Sri Lanka at Sixty: Fighting the Absolute Enemy

January 30th, 2008

by Dayan Jayatilleka

“The only question therefore is this: is there an absolute enemy and who is it in concreto?”-Carl Schmitt

[The Old Parliament Building the near the Galle Face Green, now the Presidential Secretariat]

Sri Lanka turns sixty this Monday, February 4th. It has been in a single stage (albeit with many phases) of history from the year it turned 35, in 1983. For the past quarter century its destiny has been determined by the secessionist war. Now at sixty, the long war approaches its decisive peak, a highest stage of intensity which therefore also marks its last stage. The war has been a protracted one; a war of attrition. What is expected to be short by comparison, is its last stage. We have arrived, in the words of Winston Churchill, not at “the end of the end” but at “the beginning of the end”. It is the beginning of the end of Prabhakaran and the LTTE as a rival army, but between the ‘beginning of the end’ and the ‘end of the end’ there will be heavy going. Sri Lanka can derive some grim and modest satisfaction in that its armed forces have arrived at the commencement-or have actually commenced-the third and last stage of this sort of war, that of the strategic offensive, or more accurately, the strategic counteroffensive.

There will be those who contest my definition of the war as the decisive challenge and task facing the country as it turns sixty, and will argue that it is the National or Nationalities Question (also known as the Ethnic issue) that constitutes and has always constituted the main challenge. This translates itself into a perspective which holds that either Sinhala or Tamil nationalism/chauvinism is the main problem. It was Kurt Julius Goldstein, the head of the World Federation of anti Fascist Resistance fighters, who, in Moscow in the summer of ‘85 educated me out of such reductionism at the World Festival of Youth and Students. As I reported at the time in the Lanka Guardian and The Island, this veteran anti-Nazi fighter told me that the biggest error the Left made was to confuse nationalism, chauvinism and fascism: ‘we should have united with nationalism, even chauvinism, to fight fascism; instead of which we treated them as all the same’.

Doubtless Sinhala and Tamil nationalism or chauvinism caused the war to take place. However, when a phenomenon reaches a certain stage of development and intensity, it has to be dealt with as an autonomous factor, irrespective of the chain of causation. That is why those who oppose the Mahinda Rajapakse administration on the grounds of its Sinhala nationalism, or the ultra-nationalism, even chauvinism of its smaller allies, are as mistaken as those who oppose the APRC proposals for the full implementation of the 13th amendment as an unwarranted and ill-timed concession to “peaceful Tamil nationalism”. The lesson of history is that Sri Lanka must bring together Sinhala and Tamil nationalism in the war against Tamil fascism, Tamil neo-Nazism, incarnated in the LTTE and led by Prabhakaran.

This may offend the sensibilities of some, and that has been the case throughout history. Purists pilloried Stalin’s Russia when, in the face of the Nazi invasion, socialist appeals were fused with Russian nationalism and the partial revival of Russian Orthodox Christianity in the Great Patriotic War. At the beginning of 1949, the Times of Ceylon carried the text of a YMCA lecture by the LSSP theoretician Dr Colvin R de Silva giving all the reasons why the Chinese Revolution would not and could not triumph, given its rural, petty bourgeois, narrow nationalist character. On October 1st that year Mao ze Dong was victoriously proclaiming that “The Chinese people have stood up”! The dogmatic Communists decried Fidel Castro’s Moncada assault because it did not fit their checklist of characteristics for the stamp of approval. Today, many governments and leaders who are playing a major anti-imperialist and progressive role, such as Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chavez and the ANC’s Jacob Zuma, are being opposed by a strange coalition of pro-western liberals, and ex-ultra-leftists. (The role played in Venezuela by Douglas Bravo and Teodoro Petkoff is a stark case in point.)

