This is the original text of an article exclusively written for The Sunday Leader but the penultimate paragraph may be edited by that newspaper because of a court order applicable to it.
The heading is inspired by SL Gunasekera (his letter to BASL, 28.11.2012). He asks BASL “to oppose this [impeachment] madness of the incumbent government,” adding that he continues to support the government.
The Sinhalese in collective have been content to sit back and watch as our government literally took Tamils apart – perhaps 70,000 according to the recent Petrie report. A year ago their intelligentsia went after the previous UN Panel, with Jayantha Gunasekera, PC, trying to pass a resolution against its report at the BASL even before it was out. It was a fait accompli anyway and passed as soon as the report was released.
BASL’s decision last week to not support any new CJ is laudable but there is a lot more wrong with the country including itself as in condemning the Panel. The CJ matter is merely symptomatic. For example news reports say that Namal Rajapaksa imported $100 mn in racing cars, paying no duty. But far more importantly, how can a young man just starting life on a government salary (whose father too is on government salary) pay $100 mn as alleged? The Sunday Leader (06.03.2011) records Prabha Ganeshan saying that Basil Rajapaksa “promised Rs. 20 million to him and another UNP cross-over,” P. Digambaram, supposedly for development work. Ha! The sumptuous meals at Temple Trees, vulgar lifestyles at 5-star hotels, foundation on vain men, and the free flow of liquor at public expense can all be explained away through entertainment budgets from parliament. But the $100 mn is more difficult. Thinking people like Gunasekera must reevaluate their support.
However, as public opinion builds up against the insane government, Marwaan Macan-Markar has opined that while the CJ’s supporters are “few and far from the required critical mass … [m]uscle and power on the streets are still controlled by the well-oiled Rajapaksa political machine.”
Tamil Powerlessness
Imagine then the powerlessness that Tamils feel when the Sinhalese intelligentsia feel so helpless. I recall August 1970 when violent Sinhalese policemen were on punishment transfer in Jaffna as if to say “If you are driven to beat up people, go beat up Tamils.” Standardization was taking form with 28 bonus marks added to every Sinhalese aggregate before determining university admission. It was the time frustrated Tamil youth began pelting policemen with stones and would soon break up the SLFP office and bomb Alfred Duraiappah’s car.
Recent events at Jaffna University where students were assaulted by the army, and pelted soldiers with stones the next day, replay old times. To be expected but scarier are recent incidents in Puthu-kudi-iruppu. A Tamil man was keeping 4 women, exploiting the gender imbalance since the war crimes. All four were chopped to death by a group imposing Tamil virtue. In the same place an old man was supplying Tamil women to the Sinhalese army. He and a soldier were also chopped up. In Jaffna, The Island reported, a Sinhalese worker fooling around with women was killed when he arrived at a set-up tryst.
Similarly, recent reports tell of a Tamil robber gang in Jaffna that is on hire as killers. They had state protection. When a police official got court sanction to shoot to kill, he was promptly transferred. Some have since taken the law into their hands and disappeared parts of the gang.
Tamilwin.com reports that this has the support of the people of Jaffna. But how different is that attitude from what the army did to us in Mullaitivu? From BASL going all out to condemn the Ban Ki-moon Panel’s report to cover up mass murder of civilians and vigilante execution of the LTTE leadership?
Tamil medium is being eliminated from the good universities in the South as we powerlessly watch. Eliminating Tamils from professional schools teaching in English, however, needs alternative strategies. Accordingly Jaffna gets a ramshackle engineering faculty when in all of Sri Lanka there are only three Tamil engineering PhD holders of working age. Ruhuna’s Engineering Faculty was built, for buildings alone, on Rs. 900 mn (in 1998 rupees with the dollar at Rs. 68 then against 128 today). But Jaffna’s engineering faculty has only an allocation of Rs. 250 mn in today’s rupees. It has been located in the jungles off Kilinochchi by decision of the government and army, backed by the EPDP Vice Chancellor and Council. This despite my recommendations as UGC Coordinator, supported in writing by those such as Professors KKYW Perera and Lakshman Ratnayake, that to be successful the faculty must be in Jaffna and exploit the business environment and private housing so as to use the limited funds for building teaching space. (I asked for buildings and equipment a mere quarter of Namal’s pretax car imports and was told there is no money).
