By Usha S Sri-Skanda-Rajah –

Refuting Dayan’s narcissistic theories!

“As to the qualification required in the knowledge of the native languages, the Portuguese and Sinhalese only being mentioned excludes one which is fully necessary in the Northern Districts as the Sinhalese in the South. I mean the Tamil language, commonly called the Malabar language, which with a mixture of Portuguese in use through all the provinces is the proper native tongue of the inhabitants from Puttalam to Batticaloa northward inclusive of both these districts.. Your Lordship will therefore, I hope have no objection to my putting Tamil on an equal footing of encouragement with the Sinhalese” – Sir Robert Brownrigg, Governor of Ceylon, 1813 Dispatch to the British Colonial Secretary of State, Reported in the Tribune, 12 January 1956) – Courtesy www.tamilnation.com

Beware of the dangerous and genocidal Dayange Chinthanaya.

Dayan Jayatilleka would sweet talk us into believing we are something whilst reducing  us to nothing.

He is relegating us to mere second class “national minorities”,  because of his benevolent nature???

Let me shut him up with one example, that is the UK – the Northern Irish, the Welsh or the Scots are not called minorities even as, out of the 650 constituencies in the UK,  533 are in England, 59 in Scotland, 40 in Wales and 18 in Northern Ireland.

What a shrewd operator!

His attitude is no different from and is reflective of the typical genocidal nature of the supremacist Sinhala mindset who want to see the Tamil Nation destroyed and its legitimate aspirations crushed.

A historical habitat, a homeland, a nation, a state, a nation-state, a country – we all know what these  concepts mean, its intricacies and what it entails; a fundamental error in judgement at the critical and crucial time of independence from a colonial power has brought us to the paltry position of being forced to looking at these as mere concepts and of debating who we are, where we belong and what is our right as a Tamil nation.

Worse still we are made to suffer the indignity of having a bunch of no good racist bigots without a conscience, tell us who we are and who we are not.

They have the gall, these no-gooders who rely on myths for their succour, who have systematically and intentionally made it their business and prime focus to dismantle and destroy the socio-cultural-linguistic and political fabric that binds us as a national and political entity, who are in occupation of our land, who’ve forced their authority on us, who  terrorise us, to tell us what’s good for us!

This genocidal attitude pervades these bloodthirsty bigots notwithstanding the fact that the numerically larger Tamil speaking NorthEast comprising the Tamil Nation  gave the Vaddukoddai Resolution which enshrines the clarion call for cessation of the Tamil Nation and, “the restoration of a Free Sovereign Secular Socialist State of Tamil Eelam,”  an overwhelming mandate .

Let’s look at Dayan Jayatilleka’s credentials from the Tamil perspective. It was Dayan who first covered-up the Tamil Genocide that was orchestrated and carried out by the Rajapaksa government, at the special session of the Human Rights Council, much against the opinion of human rights organisations who were outraged and irate by it.

This he did spearheading the Sri Lankan delegation soon after the Sri Lankan army finished its job with orders coming from the top, pointing to Gotabaya Rajapaksa and President Mahinda Rajapaksa, of killing 70,000 Tamil civilians and leaving more than 146,000 Tamils unaccounted for, according authentic government census figures before it was doctored by the Rajapaksas.

Mind you before the bloody hands of his bloody bosses responsible for this bloody massacre in Mullivaikal in Northern Sri Lanka in May 2009 hadn’t even dried up, this man managed to trick the UNHRC into congratulating Sri Lanka, in an outrageous and flawed resolution introduced by him that has now been rectified in the 25th session, the UNHRC requesting the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to conduct a comprehensive international investigation.

Dayan, now a recalled diplomat who has fallen foul of the Rajapaksa regime, has not pulled back from his fatally flawed stance, continues to aid and abet Srilanka’s culture of impunity: Do we ignore this, “Dayan who gives free advice, (rather more like pontificating) to the government regularly with schemes on how to continue (Srilankan) government impunity, escape  accountability and avoid an international investigation for grave international crimes at UNHRC.., ” or engage him however futile it may be only to prevent him from dominating the discussion???.

In an article; A Response: ‘The Geneva consensus: Setting the Record Straight’ I did interject in a,”cyberspace row brewing between two Sri Lankan diplomats, past and present, career and political appointee, about who was better at their jobs in telling lies for the Rajapaksa regime. I wanted to “set the record straight” and tell the concerned world, let’s not be side-tracked from the ‘truth’, “Dayan Jayatilleka is shamelessly taking credit for having cleverly concealed the truth about the mass slaughter of Tamils in Mullivaikal Northern Sri Lanka in May 2009. Damning evidence now in the public domain tells a different story,” I wrote.

