Midweek Review

Focus on Tamil politics

Published

5 years ago

2020/07/29

Sahan Weerasooriya

First general election under Gotabaya presidency:

Before the split: Sampanthan and Wigneswaran at an event in the Jaffna peninsula

by Shamindra Ferdinando

Rajavarothiam Sampanthan (87) is the oldest contestant at the August 5, 2020, parliamentary poll – the third since the conclusion of the nearly 30-year separatist war, in May 2009. The leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is in the fray, from the Trincomalee district. Having first entered parliament, at the 1977 general election, on the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) ticket, the Attorney-at-Law was among those lawmakers who boycotted parliament, beginning mid-1983, after the then President JR Jayewardene extended the life of parliament by six more years, through fraudulent means. The so called 1982 Dec referendum, which was more or less rigged by his regime, deprived the voters an opportunity to exercise their franchise, till 1989. The UNP move facilitated the India-sponsored terrorist project here.

The TULF boycotted parliament for several reasons. This Indian-sponsored terrorist groups ordered them not to continue in parliament beyond the normal six-year term et al. The TULF members lost their seats, following three month absence from parliament. It would be pertinent to mention that the TULF, with 23 seats – the second highest number of seats in parliament – served as the main Opposition.

Having participated in turbulent politics, Sampanthan received the post of Opposition Leader, following the last parliamentary poll, held in August, 2015, though his TNA received only 16 seats. In spite of the Joint Opposition (breakaway UPFA faction) having a much bigger representation in Parliament, (almost 50 MPs), and despite repeatedly challenging Sampanthan’s appointment, he served as the Opposition Leader, until Dec 2019. The JO was denied the Opposition Leader’s Office, through machinations of then President Maithripala Sirisena, Speaker Karu Jayasuriya and the majority hold the ruling UNF-led alliance had in the House.

Sampanthan, who also served as the Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK) leader, handed over the post to Mavai Senathirajah (77) in early Sept 2014. The ITAK is the main constituent of the TNA, notorious for recognizing the LTTE as the sole representative of the Tamil community, by fiat. LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran held the de facto title until the Sri Lankan military shot him, on the morning of May 19, 2009, in the final skirmishes.

TNA faces unprecedented

challenge

The TNA, with its strong man Senathirajah contesting from the Jaffna electoral district, faces a huge challenge in retaining the 16 seats it won at the last general election. For the Tamil electorate, the main battle is between the TNA and the newly formed Thamizh Makkal Thesiya Kootani (TMTK), led by former Chief Minister and retired Supreme Court Justice C.V. Wigneswaran (80).

The TMTK-led grouping includes Eelath Thamilar Suyaatchchi Kalagam (Leader 48-year-old Ananthy Sasitharan), Thamizh Thesiya Katchchi (Leader M.K. Sivajilingam) and Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (Leader Suresh Premachandran 62). Among others in the fray are Minister Douglas Devananda 62, (EPDP) and the All-Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC), led by Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam (46).

Sasitharan is the wife of LTTE Trincomalee ‘political’ head Velayutham Sasitharan, alias Elilan.

She has repeatedly alleged, both here and abroad, that her husband disappeared after surrendering in 2009 to the Army, on the Vanni east front.

Former Northern Province Chief Minister Wigneswaran’s move undermined the TNA’s supremacy, particularly in the Northern region. Having obtained five seats at its first election, in 2000, during Kumaratunga’s presidency, the TNA secured 15 seats at the 2001 general election (the UNP engineered a dozen defections that compelled Kumaratunga to call fresh parliamentary poll), 22 seats in 2005, 14 seats in 2010, and 16 in 2015. The TNA secured its best results, in 2004, thanks to the LTTE stuffing ballot boxes to help its then totally pliant proxy. The European Union condemned the TNA for its murderous alliance with the LTTE, though parliament conveniently turned a blind eye to the blatant way it won such a large number of seats. Local election monitors, too, didn’t utter a word, exposing those self-appointed guardians’ much flaunted impartiality.

The TNA will definitely find it extremely difficult to retain 16 seats, even though the top leadership publicly remains confident that the Northern electorate won’t disappoint the party. However, it certainly wouldn’t be an easy task, especially against the backdrop of TNA heavyweight M.A. Sumanthiran (56), publicly denouncing the LTTE’s failed terrorism project, recently. The TNA opponents are already capitalising on it by whipping up hysteria, among northern emotional voters.

The provocative declaration was made by ex-lawmaker Sumanthiran, in an interview with Chamuditha Samarawickrema’s recent widely-watched and shared interview on social media. No less a person than Sampanthan defended Sumanthiran, amidst heavy attacks on the ex-lawmaker.

UK-based Suren Surendiran, of the Global Tamil Forum (GTF), too, defended Sumanthiran.

Surendiran efficiently discussed the Sumanthiran issue, in an article headlined ‘Is unqualified and uncritical support for the armed struggle of the past, a must, to play a leading role in Tamil politics today?’ published in The Island, on May 28, 2020. Surendiran questioned the interviewer’s motives, as well as those of a Tamil media organization, belonging to a close relative of a former UPFA National List member, representing the Jaffna District. The reference was to Angajan Ramanathan, who is on the SLFP ticket, in the fray from the Jaffna District.

The TNA heavyweight’s condemnation of the LTTE is all the more surprising as he justified the Thowheed Jamaat 2019 terror attacks on Churches and hotels soon after those despicable assaults on total innocents. Sumanthiran maintained that such attacks should be expected, if the government did not address the grievances of the minorities.