The distance rule implies that students from the North who now are sent to Peradeniya, will be shunted into a cattle shed off Kilinochchi with few or no PhD level teachers. Touché.
Colonization of Kilinochchi: Counter Violence
It is no secret – and government parties have been explicit – that the plan is to have all parts of the country settled by all communities. Jaffna cannot be so easily converted but Vavuniya is now almost taken care of and Kilinochchi can easily follow. Thus locating Engineering in Kilinochchi deprives Tamils of Peradeniya training and prepares Kilinochchi for colonization. Vavuniya Campus was exclusively Tamil 4 years ago, but now the Sinhalese figures are 48% in Applied Science and 70% in Management with the balance shared between Muslims and Tamils. The direction for Kilinochchi is clear.
Frances Harrison, citing World Bank data, says that 101,748 Tamils are unaccounted for during the last months of the war from Mullaitivu. Many men having died or fled since, the women are easily exploited.
Reports allege that in Visuvamadu, Piramanthanaaru and Kumarasaamypuram, 100 Tamil women have been forcibly married to one Sinhalese soldier whose women are then given extensive facilities including ration cards. I find this credible, given the number of Tamil women made pregnant by Sinhalese soldiers and workers in the Kilinochchi area. A female native physician shyly testifies to the many women who come to her for abortion and contraception after illicit unions.
Tamil Subservience
In 1970 when 4 of us boys were assaulted for no reason by berserk policemen, one of us on the first slap pleaded “Sir, Sir” and was let off. Two of us who did not bend were brutally assaulted and I ended up with lumps all over my thighs from police boots.
We revolted for justice with little understanding of rights. The revolt, noble and ignoble at once, culminated in the massacres of 2009. And we have become meek servants. In Jaffna the Tamil public Sirs ill-educated soldiers. We are ruled from Colombo through Tamil quislings and an uneducated army.
We grumble that Gothabaya Rajapaksa summoned the Vice Chancellor and Deans of Jaffna University to Colombo. By what protocol can a Defence Secretary summon a VC appointed by the President and Deans? They meekly obeyed. If they had simply said that Gothabaya needs to come to the university, they would have been a shining example to the Sirring public.
At the meeting Gothabaya without due authority ordered the university reopened. He held forth on the students needing counselling. No one challenged him that a berserk army selectively beating up Tamil students including a fainted girl needed counselling behind bars. With Tamil voices mute, it fell on Vickramabahu Karunaratne to point out that Gothabaya himself needs counselling. The Secretary whose tantrums with an angry twisted face on Channel 4 and foul words on a woman editor are on record could indeed benefit. But this ex-soldier, relatively unqualified, bested Tamil academics with doctorates. And that is how low we have sunk.
For this madness to stop, the government gone mad and bad must go. Thinkers like SL Gunasekera need to understand that human rights violations and the cultivation of fearful subservience are not ethnically oriented, but an assault on all citizens alike.
Sandra / December 23, 2012
I am not shocked by the deeds of Gotabaya Rajapakse’s summons to Jaffna University VC & Deans to Colombo.
He never had a damn about Tamils, Muslims or academics.
I am not surprised at all about the insane mentality of ruling brothers and their use of profane languages.
I am only angry at some of the servile characteristic of some Sri Lankan elites, the kind of guests (editors, Politicians, Diplomats etc) to him from the subcontinent and around the world.
The recent internal report on UN executives was, in my opinion, very mild considering ‘behind-the-scene-‘ extravaganzas.
Merry Christmas.
/
Dodo / December 23, 2012
The fact is that it is the Rajapakse Brothers that should be impeached for massive corruption and not the CJ!
The Rajapakse brothers are also a singularly uneducated lot who are bankrupting, looting, land grabbing and de-developing Lanka in the name of guess what “economic development” headed by Mr 10 percent Basil who has not seen the inside of a university and knows nothing about economics or development, and who wants to make money from poverty reduction programs via the Divineguma Bill. The Tamils have the same problems magnified with their equally useless politicians. The MYTH of the supremacy of the parliament must be destroyed and the corrupt politicians of all ethnicities made accountable to the people who must work together to clean up the rot cultivated by the Hambantota barbarian turned military dictator!
