though misguided by Marxism, should be able to shed the foreign doctrine and apply pressure on the government.
What is there to talk with the LTTE or any other Tamil racist party for that matter. The Tamils in Sri Lanka who are of recent origin, most of the Tamils in Jaffna being descendents of Tamils who were brought by the Dutch for their tobacco cultivation from Malabar coast in South India, enjoy more privileges than the Tamils in India itself. The whole Tamil racist problem is due to myths created by the Vellalas and the British and to a certain extent by the Dutch. In India, the Tamils could only say that there is a state government in Tamil Nadu demarcated along ethnicity and in Sri Lanka there is no such state government or regional council. In India I suppose more than ninety percent of the Tamils (I do not have the exact figures with me) live in Tamil Nadu and in turn more than ninety percent of the population in Tamil Nadu are Tamils. Also Tamils have been living in the region known today as Tamil Nadu for more than thousand years. What is the position in Sri Lanka? More than fifty percent of the Tamils live outside the northern and eastern provinces. In the eastern province the percentage of Tamils is less than fifty percent and they are even today, confined to the coastal regions. These provinces were demarcated by the British as late as 1889 and as has been said earlier most of the Tamils even in the Jaffna peninsula are descendants of the Malabars. There is no ground what so ever for an Indian type federal government in Sri Lanka with the northern and eastern provinces demarcated as one unit for the Tamils. It is not historical or geographical (demographic) or other such facts that sustain the Tamil terrorists. All these so called facts from Tamil nation to Tamil homeland have been demolished and exposed as myths. I repeat. There is nothing to talk with the LTTE or any other Tamil racist party on this matter. If the Tamil racist parties want they could go to Tamil Nadu on the 16th (tomorrow) and join the Sathyagrahis in Chennai. Let them help the Tamils in India to win their fundamental rights. In Sri Lanka it is the military power of the LTTE and the support given to Tamil racism by the western powers that keep Tamil racists going. The JVP should not only demand that there should be no talks with the LTTE but more emphatically demand that the so-called probationary government should take all steps, including reorganisation of the armed forces to defeat the LTTE. In fact the main objective of the "probationary" government should be defeating the LTTE.
Professor Nalin de Silva
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