Midweek Review

Tamil politics is taking a new direction- The Pottuvil to Polikandi pada yatra

Published

5 years ago

2021/02/17

by Dr Nirmala Chandrahasan

For some time now the Tamil political parties and the Tamil polity have been looking to the international community to settle their problems. Thus much reliance has been placed on the Human Rights Council’s resolutions and the Geneva processes. Although this is one avenue it is not the only one. The international processes are also dependant on geo politics and the national interests of the states that are represented in these organizations and hence one cannot always expect a favourable outcome. On the other hand, when the issues facing the Tamil speaking people are taken up by the people themselves and their representatives at the ground level it could have a better outcome, as the majority community and the country at large are made aware of the grievances and issues which are agitating the Tamil speaking part of the country. This requires that the print and electronic media give adequate coverage to these events so that the Sinhala and English reading public are made aware . Unfortunately this is not the case. The news coverage and dissemination of news within the country, is as divided as the communities themselves , and no effort is made to bridge the gap. To give an example I did not see any coverage of the Pottuvil to Polikandy pada yatra in the Sinhala or English news media, although it had unprecedented numbers of participants and evoked great enthusiasm in the northern and eastern provinces. It is in the interest of all communities if the Country’s problems are solved within it and not through external agencies. The need to turn to foreign agencies arises when a community feels they have no recourse to justice or solution to their grievances within their own political system. The recently held yatra or march from Pottuvil in the eastern province to Polikandy in the Jaffna district , from 3rd February to 7th February 2021, was a new approach which included the active participation of the Tamil speaking people of the northern and eastern provinces, ie Tamils and Muslims. Peaceful protest is a part of the democratic process ,and must be encouraged rather than stamped upon as it allows for the peoples’ voice to be heard.

The peaceful Ahimsa Yatra was conducted by the Civil society groups in the Northern and Eastern Provinces to highlight some of the current issues faced by the Tamil speaking people of Lanka. They included the Rs. 1000,wage demand of the Upcountry Tamil plantation workers who have long been denied what other workers in the country have been enjoying; the burial rights of the Muslim Community and the forced cremation of their Covid dead; and the land grabs and attack on the cultural and religious heritage of the villages and farming communities of the eastern and northern provinces, through the actions of the Archaeological Department and the recently constituted Task Force, together with the Mahaweli Authority and Wildlife Department. In the present regime age old Hindu Temples in the villages are under threat of being taken over or destroyed on the grounds that there is evidence of ruined sites of Buddhist Vihares and Stupas in or around them. Archaeological surveys are being conducted and boundary lines and fences put up taking over the lands of the farmers and cattle grazing grounds. Sinhala Buddhist settlers are to be settled in these enclaves. These actions have caused the Tamil speaking people of these areas to fear that they will be dispossed from their own traditional areas in which their ancestors have lived for centuries.

The composition of the Presidential Task force for archaeological sites in the East, is illustrative of the statement in the recently published report of the High Commissioner for human Rights Michelle Bachelet where she says ..”Tamil and Muslim minorities are being increasingly marginalised and excluded from the national vision and government policy.” The Presidential Task Force is mainly comprised of military personnel and Buddhist clergy with a scattering of Archaeologists. When we consider that in a multi ethnic province where the Tamil speaking people predominate there is not a single Tamil or Muslim Archaeologist or linguist or any person at all to represent these communities, the High Commissioner’s words ring true. It must also be pointed out that a large number of stone inscriptions appertaining to these ruined structures are in ancient Tamil script, and form part of the Tamil Buddhist/Hindu heritage of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka who to cite the words of the Indo- Sri Lanka Peace Accord of july 1987, have been the historical inhabitants of the Northern and Eastern provinces. Already this task force is in the field claiming ownership of the sites of ancient Tamil Buddhist Vihares and Stupas , in many instances accompanied by police or army personnel. It is alleged that inscriptions in the ancient Tamil script and stone tablets containing such writings are being destroyed. Tamil farmers see their lands and cattle grazing common grounds being taken over. Statues of the Buddha are being installed at different sites accompanied by army personnel and Buddhist monks. The Buddha is venerated by Hindus and even worshipped as the avatar of the God Vishnu ,but the manner and purpose behind such actions are causing disaffection. Sinhalese settlers are being brought in. Here again what is at issue is not their ethnicity , but the purpose for which and manner in which they are being brought in by the State agencies. Hence this is now the pressure point.

The recent Yatra was inter alia (there were altogether ten issues) to voice the concerns of the people and show support to the villagers and farmers of the region who flocked to join the protest in great numbers. It must not be forgotten that it was the ancestors of the Tamil community who built the ruined Vihares and Stupas ( alleged according to some members of the Task force to be amounting to 2000 in number, which are now awaiting excavation,) at a period when they were largely Buddhists, as too was South India inclusive of Tamil Nadu in the early part of the Christian era until about the 8-9th centuries when there was a Hindu revival. Even in the event of these ruins being unearthed it has to be kept in mind that many of these structures were bequeathed by the great Chola rulers from Tamil Nadu, the Emperors Raja Raja Chola and Rajendra Chola. The Cholas made Polonnaruwa their capital city and ruled Sri Lanka for almost a century from 993- 1070 AD .They were the patrons of both religions and built Hindu Temples and Buddhist Vihares and supported the maintenance of them as well, by grants of lands and villages.