/
JULAAMPITYE AMARAYA / December 24, 2012
MAY BE prof hoole is misinformed.
there are few incidents happening and involved with soldiers.
it correct that in jaffna one Sinhalese person[ not a soldier] was killed because of a love affair with a Tamil girl.
and i heard that in Pranthan,puthukuduireppu,Wiswamadhu, |Udayaarkattu and Mulaithive area army platoons are not allowed to have any personal contact with neighboring tamils.
not like before, but military occupation of the area is little relax also.
PROFF HOOLE ;IT IS NOT CREDIBLE TO SAY THAT ;;;;;
given the number of Tamil women made pregnant by Sinhalese soldiers and workers in the Kilinochchi area. A female native physician shyly testifies to the many women who come to her for abortion and contraception after illicit unions.
BECAUSE FROM LAST 28TH I WAS IN VANNI AND JAFFNA.
SO PROFF HOOLE ;WE DO NOT BELIEVE YOU,
AND I DO NOT LIKE TO WHITEWASH SRI LANKAN TROOPS/ARMY.
BUT I SAW MANY CONTAINERS FULL OF STEEL JUNKS COMING TO COLOMBO FROM JAFFANA, PALAALI AND MULAITHIVE AREA.
AT MULLAIVAIKAAL AREA THERE ARE WELDERAS AND GAS CUTTERS WITH SOLDIERS AND CONTRACTORS ARE WORKING IN HEAVY RAIN ALSO TO CUT STEEL.
WHICH IS BELONGS TO PEOPLE OF SRI LANKA.[ ALL THESE ARE THE PROPERTIES OF L T T E] PURCHASED TO OTHERS NAME TO AVOID DETECTION AND LOOTED FROM PEOPLE BY THE L T T E.
SOME ARE DIGGING OLD BUNKERS TO RETRIEVE LOST PROPERTIES.
/
K.A Sumanasekera / December 23, 2012
Professor Hoole is cheesed off that young Rajapaksa forked out 100 Million LKR to import racing cars.
Not long ago Professor’s mates both overses and local alleged that a Senior Rajapaksa bought both the old Intercon and the new Apollo Hospital in one hit.
They however didn’t mention a sum for the Professor perhaps was not around to do the Math.
Professor Hool’s new associates on the other hand,remitted over 5 Billion Green backs (calculator even can’t n handle the conversion to LKR).as investment in the North.
Apollo and the Intercon are still standing,and no Rajapaksas on the Titles.
What can Professor Hoole show his loyal followers for his Diaspora buddies investment?..
/
Peter / December 23, 2012
Sumanasekera – you say “Professor Hoole is cheesed off that young Rajapaksa forked out 100 Million LKR to import racing cars.”
It’s not a matter of being “cheesed off”, rather, the Prof was questioning how “young Rajapakse” could afford to pay so much, given the circumstances the Prof outlined.
Also if you want to cast aspersions on the Prof regarding “his mates” and “new associates”, please be good enough to provide the details so we can understand what exactly you mean.
And finally, do YOU condone the tax-free import of those cars? And can YOU explain how ” …. a young man just starting life on a government salary (whose father too is on government salary) pay $100 mn as alleged?”
This post is not about the “diaspora” or Prof. Hoole’s “associates, it is about the state of the country and conditions imposed by the ‘powers’ that citizens have to endure.
/
P.B / December 23, 2012
Peter you are wasting your breath those sumanasekeras are irrational just like the Rajapaksas. He read the article and missed the point. Just like his masters they can not read and understand. They do not not only understand but , they have not even stopped to think that any donkey will wonder how they get all this money. But then again Sri Lankans are stupid beyond imagination.
Professor , we Sinhalese sit back and watch when , Tamil students get beaten up, Sinhala students get their scull smashed in and thrown near a lamp post, when 11 Muslims got shot, when Lasantha Wickramatunga got shot, when, ekneligoda went missing, when money was given to Prabhakaran, just to win an election with out worrying about how many soldiers would die, when people Tamil and Sinhalese are taken in white vans , the list is endless and now the Chief Justice is being impeached and, our president tell students , future chartered accountants that you have to shape up any theft in an organization if they are his men.this just shows they do not have the foggiest idea as to what theft means. They are so used to theft be it from tsunami victims or from nation building they just thieve. And Mr SL gunasekera wants to help!!!! We not only sit back we vote for these thugs.!!!