Thus it is not the Ethno National Question, but its issue, the war, that is our main challenge and test today. How can it be otherwise when we are faced with an enemy recently described by the FBI as “one of the most dangerous extremists groups in the world”, which according to its report, pioneered the suicide belt and the woman suicide bomber, and is the only group in the world responsible for the killing of political leaders of two countries? How can it be otherwise when we face an enemy described by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist John Burns of the New York Times, as the Pol Pot of South Asia, and a movement described by renowned authority on Nazism, Prof Walter Laqueur as being paralleled in its fanaticism and ruthlessness only by the European fascist movement of the 1920s and 1930s? How can it conceivably be otherwise when we are facing Prabhakaran, the man described in the Millennium issue of The Times (London) on the theme of Death, as the man personally responsible for the most number of violent deaths on the planet? A great many countries are plagued by ethno national conflicts but few are faced with enemies of this magnitude of dangerousness. How then can anyone argue that any other issue could be more important, should have greater priority or constitute more of a yardstick?

Having lost a number of outstanding leaders, the country has not been decapitated, or reduced to those who would capitulate before the enemy. The country is lucky in that its leadership has grasped “the key link….which guarantees its possessor control of the chain”, as Lenin put it. That “key link” is the need to defeat Prabhakaran and the LTTE. Sir Isaiah Berlin quoted Archilocus to classify thinkers into two main categories: foxes and hedgehogs. Foxes, Sir Isaiah reminded us, know many things, but a hedgehog knows one big thing. This administration may or may not know many things but it does know “one big thing”–the war and the need to win it. When that one big thing is, also that which Lenin defined as the key link, then the country is fortunate. This does not mean that the Rajapakse leadership should be exempt from criticism. What it does mean is that all sincerely patriotic criticism would be from within a strategy of critical (even savagely critical) support; which Mao referred to as “unity and struggle”.

APRC & the 13th Amendment

The raucous response to the APRC’s recommendations is, paradoxically, the best evidence of the constructive character of the proposals. There are those who criticise them as not enough, as too little too late, and those others who damn them as too much too soon. In a monograph co-published by the US Institute of Peace (USIP) and the International Centre of Ethnic Studies (ICES) in 1998, I argued, as a former Minister of the North Eastern Provincial Council, that the failure of the experiment was not because of the insufficiency of the quantum of devolution, but because of the LTTE’s war against the Council and a plethora of political errors on the part of the key political players, not least the EPRLF. The 13th Amendment has never been give a chance to work, and it should. To those who say that it is a formula which is twenty years old, my reply is that federalism is over fifty years old as a slogan in the Sri Lankan debate! As for the Indian model, that will work by definition, in India, not Sri Lanka. Here I am not being facetious. India has a huge landmass and more importantly, an ethnically multi-polar situation, while Sri Lanka is a small island with an ethnically bipolar situation, as was first observed by that pioneering Indian scholar of Sri Lankan politics, the late Prof Urmila Phadnis of the JNU. The 13th amendment is the product of the impact of the Indian model (in the person of the Indian negotiators and 70, 000 Indian troops) upon the Sri Lankan reality, and is the resultant of the interaction. It is the closest approximation of the Indian model that is acceptable to Sri Lanka.

One of Sri Lanka’s legendary educators and teachers of history, L.H. Horace Perera is a long time resident of Geneva. A man with decades in the UN system, and a liberal Catholic by belief, he is by no means a “Sinhala Buddhist hardliner”, still less a JVP or JHU sympathiser. I asked him what type of system he would recommend for the island as a historian and one who has watched independent Sri Lanka make so many mistakes. He readily answered that “given its geographic location and history, it requires a strong centre. That strong centre must permit some autonomy at the periphery, but whenever the island had a weak centre, it was defeated, and civilisations collapsed.”

Sri Lankan extremists must recognise two realities. A strong centre is imperative, which means that there can be no devolution of power beyond that of provincial autonomy or a quasi-federal system. Full federalism would be imprudent, which is something the majority of people instinctively know and therefore have consistently rejected. The other extreme must know that a strong centre cannot mean an over-centralised system. Strength lies in flexibility, not brittleness.