In this connection I reproduce a news item from the Hindu newspaper in India dated October 19th 2020, captioned ‘ Efforts on to bring back Chola Royal Charter, Preserved in the Netherlands it was a Sasana issued to a Buddhist Vihara’. “The Charter has two sections one in Sanskrit and another in Tamil , and the 21 copper plates are held together by a massive bronze ring bearing the regal seal of Rajendra Chola. It proclaims that 26 villages bordering Anaimangalam were donated for a Buddhist Vihara in Nagapattnam, Tamil Nadu”. While this Charter is evidence of the patronage to Buddhism in Tamil Nadu even after the Hindu revival in South India , there is evidence of Chola patronage to Buddhist religious institutions in Sri lanka too, as in the Vikkirama Calemekan Perum Palli in the Eastern province also known as the Velgam Vihare or Natanar Kovil by the present day Tamils. The Tamil inscriptions at the shrine record donations made to the shrine and dated in the reign of the Chola king Raja raja Chola. The late Dr Paranavithane, the well known Sri Lankan archaeologist has described it as an ancient Buddhist shrine of the Tamil people. In the Chakesadhatuvansa an ancient manuscript from Burma, which records the relics of the Buddha, the Tamils are mentioned as ” sea faring merchants who built a Stupa over the hair relic of the Buddha in a land which they visited for the purpose of trade”. Interestingly the Digavappi Stupa in the Amparai district is said to enclose a hair relic of the Buddha. The Tamil merchants sailing to Indonesia from Kaveripoompattinam the Port in Tamil Nadu during Chola times , are said to have first sailed southward towards what is now Akkaraipattu town in the Amparai district, as it was believed that there was a current which took the ships across the Indian ocean speedily from this point to Indonesia. During the tsunami in 2004 this theory was proved correct as the tsunami stuck around the Akkaraipattu region first, coming directly from its source off the seas in Sumatra with great force. In an earlier article of mine i have referred to the donations made to Buddhist shrines by Tamil merchant trading communities as evidenced in the various Tamil inscriptions in different parts of Sri lanka. see “. Archaeological sites in the East and the Presidential Task force.” published in the island newspaper of 12th june 2020. Also Article by Dr D.Dayalan, Archaeological Survey of india “Role of Tamil Traders in promoting Buddhism”.

In fact there is sufficient evidence to prove that most if not all the archaeological sites of Buddhist Vihares and Stupas in the East and the North are Tamil Buddhist sites and hence the custodianship of these sites should be with the Tamil communities/institutions of those localities, or at least with the participation of the same. The Tamil leadership should also take up the matter of Tamil and Muslim representation in the Task force and also the appointment of linguists who could read and decipher the ancient Tamil inscriptions found at these sites, as well as persons versed in the ancient Pali and Sinhalese scripts , as these structures largely represent the composite Hindu /Buddhist cultural heritage of both the Sinhalese and Tamil communities. Efforts should also be made to protect these ancient inscriptions from destruction.

As I have indicated above the attacks on their cultural and religious heritage as well as their lands are causing the Tamil speaking people of these provinces to fear that they will become a minority in the areas which they have traditionally occupied. The fact that the Provincial Council system is under threat by certain elements which are attempting to prevent the Provincial Council elections being held and calling for the abolishment of the Councils is fuelling this fear. The Province as the unit of devolution gives the Tamil speaking people some devolved powers in areas where they constitute the majority. It should be kept in mind that the provincial councils are underwritten by the Indo –Sri Lanka Accord of 1987 and furthermore the Treaty specifically denotes the Northern and Eastern Provinces as being areas of ‘ Historical habitation of the Tamil speaking people’. A U.N panel of experts in a recent Conference has taken the view that cultural heritage is a human rights issue, as the destruction of cultural heritage harms a range of human rights. Hence the threat to the Tamil Hindu /Buddhist heritage, can be regarded as impinging on the human rights of the Tamil people of these provinces. The 1954 Hague Convention protects cultural property in times of war. The Statue of the International Criminal Court (ICC) makes , destruction of cultural heritage a war crime. In the 2016 judgement of the ICC namely Prosecutor v Al Mahdi, a Muslim jihadist was convicted for attacks against religious and historical monuments in Timbucktu, in the African state of Mali. Hence we can see that cultural identity is coming to be recognized as an important component of ethnic identity ,and any attempts to stamp it out or undermine it is tantamount to ethnic discrimination, and even akin to ethnic cleansing.