Again in checking his credentials, his stand on pushing the 13th amendment down the throat of the Tamil Nation as good for them belies his good Samaritan image he tries to portray.

There is no doubt that the Tamil Nation and the Tamil Diaspora two sides of the same coin are united in vigorously rejecting any political solution based on this man’s flawed Chinthanaya and his “poisoned chalice of a gift’ to the Tamil Nation that is the 13th amendment.

If you read my article:  A Golden Opportunity for Tamils to Present a United Front and Speak With One Voice, you know what I mean:

In it I told him, “The 13^th amendment is a non starter – does his version include police and land powers,” I asked? With the advent of the Divineguma Bill (now law) and the 18^th Amendment, a lot of the discretionary and financial powers have been removed from the Provincial Councils (that were already nothing less than “glorified Municipal Councils: Nadesan Satyendra).

I refer to Dayan, writing about Tamils giving the Sinhala Hawks (Vultures more like it), an “avurudhu gift” by not accepting the 13th amendment, I refuted his theory and did warn the Tamils that, “the gift that they could inadvertently give the “Sinhala Hawks” would be the gift of a divided Tamil polity against the enemy.”

Let’s make it abundantly clear that Tamils in the NorthEast provinces constitute a nation of people, and comprise the Tamil Nation and are not minorities. Justice Wigneswaran was right in making that distinction about two nations.

Mr. Jayatilleka we are the Tamil Nation, minorities we are not:

In our own historical habitats we are a nation (of people ), distinct and different from the Sinhala nation, having our own Tamil homeland, comprising the North and East of this island and entitled to the right to self determination and to the restoration of a sovereign and independent state of Tamil Eelam.

Notwithstanding many deliberate schemes  of forced colonization by Sinhala regimes designed to manipulating the ethnic composition and blurring the demography of the region, the mass exodus of people fleeing the region due to the genocidal policies and genocidal acts of Sinhala regimes and the ongoing structural genocide, all contributing to a massive decrease in the Tamil population, We remain an established Tamil Nation.

Notwithstanding the text of the Indo Sri Lanka Accord of 1987 pertaining to the definition of Sri Lanka, We are the Tamil Nation.

No one can be persuaded by Dayan who accuses Justice Wigneswaran of not being as wise as Dayan for ignoring “The third discourse” which is a set of meaningless words in the Accord, merely rhetoric that does not correspond with ground realities. Is this a statement of truth regardless whether it was written that way and would it pass the ultimate litmus test vis-a-vis the situation on the ground, or what is written in Sri Lanka’s Constitution?

Sri Lanka is not the pluralistic society Dayan or 1987 Accord definition envisions/projects it to be as stated here below, so what’s the purpose behind Dayan’s argument, shouldn’t he tell this to his kinsmen directly rather than tell us?

The Accord so envisions:

“Acknowledging that Sri Lanka is a ‘multi-ethnic and a multi-lingual plural society” consisting, inter alia, of Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims (Moors) and Burghers;

Recognising that each ethnic group has a distinct cultural and linguistic identity which has to be carefully nurtured;

Also recognising that the Northern and the Eastern Provinces have been areas of historical habitation of Sri Lankan Tamil speaking peoples, who have at all times hitherto lived together in this territory with other ethnic groups;

Conscious of the necessity of strengthening the forces contributing to the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka, and preserving its character as a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi- religious plural society , in which all citizens can live in equality, safety and harmony, and prosper and fulfil their aspirations…”

So what then is the point Dayan is making, talking about hypotheticals that do not exist :

This is the truly pluralist vision of Sri Lanka; a vision of a multiethnic, multilingual, multi-religious society in which each ethnic group has a distinct identity. It is not a definition of a vision of ‘two nations’ or of the domination of one peoples over the other.

But compare that ideal to the statement of truth corresponding to the ground situation (markedly worse now) in the preamble of the Vaddukoddai Resolution:

I quote:

Whereas, throughout the centuries from the dawn of history, the Sinhalese and Tamil nations have divided between themselves the possession of Ceylon, the Sinhalese inhabiting the interior of the country in its Southern and Western parts from the river Walawe to that of Chilaw and the Tamils possessing the Northern and Eastern districts; And,

Whereas, the Tamil Kingdom was overthrown in war and conquered by the Portuguese in 1619, and from them by the Dutch and the British in turn, independent of the Sinhalese Kingdoms; And,

Whereas, the British Colonists, who ruled the territories of the Sinhalese and Tamil Kingdoms separately, joined under compulsion the territories of the Sinhalese and the Tamil Kingdoms for purposes of administrative convenience on the recommendation of the Colebrooke Commission in 1833; And,