Critics of the APRC proposals seem to suffer from a touch of amnesia. Surely President Rajapakse’s response is far more constructive than that of President Jayewardene who disowned Annexure C and the APC of 1984? Surely this present outcome is better than the sincere exercise of President Premadasa’s APC in 1990, which was however, so devoid of success that it had to be shunted into a Parliamentary Select Committee? Surely it is better to attempt the full implementation of the 13th amendment than have a devolution proposal which suffers the fate of the Mangala Moonesinghe proposals, and Chandrika’s ‘union of regions’ package(s) of 1995 and 1997? Surely a practicable proposal is better than one which suffers the same fate in the legislature as President Kumaratunga’s August 2000 draft Constitution?

The proposals accepted by President Rajapakse remind me of nothing so much as the mid 1986 agreement arrived at the Political Parties Conference (PPC), the voluminous document of which is still available in print. That conference was summoned by President Jayewardene at the written insistence of Vijaya Kumaratunga who had returned from discussions with the Tamil militants in Jaffna and India. The entirety of the democratic Left was represented and did the running at the Conference, and produced a political platform which made for full Provincial autonomy, with no merger. Though he later supported the Indo-Lanka Accord as Sri Lanka’s last best chance for peace, Vijaya was himself staunchly opposed to the merger.

Petraeus & Putin

Given the war, the APRC recommendations translate in the immediate context, into an Interim or Transitional Political Authority (council) for the North, and Provincial elections for the East. Those outsiders who say that an election in the East will somehow lack legitimacy because of the presence of so-called paramilitaries, should be reminded of the far more violent conditions under which elections were held in Iraq and Afghanistan after invasion! As for paramilitaries, the US would not have initially (temporarily?) won the Afghan campaign without the support of the Northern Alliance warlords, and today, the limited success of the so-called surge and the COIN (counterinsurgency) doctrine of the cerebral General David Petraeus, is made possible precisely because of the active participation of “paramilitaries” from among the Sunni community, who have formed neighbourhood Vigilance Committees against al Qaeda. If the Anbar model is good enough for the US in Iraq, it sure is good enough for Sri Lanka in its own Eastern province! Let us not even go into the issue of Shia militia who are operating within the folds of the Army and law enforcement bodies (the pun is intended) put together by the US led coalition.’

For those at the opposite end of the Sri Lankan spectrum who oppose a Northern Interim administration with Police powers, a reminder is needed that without such an intermediate structure, the picture will be one of a Sinhala army fighting Tamil insurgents. The matter was different in the Punjab and Kashmir where the Indian Army was and is able to field a multiethnic, multireligious force, including Sikh generals. We must recall that in the Punjab, the job was finally done by a Sikh Police chief, the legendary KPS Gill, and also because the Punjab had its own Chief Minister and administration. There will have to be a sufficiently heavy Sri Lankan armed forces presence in the North and East for the foreseeable future. However, our armed forces must be relieved of the burden of the policing functions they now discharge. This will free up more Security Forces for frontline fighting. Secondly, no one can ‘police’ ethnic neighbourhoods as efficiently as those who speak the same language and come from the same community. Thirdly, the Sri Lankan armed forces after victory must not become an army of Occupation, as Israel disastrously did after the brilliantly won Six Day War. A Tamil run Provincial Council with Police powers, under an ally and partner of the Sri Lankan state (the Ramzan Kadyrov factor of the successful Chechen campaign by Russia) will help us avoid this calamity.

Sri Lanka at sixty must learn a lesson from Putin’s Russia. It succeeded in the Chechen war not because it had oil, unlike Sri Lanka. Russia had oil even under Yeltsin! Had the Chechen war gone on, Russia would have still been bleeding and would never have re-merged as a great power as it has under President Putin. It is President Putin’s resolve in defeating the Chechen secessionist terrorist army (which even blew up apartment blocks in Moscow and took hostages in a Moscow theatre), that put Russia back on the road to recovery and greatness as a state. Russia’s victory was two pronged: one was the unleashing of the full might of its military, including electronics, Spetnaz Special forces, armour, artillery and airpower; the other was the political installation of its ally and former Chechen “warlord”, youthful Ramzan Kadyrov as the President of Chechnya. Today Russia and Chechnya are peaceful and prosperous.

