Where Does Tamil Nationalism Stand on Three Fundamental Questions?
by Dayan Jayatilleka
It is significant that every Tamil leader who supported or was a fellow-traveller of Prabhakaran and the Tigers and called for foreign intervention to stop the last war, is on one side of today’s electoral divide while every Tamil leader who opposed Prabhakaran and the LTTE during the decisive last war is on the other side.
While the LTTE army has been decapitated and destroyed on the soil of Sri Lanka, the global Tiger movement is out there waging a Cold war, hoping to recover by political, ideological and diplomatic means, what it lost on the battlefield.
A fairly young Sri Lankan academic and researcher of strategic and security affairs, Sergei de Silva-Ranasinghe, whose Australia-based work is quite interesting and bold, posed the following question to me in an email:
A fairly young Sri Lankan academic and researcher of strategic and security affairs, Sergei de Silva-Ranasinghe, whose Australia-based work is quite interesting and bold, posed the following question to me in an email:
"What I don’t understand is that if the LTTE had killed the members of the TNA coalition parties (e.g. TELO etc) previously, and they were forced to tow the LTTE line, why are they still doing it now after the Tigers’ defeat? Why are they not moderating their stance?"
Totalitarian Temptation vs. Democratic Ethos
It seems to me an utterly fundamental question and I suggested he explore it in his next essay. However it immediately triggered this thought within me. During the Pongu Thamil, certainly in Trincomalee, bare bodied Tamil youths rolled on the hot tarred roads in the noonday sun behind a chariot being pulled by other youths, which bore the portrait of Velupillai Prabhakaran.
This was witnessed by tens of thousands and written about by freelance British journalist Paul Harris. The Sunday Times Colombo carried a front page photograph of the attendees, including MPs Raviraj and Joseph Pararajasingham, giving raised arm, palm extended Nazi salutes. Certainly only a fraction of the Tamil people attended these and still fewer participated in the rock and roll.
My point is why were there no outcries from all across the Tamil political spectrum against this collective self-abnegation?
Why wasn’t there a resounding cry: "Not in our name!"?
If the answer is "violent intimidation" then why was there not a cry of horror emanating from the safer social spaces of the Tamil Diaspora?
If a proffered justification is the oppression of Tamils by the Sinhalese, and the nature of national liberation struggles, I must say that I never heard of Republican parades in Northern Ireland (and they have an awful lot of parades there) in which pro-IRA civilians flagellated themselves as if in a Philippine Passion play, while walking behind a portrait of Gerry Adams!
The factor of psychology was brought into the discussion of nationhood not only by the Austro-Marxists but by the tough minded realist Joseph Stalin, in his Marxism and the National Question. His definition talked of "a common psychological makeup manifested in a community of culture".
What does the practice of rolling bare-bodied on hot tarred roads behind a portrait of Velupillai Prabhakaran, and the relative absence (with a few exceptions) of a negative reaction to it from the Tamil community here or worldwide, say about the "common psychological makeup" of that collective?
If it is a cultural practice, what does that "community of culture" reveal about the "common psychological makeup" that, in Stalin’s definition, it manifests?
Sergei de Silva-Ranasinghe’s question also reminded me that the South, by contrast, has demonstrated a resilient if rudimentary and basic, democratic and individualist ethos, in that no authoritarian project from above (JRJ) or totalitarian one from below (JVP) has been allowed to sustain itself. It must be said though that never did the supporters of the JVP roll around bare-bodied on tarred roads in the noonday sun behind portraits of Rohana Wijeweera!
The division in the wartime Southern power bloc that hotly contested Presidential elections of today, in which "regime change" is both slogan and possibility, attests to the democratic Southern ethos which is intolerant of pretensions to monarchy.
Political stances that were correct or comprehensible in their time, thirty years ago or more, are acts of criminal folly when adhered to later under very different circumstances. It is one thing to adopt maximalist demands, and extremist strategies and tactics when the political space is closed for any other option. It is entirely another to do so when political space has been opened up by the struggle and external factors. Tamil nationalism has persisted in these stances, slogans and options even after serious negotiations opened in the mid 1980s and a reformist alternative, however imperfect, presented itself with the Indo-Lanka accord of 1987.
What is the situation today?
Though Israel is an occupying power according to UN resolutions, and Sri Lanka obviously is not, the international community has insisted on certain preconditions for recognition of the Palestinians, and supported Israel in such insistence. There were originally two conditions supplemented by a third.
