[b]The Right way and the Wrong way[/b]
By Dayan Jayatilleka
There is a right way and a wrong way, and the right way is usually the only way to succeed while the wrong way almost certainly dooms you to fail. There is a right way to fight the Tigers and a wrong way to do so, just as there is a right and wrong way to fight for autonomy or federalism for the Tamils.
The outcry in the international media about recent violence in Sri Lanka, and the paucity if not utter absence of support from our neighbour, should indicate the right and wrong ways to set about resisting the separatist–terrorist Tigers. Planting large statues in place of smaller ones in Trincomalee, organising death squads and riots against Tamil civilians or permitting such rioting to proceed without immediate suppression, allowing murders of Tamil youth to go unpunished, maintaining an unreformed unitary state, are the wrong ways to resist the Tigers, because you do so all alone and you cannot afford to because you lack the material capacity for self reliance. Even though it is in India’s interests to support us, we have made it more difficult rather than easier for her to do so.
No one, not even those powers most hostile to the Tigers, India and the USA, are going to support us on our terms, while we remain as we are and where we are; unreformed and unenlightened.
http://www.asiantribune.com/show_news.php?id=17883
The Right way and the Wrong way
Mr. Dyan Jayathilake:
People like you should have a country for Jews. there won't be a Israel if you were the political consultant.
Tamils over 80 million all over the world. %50 million lives in TamilNadu. If you check out everything, tamils enjoy far better status than Sinhalas who arw about 16 million and confined motly to the small island.
In that island also there are 3 levels of govts and elections. In developed countries, people simply does not care as it goes to the lowest level ofd of govt. Because, that creates another level of taxing and people need to work so hard in order pay all these taxes.
Now, in Sri Lanka what has happened, all these politicians need salaries, offices and employees for them, perks ABOVE ALL HUGE CORRUPTIONS.
In Sri Lanka, LTTW is the only organization against any governing of Nand E by any [politicians other than them.
GOISL has implemented a federal govt, money can not be spent for development because of LTTW security is the priority.
Politics are important only politicans only anywhere in the world. Other people need to live their life day to day.
GOSL does not need any other changes or to change constitution.
JUst exist exactly the way, ISrael exists amon many enemy countries.
The simple answer is JUST GET RID OF LTTW LEADERS. Some times killings are necessary because that is the only language terrorists understand and at least to raise fear in them.
On the other hand, Pabakaran does not care tamils and he is willing to kill any number of people including tamils to acheive his target.
Because of that, only way is to GET LTTW leaders.
We do not need all out war. Use xactly the same dstrategy that LTTW uses. Some how, REstrict weapon buying just to get rid of KIlinochchi.
Sine 1987 when JRJ signed tha agreement, we should have fought and waited if we are going to change anything.
Juet get rid of LTTW gang.
The Right way and the Wrong way
The question is not whether to wage war or conduct negotiation, The question is what is on offer to negotiate? Ltte probably feels that they are wasting their time in negotiating since the govt. only tells them about its hard line position.
Nobody has come up with a solution acceptable to even the most moderate of Tamils. Say Anandasangari for instant.
Can anybody jot down in point from a solution acceptable even to Anandasangari. If you cant satisfy him how can you ever satisfy VP.
The Right way and the Wrong way
In this article Dayan Jayatilleke (DJ) gives the right and the wrong way of dealing with a number of matters. He does not however discuss the right way of dealing with the LTTE. The matters he does consider are secondary issues arising from the LTTE push for a "Tamil homeland" on part of the territory of Sri Lanka using the methods of terrorism and war. If this problem did not exist the other problems would have been much less acute than they at the moment and the right way of dealing with them could be found relatively easier. It is the presence of the LTTE and the methods it adopts that has made all problems in Sri Lanka extremely acute.
But in a previous article entitled "pregnant with Possibilites" DJ does suggest that the way was to wage a War of National Defence with the LTTE regardless of internatonal opinion. This is presumably the right way of dealing with the LTTE problem. The wrong way would be the way that it is now tackled, viz. through a "Peace process" involving negotiations. The is the wrong policy which has been tried many times during the conflict but always had failed because of the intransigence of the LTTE. There is no evidence that the Tiger has changed its stripes, and any way that involves negotiation with the LTTE is doomed to fail.
We need not speculate why DJ has failed to identify the right way of dealing with the main problem of LTTE terrorism. Perhaps he too has joined the peaceniks and now think that negotiation is the way to go. Whatever the reason be there is a marked contrast in the argument in the previous essay and in the current one. But some credit may still be given to him in that he does NOT say that negotiation is the way to go when dealing with the LTTE. This separates him from the President who has only only string in his bow, viz. negotiations. A few words may be said about the other rights and wrongs he mentions.
DJ says that deliberate killing of civilians is not the way to go. This is certainly true. But deliberate killing of civilians is the tactic of the LTTE terrorists. Even recently in the Trinco region he killed Sinhala farmers workinng in the fields. Some collateral damage from military operations is inevitable. Even the US with its advanced weaponry and satellite information have killed many thousand civilians in the invasion of Iraq. Death squads are charges levelled by Tamil propaganda, the real death squads are organised by the LTTE to further their ethnic cleasing and in the assassination of prominent figures. DJ also talks of an unreformed unitary state, but no amount of reform will satisfy the LTTE as their non-negotiable demand is secession. So the wrong ways mentioned here on how the conflict is now conducted is more applicable the LTTE than to GOSL. Since the advent of the present President GOSL has been turning the other cheek to LTTE atrocities.
The comments on the rights and wrongs of the "Tamil Resistence" can only apply to the Karuna group. The Karuna group is as much a terrorist group as the Wanni tigers. In an inter-terrorist confrontation neither side is concerned with the niceties of doing it the "right" way. DJ speaks of the necessity for the "paramilitaries" to unite against the LTTE. But the differences between the paramilitary Tamil groups are largely personal differences as to who should lead the terrorist output. This is what makes unity between them difficult if not impossible.
On the question of autonomy and federalism DJ says that the right way is to create a "firewall" between autonomy and separatism, considering the former right and the latter wrong. However "wrong" autonomy is autonomy based on race. Unfortuantely all talk of autonomy is racist autonomy, i.e. autonomy for Tamils, Muslims and other ethnic groups. The danger is that autonomy along those lines inevitably ends with separatism. This is what happened in Yugoslavia and the old Sovier Republic. Thus it is impossible to create a firewall between autonomy and separatism when the autonomy is racial autonomy. We inevitably end up with racism and the apartheid state.
In the final section entitled "The Way" (for what what we are not told) DJ assumes the role of the preacher. He talks about morality when this is the furthest thing that motivates both sides. Besides even philosophers canno agree on what is moral and what is not. So the whole essay ends up on a vague and ambiguous tone. This is not surprising because the writer has evaded the central question on the LTTE -- whether to wage war or conduct negotiations.