With respect to the analogy with Palestine I would like to refer to an article by Dr.Dayan Jayatilleke published in The Island on 28th May 2020 titled ‘Is it the end of Tamil political history.’ He states “the political prospects of the Tamil people are at the dimmest lowest and most challenging that I can remember.”He sees the problems the Tamils face in Sri Lanka as akin to what the Palestinians face in Israel “in that there is an ultra hawkish administration which has decidedly turned its back on the earlier consensus on the nature of the problem and the contours of the solution and is moving swiftly and unilaterally to shape a final geopolitical outcome of a zero sum character”. Further on he refers to the ‘far right bucket list’ which is to interalia “eliminate the problem root and branch and structurally lock down minority assertiveness ensuring an unassailable systemic hegemony of the Sinhalese Buddhist’. He cites the appointment of the Archaeological Task Force in the East as part of this project. There is no evidence that this policy is endorsed by the Sinhalese people ,and for that matter by the majority of the Parliamentarians, even those of the governing party, and that the Prime Minister and the Cabinet members would endorse it. However it could be the policy of a small coterie holding such views who make the policy decisions. The High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet too makes mention of this when she refers to “the present trajectory” in her upcoming report for the Council sessions in Geneva in February March this year. She says ……..” the High Commission is deeply concerned by the trends emerging over the past year which represent clear early warning signs of a detiorating human rights situation and a significantly heightened risk of future violations and calls for preventive action”…..

The civil war was fought already a decade and more ago , but the present threat to the habitat of the people and their religious / cultural heritage is a presently continuing one. In the context of this existential threat it is important that it be communicated to the majority community so as to gain their sympathy and support. Greater publicity to these matters in the English and Sinhala press should be pursued so that with the support of all the communities these issues can be resolved amicably, according to the Buddhist principles of right conduct and compassion.

It should be kept in mind that the guardian Deities of Sri Lanka are Hindu Gods and the entire country has a Buddhist /Hindu heritage. I note that the Ahimsa Yatra stopped on its way from Pottuvil to Polikandi to obtain the Blessings of Mary maadha at the sylvan Shrine of Madhu. In this shrine especially during the church festival large numbers of Sinhalese from the entire western coast of Sri Lanka and Tamils from the eastern and northern coasts and the Vanni, converge to venerate the Madhu Maadha, and the whole Church resonates with the sweet sounds of the Rosary being recited in Sinhala and Tamil. This seems like a confirmation that the country belongs equally to the Tamil and Sinhala speaking people and to all the religious groups. In the interests of all the communities in the island it is necessary that the print and electronic media play their role in giving due publicity to the grievances of and protests taking place in the Tamil speaking part of the country rather than black out this news, as in the case of the Pottuvil to Polikandi protest march while the foreign media takes it up. Peaceful protests if driven underground can take the form of violent and incendiary protests. Ultimately Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and Burghers are children of Mother Lanka /Ilankai, and well intentioned members of the government and other political parties and the people of all communities must come together in an endeavour to reconcile and defuse the issues and grievances of the Tamil speaking people outlined above.

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Midweek Review

A victory that can never be forgotten

Published

5 days ago

2026/05/13

Sahan Weerasooriya

President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the Matara victory parade, in 2014, held to mark the eradication of the LTTE.

The country is in deepening turmoil over the theft of USD 2.5 mn from the Treasury. The Treasury affair has placed the arrogant NPP in an embarrassing position. The controversial release of 323 red-flagged containers from the Colombo Port, in addition to two carrying narcotics and the coal scam that forced Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody to resign, has eroded public confidence though the NPP pretends otherwise.

Suspicious deaths of a Finance Ministry official, suspended over the Treasury heist of USD 2.5 million, and ex-SriLankan Airlines CEO Kapila Chandrasena shouldn’t distract the government and the Opposition from marking victory over terrorism.

But, the country, under any circumstances, shouldn’t forget to celebrate Sri Lanka’s greatest post-independence achievement. Dinesh Udugamsooriya, a keen follower of conflict and post-Aragalaya issues, insists that those who cherish the peace achieved should raise the national flag in honour of the armed forces.

The armed forces paid a huge price to preserve the country’s unitary status. Those who represent Parliament and outside waiting for an opportunity to return to Parliament must keep in their minds, unitary status is non-negotiable, under any circumstances, and such efforts would be in vain.

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Sri Lanka celebrates, next week, the eradication of the bloodthirsty separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a conventional threat to the survival of this nation, at least in our hearts, even if the authorities dampen any celebrations. The armed forces brought the war to a successful conclusion on 18 May, 2009. The body of undisputed leader of the LTTE, Velupillai Prabhakaran, was found on the banks of the Nanthikadal lagoon, on the morning of 19 May, less than 24 hours after the ground forces declared the end of operations in the Vanni theatre.