Whereas, the Tamil Leaders were in the forefront of the Freedom movement to rid Ceylon of colonial bondage which ultimately led to the grant of independence to Ceylon in 1948; And,

Whereas, the foregoing facts of history were completely overlooked, and power over the entire country was transferred to the Sinhalese nation on the basis of a numerical majority, thereby reducing the Tamil nation to the position of subject people; And,

Whereas, successive Sinhalese governments since independence have always encouraged and fostered the aggressive nationalism of the Sinhalese people and have used their political power to the detriment of the Tamils by-

(a) Depriving one half of the Tamil people of their citizenship and franchise rights thereby reducing Tamil representation in Parliament,

(b) Making serious inroads into the territories of the former Tamil Kingdom by a system of planned and state-aided Sinhalese colonization and large scale regularization of recently encouraged Sinhalese encroachments, calculated to make the Tamils a minority in their own homeland,

(c) Making Sinhala the only official language throughout Ceylon thereby placing the stamp of inferiority on the Tamils and the Tamil Language,

(d) Giving the foremost place to Buddhism under the Republican constitution thereby reducing the Hindus, Christians, and Muslims to second class status in this Country,

(e) Denying to the Tamils equality of opportunity in the spheres of employment, education, land alienation and economic life in general and starving Tamil areas of large scale industries and development schemes thereby seriously endangering their very existence in Ceylon,

(f) Systematically cutting them off from the main-stream of Tamil cultures in South India while denying them opportunities of developing their language and culture in Ceylon, thereby working inexorably towards the cultural genocide of the Tamils,

(g) Permitting and unleashing communal violence and intimidation against the Tamil speaking people as happened in Amparai and Colombo in 1956; all over the country in 1958; army reign of terror in the Northern and Eastern Provinces in 1961; police violence at the International Tamil Research Conference in 1974 resulting in the death of nine persons in Jaffna; police and communal violence against Tamil speaking Muslims at Puttalam and various other parts of Ceylon in 1976 – all these calculated to instill terror in the minds of the Tamil speaking people, thereby breaking their spirit and the will to resist injustices heaped on them,

(h) By terrorizing, torturing, and imprisoning Tamil youths without trial for long periods on the flimsiest grounds,

(i) Capping it all by imposing on the Tamil Nation a constitution drafted, under conditions of emergency without opportunities for free discussion, by a Constituent Assembly elected on the basis of the Soulbury Constitution distorted by the Citizenship laws resulting in weightage in representation to the Sinhalese majority, thereby depriving the Tamils of even the remnants of safeguards they had under the earlier constitution, And,

Whereas, all attempts by the various Tamil political parties to win their rights, by co-operating with the governments, by parliamentary and extra-parliamentary agitations, by entering into pacts and understandings with successive Prime Ministers, in order to achieve the bare minimum of political rights consistent with the self-respect of the Tamil people have proved to be futile; And,

Whereas, the efforts of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress to ensure non-domination of the minorities by the majority by the adoption of a scheme of balanced representation in a Unitary Constitution have failed and even the meagre safeguards provided in article 29 of the Soulbury Constitution against discriminatory legislation have been removed by the Republican Constitution; And,

Whereas, the proposals submitted to the Constituent Assembly by the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi for maintaining the unity of the country while preserving the integrity of the Tamil people by the establishment of an autonomous Tamil State within the framework of a Federal Republic of Ceylon were summarily and totally rejected without even the courtesy of a consideration of its merits; And,

Whereas, the amendments to the basic resolutions, intended to ensure the minimum of safeguards to the Tamil people moved on the basis of the nine point demands formulated at the conference of all Tamil Political parties at Valvettithurai on 7th February 1971 and by individual parties and Tamil members of Parliament including those now in the government party, were rejected in toto by the government and Constituent Assembly; And,

Whereas, even amendments to the draft proposals relating to language, religion, and fundamental-rights including one calculated to ensure that at least the provisions of the Tamil Lanaguage (Special Provisions) Regulations of 1956 be included in the Constitution, were defeated, resulting in the boycott of the Constituent Assembly by a large majority of the Tamil members of Parliament; And,

Whereas, the Tamil United Liberation Front, after rejecting the Republican Constitution adopted on the 22nd of May, 1972, presented a six point demand to the Prime Minister and the Government on 25th June, 1972, and gave three months time within which the Government was called upon to take meaningful steps to amend the Constitution so as to meet the aspirations of the Tamil Nation on the basis of the six points, and informed the Government that if it failed to do so the Tamil United Liberation Front would launch a non-violent direct action against the Government in order to win the freedom and the rights of the Tamil Nation on the basis of the right of self-determination; And,