Absolute Enemy, Absolute Enmity

As we reach sixty then, what is the fundamental lesson to grasp? There are some thinkers who are so incisive that their work earns respect across ideological boundaries. So it was with Carl Schmitt, whose early 1960s essay (actually the product of two lectures) “The Theory of the Partisan: A Commentary/Remark on the Concept of the Political” is not only prophetic but is also the most rigorously intellectual work on the subject. In this work, in which Schmitt reaches beyond Clausewitz and ends with Fidel Castro (he names the ‘giants’-Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara; but significantly, no Trotsky) the core idea relevant to Sri Lanka today is that of “the Absolute Enemy”. Schmitt identifies the superiority of Lenin as precisely in grasping the concept of the absolute enemy and absolute enmity.

“What Lenin learned from Clausewitz, and he learned it well, was not just the famous formula of war as the continuation of politics. It involved the larger recognition that in the age of revolution the distinction between friend and enemy is the primary distinction, decisive for war as for politics. The only question therefore is this: is there an absolute enemy and who is it in concreto? For Lenin the answer was unequivocal, and his superiority among all other socialists and Marxists consisted in his seriousness about absolute enmity. The knowledge of the enemy was the secret of Lenin’s enormous strike power.” (Carl Schmitt, 1962:35)

At sixty Sri Lanka must not allow itself to defined by others; it must be true to its authentic self, its own spirit. It must stand up for itself, because if it does so, others will join in support but if it does not, no one else will. It must not cringe, beg or be blackmailed; it must be resolute. It must remember its true friends and its role in the world. It must not expect much from others who have interests at variance with its own. If it does not stand by and speak up for its friends, there will be no one to stand by or speak up for it. Sri Lanka must also, crucially, remember this: The LTTE–not the Tamils, not Tamil nationalism, not Sinhala nationalism-is The Absolute Enemy. It poses no less than an existential threat to us Sri Lankans. We cannot coexist with it. It must be fought and defeated. We must support, however critically, our political and military leadership, because it recognises this reality. What is the wellspring of this recognition? The people, the overwhelming majority of our people, the Sri Lankan people, who recognise through their experience of the last quarter century, that the LTTE is the Absolute Enemy.

Related: What Dayan Jayatilake fails to understand…., by Mano Ganesan

Entry Filed under: transCurrents Commentary

72 Comments Add your own

  • 1. 5  |  January 30th, 2008 at 10:47 pm

    the simple fact is that sri lanka is a failed state

  • 2. 5  |  January 30th, 2008 at 11:12 pm

    Simply this writer pretend that he does not know what happened before ven LTTe was born
    Tamils have been facing genocide since 1948. Sinhalese as mahawamsa says a violent community they like violence..they killed muslims 1915 they killed tamils since 1956. Every agreement tamils made with these sinhalese were thrown by the same sinhala buddhist racist.

    LTTE is the reaction of sinhala people’s animalistic violence towards tamils.
    Sinhalese just don’t need LTTE to have a fight.

    If any body thinks that SL and TE will be a peace full country after LTTE is completely eliminated they are fools and utter fools. sinhalese will start fighting among themselves based on the religion.. like sinhala christians killing sinhala buddhist.

    Dayan Jayathilake thinks tamils like sinhala modayas because he writes so it became now definetely wrong and foolishness

  • 3. Denis  |  January 30th, 2008 at 11:20 pm

    Mr Ambassador, So you want to take cue from tyrants around the world to solve the problem in Sri Lanka. After all the West is not the IC for you. Its Putin, Milosevic, Ahmadinejad, Mugabe, Bashir, Musharaff and any body who could fork up loot to run Mihin air. Good luck with that. Just like the mass murderes and serial rapists who claim they do that because they had a bad childhood or childhood trauma, keep blaming the LTTE. Forget other Tamils and OTHER SINHALSE like Lal Hemantha Athula Mawalage, who are getting beaten up by your President’s goondas. There is no evidence that the Sinhalease have done anything worthwhile on their own, since the mass Tamil migration began in 1983. May be you would include kicking out Emirates at mid air. Couldn’t your President if a man paying out of his pocket, would have chartered a flight back home. Shame on you!!!