The Palestinians had to recognize the right of the state of Israel to exist and demonstrate this by amending the PLO’s Charter. The second condition was the renunciation of terrorism. The third has been the need for legitimization by elections. However, even a democratically elected administration such as Hamas has been subject to boycott for non-compliance with conditions one and two.
How would the TNA fare if Sri Lankan society should subject those segments of the Tamil movement that until recently supported the LTTE, both here in Sri Lanka and overseas, to such a litmus test?
The equivalent would be (i) the willingness to officially and unconditionally renounce Tamil Eelam and accept that any solution will be within the borders of Sri Lanka as currently constituted and (ii) unconditionally renounce the use of violence and to denounce the LTTE and Prabhakaran for having resorted to a campaign of terrorism. In short, Tamil nationalism has to demonstrably break from the LTTE and "Prabhakaranism" and from the secessionist goal.
This is hardly unfair or unprecedented given that EU member Spain has imposed a ban on Herri Batasuna, the parliamentary party of Basque separatism nationalism for its links with armed separatism.
Where would Tamil nationalism stand on these three fundamental (and several ancillary) queries:
1. Is it positive/a good thing or a negative/bad thing that Prabhakaran was killed/is dead?
2. Is it a good thing or bad thing that the LTTE was militarily defeated by the Sri Lankan armed forces?
3. Is it desirable/ good or bad that Sri Lanka remains one country whose borders encompass the entire island?
These three main questions can be supplemented by several others, none of which contradict or even impinge upon the legitimate demands of the Tamil national minority in Sri Lanka.
* Was it correct for the TULF not to have participated in the North East Provincial Council established under the Indo-Lanka Accord?
* Why doesn’t the TNA denounce the LTTE for having walked out of the September 1987 agreement, following the Thileepan fast, by which President Jayewardene was to establish the interim council for the temporarily merged North and East, with seven out of twelve seats including the chairpersonship given to the LTTE? Where are the Diaspora voices which denounce that walkout?
* Why doesn’t the TNA denounce the LTTE for having gone to war against the IPKF?
* Why doesn’t the TNA denounce the Tigers for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi?
* Why doesn’t the TNA denounce the Tigers for the murders of TULF leaders Amirthalingam, Yogeswaran, the latter’s widow Sarojini Yogewaran and Dr Neelan Tiruchelvam?
* Why doesn’t the TNA denounce the LTTE for having murdered President Premadasa, and Gamini Dissanayake, and attempted to murder President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga — all Sinhalese leaders who held moderate views on the ethnic question?
* Why doesn’t the TNA make a self-criticism of its refusal to accept the 1995 and 1997 union of regions package of President Kumaratunga, and support in Parliament, her draft Constitution of August 2000?
* Why doesn’t the TNA condemn the Tigers for having violated the Ceasefire agreement over 4,000 times, i.e. several times more than the Sri Lankan military did?
* Why doesn’t the TNA condemn the Tigers for unilaterally backing away from the Oslo 2002 agreement to explore a federal solution within a united Sri Lanka?
* Why doesn’t the TNA condemn the Tigers for the boycott of the April 2003 Tokyo donor conference?
* Why doesn’t the TNA condemn the Tigers for the manner in which they refused to negotiate with Karuna during his schism?
The Sri Lankan state would naturally feel it is unsafe to consider as a peace partner and an ally in nation-building, party or formation which failed to arrive at a consensus with it on these issues. Public opinion could be reluctant to fully devolve power to such an entity.
Even the best engage in the cover-up. Rajan Hoole, a respected human rights activist and intellectual, vitiates a valuable new UTHR-J report on the 4th anniversary of the atrocity that was the murder of the Trinco five, by writing of "the ideology of Sinhala hegemony which invented its counterpart the LTTE". This is a fallacy several times over.
The LTTE was not invented by the ideology of Sinhala hegemonism any more than Tamil separatism in Tamil Nadu was invented by Sinhala hegemonism. While, arguably, the LTTE is a product of Sinhala hegemony – note that I say a product, not the product, since it was a product of a few other factors as well — the LTTE is certainly NOT the "counterpart" of "the ideology of Sinhala hegemony".
Sinhala hegemony was well, hegemonistic, chauvinistic, even racist, but the LTTE, in addition to being all of these, was or became totalitarian-fascist. While every fascist is racist not every racist is fascist.
