Colombo / Stockholm/ New Delhi, 02 May, (Asiantribune.com):
Charles Anthony & Prabhakaran - Son and Father will they survive? As yet another week ends with no word about the whereabouts of Velupillai Prabhakaran, it is natural for the media to speculate and the gossip mills to go into overdrive on what has happened to him, who has carved out a Robinhood image for himself down the past 30-odd years.
A conjecture that has many takers on either side of the Palk Straits is that Prabhakaran is, indeed, dead but his close faithful are maintaining the myth of his invincibility.
If this is the case, certainly, President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his army chief would have gone to the town with the ‘good news’.
Also Indian government and the far away American Government would not be sitting tight lipped if he had died by enemy bullet or killed himself by consuming the cyanide pill – a pill that had taken the lives of so many innocent youngsters who were forcibly conscripted into the Tigers’ force.
There is a widely held view that whatever be his other failings, Prabhakaran is not given to self-pity, primarily because he is a megalomaniac.
Also at the end of the day, he, like any other person in the sub-continent, is a family man. He loves his son and daughter and would like to be with them and when the time comes by the side of their children as dotting grand father – a privilege he had denied to hundred thousand fathers in recent years.
A question that has been doing the round particularly after the UN satellite pictures on humanitarian problems have been accessed by the Times of London is: Could not any one of the eagle eyes in the sky take a close images of the tongue shaped coastal reef that is sheltering Prabhakaran and his trusted men. And even pinpoint his position or movements?
Another question that has come upfront after the speculation about the possibility of Prabhakaran making his escape good in a submarine is about the so called surveillance of the coastal waters.
How effective is the coastal patrolling?
There are no definite answers.
But if one goes by the ‘landing’ of 11 Tamil refugees at Kakinada hoodwinking the Indian and Sri Lanka navies, it is safe to presume that gaping holes are inescapable in any security cordon.
Since the LTTE and its proxies have not as yet hit the road with their announcement about Prabhakaran, it is possible that he and his injured son are still holed up in a luxury bunker which lies beyond the mortar range of the army.
While grappling with these ifs and buts of Prabhakaranisms, it is essential to come to grips with the post-Prabhakarn scene as well.
For the sake of millions of people who have just emerged from the claws of death that the Tigers had come to represent for them.
Also for the sake of long pending concerns of the ethnic Tamil minority and other minority groups in the country.
Certainly to thwart interested outsiders from hijacking the Lanka Tamil issue for their petty electoral politics.
So, Asian Tribune has decided to find out what the readers think about the issues that are coming upfront, particularly what should be done if Prabhakaran surrenders and what should be the fate of his loyal Tigers cadres.
Should the cadres be punished for the sins of their master who had refused to look beyond his nose and turned a blind a eye to the clear writing on the wall, which everyone, who is any one on the political landscape of Sri Lanka, could see for a long while.
We hope the readers at home in Sri Lanka and outside Sri Lanka will participate in the survey and offer their views, which, we are certain; the leadership will welcome it as the pulse of the nation.
- Asian Tribune
Comments
Please listen to Daya Master
Please listen to Daya Master & George Master (2 Top LTTE Guys) who surrendered to Sri Lankan(SL)Forces recently on www.defence.lk. They speak for themselves & Prabhakaran's future. I think we all have better things to do, rather than worrying about Prabha during his last days, whether in SL, Tamil Nadu or even here in the UK. Gamini
Please dont ask us, ask Erik
Please dont ask us, ask Erik he may be in Norway.
AT asks: what should be done
AT asks: what should be done if Prabhakaran surrenders? – indeed this is a VERY BIG "IF".
The critical task at hand for the government is not about what to do with Prabhakaran, LTTE cadres or the LTTE, rather, how to discover and implement a set of broadly acceptable solutions to the nation's multitude of woes - of which a key one is the dissatisfaction of the minorities. This in fact has been Sri Lanka's primary deficiency since national independence: its leaders incapacity to discover a comprehensive socio-political formula acceptable to all communities of the nation. The deficiency continues to this very day. The recent events, however warranted, have polarized the communities, emboldened the nationalists and further exacerbated the potential for discovering constructive solutions.
In January 2008, this commentator in an AT comment suggested, "Imagine the LTTE is fully destroyed and Prabhakaran is no more. So, what's next? Will that solve our problems?" Here we are, 15 months later, faced with the reality of this hypothesis. Again I ask, have our underlying problems been solved by the destruction of the LTTE? Do the minorities ‘feel’ as equals in a just society? Do they feel as safe and secure – as do the majority? Do they too feel that Sri Lanka is their country also? Do they too feel gratified and bonded to Mother Lanka as do the Sinhalese? Are the nation’s operative systems fair and just towards all its citizens? Have the war victories created a just society?
We can destroy the LTTE 100 times (all terror groups deserve to be destroyed), but that in no way will solve the nation's deeply rooted problems including the ethnic problem. Successive governments since the LTTE (roughly since 1975) have focused on the LTTE as THE problem without the slightest foresight to discover solutions to the deeper structural challenges - which are detrimental not only to the minorities but to all of the nation's people. Instead of building a just society, cheap politicians politicized the ethnic tensions for their respective personal gains and have used the LTTE as an excuse. Thanks to the Rajapaksa administration, we have now come to the end of the excuses-era in that the LTTE can no longer be used as a convenient excuse for not discovering broad and comprehensive solutions.