  • 4. 5  |  January 30th, 2008 at 11:21 pm

    [Doubtless Sinhala and Tamil nationalism or chauvinism caused the war to take place.]

    NO absolutely wrong MR dayan..there are lot of tamils here reading this. you can’t just lie and lie like your article

    It was sinhalese nature of violence, blood thirstiness caused this problem..tamils are being killed since 1948 even before Hon. V. Pirabhaharan was born
    Hon. VP is the Tamils answer for the sinhala

    There is one thing I like about these kind of article that when they get frustrated about Pirabhaharan that means Hon. VP doing a good job. tjis is just a sample of their Frustration

  • 5. rk  |  January 31st, 2008 at 12:33 am

    Bosh!

    24 hrs after Prabha leaves the building
    1983 x 10 all over again.

    Weak Centre!
    All was OK when there was a Kandyan Kingdom,
    Jaffna Kingdom, A Ruhuna Kingdom and many parts
    with greater autonomy and control over their affairs
    even under foreign rule.

    DJ should be posted to Jaffna and account
    for all disappearances.
    At least a fortnight vacation.
    See an occupation operate.
    Take a calculator(solar powered, security you know)
    and compute the cost of Barbarism and Genocide.

    The idea that the North could go “Dubai”
    and the South go “Singapore” rankles
    the pundits and bandits.

    Legislation and constitutional changes
    don’t mean a thing. Talk to the Kenyans.
    The Serbians who were the dominants in
    progressive “Yugoslavia”.
    Quelling the Bosnian did not stop the rush to
    the exit by the Slovenians etc.
    Get old Horace to visit the one part of the country
    he wrote about but probably never been to,
    to visit for at least a fortnight.

    Jaffna like East Timor did not ask for this.
    VP could have been nailed after his first bank heist
    If the Jaffas had their Fully fledged Uni and Medical
    School in 1956. etc etc In short if they had a stake
    as in stakehold.The words expended would now be
    about the burdens and limits to prosperity enjoyed
    by the most number of Lankans, north ,south,east and
    west.
    Study Suharto. Long live Judas
    Check out John Pilger’s video on East Timor for starters.

    Finally Are we making Lanka safe for a showdown between
    the Sons of Kumaratunga,Rajapakse,Premadsasa,Mervins,
    SB.s , Ratwattes and left over Senanayakes etc
    to name but a few et all for the next 60 years!

  • 6. Thiru.M  |  January 31st, 2008 at 12:34 am

    The Sinhala Nation inherited the Tamil Sovereignty together with theirs from the British in 1948.

    Right thinking Tamils, Muslims Sinhalese, Burghers, malays and others must ask themselves, Who is the absolute enemy or absolute friend ( DS, SWRD,Srimavo Dudley, JR, comrades from LSSP from pre 1972 era and Premadasa,Chandrika, Mahinda , lonely comrade Prof. Vitharane) of Tamils ?

    What are the things Sinhalese leaders have done in absolute terms to the Tamils & other minorities in SL from 1947 up to now ?

    By the way when was this big mouth and kid Dayan Jayatilleke who was saved or protected from existential threat by late Vijay Kumaratunge ( Chandrika’s husband) was born ?

    Born only after After 1972 and knows only LTTE as the enemy ? When I was studying Sinhalese for my grdae 1 ( grade 2 and 3 later ) compulsory exam to get increment/promotion in the government service I learnt from my Sinhalese teacher from MataraTamils are enemy of Sinhalese from Gemmunu’s chinthanya. I was a supporter of LSSP then but left the country fro good in 1974 because of my comrade Colvin’s 1972 constitution.