The LTTE’s annihilation is Sri Lanka’s greatest post-independence achievement. Whatever various interested parties, pursuing different agendas say, the vast majority of people accept the eradication of the LTTE’s conventional military capacity as the armed forces’ highest achievement.

Sri Lanka’s triumph cannot be discussed without taking into consideration how the Indian-trained LTTE, who also went on to fight the New Delhi’s Army deployed here, in terms of the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord, signed in July, 1987, giving it an unforgettable hiding. The Indian misadventure here cost them the lives of nearly 1,500 officers and men. Just over a year after the Indian pullout, in March, 1990, the LTTE assassinated Rajiv Gandhi who, in his capacity as the Prime Minister, deployed the Indian Army here. But India launched the Sri Lanka destabilisation project during Indira Gandhi’s premiership.

Western powers, the now decimated United National Party (UNP), Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), and an influential section of the media, propagated the lie that the LTTE couldn’t be defeated. But, the United People’s Freedom Party (UPFA), under President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s resolute leadership, sustained a nearly three-year long genuine sustained offensive that brought the entire Northern and Eastern regions back under government control.

The UNP relentlessly hindered the war against the LTTE. UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, hell-bent on undermining the military campaign, had no qualms in questioning the military strategy. The former Prime Minister went to the extent of sarcastically questioning the culmination of the military campaign in the East with the capture of Thoppigala (Baron’s cap) in the second week of July, 2007, calling it just a rock outcrop with no significance. Believing the military lacked the strength to continue with the campaign, Wickremesinghe publicly ridiculed the Thoppigala success. The then Brigadier Chagie Gallage, the pint-sized human dynamo, provided critical leadership to the highly successful Eastern campaign that deprived the LTTE the opportunity to compel the armed forces to commit far larger strength to the region. We clearly recall how he went to announce the prized capture from his forward base, that afternoon, driving his own jeep, dressed as a soldier wearing a cap, with his second in command seated by his side, obviously not to fall victim to any sniper hiding in the surrounding jungles.

The likes of Ravi Karunanayaka, Lakshman Kiriella, Dr. Rajitha Senaratna and the late Mangala Samaraweera demeaned such successes by contributing to a vicious political campaign that dented public confidence in the armed forces. Then Lt. General Sarath Fonseka’s Army needed a massive boost, not only to sustain the relentless advance into the enemy territory, but to hold onto and stabilise areas brought under government control. But the viciousness of these critics were such that Samaraweera had the gall to say that Fonseka was not even fit to lead the Salvation Army.

The Opposition campaign was meant to deter the stepped up recruitment campaign that enabled the Army to increase its strength from 116,000 to over 205,000 at the end of the campaign. In spite of disgraceful Opposition attempts to cause doubts, regarding the military campaign among the public, with backing from Western vultures, who were all for LTTE success, the Rajapaksa government maintained the momentum.

President Rajapaksa had a superb team that ensured the government confidently met the daunting challenge. That team included Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Vice Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda, Lt. General Sarath Fonseka, Air Marshal Roshan Goonetileke and the then Chief of National Intelligence (CNI) Maj. General Kapila Hendawitharana. There were also the likes of Rear Admiral Sarath Weerasekera, who returned from retirement to transform the once ragtag Home Guards into a worthy back-up to the military, as the Civil Defence Force, at critical places/junctures.

The then Governor of the Central Bank, Ajith Nivard Cabraal, played a significant role in overall government response to the challenge. The then presidential advisor MP Basil Rajapaksa’s role, too, should be appreciated and Prof. Rajiva Wijesinghe as well as Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe contributed to counter the false propaganda campaigns directed at the country. Whatever the shortcomings of the Mahinda Rajapaksa-led UPFA may have had, the armed forces couldn’t have succeeded if the resolute political leadership he provided, with his team of brothers, failed both in and outside Parliament. That is the undeniable truth.

During the 2006-2009 campaign, the UNP twice tried to defeat the UPFA Budget, thereby hoping to bring the war to an abrupt end. Th utterly contemptible move to defeat the UPFA Budget ultimately caused a split in the JVP with a section of the party switching its allegiance to President Rajapaksa to save the day.

Amidst political turmoil and both overt and covert Western interventions, the armed forces pressed ahead with the offensive. It would be pertinent to mention that the Vanni campaign began in March, 2007, a couple of months before the armed forces brought the eastern campaign to an end.

Vanni campaign

The Army launched the Vanni campaign in March, 2007. The 57 Division that had been tasked with taking Madhu, and then proceeding to Kilinochchi, faced fierce resistance. The principal fighting Division suffered significant casualties and progress was slow. An irate Fonseka brought in Maj. Gen. Jagath Dias as General Officer Commanding (GoC) of the 57 Division to advance and consolidate areas brought under control.

The Army expanded the Vanni campaign in September, 2007. The Task Force 1 (later 58 Division) launched operations from the Mannar ‘rice bowl’. Fonseka placed Gallage in command of that fighting formation but was replaced by the then Brigadier Shavendra Silva, as a result of a medical emergency.