The shocking and utterly callous pronouncement was given at an event, at the BMICH, to mark the first anniversary of the political weekly ‘Anidda,’ held a few days after the Easter Sunday carnage.

The TNA’s fate depends particularly on the performance of Wigneswaran’s grouping. The possibility of the TNA retaining 16 seats, however, seems very unlikely. The TNA is certainly troubled by the UNP split. ITAK Colombo leader K.T. Thawarasa, PC, recently declared that TNA’s Jaffna District candidate Sivagnanam Shritharan’s call for Colombo District Tamils to vote for Mano Ganesan (60) of the Tamil Progressive Front, contesting under the breakaway UNP faction, now registered as the Samagi Jana Balvegaya (SJB), was not the party’s position. Shritharan, in a statement published in a Tamil website emphasized that it was the duty of Colombo Tamils to re-elect Ganesan.

The UNP faces a heavy defeat in the Colombo district, with eight out of 11, elected on its slate at the last parliamentary poll, contesting on the SJB ticket/National List at the August 5 poll. Only Ravi Karunanayake, still under investigation over 2015 and 2016 Treasury bond scams, remained along with UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe on their Colombo list, whereas the other former Colombo district lawmaker Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakse, PC, is on the SLPP ticket.

Having fully cooperated with the UNP, since the LTTE’s defeat, the TNA appears to be uncertain of its strategy. Recent meetings with Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa indicated readiness on its part to explore the possibility of ‘working’ with the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP).

Moreover, the TNA is struggling to come to terms with new political realities. The UNP set up is in tatters, with beleaguered Wickremesinghe facing his worst defeat at the forthcoming poll.

The TNA backed the UNP nominated presidential candidates at 2010 (General Sarath Fonseka), 2015 (Maithripala Sirisena) and Sajith Premadasa (2019). The two parties worked extremely close during 2015-2020 and, during that marriage, the UNPled administration betrayed the war-winning armed forces at the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council, and proposed the drawing up of a new Constitution, at the expense of the country’s unitary status. The TNA stood solidly with the UNP, in the wake of the Oct 2018 constitutional coup perpetrated by the then President Maithripala Sirisena. The JVP, too, was part of the UNP-led defence, fully backed by a section of the Western powers, and the civil society grouping, backed and financed by those powerful outside interests. Having backed General Fonseka and Maithripala Sirisena, fielded by the UNP-led coalition, the JVP contested the 2019 presidential poll. JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake (51) ended up a distant third, at the poll, handsomely won by wartime Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa with a majority of nearly 1.4 mn votes. JVP Leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who contested on Jathika Jana Balavegaya ticket, polled 418,553 votes (just 3.16 per cent). The JVPer did much better than retired Army Chief General Mahesh Senanayake who obtained a paltry 49,655 votes (0.37 votes). Having vowed to contest the parliamentary poll, a humiliated Senanayake vanished from the political scene.

The JVP is struggling to retain the number of seats, it won at the 2015 parliamentary election. It managed to secure six seats, including two National List slots. The JVP filled its National slots with defeated candidates (Sunil Handunetti 48) and Bimal Ratnayake (47).

Slain MP’s wife enters fray

The TNA fields slain TNA MP Nadarajah Raviraj’s wife, Sasikala, on its Jaffna District nomination list. Raviraj, who served as the Mayor of Jaffna after the military brought the peninsula under its control, in 1996, was shot dead, in Colombo, on Nov 10, 2006. Having first entered parliament, in 2001, Raviraj retained his Jaffna seat, at the 2004 general election and was one of the most outspoken lawmakers at the time he was silenced. Raviraj was 44 years old at the time he was assassinated, along with his Sinhala police bodyguard. A court, in Dec 2016, acquitted five men accused of Raviraj’s murder.

Former LTTE Trincomalee District political leader Elilan’s wife, Ananthy Sasitharan, is contesting Jaffna on TMTK’s ticket. She served the TNA-run Northern Provincial Council, both as a member and later as a minister. Having entered political life, thanks to the TNA, and engaged in a high profile campaign, overseas, against the government of Sri Lanka, Sasitharan switched allegiance to Wigneswaran.

Interestingly, former member of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) Ambika Satkunanathan is not on the TNA Jaffna List. Satkunanathan’s resignation from the HRCSL in March this year, fuelled intense speculation the lawyer and human rights advocate would enter politics.

Satkunanathan served in many roles at the United Nations offices, in Sri Lanka, including as the national legal advisor to the High Commissioner for Human Rights and Office of the Senior Human Rights Advisor and national consultant on gender integration/evaluation at the Office of the Resident Coordinator.

She is the chairperson of the Neelan Tiruchelvam Trust in Colombo. The LTTE assassinated TULF lawmaker, Tiruchelvam, on July 29, 1999, in Colombo. The emergence of the TNA should be examined, taking into consideration the decimation of the TULF leadership, by the LTTE.

Tiruchelvam was on his way to his office at Kynsey Terrace, Colombo, when a man threw himself onto Tiruchelvam’s car, near the Kynsey Road-Rosemead Place Junction. The academic was 55 at the time of his assassination.

In addition to Sasikala Nadarajah and Ananthy Sasitharan, Vijayakala Maheswaran, wife of slain UNP lawmaker, T. Maheswaran, is contesting Jaffna on the UNP ticket. An LTTE assassin killed Maheswaran inside a Hindu temple, in Colombo, on January 1, 2008. The police apprehended the assassin alive. While Sasikala is a newcomer to national politics and Ananthy seeks a parliamentary career, having represented the Northern Provincial Council, Vijayakala eyes a third term as Jaffna MP. Vijayakala served two terms (2010-2015 and 2015-2020) during which she publicly appreciated the LTTE. In spite of the government initiating legal action, Vijayakala continues to praise the LTTE, regardless of the organization ordering her husband’s assassination.