Whereas, this last attempt by the Tamil United Liberation Front to win Constitutional recognition of the rights of the Tamil Nation without jeopardizing the unity of the country was callously ignored by the Prime Minister and the Government; And,

Whereas, the opportunity provided by the Tamil United Liberation leader to vindicate the Government’s contention that their constitution had the backing of the Tamil people, by resigning from his membership of the National State Assembly and creating a by-election was deliberately put off for over two years in utter disregard of the democratic right of the Tamil voters of Kankesanthurai, and,

Whereas, in the by-election held on the 6th February 1975, the voters of Kankesanthurai by a preponderant majority not only rejected the Republican Constitution imposed on them by the Sinhalese Government, but also gave a mandate to Mr. S.J.V. Chelvanayakam, Q.C. and through him to the Tamil United Liberation Front for the restoration and reconstitution of the Free Sovereign, Secular, Socialist State of TAMIL EELAM.

End of Quote:

Vaddukoddai Resolution is a statement of fact, the 1987 Accord is an ideal that Sri Lanka has not achieved, sadly.

Notwithstanding Dayan’s quote from Lord Soulbury’s remarks in 1963, we are the Tamil Nation deserving of our legitimate aspirations being fulfilled.

Dayan quotes Lord Soulbury:

“…I now wish that that I had recommended a human rights clause as in the constitution of India – and elsewhere. But I do not believe that other federation or an autonomous Tamil State will work. Federation is cumbersome and difficult to operate – and an autonomous Tamil State would not be viable.

I am afraid that I can only counsel patience – and vigorous participation in the work of the House of Representatives. You might imitate the Irish party in our House of Commons before Ireland was separated from us.  Incidentally the Tamil Members of Parliament were, in my opinion, very unwise not support Dudley Senanayake. They could, I believe, have kept him in power.…Were I in your shoes I would do all I could to support the U.N.P. and secure the defeat of the present Government.”

At this point let’s not forget what Lord Soulbury also said:

“While the Commission was in Ceylon (in 1946), the speeches of certain Sinhalese politicians calling for the solidarity of the Sinhalese and threatening the suppression of the Tamils emphasised the need for constitutional safeguards …Nevertheless, in the light of later happenings, I now think it is a pity the Commission did not also recommend the entrenchment in the constitution  of guarantees of fundamental rights…”

I disagree with Dayan for bringjng Lord Soulbury into the discussion. The Lord would not be thinking on those lines anymore!

Although Lord Soulbury said a federation or autonomous Tamil state would not be viable at the time he was expressing the view, I would say if Lord Soulbury was called upon to assess the situation with hindsight considering the betrayal of Tamils by Dudley Senanayake, the trickery by which the 1972 Constitution was hatched and the more entrenched Sinhala Buddhist state thereafter in the 1977 Constitution, the systematic genocidal acts against Tamils, and with the approach his own country Britain is taking, ready and prepared to hold a referendum to decide Scotland’s fate, he would take back his words, I am sure.

Let me remind Dayan my response to reducing Tamil constituencies or bid to kill off the Tamil Nation or the call for integration by Sinhalese governments in my article, Bishop of Mannar’s Push for Recognition of the Tamil Nation and Tamil Self Rule Sets Benchmarks for Political Solution for Eelam Tamils:

I challenge the Sinhalese who promote a unitary state that they must put their money where their mouth is: In Sri Lanka the call for integration is actually a plan to “kill off the Tamil Nation under the guise of integration:

The existence of the Tamil Nation contiguous and sovereign demolishes Sri Lankan Foreign Minister G.L. Peiris’s view shared with Nirupama of the Hindu: “So when one talks about dispossession of lands, driven out of areas where generations have been living, one must remember this is not something exclusive to one community,” says G L Peiris expressing a typical chauvinist view of dismissing the Tamil Nation, intended to promote integration essentially to kill off the Tamil Nation, indicative of the double standards that exists, one for the Sinhalese and one for the Tamils. When Nirupama quotes a “Rajapaksa government” spokesman as saying “there were always Sinhalese and Muslims in the Tamil areas, and no area can be the exclusive preserve of any one community,” it is a sure admission of the fact that there were ‘Tamil Areas’. In a country where all communities are not treated equally and the constitution reflects this inequality, the assertions made by the administration and the Minister fall flat in the face of logic and has no meaning. It is not enough to make these false claims and hollow assurances that the island of Sri Lanka is for everyone. The Rajapaksa administration won’t put its money where its mouth is. It won’t be prepared to change the constitution to guarantee equal status for all communities, meaning equal status for the Tamil language as it exists for the Sinhala language and equal status for all religious faiths, Hinduism, Christianity, Catholicism and Islam same as Buddhism, including equal rights based on self determination for all as enjoyed by the Sinhalese people and the recognition of the existence of a Tamil Nation. The equation that serves the extremist philosophy of the Rajapaksa administration can be best defined as: Reconciliation = Integration = Sinhalisation = Obliteration of Tamil Nation.