Kurt Julius Goldstein, German, Jew, holocaust survivor and chairman of the Anti-Fascist Fighters Front told me in Moscow in 1985 at the World Festival of Youth and Students, what one of the biggest mistakes of the German Left movement had been. (I wrote this up in The Island and the Lanka Guardian at the time). He said that they confused racism for fascism when they should even have worked with or neutralized racists, ultranationalists and chauvinists and isolated the fascists.
Hoole’s distortion is part of a larger ideological game or narrative, in which all depredations of Tamil nationalism are sought to be rationalized by the argument that this nationalism was but reactive and defensive. That’s the Big Lie. Writing on the 20th anniversary of Black July ’83, I proffered an alternative explanation: "We didn’t create Prabhakaran, but we created the conditions in which the Tamil people called Prabhakaran into being from the dark underside of their collective psyche; and we provided, with Black July ’83 the conditions in which Prabhakaran grew into a Goliath". (‘Black July 83: The Stain of Guilt’, Sunday Island July 27, 2003).
22 Comments
Go away Dayan. You are irrelevent. Time has passed you by. You are no longer. Like Monty Python's dead parrot..
we Tamils say the same thing about you....
"
'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker!
'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies!
'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig!
'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!!
So just go away..
Hello Prof.Dayan,
Is it positive/a good thing or negative/bad thing that Dr.Percy is our leader?
Is it desirable/good or bad that Dr.Percy will not be our leader after the 26th of January 2010?
It is still not too late to abandon the sinking ship.You have done it before,it is high time you did it again.
Any news about the killers of Richard,Sivaram,Raviraj or Lasantha?
Cheers,
Siva.
Dayan Jayatilake,
The Tamils have three questions for you regarding the execution of Nadesan, Puleedevan and their familes by the Sri Lankan Armed forces...
1) What do you know about the war crimes..
2) When do you know about them?
3) And why were you silent about them?
I suggest that you start preparing your answers before you next trip to the Bandaranaike International Airport instead of quoting some obscure academic or drop names of Holocaust survivors. I am looking forward to seeing you at The Hague.
Dear Dayan, Could you please stop this intellectual crab of attacking anyone who come up with credible analysis, evidence and argument against this regime ( MR and Co) by attacking the massager, rather than counter the message. Whether it is UHTR(J) , UN , TNA and Tamil Diaspora. All of us hoping and working towards reconciliation and peace were heartened when we saw your interviews right after your sacking from Geneva, when you articulated where the regime is going wrong and its failures; of course while defending the military and its actions , even though many felt nausea about this point. As you have changed the tune now, we wonder whether you are paying your dues to the regime for its few bones it thrown your way after the sacking, like the trip to Cambodia and Vietnam etc!!!!!
Dayan, why don’t you concentrate on the Human rights violation perpetrated by this regime either before May 2009 or after? Whether the Trinco 5 or aid workers or Raviraj and so on. The final assault which killed scores of civilian and persons with white flag or the authenticated video showing killing of persons in execution style and so on. The assassination of Lasantha or other journalist like Sivaram, Tissanayagam imprisonment, assault of Media by this regime and so on.
Other aspect is good governance; unless people like you take up this and articulate, who ever wins the election, we will be going backwards. The rampage of corruption, nepotism, waste of state resources, impunity and so on. The abuse of power in electioneering – ordering TRC to force Mobile operators send electioneering messages from MR, force state employees to campaign for MR and so on.
Lets campaign for an independent investigation to find out what happened and how it happened; we may have to go back to 1970s and 1980s ( JVP era) to clear the deck. You and many people may say what is the point; it is past and forget about the past and move forward; some people will say these are collateral damage and others like our minsters say, we are whiter than white. For all those I say, if we want to heel and reconcile, we need to know about past atrocities ( who ever that may be ), learn lessons and suffering, we need to give space and time for those who suffered to express their feeling and need closure. Lets give an opportunity for ordinary people who are looking for answers, want to hear from the people who are responsible to their side of the story. There is no point in questioning UHTR(J)’s impartiality, but, look at the message it is clear there are many who witnessed the final days of LTTE demise and have different story to tell, we all have the right to listen to this and make our mind. In past when UTHR (J) wrote about LTTE, people like you and Govt. minsters took those as given and use it when ever that suites you. Let have an independent investigation and clear the air.