/
Anti-boru / December 23, 2012
Sumanasekera (the Stooge):
You say, “Apollo and the Intercon are still standing,and no Rajapaksas on the Titles.”
i didn’t know there were two Gotabhaya Rajapaksas – the one you say has nothing to do with the Apollo Hospital and the one who is Chairman of its Board.
Strange isn’t it?
And that’s only the tip of the iceberg of family bandyism, buddy!
/
Katmai / December 24, 2012
It puzzled me for a while why no one challenges (at least in their minds) the fictional “facts” that state media and Rajapaksa supporters spew out on a regular basis. Then I realized that if man can be convinced of an invisible being in the sky (or 330 million of them) by constant repetition of this “fact” then handlers of this regime must have reasoned why they couldn’t be successful using this same method.
It seems like they are correct! And that is a scary thought.
/
JULAAMPITYE AMARAYA / December 24, 2012
MAY BE RAJAPASSA , FAMILY AND STOOGES ARE SPENDING HARD-EARNED MONEY TO BUY POSH CARS AND HOTELS, PROPERTIES.
DIVI NESUMA BILL [LOOTING BILL OF POORS.
WE SAW THE NORTH EAST DEVELOPMENT WASH AWAY IN RECENT HEAVY RAIN.HAIL WITH ANOTHER 10 PERCENT COMMISSION.
/
Navin / December 23, 2012
The distance rule implies that students from the North who now are sent to Peradeniya, will be shunted into a cattle shed off Kilinochchi with few or no PhD level teachers.
—
“distance rule” is not the only rule that governs placement and certainly not the one that has highest precedence. Why would a man of author’s caliber want to spread misinformation like this? Students are required to indicate which courses/campuses they wish to study in their application to UGC. Part of the preferences are resolved based on Merit. Hence if a Tamil student has a high aggregate, he/she can certainly attend any program anywhere in the country.
While the author is complaining that government is NOT sending Tamil students to Peradeniya, had Sinhalese students been sent to Jaffna, Tamils commenting would again criticize the government for ostensibly making life difficult for Tamil students by sending them to far away places to study while allocating places in Jaffna university to Sinhalese.
It is not just the new Eng. faculty at Killinochchi that is very much under staffed but so are many other universities. What of the Eng. faculty at Ruhuna or the new computer science program to be initiated at Uva Univ. Does he believe they have all the staff they need? The Sri Lanka Medical Council is still hesitant to recognize the medical degree awarded by the new medical faculty at Rajarata Univ. So what’s the fate of those students? Does the “district rule” not apply to them? Every time a new degree program is started anywhere, there will be problems and the faculty itself will have to train its staff and over the years establish itself. This is not unique to higher education in Tamil majority areas and the government can only do so much.
/
Navin / December 23, 2012
Vavuniya Campus was exclusively Tamil 4 years ago, but now the Sinhalese figures are 48% in Applied Science and 70% in Management with the balance shared between Muslims and Tamils.
—
Does he want Vavuniya Campus to remain exclusively Tamil?
/
Oh Danny boy / December 23, 2012
GOTHA BAYA GULLA WAS AT ONE TIME UNDERGOING TREATMENT AT A TEMPLE NAMED NILAMMARAMA BY A MONK, FOR BI-POLAR DISEASE (INSANITY). HIS FAMILY IS TRYING TO COVER HIS INSANITY.
HE MAY NEED TO BE REFERRED AGAIN AS IT SEEMS HE HAS HAD A RELAPSE.
/
Pon Ian Selvan / December 23, 2012
Where this article refers to the engineering faculty at Jaffna, it probably gives the wrong impression that somehow it is going to be a Tamil faculty – taught by Tamils for the exclusive benefit of Tamil students. WRONG.
Sri Lanka needs more graduate engineers. Engineers who can support our development needs.
Jaffna university, through very difficult times, has managed to sustain good quality education in the faculties that currently exist there. Of course things can be improved a lot, but what they have done so far is commendable. So it is right the next engineering faculty is placed in Jaffna. The university’s ambition in this direction also has a long history. The discourse on the subject should be on building on the positives, not whining about negatives — real or imagined.
My hope is that the Faculty will be created with help from everyone — not just Tamils. The Faculty itself IS for everyone — not just Tamils.
/
Jim Softy / December 23, 2012
This article is mostly Tamil Tribalism. Tamils want Tamils only every thing. Tamils wants 1005 access to southern universities. Northern universities should be with full facilities and 100% tamil professors and for tamil students only.
