Could you have ever imagined some Jewish leaders going to Berlin to honour Hitler for his handiwork on genocide, for their own political and personal gains!
To a land with no free media, went the Indian delegation comprising members and ministers from both the Indian central government and the Tamil Nadu State, including Kanimoli (meaning sweet talker), the daughter of Karunanidhi the Head of Tamil Nadu. Kanimoli, a self professed human rights activist is said to be having extensive business interests around India in collaboration with some powerful Indian Cabinet ministers.
It was a cynical exercise undertaken apparently to give a clean bill of health to Rajapakse's appalling treatment of the nearly 280,000 Tamil IDPS (internally displaced people) who had unwittingly walked into his promised land of liberation from the LTTE, only to be trapped within razor wired incarceration languishing with no end to their freedom in sight, perhaps never. Men, women, children and the infirm of all ages. People keep rapidly disappearing due to death, old age, neglect, disease, malnourishment and deliberate abductions by the government. As predicted, thousands more will perish and the Tamil Nadu government will be tacitly privy to it as would be the central government as they have been to the previous massacres of Tamils. The idea was also to give credibility to Karunanidhi's showmanship that he was responsible for the progressive releases of Tamil IDPs said to be in the pipeline in keeping with Rajapakse's false promises. Karunanidhi first claimed that 58,000 of them would be released immediately as promised by Rajapakse but much to the surprise of the delegation such release had not taken place as of "Yesterday" but was to happen "today". As is the usual story, yesterday would be today and today would be tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
In grateful anticipation of the fulfillment of such promises Rajapake was covered with a golden shawl as a mark of gratitude serving photo opportunities only to be hit subsequently by the reality of the spectacle of complete deception on the ground in the internment camps in Vavuniya. The hopes of the delegation that they would go back and tell their Indian and Tamil Nadu constituencies that everything was hunky dory, thanks to Karunanidhi's intervention were not as expected. Far from it. Even within Sri Lanka with a completely muffled media, their lukewarm views were not be aired. But instead, what we had is a situation carrying the canard of the good news to the Sinhalese constituency within Sri Lanka by the Foreign Minister as to how much the Indian MPs were appreciative of the treatment of the IDPs, conveyed through the subservient sections of the media. He stated that the foreign visitors were the best judges and that they were "extremely pleased". It is little wonder that they had been called "Jokers", a view we have always been steadfastly holding, never relenting. In this case, it applies to all of them in the pack.
They served to deceive both the Tamils of Tamil Nadu and the well meaning Sinhalese in Sri Lanka. It was no surprise that Minister Thondaman, the disgraceful political cringer having inherited this distinguished trait from his grandfather, a minister in a previous government, being privy to this although with no stake in this matter but brought in as a show piece.
What is more, Rajapakse with his record of genocide and other humanitarian crimes against the Tamil people tells this set of jokers that de-mining of the homes and areas which had been inhabited and frequently treaded on by these IDPs in the Vanni, now abandoned, "has to be done without leaving any margin of error". How very considerate! This elusive de mining is said to be undertaken with Indian help and the question is whether it ever occurred to the delegation to ask how many mines had been unearthed or found so far in the process.
Karunanidhi's acts of repeated deception, false patronage and showmanship cringing to the Centre are both unnecessary and counter-productive to the justice and the integrity of the Sri Lankan Tamil cause. He has during most of his political career at the expense of the ignorance and poverty of the Tamil Nadu people and through corruption, built up his own empire, almost a dynasty of enormous wealth and positions to his family members.
Over the years, a substantial bulk of the poor people of Tamil Nadu and other parts of South India have been overwhelmingly influenced by the cinematic culture as a means to escape from the harsh realities of their everyday life, to live in a make believe world manipulated by such scoundrels to remain so to their own advantage. The ethos of the Sri Lankan Tamil cause is different.
We appeal to such persons to kindly desist at least in this instance from using cheap political stunts used to propel heroes, as in Tamil movies at the expense of the suffering IDPs in Vavuniya in Sri Lanka, for it can do irreparable damage to their lives and destinies. All we ask is: keep such stunts hopefully for a better day.
[Editorial, Eelam Nation]