One the election front, I like the elections. Who cares about the result? Both are evils. But, look what wonders it is doing to ordinary people; Parapahran’s family members are released from protected custody ( and his father’s body is handed over to none other than TNA MP Sivajilingham!!!!!); A9 opened, all restriction removed; some LTTE cadres released; HSZ to be dismantled this week!!!; prices of basic items reduced; foreign exchange rule relaxed ( who’s going benefit; we will find out soon ) and so on. Next hopefully independent investigation!!!! Let’s have elections every other month, !!!!!!!!!; TNA has extracted these concession from the Govt. by merely stating what they expect from the candidates. So, Dayan it will be productive to focus on issues which matters to people and not to the regime; Transnational and vaddukkodi are “storm in the tea cup”; will die down quickly and reality will prevail.
Dear Dayan,
Thanks; great thoughts though a bit difficult to understand what the article is all about. This bit from the last para is a classic example: "Hoole’s distortion is part of a larger ideological game or narrative, in which all depredations of Tamil nationalism are sought to be rationalized by the argument that this nationalism was but reactive and defensive". Dr Dayan, Since 1948, leaders of the SL Nation have systematically killed the spirit of the tamils. We were a spirited people long time ago. Since 1983, what VP and Co attempted was to prevent what has happened today; ie imprison swathes of the tamil population behind barbed wire. Tamils are simply not interested in your political solutions; systems of civilian governance have totally collapsed over the years. The SL Govt can provide new systems such as "Provicial Councils", Twin Legislative Assemblies, Federal Governance structures, 13th Amendment etc to satsify minority aspirations, but they will not work. For example, look at SL's Police Force; do they enforce law and order? There you are Dr Dayan, we tamils are not interested. I end with a quote from Dr Bahu's article, summarising a thought following his visit to Yalpanam on 01 Jan:
"Underneath you could see a heroic nation that has sacrificed enormously for national survival."
Dayan Jayatilleka: "Why doesn’t the TNA condemn the Tigers for having violated the Ceasefire agreement over 4,000 times, i.e. several times more than the Sri Lankan military did?"
If you are genuine, first of all, you need to condemn the acts of the GOSL for violating CFA even though lesser times.
You were in the government and appointed to a key position. Due to your comments you lost the position. Now you are trying to make some comments to restore your position.
People have identified you correctly.
.
What a stupid analysis!
Why TNA not doing this? Why TNA not doing that?....
Look like DJ is sad that war ended too early so that not enough time to get rid of other TNA's!!!
Wake up DJ. The war is over. Violent and armed struggle is over.
In north and east, there is nothing but opportunities:
-for development
-for reconcilliation
-for colonization.
Guess what your friends are doing....colonization.
We'll never change and war is going to be back in 20+ years or so.
:-)
dear dayan jayatilake,
i think you seem to be a challenging guy to argue with every week i look forward to your article becoz your ideology a mild cocktail of sinhalese nationalism with leftist internationalism.so it is a challenge for people like me becoz we cant accuse you oppenly of being an archetype sinhalese racist.every society it has to evolve over a period of time.it will be tribalistic then slowly as time takes its toll it becomes more democratic enabling some people to question the authority and it moves from there little by little to a place where the western society now stands.your comparisson of gerry adams with prabakaran is wrong.becoz irish society has never been in an oppressive position as tamil society is now in sri lanka.it is a measure of maturity that western society never idol worships unlike oriental society to which we belong to.as poet kasi anandan says till ltte was not there tamils were dogs to sinhalese post ltte tamils were transformed from dogs to kottiya(if i am right) tigers hence this idol worshipping.i am asking sinhalese civil society number of question if it can answer i will be more than happy.what was sinhalese civil society doing when swrd brought in compulsory sinhalese language in 1950s.what was sinhalese civil society doing when 1958 riots took place and no culprits were apprehended.what was the great sinhalese civil society doing when number of tamils were killed after 1974 world tamil conference took place in jaffna.what happened to cyril mathews and gamini dissanayake after the burning of jaffna library where they arrested?has a single guy been convicted for the 1983 july riots and what happened to all those thugs who were let loose in welikada prison where kuttimanis eyes were gouged just becoz he told that he wanted to donate the eyes to a tamil so that he can see through the donee tamil eelam.if answers can be provided for all these your questions can also be answered.it is not that i idol worship prabakaran i am not bothered about killing of prabakaran,nadesan,pulidevan in the final battle but i want answers from you folks who belong to sinhalese civil society who is gonna be held responsible for the killing of 20000 tamil innocent civilians.i hope i get an answer from you.it has to be kept in mind that tigers should have accepted rajiv jayawardene accord but unfortunately it was not and it has resulted in death of lakhs of innocent civilians on both sides let it be sinhalese or tamils i appreciate you for your idealistic stand on 13th amendment but i cant accept your stand though it was incumbent on you since u were a srilankan ambassador in the case of un human rights council vote in june (if my memory is correct) all the so called left countries ranging from china to cuba supported srilanka in its crudest form of human rights violation.so much for che guevara,pablo neruda,salvadaro allende it was really disgusting.
