HOLMES SHOULD BE ASKED TO STAY AT HOME
It is clear by now that the west, mainly UK and the other Christian reformist countries, which constitute the dominant force in the world in the fields of politics and culture, and together with Japan in economics wants to topple the government of Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse, install Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe as either the President or the Prime Minister and give the LTTE the northern and the eastern provinces of the country. The statement by the UN under secretary John Holmes has revealed what an underaya he is, if I may use a tern familiar to the undergraduates four decades ago. He is not only an underaya but a coward, as he did not have the courage to tell the government of Sri Lanka what he told the Reuters.
According to the statement he made to the Reuters, "there is a concern about the safety of humanitarian workers themselves and the record here is one of the worst in the world". The humanitarian workers were not shot down by the armed forces, when the former were in their hotels or residences, and in war type situations these incidents are bound to happen if the so called humanitarian workers do not take the necessary precautions. In the meantime an asylum and immigration tribunal in UK has given asylum to somebody referred to as Mr. LP on the grounds that he would have been tortured if he went back to Sri Lanka. As somebody has said UK should give asylum and citizenship to all those asylum seekers as it is that country mainly responsible for the present problem that we have at our hands.
Holmes is neither the first person nor the last person to utter such statements. Previously we had Gareth Evans with his opinions and many high commissioners for UK in Sri Lanka seem to think that they are the governors of the country. It is time for the government to declare people such as Holmes persona non grata, and stand firm on the policy of defeating the LTTE. They should be asked to stay at their homes wherever they may be, without interfering with our affairs. If the western countries think that Sri Lanka could be bullied with their statements, theories on limited sovereignty, R2Ps, then they are sadly mistaken.
We have to congratulate the Prime Minister Mr. Ratnasiri Wickramanayake for his reply to this Holmes. Undoubtedly the contents of the speech reflect the position of the government that should never bow down before these cowards. There is a saying in Sinhala that goes as "Vandinna vandinna gahana minihath, gahanna gahanna vandina minihath modayo" meaning that it is nothing but foolishness to bow down while being assaulted over and over again, and vice versa. The government should inform the people what the west is up to and prepare the people to face any situation that may be forced upon us by the western countries. The west has been assaulting the Sinhala people and the government over and over and we should leave it to Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe and the UNP that represents the interests of the Anglican culture in this country to continue to bow down to their masters.
Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekera in his "Ganaduru Mediyama Dakinemi Arunalu" mentions that since about 1987 he had been of the opinion that from about 1982 the west has been interfering with the so called ethnic problem in the country. However, it is not 1982 or any year in the recent past that is important here. The British created the problem as early as 1829 when they appointed one member each to represent the Sinhalas and the Tamils in the Legislative Assembly. Since then British had been manipulating the Tamil elites first and then the Tamil terrorists to weaken if not destroy the Sinhalathva in the country. This is not a conspiracy by the British and I do not succumb to conspiracy theories. The British had and have been following in Sri Lanka their colonial policies that have been reinforced with the realisation that the Thervada Culture could be a threat to the western Judaic Christian culture.
In Sri Lanka it was the Sinhalas who resisted the British aggression and colonialism from the very beginning. The fact that they could not capture the remains of the Sinhala Kingdom until 1815 provides ample testimony to this fact. Even after 1815 the Sinhala people rose against the British on number of occasions and the British were determined to teach a lesson to the Sinhalas. They not only gave privileges to the Tamil elite from Jaffna but imported people from South India to be used as a buffer between the Sinhalas and the British colonial government. They also knew that the Bhikkus were a threat to them and as long as the Bhikku Sasana was there they could not defeat the Sinhalas spiritually.
The British wanted to have the leaders from the non Sinhala Buddhists as far as possible, and the Tamil elite wanted equal representation in the legislature from the very beginning though their population was not even twelve percent of the total population. In fact as it was mainly the Jaffna peninsula leaders who were involved they represented even a smaller percentage. The Tamils in Jaffna mainly represented more than forty percentage of those who were employed in the public sector, under patronage from the British. After universal franchise was introduced the Tamil elite began to lose their dominance in the legislature and began their agitation for a separate state for them. When Sinhala that should have been made the official language soon after independence was finally raised to that level, the Tamil elite was able to arouse the feelings of the ordinary Tamils against the government claiming that Tamils were discriminated by the Sinhalas. The English who made their language the official language of the British islands long time ago shed crocodile tears for the Tamils in 1956.
The Tamil elite were able to mobilise the Tamil youth against the so called discriminations, though in reality they were interested only in safeguarding their privileges with the connivance of the British. However, the Tamil youth had other ideas under Prabhakaran and with the assistance they obtained from the Protestant countries that dominate the world they were able to engage in terrorist activities against the government of Sri Lanka. The Protestant countries have two enemies as at present. One is the Muslim culture that could challenge the western Judaic Christian culture militarily to a certain extent, the other enemy of the Judaic Christian culture being the Theravada Buddhist culture that is considered as a challenge in the sphere of culture.
Today Prabhakaran is being used by the western Protestant countries against the Sinhala Buddhists. However, that does not mean that Prabhakaran is fighting for the Tamil Hindus. It is the Tamil Hindus and ironically the Hindu leaders who have come under the domination of the LTTE most, and the west is not unhappy about the outcome. The west may be echoing some slogans such as discriminations against the Tamils but they are only protecting the LTTE against the Sinhalathva in the country. For example Gareth Evans did not care two hoots to state his responsibility to protect the LTTE in his Neelan Thiruchelvam memorial lecture knowing very well that Thiruchelvam as brutally killed by Prabhakaran.
The west will do everything possible to protect the LTTE and it will not be confined to threats, pseudo theories on limited sovereignty of states, interventions, economic sanctions etc. All that the government has to do is to stand firm in the face of these threats and demonstrate to the others in the world how the west is using a fascist murderer to weaken if not destroy the Sinhala Buddhist culture which is considered as a threat to the Judaic Christian culture. We do not have to worry about these cowards. They are cowards and nothing but cowards, though they may be militarily and economically powerful. They will threaten us as long as we continue to bow down to them. The moment we challenge them they will realise that their so called theories on limited sovereignty are not worth the paper they are written and will have to eat their own words. Remember what happened to the "king maker" Thondaman even on a smaller scale. There is only one policy against these cowards. The Sri Lankan government has to be firm in its dealings with the western countries as much as with the others.
Professor Nalin de Silva
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