Post-LTTE Tamil politics

All Tamil parties are in the process of gradually re-asserting their roles over a decade after the LTTE’s demise. The LTTE controlled and influenced the political setup in the Northern and Eastern Provinces before setting up its own – a grouping loyal to Prabhakaran. It chose Sampanthan to lead the TNA. The Attorney-at-Law obviously had no choice, but to accept the LTTE dictate or face the consequences. Having helped the TNA to register its best performance, at the 2004 general election, with heavy handed support from the Tigers, the LTTE used the grouping to engineer Ranil Wickremesinghe’s defeat at the 2005 Nov presidential poll. The LTTE wanted an environment conducive for declaration of a full scale war, hence the decision to order Tamils to boycott the presidential election. The denial of the Northern electorate cost Wickremesinghe the November 2005 election and Prabhakaran, his life, in May 2009. The TNA enjoyed special status, thanks to the LTTE. The status quo remained until the very end. It would be pertinent to mention that the TULF, in spite of being in the original TNA formation, quit the organization, before the 2005 presidential poll.

Over a decade after the successful conclusion of the war, Tamil polity is sharply divided over the course it should take. The unexpected emergence of war veteran Gotabaya Rajapaksa, as the President, clearly delivered a debilitating blow to the TNA project. No nonsense President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has ruled out following the strategies of his predecessors, in dealing with Tamil political parties. The President refrained from inviting the TNA leadership for formal talks or making overtures though some felt a consensus could be reached. However, the TNA will have to await the Aug 5 poll result to formulate its strategy. The most important question is whether it can retain a parliamentary group similar to the size of the one in the last parliament. One thing is clear, in the absence of the LTTE, and the top leadership pursuing an exit strategy, meant to distance the coalition from the LTTE, the TNA may end up much weaker in parliament. But, in politics nothing is certain and unexpected factors can influence the electorate.

Recently, former TNA lawmaker Sivagnanam Shritharan (who urged Tamils to vote for Mano Ganesan) declared, in Kilinochchi, that they needed at least 20 seats, in the next parliament, to represent the Tamil community in a meaningful way.

The TNA really toiled hard for a new Constitution, during the yahapalana administration. Sumanthiran played a significant role in the process, led by Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe, who, on behalf of the 21-member Steering Committee, tasked with formulating proposals in September 2019, just weeks before the constitutional coup presented an interim report. The Steering Committee of the Constitutional Assembly, established by parliamentary resolution, on March 9, 2019, consisted of Ranil Wickremesinghe (Chairman), Nimal Siripala de Silva, Rajavarothiam Sampanthan, Rauff Hakeem, Dinesh Gunawardena, Lakshman Kiriella, Douglas Devananda, Susil Premajayantha, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Rishad Bathiudeen, (Dr.)Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, Patali Champika Ranawaka, Bimal Rathnayake, D.M. Swaminathan, M.A. Sumanthiran, Mano Ganesan, Prasanna Ranatunga, Malik Samarawickrama, (Dr.) Jayampathy Wickramaratne, Dilan Perera and Dr. Mrs. Thusitha Wijemanna.

SLPP National List nominee Gevindu Cumaratunga recently challenged the UNP and its breakaway faction the SJB, the TNA and the JVP to seek public endorsement of yahapalana constitutional proposals, at the forthcoming election. Strangely, none of those who pushed hard for a brand new Constitution had the stomach to go before the public with their proposals in the on-going campaign. The UNP factions are silent on the once high profile constitutional making process. Instead, both major camps (SLPP and SJB) engaged in uninspiring campaigns primarily based on accusations of waste, corruption and irregularities. Basically, the SLPP is campaigning for a steamroller two-thirds majority to do away with the 19th Amendment whereas the SJB, UNP, TNA and JVP sought to thwart President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s project.

Indications are a two-thirds majority is simply not possible, under any circumstances, regardless of, continuing SLPP rhetoric, a week short of Election Day.

Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan alias Karuna Amman, contesting the Digamadulla electorate, on the Ahila Ilankai Tamil Mahasabha (All Ceylon Greater Tamil Council), caused a stir when he recently claimed killing 2,000-3,000 soldiers in a day during the battle for the Elephant Pass base.

The reference was to the 2000 battle, leading to the Army quitting the strategic base, in April 2000. As far as the writer understood, Karuna meant the LTTE killing 2000-3000 soldiers in one night.

Former UPFA Minister (National List) is struggling on the political front and his unsubstantiated claim regarding the Elephant Pass battle proved the one-time LTTE commander faced an uphill task. Ahila Ilankai Tamil Mahasabha is unlikely to make an impression at the general election.

The UPFA accommodated Karuna on its National List twice – first in 2008 and then in 2010.

