BALASINGHAM ON THE VERDICT
Thailand talks have ended, without a clear statement on the outcome. It is obvious that all the parties concerned keep quiet about what has happened and the official statements merely inform the rest of the world that the next round or session or whatever of the talks between the LTTE and the government of Sri Lanka would be held in Oslo, Norway, if not in Japan. If they are held in Oslo, Solheim would not have to make so many trips up and down and he could enjoy his dosais in Oslo itself without coming to Vanni. He once said that he enjoyed dosais for dinner and in general liked South Indian food. Solheim who was the bestman at the wedding of the Indian journalist Anita Pratap, who was the first to interview the convicted murderer Prabhakaran, to the former Norwegian ambassador in India should know his curry powder just as much Prabhakaran knows his gunpowder. It is strange that no journalist had asked G. L. Peiris or Balasingham or even Moragoda or Hakeem not to mention Thamilselvan why the talks would not be held in Thailand hereafter. Who objected to talks being held in Thailand. Was it Thailand, Sri Lanka, LTTE, India or the so-called international community. Did Thailand object to talks after the Bali explosions? Was it the Buddhist Brotherhood or the Muslim Brotherhood that made Thais to say in very diplomatic words that they would not allow Norway to stage the talk show in their country.
The minister Hakeem who does not know whether he is coming or going rushed to Thailand after having talks with the "rebels" in the SLMM. The Norwegians have been very kind to Hakeem to rename the second round of talks in Thailand as the second session of the first round so that he could continue to be a member of the Sri Lankan government delegation. If the talks were called the second round, Hakeem would have been in the unenviable position of being the Muslim representative as well as a member of the government delegation. The Muslims had demanded for Muslim participation at the talk show and the state department scriptwriter is working overtime to introduce new characters to the show. Until the revised script is approved by the LTTE, nobody is concerned about the Sri Lankan government position as it has no position except to follow the script, we do not know whether they would be having the third session of the first round or the second part of the second session of the first round of talks in Oslo, after the commercial break? With all these breaks the talks have become the most awaited teledrama, with the sponsors themselves playing the leading roles. Now that G. L. Peiris and Anton Balasingham being used to talking and flying in the same plane, instead of having talks in Oslo or any other city, the Norwegians could organise to have the talks in an aeroplane not necessarily flying.
Both Balasingham and G. L. Peiris referred to the 200 year sentence given to Prabhakaran by the Sri Lankan judiciary. G. L. Peiris was non committal but his colleague was critical of the judgement. Thamilselvan not to be outdone has said: " Our leader has been sentenced for 200 years, but if we try the former government leaders in our courts we may have to sentence them for 2000 years". There are number of points that came to my mind after reading Thamilselvan's statement. As Balasingham has also referred to the 2000 year sentence the LTTE seems to have discussed this among themselves and it looks as if Prabhakaran has approved the 2000 year period. It appears that the LTTE is of the view that the sentences given to the leaders should in some sense reflect the histories of the nation or the community of the leaders. Since the Tamils in Sri Lanka have a history of only about 250 years and the Sinhala people have a history of about 2500 years the LTTE probably would have thought that Sri Lankan courts have given a sentence of 200 years to their leader considering their history and therefore they should give the "Sinhala leaders" a sentence that reflects the 2500 year history of the Sinhalas. We should be thankful to the Tamil racists for conceding this fact after nearly 200 years. Though the Tamil racists, and especially the LTTE who have taken up arms against the unitary state, oppose the unitary constitution they seem to be very fond of the unitary method in Arithmetic. 200 years for 250 years of history, therefore for 2500 years of history the sentence should be 200 X 2500 / 250 = 2000 years.
Then the question arises as to the law that is being used in the so-called courts of the LTTE. Is it Roman Dutch, Chola, or the law of the Viking pirates or some other law of Prabhakaran? Since the sentence has been pre determined it is likely that it is the law of some kind of pirates who are after the property and/or states. In any event it is nice to see even pirates recognising the 2500 year history of the Sinhalas. However there is a problem for the LTTE. The people whom they are talking about are not leaders of the Sinhalas. They want to sentence the leaders of the former government but these so called leaders are not leaders of the Sinhala people. They are the leaders given to them by the British and even the latter do not have a history of 2500 years. It is clear that the LTTE is after the President Kumaratunga whether she is a leader of the Sinhalas or not. Unfortunately for the LTTE, she is the leader of the so-called Sri Lankan nation that the NGO and the University imitators who identify themselves as intellectuals (some belong to both) are trying to build. Some of these nation builders think that nation building is not much different from body building that some male youth are engaged in gymnasia, (Incidentally why no female youth have taken to body building though there are many nation builders among the young and not so young women. Why this asymmetry? Are they followers of the asymmetric solution to the so-called ethnic problem?) while the others are busy with unmaking existing nations. In any event Chandrika Kumaratunga is the leader of a nation that is being built by eminent "scholars" and hence if she is to be given a sentence proportional to that was given to Prabhakaran then the LTTE would have to decide on a negative number of years. As the origin or the date of birth of this new nation is not known even to the "intellectuals" Prabhakaran would not be able to specify the number of negative years in the sentence. If it is an imaginary nation that the "intellectuals" are attempting to build the problem become more complicated as the number of years now become a negative imaginary number. Perhaps they can get a clue from the British Physicist Paul Dirac who "invented" anti particles with the aid of complex numbers, and impose an anti sentence with a certain probability.