If the writer had been someone who championed rationality, morality and human rights, many Tamils would have taken these questions seriously and given a serious answer. But the fact of the matter is he has supported fascist, murderous and plainly evil regimes. The Rajapaksa regime and the Premadasa regime. A prostitute cannot question normal people about their virtues, and quite rightly, they will dismiss such questions with contempt. Perhaps the only people who will hang out with and answer her are fellow prostitutes. In this instance, the quislings.
this racism masquerading as leftism or academic bull albeit with the help of a young academic from Australia. You need to release a lot of wind from your stomach....
Dear Dayan,
My answers to your questions are :
1) Yes it was a good thing that Prabaharan was killed. He was fighting for himself first and not for the Tamils. He was foolish and his assessments were cock-eyed. He was told in 1987 not to fight the IPKF, but to accept the Accord under protest, and take control of the Tamil Homeland with the help of IPKF,to establish a Tamil rule. He was told that you will be carrying weapons legally and could control any military adventures to be tried by SriLanka Govt. Once well established after a few years you can launch the independance fight on a strong footing. However, though Tamils would be controlling their homeland, RAW would have bumped him off and put their puppet at the helm. He knew this and instead of him being eliminated he chose to betray Tamils by starting the fight with IPKF. Also at that time western powers did not want India to take control of Trincomalee and wanted to upset the accord. It was rumoured a foreign intelligence agency gave money to Prabaharan to buy him over and fight IPKF. Subsequently Premadasa who was anti-Indian was given money to supply weapons to LTTE by the same agency. LTTE was not alone in the murder of Rajiv Gandhi. Though they carried out it, there is speculation that others including this foreign agency and Premadasa also were involved. Prabaharan united the Sinhalese and divided the Tamils and now his death has united the Tamils and divided the Sinhalese. Also Prabaharan made two enemies India and Srilanka to come together as strange bed fellows. If he was clever, he would have put India and Srilanka to fight and watch on the sidelines reaping the benefit. Now his death has opened the chance for India and Srilanka to fight paving a Tamil victory.
2) Both yes and No. It is a good thing as there is a possibility of a Tamil Army being formed which will have the support of Tamils both in Srilanka and TamilNadu which will be acceptable to India to her dirty work in Srilanka ( remember what TELO and later EPRLF did ). It is a bad thing as LTTE was the only organisation which was standing up against State Terrorism and Sinhala Racism in Srilanka and now it is gone these are carrying out their racist terroist agendas. Historically Srilanka was defeated by the Tamil army and not by Indian Army. The next stage will be the marching in of Tamil Army from Tamil Nadu in the event of a non settlement of the ethnic problem in a fair manner ( merger of north and east with full police and land powers and total economic independence (internal and external trade). Most of the LTTE fighters would have been saved if Prabaharan was not selfish. When India asked TNA to get Prabaharan, Pottu Amman and Charles Anthony to surrender to India, had it happened, India would have forced Srilanka to stop the war as it did in 1987 thereby saving the rest of LTTE. The Tamil debacle today is due to the fooloish and selfish acts of one man. However now the Tamils do not have any military power, but their moral power is very strong and this would bring them victory.
3) I have been maintaing for the last several years that there are only two solutions possible fot the ethnic conflict in Srilanka. Either Brutal suppression by murder and ethnic cleansing of Tamils from the country or division of Srilanka into Tamil and Sinhala nations. The Sinhala racist terrorist Srilanka Government is attempting the first one and LTTE attempted the second. The first one is virtually impossible due to international conscience and pressence of Tamils in TamilNadu. So the second is the prudent and pragmatic option and both Sinhalese and Tamils will thrive independantly. I was born in Colombo, educated at the number one school and I know that majority of the Sinhalese are suffering from inferiority complex and paranoia and thus will never agree to a fair settlement within a united Srilanka. Even if a solution is forced from outside they will never honour it, paving the way for seperation. Injustice never last for long, at what point justice will take over, and Justice is on the side of the Tamils.