Instead of contesting the 2015 general election, he fielded his sister, from the UPFA Batticaloa list. Kruna’s sister failed in her bid. With Maithripala Sirisena’s emergence as the President and the SLFP leader, Karuna, who held the post of Vice President of that party quit. However, he backed Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidential campaign and seemed certain of returning to parliament. However, his bid went awry due to former TNA lawmaker S. Viyalendran receiving the top position in the SLPP Batticaloa list. An irate Karuna is fielding his wife Vithiyavathi through an independent group in Batticaloa, while himself moving to neighbouring Digamadulla in spite of the district not being dominated by Tamils. Karuna is on record as having said that he declined an offer to accommodate him on the SLPP National List. However, Karuna didn’t claim a personal role in Elephant Pass battle though he was involved in their counter offensive against Jayasukurui and some phases of operations, leading to the humiliating the Elephant Pass fall to the Tigers. However, Karuna hadn’t been involved in the Elephant Pass battle at all nor did the Army lose 2,000 to 3,000 officers and men in one night. Karuna was playing politics with the war that is now fast fading from our collective memory.

Karuna’s boast in response to TNA Chairman of the Karaitheevu Pradeshiya Sabha said in Tamil ‘Karuna was more ‘kodiya’ (deadly, dangerous, cruel, and nefarious) than corona.’ Let us not hound Karuna over political rhetoric.

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Midweek Review

A look back at now mostly forgotten Eelam war in the aftermath of Kashmir massacre

Published

13 hours ago

2025/04/30

Sahan Weerasooriya

LTTE directed two claymore mines at an overcrowded SLTB bus, at Kebithigollewa, on June 15, 2006. The blasts claimed the lives of 68 civilians. Seventeen years after the war, some interested parties sought to muddy the waters by falsely claiming the Karuna faction triggered the Kebithigollewa blasts at the behest of President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

In the aftermath of the Pahalgam massacre, Pakistan offered to cooperate in what it called a neutral investigation. But India never regretted the
catastrophic results of its intervention in Sri Lanka that led to the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991, over a year after India pulled out its Army
from NE, Sri Lanka

In a telephone call to Indian Premier Narendra Modi, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake condemned the massacre of 26 civilians – 25 Indians and one Nepali – at Pahalgam, in the Indian controlled Kashmir, on April 22.

President Dissanayake expressed his condolences and reaffirmed, what the President’s Media Division (PMD) called, Sri Lanka’s unwavering solidarity and brotherhood with the people of India.

Having described the massacre as a terrorist attack, New Delhi found fault with Pakistan for the incident. Pakistan was accused of backing a previously unknown group, identified as Kashmir Resistance.

The Indian media have quoted Indian security agencies as having said that Kashmir Resistance is a front for Pakistan-based terrorist groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen fighting Indian rule in Kashmir. Pakistan says it only provides moral and diplomatic support.

Pakistan has denied its involvement in the Pahalgam attack. A section of the Indian media, and some experts, have compared the Pahalgam attack with the coordinated raids carried out by Hamas on southern Israel, in early October 2023.

President Dissanayake called Premier Modi on the afternoon of April 25, three days after the Pahalgam attack. The PMD quoted Dissanayake as having reiterated Sri Lanka’s firm stance against terrorism in all its forms, regardless of where it occurred in the world, in a 15-minute call.

Modi cut short his visit to Saudi Arabia as India took a series of measures against Pakistan. Indian actions included suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) governing water sharing of six rivers in the Indus basin between the two countries. The agreement that had been finalised way back in 1960 survived three major wars in 1965, 1971 and 1999.

One-time Pentagon official Michael Rubin, having likened the Pahalgam attack to a targeted strike on civilians, has urged India to adopt an Israel-style retaliation, targeting Pakistan, but not realising that both are nuclear armed.

Soon after the Hamas raid some interested parties compared Sri Lanka’s war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and the ongoing Israel war on Gaza.

The latest incident in Indian-controlled Kashmir, and Gaza genocide, cannot be compared under any circumstances. Therefore, suggestions that India adopt Israel-style retaliation against Pakistan do not hold water. Also, Sri Lanka’s war against the LTTE that was brought to a successful conclusion in May 2009 cannot be compared with the conflict Israel is involved in.

Sri Lanka can easily relate to the victims of the Pahalgam attack as a victim of separatist terrorism that bled the country for nearly 30 years. India, however, never bothered to express regret over causing terrorism here.

Indian-sponsored terror projects brought Sri Lanka to its knees before President JRJ made an attempt to eradicate the LTTE in May-June 1987. JRJ resorted to ‘Operation Liberation’ after Indian mediated talks failed to end the conflict. Having forced Sri Lanka to call off the largest-ever ground offensive undertaken at that time with the hope of routing the LTTE in Vadamarachchi, the home turf of Velupillai Prabhakaran, followed by India deploying its Mi 17s on July 24, 1987, to rescue the Tiger Supremo, his wife, two children and several of his close associates – just five days before the signing of the so-called Indo-Lanka peace accord, virtually at Indian gun point.

First phase of Eelam war

During the onset of the conflict here, the LTTE routinely carried out raids on predominantly Sinhala villages where civilians were butchered. That had been part of its strategy approved by ‘controllers’ based across the Palk Straits. That had been a volatile period in the run-up to the July 29, 1987, accord. Although India established half a dozen terrorist groups here, the LTTE had been unquestionably the most violent and the dominant group. To New Delhi’s humiliation all such groups supported by it were wiped out by the marauding Tigers.

Those who compared the LTTE with Hamas, or any other group, conveniently forget that the Sri Lankan group caused significant losses to its creator. India lost over 1,300 officers and men, while nearly 3,000 others suffered injuries during the Indian deployment here (July 1987-March 1990).

The world turned a blind eye to what was going on in Sri Lanka in the ’80s. The war launched by India in the early ’80s against Sri Lanka lasted till the signing of the peace accord. That can be broadly identified as phase one of the conflict (1983 July – 1987 July). That first phase can be safely described as an Indian proxy war aimed at creating an environment conducive for the deployment of the Indian Army.