The Army gradually took the upper hand in the Vanni west while the LTTE faced a new threat in the Vanni east with the newly created 59 Division, under Brigadier Nandana Udawatta, launching offensive action in January, 2008. Having launched its first major action in the Weli Oya region, that Division fought its way towards Mullaitivu, an LTTE stronghold since 1996.

The 53 (Maj. Gen. Kamal Gunaratne) and 55 (Brig. Prasanna Silva) Divisions, deployed in the Jaffna peninsula, joined the Vanni offensive, in late 2008, as the TF 1 fought its way to Pooneryn, turned right towards Paranthan, captured that area and then hit Elephant Pass and rapidly advanced towards Kilinochchi. The TF 1 and 57 Division met in Kilinochchi and the rest is history.

Once the Army brought Kilinochchi under its control, in January, 2009, the LTTE lost the war. The raising of the Lion flag over Kilinochchi meant that the entire area, west of the Kandy-Jaffna A9 road, had been brought under government control. By then the LTTE had lost the sea supply route, between Tamil Nadu and Mannar region. The LTTE was surrounded by several fighting formations in the Vanni east while the Navy made an unprecedented achievement by cordoning off the Mullaitivu coast that effectively cut them off on all sides.

During the final phase of the naval action, they captured Sea Tiger leader Soosai’s wife, Sathyadevi, and her children Sivanesan Mani Arasu and Sivanesan Sindhu. Spearheaded by the elite Fourth Fast Attack Flotilla, the Navy conducted a sustained campaign, with spectacular success in the high seas, and, by late 2008, the Navy dominated the waters around the country.

The sinking of floating LTTE warehouses, with the intelligence provided by the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) and the US Pacific Command, after the Americans decided to speed up the inevitable, and a campaign, directed at operations across the Palk Strait, weakened the LTTE. By early January, 2009, the LTTE had lost its capacity to carry out mid-sea transfers, and the use of Tamil Nadu fishing trawlers to bring in supplies, and it was only a matter of time before the group surrendered or faced the consequences.

Although Tamil Diaspora still believed in the LTTE launching a massive counter attack on the Vanni east front and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), under the leadership of the late R. Sampanthan, worked hard to halt the offensive, President Rajapaksa declared that the offensive wouldn’t be called off. President Rajapaksa had the strength to resist the combined pressure brought on him by the West and the UN until the armed forces delivered the final blow.

The despicable efforts made by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to block IMF funding for Sri Lanka is in the public domain. Clinton was obviously trying to please the Tamil Diaspora. The US made that attempt as the ground offensive was on the last phase against the backdrop of the international community suspending relief supply ships to Puthumathalan.

The IMF provided the much required funding to Sri Lanka, regardless of Clinton’s intervention.

A targeted assassination

The Air Force conducted a strategic campaign against the LTTE while providing support to both the Army and the Navy. Despite limited resources, the Air Force pulverised the enemy and high profile target assassination of S.P. Thamilselvan, in his Kilinochchi hideout, in early November, 2007, shook the LTTE leadership. The deployment of a pair of jets (Kafir and MiG 27), on the basis of intelligence provided by the DMI and backed by UAV footage, to carry out a meticulous strike on Thamilselvan’s Kilinochchi hideout, caused unprecedented fear among the LTTE.

Current Defence Secretary, Sampath Thuyakontha, in his capacity as the Commanding Officer of No 09 Squadron, played a vital role in action against the LTTE. Thuyakontha earned the respect of all for landing behind enemy lines in support of LRRP (Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol).

As the Army advanced on the Vanni east front, thousands of LTTE cadres gave up their weapons, threw away their trade mark cyanide capsules and surrendered. Their defences crumbled and even hardcore cadres surrendered, regardless of the warning issued by Prabhakaran. By the time the armed forces concluded clearing operations, over 12,000 LTTE cadres were in government custody. Although those who couldn’t stomach Sri Lanka’s victory over the LTTE propagated lies regarding the rehabilitation programme, the ordinary Tamil people appreciated the project.

C.V. Wigneswaran, in his capacity as the Chief Minister of the Northern Province, called for a US investigation into the death of ex-LTTE cadres in government custody. The retired Supreme Court judge sought to consolidate his political power by alleging the Army executed surrendered men by injecting them with poison. The then Yahapalana government failed to take action against Wigneswaran who claimed over 100 deaths among ex-combatants.

Instead of initiating legal action, the war-winning Rajapaksa government rehabilitated them. Even after the change of government, in 2015, the rehabilitation project continued. Almost all of them had been released and, since the end of war, the members of the defeated LTTE never tried to reorganise, though some Diaspora elements made an attempt.