The government's full focus must now shift to locating solutions. A just solution acceptable to all communities will ensure perpetual peace and forever prevent the emergence of a future LTTE / Prabhakaran, sparing yet another future government the headache of how to dispose a terrorist leader.
[What the nation require at this juncture are elegant solutions that would inspire all Lankans including ex-terrorists to voluntarily embrace a just and benevolent system to the benefit of each and all individual citizens.]
If he was ever caught alive
If he was ever caught alive I am most definite he would not suicide,He should be made to answer the questions as to how he ran this terror game all these 30 years.
More than praba there is the western world out there who conspired against the people of sri lanka and the only person who would know this would be prabakaran and he will be out with the names in no time .
and of course the SINHALA TIGERS in the southeren part of the country who are equally responsible for this game should be exposed and punished.
Already Daya Master and the Geroge has revealed some but prabakaran is the man and he will come out with the names most definitley and when he speaks no one can deny it.
He will let all the others die around him and let himself capture for sure.
He is just afraid of death as anyother human mortal
The carders should be rehabilitated as they have already lost their life to this terror and punished enough.civilized world should give them a chance to rebuild.If Karuna is been pardon why not these poor children who were conscripted ?They deserve life too
Prabha is looking for more
Prabha is looking for more international coverage for his LTTE enterprise...and any kind of international group/agency to save the civilians, will only lead to somebody from the International Group ALSO being taken hostage.
Such a hostage will be more valuable to the LTTE than even the civilians!
We like to know what the Tamil community is doing regarding the IDPs. I personally know of many Sinhalese groups who are doing whatever they can to supply money/food/medicines etc. to the IDPs, just as they did after the Tsunami. But what are the Tamils doing other than criticising and demonstrating in international metropolises?
In the final analysis, there is no better way than to go in and take the LTTE out by whatever means and finish this thing off. The world movement of LTTEers will remain a while. That is the world's problem which the International community has nurthured and continues to support/appease.
Sri Lanka will have to do what it has to do, for there is no support that will come from the International Community, who are trapped like the Tamil civilians by the LTTE, but in this case by the LTTE's largesse.
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THE PRIMARY SOURCE OF THIS 30YR CANCER HAS TO BE EXCISED. If the Tamil community of Sri Lanka does not participate and find solutions to get this done, the Sinhalese as the main group in the country will have to do it on their own and they can and will bear the brunt.
At least the country can then move on to find the political solution/s of how ALL Sri Lanka's communities can live together, short of territorial enclaves being given the chance again to go the separatist route.
Once the terrorist problem
Once the terrorist problem is solved the govt has to concentrate to find a solution to demands for devolution of power. All attempts previously have failed because of unreasonable demands of Tamil leaders from 50-50 days through Bandaranaike - Chelvanayagam pact to LTTE's infamous ISG. Take for intance the demand for Land powers in Dudly Senanayake - Chelvanayagam pact:
(a) Land in the Northern and Eastern provinces should in the first instance be granted to land less persons in the district.
(b) Secondly, to Tamil-speaking persons resident in the northern and eastern provinces.
(c) Thirdly, to other citizens in Ceylon, preference being given to Tamil citizens in the rest of the Island.
How on earth one can justify this sort of racist demands under any circumstances? These are quite simply illegal demands according to 1978 constitution because it deprives any citizen to live anywhere in the Island. Has any of so-called moderate Tamils (like Anandasangaree, Douglas Devananda, Mano Ganeshan etc) deviated from infamous Thimpu principles?
1. That the Sri Lankan Tamils be recognised as a distinct nationality;
2. That an identified Tamil homeland and the guarantee of its territorial integrity be recognised;
3. That the right of the Sri Lankan Tamils to self-determination be acknowledged;
It is entirely upto minorities (specially Tamils) to show that they are reasonable and amenable to other communities. Their intransigence based on mythical and bogus Tradional Homelands theory will not take them anywhere, specially given the situation today where majority of Tamils (55%) and Muslims (70%) live outside North-East.
The terrorists problem will
The terrorists problem will not go easily from Sri Lanka. The gun culture in Sri lanka has become rampant.This was due to the Terrorism that befell on Sri Lanka. Most of the crime world has guns and therefore killings, robbery and ransom would be on the increase. The government or the security cannot do anything about it. The people have to suffer. Prabaharan is responsible for all the evils. I also blame both Sinhala and Tamil politicans of the past for Sri Lanka to be in this situation. The media too is to be blamed. They do not act reponsibly. The Tamil Diaspora have to change their attitude which is a high expectation. The TV and the radio medias are brainwashing the Tamil Diaspora with racial hatred. If this doesn't reach the Tamils in Sri Lanka , it is for the good.
Daya Master and George Master, are not truthful although they come out with some facts. They have saved their lives.Now they can talk anything they want to. Why did they join the LTTE in the first place. George Master was drawing a government pension and fighting the government. Is it not treachery.How can they be genuine.
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