Having compelled President JRJ to accept deployment of the Indian Army in the northern and eastern regions in terms of the “peace accord”, New Delhi sought to consolidate its hold here by disarming all groups, except the one it had handpicked to run the North-East Provincial Council. The Indian Army oversaw the first Provincial Council election held on Nov. 19, 1988, to elect members to the NE council. The whole exercise was meant to ensure the installation of the Varatharaja Perumal led-EPRLF (Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Forint) administration therein.

The second phase (1987 July – 1990 March) saw a war between the Indian Army and the LTTE. During this period, the Indian Army supervised two national elections – presidential on Dec. 19, 1988, and parliamentary on Feb. 15, 1989, that were won by Ranasinghe Premadasa and the UNP.

During that period, the UNP battled the JVP terror campaign and the South bled. The JVP that resorted to unbridled violence against the Indo-Lanka accord, at that time, has ended-up signing several agreements, including one on defence cooperation, recently, and the country is yet to get details of these secret agreements.

Raid on the Maldives

The second phase of the Eelam conflict ended when India pulled out its Army from NE Sri Lanka in March 1990. The sea-borne raid that had been carried out by Indian-trained PLOTE (People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam) targeting Maldivian President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, in Nov. 1988, is perhaps a significant development during the second phase of the conflict, though it was never examined in the right context.

No one – not even the Maldives – found fault with India for exporting terrorism to the island nation. India received accolades for swift air borne intervention to neutralise the PLOTE group. The Indian Navy sank a vessel commandeered by a section of the PLOTE raiders in a bid to escape back to Sri Lanka. The truth is that PLOTE, that had been trained by India to destabilise Sri Lanka, ended-up taking up a lucrative private assignment to overthrow President Gayoom’s administration.

India never regretted the Maldivian incident. It would be pertinent to mention that two boat loads of PLOTE cadres had quietly left Sri Lanka at a time the Indian Navy was responsible for monitoring in and out sea movements.

In the aftermath of the Pahalgam massacre, Pakistan offered to cooperate in what it called a neutral investigation. But India never regretted the catastrophic results of its intervention in Sri Lanka that led to the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991, over a year after India pulled out its Army from NE, Sri Lanka.

Resumption of hostilities by the LTTE in June 1990 can be considered as the beginning of the third phase of the conflict. Having battled the Indian Army and gained valuable battle experience, the LTTE, following a 14-month honeymoon with President Ranasinghe Premadasa, resumed hostilities. Within weeks the LTTE gained the upper hand in the northern theatre of operations.

In spite of India banning the LTTE, after the May 1991 assassination of Gandhi, the group continued to grow with the funds pouring in from the West over the years. Regardless of losing Jaffna in 1995, the LTTE consolidated its position, both in the Vanni and the East, to such an extent their victory seemed inevitable.

But resolute political leadership given by Mahinda Rajapaksa ensured that Sri Lanka turned the tables on the LTTE within weeks after the LTTE appeared to be making significant progress at the beginning. Within two years and 10 months (2006 August – 2009 May) the armed forces brought the LTTE to its knees, and the rest is history. As we have said in our earlier columns that victory was soon soured. Spearheaded by Sarath Fonseka, the type of General that a country gets in about once in a thousand years, ended in enmity within, for the simple reason this super hero wanted to collect all the trophies won by many braves.

Post-war developments

Sri Lanka’s war has been mentioned on many occasions in relation to various conflicts/situations. We have observed many distorted/inaccurate attempts to compare Sri Lanka’s war against LTTE with other conflicts/situations.

Unparalleled Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, triggered a spate of comments on Sri Lanka’s war against the LTTE. Respected expert on terrorism experienced in Sri Lanka, M.R. Narayan Swamy, discussed the similarities of Sri Lanka’s conflict and the ongoing Israel-Gaza war. New Delhi-based Swamy, who had served UNI and AFP during his decades’ long career, discussed the issues at hand while acknowledging no two situations were absolutely comparable. Swamy currently serves as the Executive Director of IANS (Indo-Asian News Service).

‘How’s Hamas’ attack similar to that of LTTE?’ and ‘Hamas’ offensive on Israel may bring it closer to LTTE’s fate,’ dealt with the issues involved. Let me reproduce Swamy’s comment: “Oct. 7 could be a turning point for Hamas similar to what happened to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka in 2006. Let me explain. Similar to Hamas, the LTTE grew significantly over time eventually gaining control of a significant portion of Sri Lanka’s land and coast. The LTTE was even more formidable than Hamas. It had a strong army, growing air force and a deadly naval presence. Unlike Hamas, the LTTE successfully assassinated high ranking political figures in Sri Lanka and India. Notably, the LTTE achieved this without direct support from any country while Hamas received military and financial backing from Iran and some other states. The LTTE became too sure of their victories overtime. They thought they could never be beaten and that starting a war would always make them stronger. But in 2006 when they began Eelam War 1V their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran couldn’t have foreseen that within three years he and his prominent group would be defeated. Prabhakaran believed gathering tens of thousands of Tamils during the last stages of war would protect them and Sri Lanka wouldn’t unleash missiles and rockets. Colombo proved him wrong. They were hit. By asking the people not to flee Gaza, despite Israeli warnings, Hamas is taking a similar line. Punishing all Palestinians for Hamas’ actions is unjust, just like punishing all Tamils for LTTE’s actions was wrong. The LTTE claimed to fight for Tamils without consulting them and Hamas claimed to represent Palestinians without seeking the approval for the Oct.7 strike. Well, two situations are not absolutely comparable. We can be clear that Hamas is facing a situation similar to what the LTTE faced, shortly before its end. Will Hamas meet a similar fate as the LTTE? Only time will answer that question.” The above was said soon after the Oct. 2023 Hamas attack.

