A
Response to’’ Why blame Jaya for arresting Vaiko?’’ By Gangadhar
(Free Press Journal)
By V.Thangavelu
(1) It is
ridiculous to compare the Al Qaeda with the LTTE. The Al Qaeda is mostly a faceless outfit without any goals or
demands. Its members are religious fanatics. On the other hand the LTTE is a
national liberation movement, enjoying popular support, holding territory and
running a de facto government.
(2) If MDMK is a
splinter group and a political “non-entity” why use an axe to kill it? Vaiko was
supporting the LTTE for years, including the time he and his party entered into
an electoral alliance during the 1999 Lok Sabha elections with the AIADMK. Did
not Jayalalithaa then knew that Vaiko is a supporter of LTTE? Why use the POTA
now? Does this not then amount to mis-use of POTA? The BJP President Venkaiah
Naidu, Arun Jaitley, former law minister, George Fernandez, Defence Minister
have openly stated that the arrest of Vaiko is a mis-use of POTA. Is Gangadhar a
better authority on the subject than these top politicians who enacted the law
in the first place?
(3) Does
banning an organization worldwide make it a terrorist organization? Does Hamas a
terrorist organization simply because USA has designated so? Is it not a fact
that India all along supported both the PLO and ANC and described both as
national liberation movements?
(4)
Gangadhar says “No one thought at that time that the LTTE would grow into
a monster, engage the government in a civil war and killing thousands of
innocent civilians”. Is Gangadhar an imbecile to think that when Indira Gandhi directed
RAW to train the LTTE (and other militant groups) that she did not knew it was
to fight a guerrilla war against the Sri Lankan army? Is he so naïve as to think
otherwise?
(5)
Gangadhar makes the audacious claim that “Vaiko and his extremist
group of supporters were wrong to identify the LTTE as the only force to speak
for the Sri Lankan Tamils.” Pray don’t Gangadhar read Sri Lankan
newspapers? Attempts were made in the past, including India during Rajiv
Gandhi’s time, tried to create artificial leaders and Quislings out of pliable
and selfish Tamils by making them Ministers! But all such attempts failed
miserably. Today LTTE has been acknowledged as the sole representatives of
the Tamils by the entire Tamil population North, East and Hill country.
Gangadhar should brush up his knowledge of current events.
6)
Gangadhar asserts, “Over the years, the LTTE had ordered the killing of
hundreds of senior leaders of various moderate Tamil groups, some of them in
Tamil Nadu. It continued to recruit young boys and girls to carry and use its
guns, collected funds through extortion and drug running.” In the first
place Gangadhar appears to be very poor in your arithmetic! Hundreds of senior
leaders? He must be kidding! In any case any freedom movement has to eliminate
the internal enemies before confronting the external enemy. In LTTE case, the
internal enemies are the Tamil Quisling groups and the external enemy is the
Sinhala dominated Sri Lankan government. Eliminating internal enemies is
strategically important when one country wants to fight another country. That is
also what Thiruvalluvar (never heard?) enunciates in his immortal work
Thirukkural. He assigns one whole chapter to deal with internal enmity. He says,
“Open enemies who are like the unsheathed sword need not be much feared. But
persons who appearing as loving kinsmen cause harm in secret are the real
enemies to be feared.” In elaboration (Chapter 88-Assessment of
opposition) he exhorts “the felling of a thorny tree when it is still
young. Any attempt to cut it down after it is fully grown will only cause harm
to the hand.” Of course Gangadhar will like the Tamil people to fight on
two fronts and lose the war!
(7)
As far the charge LTTE is using child soldiers, the LTTE has denied
the charge. However, if the LTTE formations are no more than child brigades why
is the mighty 150,000 strong Sri Lankan Sinhala army unable to defeat them? Why
it suffered defeat after defeat at the hands of the LTTE? Or for that matter the
mighty 4th largest Indian army? In any case I wish Gangadhar study
Tamil history. A Tamil mother who lived 2000 years ago sent her only son in his
teens to the battlefront when on hearing the beat of the war drums. She had
already lost her father on the first day of the battle and her beloved husband
on the second of the battle! So this trait is in Thamil blood or better in their
genes! The LTTE is fighting a superior enemy with unlimited men and weapons so
they are forced to fight with every resource at their command. It is high time
Gangadhar stops complaining, “It continued to recruit young boys
and girls to carry and use its guns.”
(8)
Gangadhar claims that
that LTTE” collected funds through extortion and drug running.” This is a cock and bull story we have heard for the
umpteenth number of times and we are sick of it. I would have wished that
Gangadhar came up with something new instead of recycling the old rubbish. I
challenge Gangadhar to prove his accusations! LTTE may be guilty of few
excesses here and there, but certainly not drug running and extortion. Is
Gangadhar both blind and deaf
to think that LTTE can fight and sustain a liberation war for two decades by
drug running and extortion without people’s support? For his information the
areas under the control of the LTTE are the only one completely free of the drug
menace. A liberation organization committed to emancipate Tamil people from the
clutches of the hegemonic rule of the Sinhalese cannot afford the luxury of
engaging itself in criminal activities. It is a shame the Free Press Journal
carries such trash camouflaged as fair political comment by this idiotic writer.
I too can accuse Gangadhar of running a brothel and making millions of rupees in
the process.