The LTTE’s demise brought an end to the use of child soldiers. Those who demand justice for Tamils, killed during the war, conveniently forget that forcible recruitment of children, by the LTTE, also ended in May, 2009. Struggling to overcome severe manpower shortage, amidst mounting battlefield losses, the LTTE abducted Tamil children, from the early ’90s, to be press-ganged into their cadre.

Although the UN and ICRC sought a consensus with the LTTE, way back during Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga’s tenure as the President, to cease forced recruitment of children, they couldn’t achieve the desired results. The much publicised UN-ICRC projects failed. The LTTE continued with its despicable abduction of children. The LTTE never stopped child recruitment and, depending on the ground situation, it carried out forced recruitment drives. The signing of the Norwegian arranged Ceasefire Agreement (CFA), too, failed to halt forced child recruitment.

The Darusman report that accused the military of killing over 40,000 civilians during the last phase of the war revealed that the LTTE tried to recruit children as it was about to collapse.

The TNA, or any other like-minded group here or abroad, never urged the LTTE to give up civilian shields and stop recruiting children, though they realised Prabhakaran could no longer change the outcome of the war. Norway, and those who still believed in a negotiated ‘settlement’ in a bid to prevent the annihilation of the group, desperately tried to convince Prabhakaran to give up civilian shields.

A note, dated February 16, 2009, sent to Basil Rajapaksa, by Norwegian Ambassador Tore Hattrem, expressed concern over the fate of those who had been trapped in the Vanni east. Hattrem’s note to Basil Rajapaksa revealed Norway’s serious concern over the LTTE’s refusal to release the civilians.

The following is the Norwegian note, headlined ‘Offer/Proposal to the LTTE’, personally signed by Ambassador Hattrem: “I refer to our telephone conversation today. The proposal to the LTTE on how to release the civilian population, now trapped in the LTTE controlled area, has been transmitted to the LTTE through several channels. So far, there has been, regrettably, no response from the LTTE and it doesn’t seem to be likely that the LTTE will agree with this in the near future.”

In the aftermath of the Anandapuram debacle in the first week of April, 2009, the LTTE lost its fighting capacity to a large extent. The loss of over 600 cadres marked the collapse of the organisation’s conventional fighting capacity.

The LTTE sought an arrangement in which it could retain its remaining weapons and start rebuilding the group again. President Rajapaksa emphasised that only an unconditional surrender could save the group’s remaining cadre. The President refused to recognise an area under the LTTE’s control. The CFA, signed by Wickremesinghe and Prabhakaran, in February, 2002, recognised a vast area under the LTTE control. The CFA gave unparalleled recognition to the terrorist group and that was exploited by them to the hilt.

NPP’s dilemma

During his controversial May Day address this year, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake declared that only the armed forces and police could carry arms. Dissanayake warned that no one else could retain weapons.

President Dissanayake’s declaration is of pivotal importance as the armed forces and police twice crushed JVP-led insurgencies, in 1971 and 1987-1990. Dissanayake is the leader of the JVP and the NPP, two political parties recognised by the Election Commission.

Dissanayake, who is also the Minister of Defence and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, caused controversy last year when the government announced that the President wouldn’t attend the 16th annual war heroes’ commemoration ceremony at War Heroes’ Memorial, in Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte.

That announcement triggered massive backlash. The government rescinded its earlier decision. Having received an unprecedented endorsement from the northern and eastern electorates, both at presidential and parliamentary polls in September and November, 2024, respectively, President Dissanayake seemed to have been somewhat reluctant to join the national celebration.

Yahapalana leaders President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe succumbed to Tamil Diaspora and Western pressures to do away with the 2016 annual armed forces Victory Day parade. That treacherous move followed them betraying the war-winning armed forces at the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in October, 2015.

They co-sponsored accountability resolution, introduced by the US in terms of an understanding with the LTTE’s sidekick. Sirisena and Wickremesinghe forgot that the TNA recognised the LTTE as the sole representative of the Tamil speaking people, in 2001, thereby setting the stage for Eelam War IV. Sampanthan’s outfit, the Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK)-led TNA, showed its true colours when it joined the UNP-JVP led initiative to defeat Mahinda Rajapaksa. Having accused the war-winning Army Commander, Sarath Fonseka, of unpardonable war crimes, the TNA, along with the UNP-JVP combine, backed Fonseka at the 2010 presidential election. The South rejected Fonseka and he lost the race by a staggering 1.8 mn votes which late JVP leader Somawansa Amarasinghe foolishly called a computer ‘jilmart’, a newly coined word of our fake Marxists. Fonseka’s indefensible declaration, in the run-up to the 2010 presidential election that the celebrated 58 Division executed surrendered LTTE cadres, didn’t do him any good. President Rajapaksa never explained why the US’ unofficial contradiction of Fonseka’s claim was never used cleverly to counter unsubstantiated war crimes allegations, along with Lord Naseby disclosures made in October, 2017.