Swamy quite conveniently refrained from mentioning India’s direct role in setting up one of the deadliest terror projects in the world here in the ’80s.

Former Editor of The Hindu, Malini Parthasarathy, who also had served as Chairperson of The Hindu Group, released a list of politicians assassinated by the LTTE, as she hit back hard at those who raged against the comparison of the Hamas to the LTTE. The list included two Jaffna District MPs, Arumugam Murugesu Alalasundaram and Visvanathan Dharmalingam, assassinated in early Sept. 1985. Slain Visvanathan Dharmalingam’s son, Dharmalingam Siddharthan, who represents the Vanni electoral district on the Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK), is on record as having said that the two MPs were abducted and killed by TELO (Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation.) gunmen. The list posted by Parthasarathy included PLOTE leader Uma Maheswaran, assassinated in Colombo in July 1989. The LTTE hadn’t been involved in that killing either. Maheswaran is believed to have been killed by his onetime associates, perhaps over the abortive PLOTE raid on the Maldives in Nov, 1988. India never bothered at least to acknowledge that the Maldives raid was carried out by men trained by India to destabilise Sri Lanka. There is no doubt that Maheswasran’s killers, too, were known to the Indian intelligence at that time.

Before rushing into conclusions regarding Hamas and the LTTE, perhaps a proper examination of the circumstances they emerged is necessary. The two situations – fourth phase of the Eelam conflict and the latest Hamas strike on Israel and the devastating counter attack – cannot be compared under any circumstances. Efforts to compare the two issues is more like comparing apples and oranges, though mutually Tamils and Sinhalese have so many commonalities having intermingled throughout history like the Arabs and Jews.

It is no doubt Jews are a people that suffered persecution throughout known history under Assyrians, Babylonians to Romans and so forth. Such persecution includes expulsion of Jews from England in 1290 and from Spain 1492. So what Hitler and the Germans did was to take the historic process to another extreme.

Yet to blame the Palestinians and treat them like animals and to simply butcher them for the latest uprising by Hamas for all the humiliations and suffering they have been going through non-stop since Naqba in1948, from the time of the creation of Israel is to allow the creators of the problem, including the UK, the USA and United Nations to wash all their sins on the true other victims of this conflict, the Palestinians.

It would be pertinent to mention that Israel, in spite of having one of the world’s best fighting armed forces with 100 percent backing from the West, cannot totally eradicate Hamas the way Sri Lanka dealt with the LTTE. Mind you we did not drop 2000 pound bombs supplied by the US on hapless Tamil civilians to commit genocide as is happening in Palestine in the hands of the Israelis.

The circumstances under which the LTTE launched a large-scale offensive in Aug. 2006 and its objectives had been very much different from that of Hamas. The LTTE really believed that it could have defeated the Sri Lankan military in the North by cutting off the sea supply route from Trincomalee to Kankesanthurai and simultaneously overrunning the Kilali-Muhamalai-Nagarkovil forward defence line (FDL). The total collapse of the FDL could have allowed the LTTE to eradicate isolated fighting formations trapped north of the FDL. But, in the case of the Gaza war, the Hamas strike was meant to provoke Israel to unleash a massive unbridled counter attack that caused maximum losses on the civilians. As Hamas expected the Israeli counter attack has triggered massive protests in the West against their leaders. They have been accused of encouraging violence against Palestine. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other US allies are under heavy pressure from Muslims and other horrified communities’ world over to take a stand against the US.

But in spite of growing protests, Israel has sustained the offensive action not only against Gaza but Lebanon, Yemen and Iran.

Instead of being grateful to those who risked their lives to bring the LTTE terror to an end, various interested parties are still on an agenda to harm the armed forces reputation.

The treacherous Yahapalana government went to the extent of sponsoring an accountability resolution against its own armed forces at the Geneva-based UNHRC in Oct. 2015. That was the level of their treachery.

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Midweek Review

The Broken Promise of the Lankan Cinema:

Published

13 hours ago

2025/04/30

Sahan Weerasooriya

Asoka & Swarna’s Thrilling-Melodrama – Part III

“‘Dr. Ranee Sridharan,’ you say. ‘Nice to see you again.’

The woman in the white sari places a thumb in her ledger book, adjusts her spectacles and smiles up at you. ‘You may call me Ranee. Helping you is what I am assigned to do,’ she says. ‘You have seven moons. And you have already waisted one.’”

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

by Shehan Karunatilaka (London: Sort of Books, 2022. p84)

(Continued from yesterday)

Rukmani’s Stardom & Acting Opportunity

Rukmani Devi is still remembered for her incomparable singing voice and her studio photograph by Ralex Ranasinghe with its hint of Film Noir mystery and seduction, and for the role of Blanch Dubois she played in Dhamma Jagoda’s Vesmuhunu, an adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. This is a role she shared on alternate nights with Irangani Serasinghe in the late 60s or early 70s. (See my Island Essays, 2024, p114) She was immensely happy to be able to act in a modern western classic directed by a visionary theatre director like Dhamma Jagoda and it was to his credit that he chose to give her that role when all acting roles had dried up for her. I observed those rehearsals held at Harrold Peiris’ open garage.