    If Mahinda Rajapakse is a born again Dutte Gemunu, this dangerous Dayan Jayatilleke is a born again Stalin. So Tamils be aware of what Stalin did and not fooled by this Sinhala Buddhist Aristocratic decendent.

    He is advocating for and supporting Stalin’s chinthanya in SL, but sadly from Geneva UN Human rights office citadel which is like Nalanda citadel after Emperor Asoka’s victorious Genocide of Kalinga people. In one way he is insulting Buddha and his teachings.

    In my view Dayan Jayatilleke is advocating accelerated genocide of Tamils in SL which has been going on for the last 60 years and nothing else. It is not LTTE he is going after, he is going after future generation of Tamils from NE of SL.

    Mahinda brothers, Fonseka and their mouth piece dayan jayatilleke with the support of JVP and JHU are claiming they are liberating the Tamils in Elam ( NE Srilanka ) at the same time keeping the Tamil Sovereignity with the Sinhala Nation without sharing for the last 60 years.

    Dayan must ask the respective leaders of EPDP, PLOTE,TMVP,EPRLF and TULF what these acronyms stand for and the meaning of each word.

    The issue is State terrorism supported by the IC and the intransigent Sinhala leadrships not implelneting absolute solutions to the raal problem for the last 60 years.

    Majority of Tamils will not fall for the Mahinda Chinthanaya or rather JVP, JHU controlled chinthanya that pretend to give peace and liberty to Tamils.Ttamils have been betrayed from D S to Prof V.itharane

    It is clear the leadrship of Sinhala nation wants war and absolute victory to force the solution on the Tamils with the support of India, US Japan and other IC members.

    Dayan’s tacticts of setting up Tamils against Tamils will never work in the long run.

    Sinhala Buddhist nationalism and the way the successive leaders have been consolidating it since 1948, is the absolute enemy of Srilanka.

    These supremacist leaders are preapared to sleep with any other country as long as Tamil Nation is further conquered and ruled.

  • 7. P.Subasi  |  January 31st, 2008 at 2:04 am

    “we should have united with nationalism, even chauvinism, to fight fascism; instead of which we treated them as all the same”

    “The LTTE not the Tamils, not Tamil nationalism, not Sinhala nationalism-is The Absolute Enemy. It poses no less than an existential threat to us Sri Lankans. We cannot coexist with it. It must be fought and defeated”

    What a excellent analysis Dayan has done in this letter. At sixty, Sri Lanka is beginning to produce world class thinkers at last.

  • 8. Sadhatissa  |  January 31st, 2008 at 7:10 am

    The writer is absolutely right! His analysis is spot on. After war the peace has to be won.

  • 9. x man  |  January 31st, 2008 at 8:30 am

    dayan is an example of how a little education can be a bad thing…

  • 10. ratna  |  January 31st, 2008 at 8:38 am

    The LTTE did not exist before 1976, but there was an absolute enemy present.

    LTTE maybe gone soon (or within next 10 to 15 years), but still there will be an absolute enemy for Lankans.

    Therefore the real Absolute Enemy (before and after LTTE’s period) is the Sinhala Buddhist Extremists.

  • 11. R.Goonetilake  |  January 31st, 2008 at 8:45 am

    “End of a Beginning” Or “beginning of an end”!
    Dr.Jayatilake got some valid points in this article to suggest its a “Beginning of an End”!
    The question is whether its the “Beginning of an End” to Tamil oppression or the “Beginning of an End” to Tamil Militarism.
    The way Tamil civilians getting killed, it seems the SL Force is taking its vendetta on civlians for losing or not making any progress in the war front.
    The last two bombs planted by the SL Forces targetting Tamil civilians as well as the paramilitaries stepping up the murders and abductions, it seems everyone is feeling the pinch.
    The Shelling by LTTE and the SLA Advances repulsed vigorously by LTT is causing quite a number of SLA casualties. The injured are sent far and wide to avoid accounting of in the media. The SL Forces dead are buried in mass graves in Mannar.
    Thus it seems, “the end of a beginning” of the Sinhala subjugation of Tamils? Or “The beginning of an end” of SLA occupation of Jaffna.
    Take your pick. The Tamil population will be halved by the time the “End” turns up.
    Dayan loves to see bloodletting and human misery from aerial bombardment and artillery fire etc.