I once again wish to quote from the Tamil Nation website, repeating what I told Kusal Perera in my article, SriLanka is Sitting on Our Land, Tamil Eelam Occupied, Pillaged and Violated, which explains the “resuscitation of Tamil sovereignty” after the advent of the ’72 constitution that was, “never ceded to any conqueror”:

The proponents of Tamil Eelam argue that the Northern and Eastern Provinces of Sri Lanka coincide with the historic boundaries of the kingdom of Jaffna and argue a case that seeks to establish that sovereignty over these territories was never ceded to any conqueror and that, even if such concession had been made at any time in the past, the unilateral renunciation of links with the United Kingdom which took place at the assumption of office by the government of Mrs. Srimavo Bandaranaike in 1972 resuscitated the Tamil sovereignty which had merely laid dormant until then… In the abstract theory of international law, it would appear that the Tamils have at the very least, an arguable case, and possibly a sustainable one.” – Timothy J. Moore, M.P. of the Australian Section of the ICJ in his  Report on ‘Ethnic Violence, the Independence of the Judiciary, Protection of Fundamental Rights and the Rule of Law in Sri Lanka – Fragile Freedoms?’, July 1983 – Tam

 

Finally I rest my case with my response to the prevailing ignorant American view as articulated by Ambassador Samantha Powers on Twitter, where I expressed my objections to the 13th amendment (mentioned in the UNHRC25 resolution) as an acceptable political solution to the Tamil National Question:

Sri Lankan governments have long used and abused democratic processes to pursue their Sinhala Buddhist supremacist policies.  So, as would Tamil activists who know the real score, I completely discard and differ on one point with Ambassador Samantha Powers who just after the passage of HRC25 resolution calling for a international investigation, used twitter to  express her satisfaction in the outcome of the US sponsored resolution :

“After 5 years in which the Sri Lanka gov’t has undermined democracy and refused to investigate war crimes allegations, accountability overdue, ” she said and followed that with another tweet: “Significant that the Human Rights Council passed a resolution yesterday calling for a UN investigation into abuses in Sri Lanka.”

Undermined democracy, yes but democracy has been a tool for Sinhala governments to undermine Tamils more like it, I thought and wanted to tell her.

My words to Samantha Powers I hope explains the underlying problem that the Tamil Nation has faced which could lead to its final destruction if we do not put up a resolute  and rigorous fight and don’t let people like Dayan Jayatilleka dictate the conversation.

Democracy in a Unitary State with two distinct nations, Sinhala and Tamil is a tool the former uses to crush the latter… ,,In Sri Lanka, the numerically larger Sinhala governmentsts and parliament have a (strangle ) hold on numerically larger Tamils in the North & East  provinces due to the  (prevailing) unitary system…please understand situation of Tamils….13th amendment is no political solution for Tamils,” I tweeted in earnest.

Earlier as the HRC25 draft was being discussed it appeared there was a lot of bargaining going on. Finally it seemed the members were drifting away from the first draft which called on the Sri Lankan government to “provide the Northern Provincial Council and the Chief Minister with the resources and authority to govern.”

It became quite obvious the 13th amendment, the only useless piece of legislation that the Congress party led India and some members think they can push down the throats of Tamils as the only political solution  was once again (with Indian Congress led) India’s blessings presented in the 3rd draft.

My tweets showed my disappointment and betrayal:

“The 18th amendment and Devineguma Bill now law  in Sri Lanka make 13th amendment a useless legislation, Provincial Councils are ‘lame duck’ organisations, Please don’t support the 13th amendment…CHANGE from 1st Draft which earlier called on Sri Lankan Govt to “provide the Northern PC & its CM with  resources & authority to govern” Rip Off….HRC25 3rd Draft pushing 13th Amendment contrary to overwhelming mandate given to Northern Provincial Council for federal solution.”

The Sinhalese want to use their numerical strength under a unitary system (which they don’t want to change) to have a strangle hold on power to crush the Tamil Nation. That’s not democracy,  self governance for the Tamils in the island of Ceylon/Sri Lanka is the way to go. Let’s all unite to make this a reality.

Enough is Enough,  I have nothing more to say, the facts speak for themselves.