Sri Lanka’s failure to properly defend the armed forces is nothing but an insult to them. They saved the country from the JVP twice, and Indian trained over half a dozen terrorist groups, finally bringing the largest and the deadliest of them, the LTTE, down to its knees, on the banks of the Nanthikadal lagoon.

The armed forces shouldn’t hesitate to remember their glorious victory over terrorism. Since the change of government in September, 2024, the armed forces refrained from at least mentioning their battlefield achievements. At the last Independence Day, the armed forces shockingly mentioned their role in the Ditwah cyclone recovery efforts as their main achievement, to please the political masters, who themselves have been lackeys of the West, while outwardly professing to be Marxists, the latter line they have already conveniently dropped for all purposes. The armed forces shouldn’t play NPP politics but explain the situation to the current dispensation. The failure on the part of armed forces to erase their proud achievements against terrorism, out of their press releases/narratives, look rather stupid.

Midweek Review

A Novel, a Movie and a Play

Published

5 days ago

2026/05/13

Sahan Weerasooriya

Drawing a Thread through Loss and Creativity in Shakespeare’s Life

William Shakespeare [1556-1616] is generally regarded as the greatest playwright and poet in the English language. Notwithstanding the universal appeal and the timelessness of his work, very little is known about his inner-self. Despite his profound understanding of the human condition, evident in his remarkable works of drama and poetry, the origin of his psychological insights – formed long before formal theories of the mind emerged – remain unknown, often loosely ascribed to an innate gift. The thematic and philosophical dimensions of his work are often said to be influenced by the classics of the ‘ancient world’ such as Ovid’s Metamorphosis.

The bestselling novel, Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell is a confluence of fact and fiction. The award-winning movie, by the same name, is an adaptation of the novel, its screenplay co-written by Maggie O’Farrell and Chloe Zhao, the director. The central theme of the novel and the movie is the devastating impact of the death of Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet, in 1596, at an early age of eleven, and the sensitive portrayal of the grieving process of the family, inviting the audience to reflect on the proposition that Shakespeare channelled his personal grief into writing Hamlet, the play, four years later.

Mourning and melancholy take centre stage in Hamlet prompting a probable link between William Shakespeare’s own emotional world and his artistic imagination. Interestingly, the names Hamnet and Hamlet were used interchangeably during the Elizabethan era, adding weight to the speculation.

The movie matches the imaginative and descriptive brilliance of the novel. The narrative unfolds against the backdrop of Stratford-upon-Avon and its environs and its inhabitants of Elizabethan England, finally shifting to London and the Globe Theatre. The film won eight nominations at the 98^th Academy Awards, including best picture, best director for Zhao, and best actress for Jessie Buckley, who immortalises Anne Hathaway, [‘Agnes’] Shakespeare’s wife, through whom the real face of family grief is portrayed. Shakespeare [nameless] remains ‘silent’ and virtually ‘back-stage’ in London preoccupied with the playhouse, the players and the plays.

Many Shakespeare scholars have speculated about a probable link between the death of Hamnet Shakespeare and the writing of Hamlet, his Magnum Opus:

“No one can say for certain how the death of Shakespeare’s son affected him, but it is hard not to notice that in the years following Hamnet’s death Shakespeare wrote a play obsessed with fathers and sons, grief, and the persistence of the dead.” [James Shapiro]

“Hamnet’s death must have been a devastating blow…..and the shadow of that loss may well lie behind the profound meditations on mortality in Hamlet.” [Park Honan]

“The death of Hamnet is the most plausible personal event to have touched Shakespeare deeply in these years, and it is tempting to hear an echo of that loss in the grief that permeates Hamlet.” [Germaine Greer]

That echo is clearly heard in Act 4, scene 5 in Hamlet:

He is dead and gone, lady,

He is dead and gone;

At his head a grass-green turf,

At his heels a stone.

Yet, in the play, a son loses his father, and the circumstance of the loss is different. Hamlet mourns the sudden death of his father, king Hamlet, he idolised. The young prince is faced with a complex emotional challenge as the late king’s brother, Claudius, usurper to the throne, marries the widowed queen, denying the young prince of his lawful right to sovereignty. The process of mourning is weighed down by the profound significance of the personal loss to the prince and being bereft of any trusting relationships to share his grief – mourning turning to melancholy.

Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy, Hamlet, has gained unremitting interest of audiences, universally over four hundred years, and has been open to divergent appraisal. Any commentary on the play without an exploration of the psyche of its protagonist, prince Hamlet, would be as the popular cliché goes, ‘like Hamlet without the prince of Denmark!’ Hamlet is the longest of all Shakespearean plays, with the least amount of action, but with the most amount of spoken word, mainly by prince Hamlet, which includes his soliloquies [solo locution: self-discourse] that opens the door to his inner self, inviting in by Hamlet himself: “pluck out the heart of my mystery”.