(9)
No one really knows for certain who was behind the assassination of
Rajiv Gandhi. The trial by a Special Court denied due process of law to the
accused persons. Out of 26 people the Supreme Court of India acquitted
charged 18 of them. In any case what about the more than three thousand
Tamil civilians, including doctors and nurses of Jaffna hospital, shot and
killed by the IPKF? What about rape of hundreds of Thamil women and girls? Is it his logic that the IPKF dispatched
by Rajiv Gandhi can kill and rape Thamils, but they should not in turn
retaliate? For Gangadhar information, Thanu the alleged suicide bomber was
most probably a rape victim herself! Rajiv Gandhi simply paid the price for his
political stupidity, idiocy and folly by dispatching the IPKF to another country
to kill Tamils!
(10)
Gangadhar speaks of LTTE threat. But the Chief Minister Ms.
Jayalalithaa, the superstitious Ayyankar with inflated egos from Kannada, has
stated for the umpteenth number of times that she has wiped out the LTTE from
Thamil Nadu? So where is the threat?
(11)
Again the baseless accusation that “The fanatical pro-LTTE groups in
Tamil Nadu had visions of a Great Tamil State comprising of the Eelam and Tamil
Nadu. They dreamt of such a state that would recreate the glory of the ancient
Tamil kingdoms of the Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas kings. Men like Vaiko belonged
to this theory and would be willing courtiers to their great emperor, Raja
Maharaja Prabhakaran! Did the rest of India want to go this?”
This is a deliberate and time tested dis-information campaign by
sworn enemies of Tamils. Vaiko has publicly declared that he does not stand for
an independent state of Tamil Nadu, not to speak of a Great Tamil State. As for
glorifying Chera, Chozha and Pandyas- what is wrong to do so? If the North Indians (read BJP) wants to
recreate Rama Rajya (Rama is only a mythical figure), why not Chera, Chola and
Pandyas whose kingdoms came to an end only a few centuries ago?
(12)
Gangadhar smack
self-satisfaction that “Britain had allowed the use
of its territory for LTTE to propagate its views. Now, this had been withdrawn
and the LTTE had been banned both in the UK and the US” is simply
laughable. It portrays Gangadhar as a frog in the well. For his information
though LTTE remains proscribed in UK and US, there is no ban in regard to its
political activities and raising funds for humanitarian assistance. With all its
faults, US unlike India, remains a vibrant democracy whose judiciary is fiercely
free and independent in upholding the rights of free speech and assembly
guaranteed by the constitution.
Now I have a question for
Gangadhar. On April 8th, 1929
Bagawat Singh threw bombs at the well of Delhi
Central Assembly. The bombs missed the target, but. Bagawat Singh was arrested.
tried for treason and sentenced to death. Is he a terrorist or a martyr?
Let us hear from the apostle of Non-violence M.K.Gandhi about Bagawat
Singh.
“Bhagat
Singh and his two associates have been hanged. The Congress made many attempts
to save their lives and the Government entertained many hopes of it, but all has
been in a vain. Bhagat Singh did not wish to live. He refused to apologize, or
even file an appeal. Bhagat Singh was not a devotee of non-violence, but he did
not subscribe to the religion of violence. He took to violence due to
helplessness and to defend his homeland. In his last letter, Bhagat Singh wrote
--" I have been arrested while waging a war. For me there can be no gallows. Put
me into the
mouth of a cannon and
blow me off." These heroes had conquered the fear of death. Let us bow to
them a thousand times for their heroism.”
If Bagawat Singh is a hero for Gandhi and Indians because
he had conquered the fear of death, so are the Tigers for Prabhakaran and
Tamils. Likewise the
assassination by shooting of Mr. Ash by Vanjinathan at the Maniyachi railway
station. Vanjinathan is rightly
considered and hailed a hero not a terrorist.
So Gangadhar, what is sauce for the Indian goose should be sauce
for the Tamil gander as well!
Who is a terrorist and who is a freedom fighter depends on
which side of the fence a person stands. The militants who are fighting Indian
occupation are described by President Musharaff as freedom fighters. He is
openly extending moral, diplomatic and political support! And Pakistan is
considered by US, the country that spear heads the war against terrorists, as a
strong ally. When L.K.Advani, Deputy Prime Minister of India asked US to declare
Pakistan a terrorist state, US rebuffed it saying “As far as putting Pakistan on the terrorism list (is
concerned), just to point out again Pakistan has been a very stalwart ally in
the fight against terrorism." So
Gangadhar should go and grow grass instead of talking about terrorism!
Journalists like V Gangadhar
are perverted individuals who cash on terror and see a Tiger under every bush.
They indulge in fabrication, distortion, and concoction to tarnish the LTTE
black, but the just struggle of the Tamil Nation will emerge victorious sooner
than later. The heroic struggles of East Timorians, Slovaks, Croatians, Bosnians
etc.etc. shines like bright stars in the sky for Tamils to emulate!
Ms. Jayalalithaa is just a passing cloud that will be blown away by the winds of change and consigned to the dustbin of history. Gangadhar should advise her to concentrate on good governance to solve the pressing problems of ordinary people instead of wasting her time and energy to jail her political foes. Last year it was the former chief Minister M. Karunanidhi whom she vowed to pay back in the same coin by locking up in the same cell in the same jail and compelling him to eat from the same plate! At this rate she will bring ruin upon herself without any effort from her foes.