I, too, am happy that Swarna has had a chance to perform again in her 70s. The question is, how exactly has she used that very rare opportunity to act in a film that has doubled its production cost within two months, and now showing in private screenings in multiplexes in Australia with English subtitles, with ambitions to be shown on Netflix and Amazon Prime. These outlets also now fund films and make challenging mini-series. Rani has clearly been produced and marketed with this global distribution in mind. How does this important fact affect Swarna’s style of acting and the aesthetics of Asoka’s script, are the questions I wish to explore in the final section of this piece.

A Sensational-Thrilling Political & Family Melodrama

‘Melodrama’ is a popular genre with a history that goes back to 19th century theatre in the west and with the advent of film, Hollywood took it up as it offered a key set of thrilling devices known as ‘Attractions’, for structuring and developing a popular genre cinema. The word ‘Melodrama’ is a compound of the Greek word for music ‘melos’ and drama as an action, with the connotation of a highly orchestrated set of actions. The orchestration (not only with sound but also the speed and rhythm of editing, dramatic expressive lighting, ‘histrionic’ acting, etc.,) always reaches toward thrilling climaxes and at times exaggerated display of emotions. The plots are sensational, propelled by coincidences and written to reach climaxes and dramatic reversals of fortune, and sudden revelations. Hollywood was famous for its happy endings with resolution of the dramatised conflicts, while Hindi melodramas and Lankan copies often ended sadly.

In the history of cinema there are highly sophisticated melodramas within Hollywood, classical Hindi cinema and also in European art cinema. Rainer Werner Fassbinder was one of the German directors who developed a modern ‘Brechtian-Melodrama’ of extraordinary political and aesthetic power in the 70s. And of course, there are very poorly conceived melodramas too like many of the Sinhala films which were copies of Indian prototypes. Melodramatic devices inflect the different genres of Hollywood, for example the Gangster Film, the Western and created durable genre types in character, e.g. the Gangster, the Lonesome Cowboy and Indians; all national stereotypes, one embodying the underbelly of American capitalism, an anti-hero and the other the American hero actualising The American Dream. ‘The Indian,’ merely the collateral damage of this phantasy!

When the stories were centred on women the genre classification was ‘Women’s Melodrama’ as it dealt with interpersonal relations, conflicts, and sadness centred on the home primarily. Feminist film theory has developed a vast archive of scholarship on the melodramatic genre, cross-culturally, with a special focus on Hollywood and Hindi cinema decades prior to the formation we now call Bollywood, made with transnational capital and global reach. It was assumed that the audience for the family melodramas was female and that as women, we enjoy crying at the cinema, hence the condescending name ‘The Weepies’. I cut my scholarly/critical teeth studying these much-maligned melodramatic films for my doctorate, which I had enjoyed while growing up in a long-ago Ceylon.

Asoka’s Melodramatic Turn

Asoka in Alborada, but more so in Rani has made melodramatic films with his own ‘self-expressive’ variations on the structure, with an ‘Art Cinema’ gloss. He has said that Rani is more like Alborada and unlike his previous films made during the civil war. This is quite obvious. Though the advertising tag line for Alborada claimed it as a ‘Poetic film that Neruda never made’ it was a straightforward narrative film. I have argued in a long essay (‘Psycho-Sexual Violence in the Sinhala Cinema: Parasathumal & Alborada’, in Lamentation of the Dawn, ed. S. Chandrajeewa, 2022, also tr. into Sinhala, 2023), that the staging of the rape of the nameless, silent, Dalit woman is conceived in a melodramatic manner playing it for both critique and exciting thrills. This is a case of both having his cake and eating it.

Swarna’s Melodramatic Turn

The film appears to be constructed, plotted melodramatically, to demonstrate Swarna’s ability to perform dramatic scenes of high excitement in areas of taboo, the opportunity for which is unavailable to a Sinhala actress, in a Sinhala film, playing the role of a Sinhala Buddhist mother, who has lost her son to an act of terror unleashed by the Sinhala-Buddhist State terror and Sinhala-Buddhist JVP.

In short, Swarna has been given the opportunity to demonstrate how well she can perform a range of Melodramatic emotions that go from say A to, say D. She has been given the chance to move smoothly from English to Sinhala as the middle classes do; use the two most common American expletives which are part of the American vernacular; drink for pleasure but also to the point of getting drunk; offer alcohol to her baffled domestic worker; coax her son and friends to drink; dance with them in an inebriated state; pour alcohol, whisky, not arrack, like one would pour water from a bottle; chain smoke furiously; dash a full mug of tea on the floor in a rage; crumple on the floor sobbing uncontrollably; shout at her loyal aid Karu; speak with sarcasm to a police officer insisting that she is ‘Dr Manorani …’ not ‘Miss or Mrs’, like feminists did back in the day; chat intimately with a minister of the government; look angrily and scowl at President Premadasa when he comes to the funeral house to condole with her; stage Richard’s funeral in a Catholic church with a stain glass window of the Pieta; to quote a well-known Psalm of David from the Bible, ‘Oh Absalom my son, Oh my son!’; etc.