Unlike Thamilselvan, Balasingham has had harsh words for the verdict on Prabhakaran. According to "The Sunday Island" of 3rd November, Balasingham has blasted the judgement as most absurd and ridiculous. He has registered a strong protest with the government over the court verdict and has said that he was not blaming the government as it has nothing to do with an independent judiciary. However according to another newspaper he has said: "However, the court is part of the government and they could have avoided this situation". Then he has referred to "war crimes" by the government as well and said that "the parties have now forgotten the past and are engaged in a constructive peace process." It is clear that the former translator at the British High Commission in Colombo does not have any idea of the difference between the government and the state. When he says that the government could have avoided the situation he means that the government should have interfered with the court proceedings. Did he want the Attorney General Mr. Kamalasabesan to withdraw the case for "insufficient" evidence or do something similar or use delaying tactics? In case of the LTTE these are not even problems as Prabhakaran is the state, the government, the chief justice, the attorney general, the inspector general of police as far as the terrorists are concerned. Under these circumstances how could Balasingham know the difference between the state and the government. It was Balasingham who said during the press conference in Vanni that Prabhakaran was their president and the prime minister.
While on delaying tactics many Sinhalas feel that as far as the investigation by the special commissioner appointed to look into the Millennium city safe house case is being unduly delayed. The appointment of a police officer to assist the commission has been referred by the IGP Mr. Anandarajah to the Attorney General and due to number of other reasons as well the commission's work has been delayed. Technically there is nothing wrong with the procedure but the process has been slowed down due to various reasons.
Coming back to Balasingham's uttering on the verdict, not being a person trained in law, I am not sure whether it amounts to a contempt of courts. If it is so then whoever who has the authority should take steps to frame charges against Balasingham, arrest and produce him before a court of law in the country. Balasingham has also referred to "war crimes". Apparently he is of the view that all these are "war crimes" and that they should be forgotten during the peace carnival. He should be reminded that "war crimes" could be committed only during a war. In Sri Lanka there has been no war for about sixty years since the so-called second world war and therefore there could not have been any war crimes during the last sixty years or so. There have been a hartal in 1953, two armed "insurrections" by the JVP and since the beginning of the seventies the LTTE has taken up arms against the state. The LTTE is still recruiting people, abducting children, buying, collecting and transporting arms as evidenced by the recent incident involving a LTTE boat carrying bombs. However, there has been no war either with the JVP or the LTTE. Some third rate journalists and other "intellectuals" may have coined journalistic terms such as "Eelam War" in the past, but that does not mean that there has been a war in this country. The government continues to feed the people in the Jaffna peninsula, maintains the University, though one of its former vice chancellors was involved with designing bunkers for the LTTE, the hospitals, schools the kachcheri etc. It should be remembered that during the civil war in America Lincoln took steps not to send any food items to the southern states. There is no civil war in Sri Lanka and the government has only sent troops to maintain law and order and to defeat the LTTE. When an organisation takes up arms against the state it is the foremost duty of the government to protect the state. Unfortunately the present government under pressure from the westerners who support Tamil racism has abandoned its duty.
Even if there is a civil war in Sri Lanka there is no need to forget the so called war criminals and their crimes committed against humanity in general and one or two groups in particular. War criminals have been tried and sentenced and Prabhakaran is not an exception. Balasingham says that the judiciary should not have disrupted the "peace process". The peace he is talking about is the peace of the Lutheran Norwegians that is not acceptable to the Sinhalas and the Muslims in general. As I have mentioned earlier there are many peaces and not one peace. Balasingham the Tamil Christian is advocating the peace of the western Christian countries and project that peace as THE PEACE. Anybody against this peace is branded as a war monger. It is heartening to note that the Sinhalas and the Muslims are gradually realising what is happening and that there is some kind of understanding between them. It is not too late for the Tamils, especially the Tamil Hindus also to see that they are being driven against the other communities in the country by the westerners and their NGO "intellectuals". The Maligawatte incidents have to be viewed with this fact in the background and it is now known that the person who is supposed to have set fire to the Muslim school building is himself a Muslim. It was a calculated attempt to drive a wedge between the Sinhala Buddhists and the Muslims and it would be interesting to find out the person or the organisation that hired the Muslim who set fire to the building.
In any event it is clear that Balasingham is angry with the verdict on Prabhakaran. We have to appreciate the brave judgement given by the judge and to note that there is now an open warrant to arrest Prabhakaran. Prabhakaran has now been sentenced by both Indian and Sri Lankan courts and he is the most wanted criminal in South Asia. The Indian government has requested the Sri Lankan government to extradite Prabhakaran in connection with murders committed in that country by the LTTE terrorists. Now it is upto the IGP Mr. Anandarajah and the Attorney General Mr. Kamalasabesan to take necessary steps to arrest the murderer.
Professor Nalin de Silva
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