Raja:
I'll go with most of what you state except I think we should, for the moment engage in one more instance of trust and settle
for a 2-Nation State within an undivided country. You have already
envisioned what will happen if we are cheated again. Sarath Silva seems to be willing to provide the legal advise to re-merge the NEP, if I read him right in the past few weeks.
ISS
Dear Friends,
Wake up and smell the coffee. After yesterday's massive Jaffna rally, and the enthusiaistic reception given to MR by the people there, with Douglas and Siddharthan on the platform, I think its all you guys who are irrelevent....to tamil politics and the tamil people's sentiments.
By the way, which sinking ship did I jump off ? And in what way does what I say now differ from what I said in the interviews after my sacking? I criticised the retention of the IDPs and that's pretty irrelevant now. I urged the implementation of the 13th amendment then and do so now.
War crimes?Hope you guys read KT Rajasingham's revealing narrative about how he and Shivajilingam escaped the VVT massacre of may 1985.
As for why the progressive countries supported Sri Lanka in may-June and still do, read "Tania Noctiummes" on this website. i learned quite a bit from it...
Hi Dayan
Seriously man, you need to get a life. All this hogwash, why? And why all the long winded sentences? Are you trying to impress people with your linguistic capability or confuse people? It has to be one of these, because for certain it ain't clarity of thought.
Seriously man get a life. For your sake get out of SL if you haven't already.
Hello Prof.Dayan,
Massive rally,my foot.
Douglas and Siddharthan? What does an average Tamil think about thease two?Any idea?
Do yo know as to who caused/involved in the demise of Sivaram,Raviraj and Maheswaran?
You WERE associated with one of the worst human rights violators in the history of Srilanka and during this guy's watch Srilanka enjoyed the dubious distinction of having the THE HIGHEST murder rate in the world.
You ARE associated with another guy of almost similar vintage.
As a Professor of Poli Science,do you believe in the Rights of the Individuals to Life,Liberty and Justice?
Any plans to support the new guy?Any plans to take off after the 26th?
Cheers,
Siva.
It is obvious, that none of the comments have tried to answer the three questions. Some tried to attack the writer, some tried to beat the bush.
How can we have a civilized discussion? One needs to come out of the box.
Dear All,
Nice bit of ducking. What about the issue i raised, namely what all you guys were doing and saying when some of you/r guys were rolling barebodied on the hot tarred roads in the noonday sun behind a chariot bearing a portrait of VP,Sun God, pulled by some other guys? What does this say about you?
Hey Suthan, "long winded", " liguistic capability" or no, it certainly convinced the UN Human Rights Council a heck of a lot more than your folks and their Western friends did, eh?
dear dayan,
as you claim it was not un human rights council which was convinced rather bunch of leftist nation whose human rights record reflects sinhala nation that decided so dont gloat.if one accepts your rational then israel is having its way despite the fact that it is doing immense harm to palastenians in gaza can it be called right lol.will your palastenian,iraqi,iranian,cuban friends accept defeat becoz america is having its way becoz it has got a veto in un security council.lol
"Massive Jaffna rally"???? MR & Bros told as many with access to them and likely to visit Jaffna, the announcement of the release of the HSZ properties - illegally seized - will be made during MRs
visit. "Sunday Times" whose Ranjith W and Editor Sinha R are close to Mahinda's thinking splashed it front-page last Sunday as their own scoop. But MR came back in a huff simply because the crowd there - including those Douglas and his hacks brought from various parts outside and arranged at much cost - was dissappointing. MR left in a huff with some heckling thrown in. No announcement of HSZ. It is said he was advised his anger and attitude will lose a large number of valuable votes and therefore the Wife has been asked to stay and try to patch things up through the good offices of the Catholic church ?????
ISS
Hello Professor Dayan Jayatilleka de Silva,
Rolling barebodied on the hot tarred roads in the noonday sun behind a chariot is an age old religious custom of Hindus all over the world, and only bigots would make fun of the religious customs of others.
Professor Dayan Jayatilleka de Silva, we expect better stuff from a man of your calibre and heritage.
As far as your "victory"at the UN Human Rights council was concerned, you bloody well know that the majority of the CIVILIZED WORLD DID VOTE AGAINST you,pretending otherwise is DECEITFUL, DECEPTIVE, DISHONEST and DUPLICITOUS at best.
Cheers,
Siva
Dear Siva,
Don't insult Hinduism. It is an ancient Hindu custom to do engage in this worshipful practice with a likeness of an ancient Hindu deity. I want to know what you guys were doing rolling behind a roly poly human being. Did you think he was a God? What does that say about you?