Rani is Swarna’s chance to show that she can perform in ways that no Sinhala script has allowed a Sinhala actor to do up to now, that is, behave like the Sinhala cinema’s fantasy of how the upper-class Anglophone Lankan women behave. In short not unlike, but much worse, than the ‘bad girls’ in the Sinhala melodramatic genre cinema who always ended up in a Night Club, the locus of licentiousness that tempt them. I am thinking of Pitisara Kella from the 50s and a host of other films. Sinhala cinema simply cannot convincingly present the upper-class English-speaking milieu, with any nuance and conviction, it just feels very stilted, poorly acted therefore. Saying this is not class snobbery on my part. Even Lester James Peries from this very upper class and a Roman Catholic, in Delowak Atara couldn’t do it with Irangani Serasinghe and others. The dialogue meant to be serious or just plain normal sounded stilted and even funny. But when Lester did the Walauwa as in Nidhahanaya, it was brilliant, one of our classics. Brecht it was who said (on the eve of WW2, creating a Modern Epic mode of theatre in exile, that it’s not easy to make drama about current events. It’s much easier to look back with nostalgia at a genteel aristocratic Sinhala past for sure.

In taking the opportunity to explore kinetic and emotional behaviour considered to be taboo for a Sinhala woman, a fantasy Tamil woman has been fabricated. The plot of Rani is constructed by Asoka to provide Swarna the opportunity to indulge in these very taboos. In short, the fictional Tamil Rani offers Swarna an acting opportunity to improve her career prospects in the future. In so doing she has weakened her ability, I fear, to evolve as an actress.

A Domestic Melodrama: The House Suspended in a Void

If Swarna so desired, if the script ‘allowed her’ to, she could have tried to develop a quieter, more restrained and therefore a more powerful Rani. A friend of the family, when asked, said that, “The most striking feature of Manorani was her quiet, confident dignity, before and after Richard.” To testify to such a person, Asoka and Swarna could have asked the obvious question, did she have any close friendships formed as undergraduates, who supported her during this tragedy, as there certainly were cherished friends who shared her grief. After all, she was among the elite first generations of Ceylonese women to enter University in the 1940, to medical school at that!

Asoka and Swarna have entrapped their Rani in a vacuum of a house, friendless, with a little cross on Richard’s wall to signify religion. A lot of effort has gone into the set decoration and art direction of the house, as in Alborada, to stage a fantasy/phantasy melodramatic scenario. There is no real sensory, empathetic feel and understanding of the ethos (character), of this urbane Anglophone Ceylonese-Lankan mother and son, hence the fictionalised scenarios feel synthetic, cosmetic in the best traditions of the Sinhala genre cinema’s representation of the ‘excessive and even grotesque upper-class’. Except, here the Realism of the mise-en-scene (the old-world airy house and furniture and composition of the visual components) makes claims to a realist authenticity. A little modest research would have shown that Manorani and Richard moved from one rented apartment to another in the last few years of his life and when he was abducted, lived on the upper-floor of a house, in a housing estate in Rajagiriya. Asoka said in an interview that it wasn’t possible to find in Colombo the kind of old house they required for Rani. So, they went out of town to find the ideal house suited to stage their phantasy.

I suspect that it was Swarna who called shots this time, not Asoka who was recovering from a serious illness. He said that she brought the project to him and the producer and that he had no idea of making a film on Manorani, but added that he wrote the script within 3 months. I suspect that this Rani, (this out of control, angry, scowling, bad tempered, lamenting, hysterical Rani, reaching for the alcohol and cigarettes to assuage her grief, performing one sensational, thrilling melodramatic turn after another), was Swarna’s conception, her version of Manorani that she has nursed for 28 long years. Had she resisted this temptation to display her high-intensity acting-out skills yet again, she might just have been able to tap unsuspected resources within herself which she may still have as a serious actress. Its these latent affective depths that Rukmani Devi undoubtedly tapped when she was invited to play the drunken and lost Blanche Dubois, in A Streetcar Named Desire in Sinhala, as a desperate, drunken, aristocratic lady, in Dhamma Jagoda’s Vesmuhunu (1971?).

Jagoda / Irangani

It is reported that before going on stage, Rukmani Devi went on her hands and knees to pay her respects to Dhamma, not as feudal act of deference but to acknowledge his Shilpiya Nuwana, craft knowledge/intelligence’, as one very perceptive Sinhala critic put it. That gesture of Vandeema was foreign to the Tamil Christian Rukmani Devi, but nevertheless it shows her sense of immense gratitude to Dhamma for having taken her into a zone of expression (a dangerous territory emotionally for dedicated vulnerable actors), that she had never experienced before, so late in her life. But ‘late’ is relative to gender, then she was only in her 50s!

Challenge is what serious actors yearn for, strange beings who may suggest to us intensities that sustain and amplify life, all life. Swarna might usefully think about Rukmani Devi, her life and her star persona as a Tamil star in countless sarala Sinhala films, in whose shadow and echo every single Sinhala actress has entered the limelight, Swarna more so now than any other!

As for Asoka, he needs to rest and take care of himself before he commits himself to this recent track of films which are yielding less and less with each of the two films done back to back. His body of work is too important to trash it with this kind of half thought out ‘Tales of Sound and Fury’, which is a precise definition of Melodrama at its best. This film, alas, is not one of those.

That young Tamil women, often silent and traumatised, appeared following Sinhala soldiers in Lankan ‘civil-war cinema’ of the modernists, all male, is a troubling phenomenon. A ‘Sinhala Orientalism’, an exoticising of Tamil and Dalith young women as Other, is at work in some of the civil war films, as in Alborada and Rani. And then this very elevation always leads to unleashing psycho/sexual and/or other forms of violence, because the elevation (Mother Goddess in Alborada) only feeds violent male psychosexual phantasies, which in the Sinhala cinema often leads to the violence of rape and other forms of violence towards women, both Tamil and Sinhala. (To be continued)

by Laleen Jayamanne