By Percy Gajanayake –

We can generalise some similarities common to most dictators. Unaccountability to law and order applicable to self, family and cronies is common to all dictators whether it be Gaddafi, Idi Amin, Marcos, Stalin, or Hitler. The blinding forces of power combined with the fear of the public and the administrative system to contest violations and also encouragement and cheering by stooges leads to this state. Prabhakaran was feared and not questioned by the public while many fear white vans in the South. Prabhakaran had the local leaders and followers as well as some diaspora to cheer! Mahinda Rajapaksa has his cronies and a portion of the Sinhala diaspora to cheer him. The Sinhala diaspora is equally vicious. Prabhakaran was not questioned for his expenditure on luxury houses and hiding places nor asked about expenses for his children. I suppose he was more accountable than MR on this score!.

Prabhakaran used Tsunami funds not for the reason it was collected for, but for arms to kill! The counterpart also uses it for political and personal gain, certainly not for the Tsunami affected!! In the meantime the cronies such as fund raisers or propagandists are allowed to have their side incomes, luxury lifestyles and own Swiss accounts. I am sure most of the assistants of MR too made hay!! We all know it and there is no need to compare names of the two sides! Inside deals in the stock market and fund fronts are common in the wider establishment of the Empire whether it be KP, Raj Rajaratnam, Dammika, Nimal, Dilith, Ajith, Pages or whoever! I suppose Prabhakaran’s sons did not get the opportunity to do the inside deals in the stock market!

Sons may be in command of the Mosquito airforce (Charles Anthony) or powerful Yoshitha being groomed to the Navy commanders position!.

A more interesting aspect is the phobia of the intelligence. People in the North and East or Tamils in other parts of the country were phobic to question or say anything against Prabhakaran or the LTTE, for fear of repercussions! We in the South unleashed a similar strategy to instill fear initially by the white vans, abductions killings and disappearances. The next phase was to spread the fear of phone tapping and Internet hacking with the help of TRC, LLT, and mobile companies. Although it may happen to some extent in terms of key figures, it is not possible to listen to all the lines of opposition supporters! If this was true how was MS not detected till he defected, Most authoritative regimes probably use this strategy to initially kill, maim or make opponents disappear to instill this fear. School teachers beat one or two kids on the first day to instill fear and establish so called ‘discipline’.

Divide and Rule is a game played by most dictators. Prabhakaran did not allow any deputy to come close to him in terms of popularity! The deputies continued to change with promotions and demotion! One day it is Karuna the he goes to the bottom of the hierarchy replaced by Tamil Chelvam followed by Balasingham and the musical chairs went on and on. Nobody dare let go the Tiger’s tail for fear of repercussions like what Mahatthaya had to face! MR too follows the same rule by replacing people close to him to be replaced by others. Think of guys like Mervyn or Dumiya! How they went up and down the ladder!. Even the hierarchy of the family members keep on changing as seen by Basil losing his position at different times. Nobody dare come close to him. Even Maithripala Sirisena was slowly sidelined for a long time! It was Mahinda who promoted the story about MS’ s son’s story to make MS less popular! Prabhakaran killed defectors, while Mahinda storms houses, show files and threaten even bodily harm to possible defectors! MR has scored one over Prabhakaran, I.e bribery with millions!!!

Although many similar is are there to enumerate one of the worst things Prabhakaran did was to use children for propaganda and use child soldiers! MARA has started now by using children for propaganda. Recently he made an announcement that an eight month old child shouted ‘Jayawewa’ after staring at him for some time!!! (Doctors please note a hitherto undescribed milestone to be included in teaching and books!). It is clear from pictures in Basil’s website that children have been used to hold posters of MR similar to Prabhakaran’s propaganda.

Although the MR propaganda machine is trying to instill fear of tigers like the famous story children used to hear (tiger, tiger) against MS, He is more a tiger than the former tigers!