In the first of his soliloquies, Hamlet reveals his affliction with melancholy. He describes the world as worthless, wishes he is dead, contemplates suicide but regrets that God does not sanction such self-destruction. “O, that this too too solid flesh would melt/ Thaw and resolve itself into dew/ O, that the Everlasting had not fixed/ His cannon ‘gainst self-slaughter. O, God, God/ Seem to me all the uses of this world!’

Hamlet’s anguish is expressed as: ‘This goodly frame, the earth’ is no more than a ‘Sterile promontory’; ‘this majestical roof fretted with golden fire’; the heavens, ‘a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours’; and man, ‘the paragon of animals’, a quintessence of dust’, his mind ‘an unweeded garden/ That grows to seed.’ – Hamlet’s melancholic thought with depressive and nihilistic content expressed in philosophical terms.

But his anguish is best depicted in his fourth soliloquy [Act 3, Scene1] arguably, the most quoted piece of verse in all Shakespeare: ‘To be, or not to be’ – about life and death. He questions, ‘whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer/ The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune/ Or take arms against a sea of troubles/ and by opposing, end them’. What happens after death? Is it a peaceful sleep or nightmare? Do we end our miseries by putting ourselves to the ‘quietus’ with a dagger, and enter that ‘undiscovered country’ from which ‘no traveller returns’, or put up with our problems? ‘Conscience makes cowards of us all’ and make us procrastinate.

In his soliloquies Hamlet reveals his affliction with melancholy. He wishes that his body would melt away, describes the world as worthless and contemplates suicide – negative cognitions about the self, the environment and the future, characteristic of severe mood disturbance – but regrets that God does not sanction such self-destruction.

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Grief is a universal human experience following loss, characterised by sadness, at times mixed with anger and guilt, and frequently transient in nature. Depending on the perceived significance [‘meaningfulness’] of the loss and the absence of a sharing or confiding relationship, grief may become prolonged, with a potential to become pathological.

In a seminal paper published in 1917, Sigmund Freud [1856 – 1939], argued that there are two different responses to loss – ‘Mourning and Melancholia’. His contribution remains the basis for understanding unconscious grief in psychoanalytic thought.

Freud describes mourning as a natural way to respond to losing something or someone significant. It is a transitory process, potentially transforming, albeit painful. In mourning the loss of a loved one, the bereaved gradually withdraws the emotional energy – ‘libido’ – from ‘the lost object’, and the emotional investment is redirected to an ‘alternate object’ or pursuit. Throughout this process the ‘self’ remains intact, allowing the person to heal by integrating the loss into life. In psychology, this process in which a person unconsciously redirects unacceptable or distressing impulses into socially acceptable or constructive activities is called sublimation – a concept introduced by Sigmund Freud and later developed further by his daughter Anna Freud. Instead of expressing the impulse directly, the energy behind it is transformed into something positive or productive – an ‘ego defence’.

On the other hand, Freud described melancholia as a persistent state that stays within the ‘unconscious’ – the repressed aspect of the mind, while the person feels trapped in unresolved emotions which jeopardises their mental and physical well-being.

Shakespeare lost a child, the only son, Hamnet, still in his formative years. The playwright had no option but to leave his family in his birthplace of Stratford-upon-Avon, and return to London after burying his son to continue his work at the playhouse. The significance of the loss to the father would, no doubt, have been profound, as the Greek historian Herodotus fittingly proclaimed, “No one that has lost a child knows what it is to lose a child”.

In the novel, and as depicted in the movie, Agnes [Anne Hathaway] travels to London to meet her husband. Unknown to him she stands with the audience at the Globe Theatre to watch Hamlet, the play, while Shakespeare remains backstage. As O’Farrell poignantly writes in her novel, “Hamlet, here on this stage, is two people, the young man alive, and the father dead. He is both alive and dead. Her husband [Shakespeare] has brought him back to life, in the only way he can”. “She stretches out a hand as if to acknowledge them, as if to feel the air between the three of them, as if to pierce the boundary between audience and players, between real life and play”.

Many literary scholars speculate that Shakespeare in mourning gave voice to his grief through Hamlet, the play’s introspective protagonist, who takes to the stage with melancholic expression. There are others who dispute this view, arguing that Hamlet is a product of his creative genius that transcends any autobiographical explanation. While Hamnet, the novel, and its film adaptation do not assert a direct historical link, they suggest an association between the playwright’s personal loss and his artistic creation. The notion that Shakespeare sublimated his grief into creating the iconic stage work remains suggestive, yet unprovable, but reveals an important ‘therapeutic strategy’ [sublimation] in dealing with loss. Nevertheless, through Hamlet, he gives enduring expression to a universal human condition – grief – that resonates across time.

Moreover, from an aesthetic point of view, a work of art can truly be called Art – whether encountered on the page, the screen, or the stage – when it invites reflection or evokes emotion. The thread that runs through the novel, the movie and the play tend to reinforce that notion.

By Dr. Siri Galhenage, Psychiatrist [Retd]
sirigalhenage@gmail.com