If Tamil students or professors engage in civil disobedience and criminals activities that is for something reasonable and they should not be arrested or harassed.
Tamils can be coolies any where in the world, but only in Sri Lanka they should be special.
Even Tamil crimes are for a reason. For example, One Tamil man had four wives; he was killed and that was also not a crime. Because that was to protect the tamil culture.
/
Kumaraya / December 24, 2012
Sri Lanka is sending thosands of women to middle east to work as domestic aid. This is one of the major foreign exchange earner to the island. But the sufferings of these women undergoing, bruta treatment is ignored by the Sri Lankan Embassy in Saudi Arabia.
/
Safa / December 24, 2012
The use of PTA to harrass the students and faculty of Jaffna University must be condemned. Use of excessive force to attack students is totally uncalled for. Arrest and detention of students without due legal process under PTA is a draconian measure of a regime and infringement of their human rights. Faculty and Parents are not serfs to be summoned to army camps for meetings. Involvement of the army in this case is illegal.
This whole episode stinks of the racist mindset and intent of this Govt. Govt is spreading the talk of a non existant threat of “New Tigers” to boost its declining popularity.
/
MANOJIN / December 24, 2012
I agree with most of the sayings in this article about the behaviour of the present government. But, I am totally against the authors certain points on Tamils discrimination. Certain comparisons like money allocation on Ruhuna University and Kilinochchi have done with mere hatred and jelous without comparing the scale of these two projects. He sees the Funishment transfer of police officer in Jaffna as “to beat up Tamils”. This is nothing but pure hatred against Singhalese. It is customary to give funishment transfers to remote areas from hometown/present location.
This professor is doing what disapora and the people who gives a load of money ask to do.
/
Senguttuvan / December 24, 2012
This business of lowly soldiers and PCs expecting Tamils to address them as “Sir” is a serious matter. In Galle an entire Tamil village was
put to the torch because that Tea Estate worker did not address some
nondescript soldier in the area as “Sir” The mindset of the Sinhala as the ruling and the Tamil as subject race must be seriously addressed by those running the Govt. A former senior Govt servant wrote, years ago, when a large number of Tamils were asked to line-up
a soldier, in his teens, got annoyed with him because he did not address him as “Sir” These are some of the reasons why VP and his
men were popular with many Tamils.
Senguttuvan
/
Watcher / December 24, 2012
Is this the same man who used to harass tamil ladies in the UNi?
He also distort the standardisation issue since standardisation brought poor kids from rural areas with little resources to the uni and high cast tamils like hoole did not like the poor low class tamils getting education.
The sheer distortion in this article is mind boggling and this guy is behaving like a idiot and this the same class of idiots that brought ltte to the party as well.
/
J. Zuhry Ahamed / December 24, 2012
the essence of Prof. Hoole’s article is selective treatment of the present government. The pathetic situation, once he finished off terrorist war in this country, he ironically proclaimed “I will finish off the corruption and waste as I did for terrorism”. Now only we know what he exactly meant “selective treatment”. Honesty and faithfullness will only prevail and the rest will die one day.
It is sad a good president moves towards against what he pledged to the masses. Prof. Hoole is a good brave commentator and his views need to be taken as positive to make changes in the attitudes of the president
/
Tissa / December 25, 2012
this underworld uneducated petrol pump operator has no knwloge to be in that position
/
Jayantha / December 27, 2012
Professor Hoole,
All what you say shows the signs of a DYING RAJAPAKSE DYNASTY.
IT IS DEFINITELY HEADING FOR IMPLODE IN 2013 ALONG WITH SINHALA RACISTS WHO FROM THE TIME OF INDEPENDENCE DIVIDED OUR COUNTRY ON RACIAL, COMMUNAL, RELOGION AND SOCIAL LINES.
They were lying and deceiving to all citizens including me who is a so called Sinhalese…..but I know where my ancestors came from.
Please look into Google…about our last king and where he came from…
I could tell with real factual facts and figurs….and could write in detail which will run for many pages. But I assure you now that year 2013 is the turn around year….and a new beginning in Sri Lanka’s politics, social and ethnic unity. All ethnic groups including Tamil Muslim Burgher and Sinhala brethern will be united as a one family with real peace, love and harmony among them.
The change is on it’s way near and dear.
/