  • 12. RajasH  |  January 31st, 2008 at 9:09 am

    The absolute enemy is the “assumption” that “LTTE is the absolute enemy.”

  • 13. Sam Thambipillai  |  January 31st, 2008 at 9:53 am

    Dayan Jayatilaka speaks of an outdated communist philosophy, in his article and propounds a typical Sinhala racist thought , instead of a liberal and pragmatic view..

    This is the typical view of the Sinhala governments. They believe that every thing done by the Sinhalese to the Tamils were always good, though dirty, uncultured, evil, full of killing, murders, rape and displacement of Tamil civilians. There is no remorse whatsoever yet from the Sinhalese for such cruelty. Therefore, killings of Tamils continue unabated.

    For this reason, the enemy is not the freedom movement of the Tamils, to liberate the North East from the cruel grip of the Sri Lankan state, but it is the Sri Lankan state itself.

    In Sri Lanka, there is state terror and LTTE counter terror. As state terror became cruelest, so was the counter terror. Tamils were forced even to invent suicide bombers as a weapon of defence, to counter the cruelest state terror in the world.

    These aspects are not known yet by the world. What FBI says and John Burns believes is from what they learnt from the dubious government representatives, who blinded them with sweet words.The real Pol Pot action of state terror arises from Sri Lankan state. The UN is having much evidence of state cruelty and barbarism on Tamil civilians.

    Therefore, war is not our main challenge as Dayan Jayatilaka portrays. The challenge is state terror from the Sri Lankan state against the Tamils. Ethno national question is the cause for this state terror.

    At least at sixty, Sri Lanka should become mature and behave like an adult. War is not the solution in Sri Lanka and can never be the solution. The solution would be to create two sovereign countries called Sri Lanka and Tamil Eeelam and live peacefully in one island as united people.

  • 14. shaan fernando  |  January 31st, 2008 at 11:12 am

    If the country is suffering from dissidents trying to disrupt wither it is Tamils of Sinhalese it should be firmly dealt with for the betterment of the country. It had happen in the past during the JVP era. In this case every time Sri Lanka was trying to solve the menace of the LTTE some country comes to their rescue. Many time we nearly were defeating them militarily and whenever we are nearing completion some country is knocking on our doors. This time we must be determined to finish this issue whatever it may take. We, Sri Lankans have suffered enough. LTTE is a business money making organization their monthly income is over 30 million USD. They are engaged in all ill norms that the human kind stand against, yet they claim they are for the Tamil people. Tamil Diaspora need to ask the question when all other Tamil parties in Sri Lanka agree to solve the issue with a devolution, why only LTTE is harping on a separate state? They know that over 74% of Sinhalese would never agree to give 2/3 of the country and of the sea area to just 12% people so if they demand the impossible they can go on hoodwink the Diaspora and go on with their business of making money on innocent Tamils blood.

    However a comprehensive political package must be given to the Tamil and should be approved by all parties that would be the guiding light for the Tamils to look forward for Therefore I do not agree with the writer. As long as we don’t put forward a good acceptable proposal to ensure that the Tamil would have enough devolution in Sri Lanka they would fear if the LTTE is gone who would address their grievances. On the other hand if a acceptable proposal is in place they would feel that there is no need to fight for a separate state. As their grievance could be addressed from the devolution package. There is no doubt that Tamil should be given best devolution possible for them to manage their own affairs. Majority of the Sinhalese have no problem on this issue but none would agree to separate the country witch is the demand of the LTTE. So it is time to defeat the LTTE militarily and force them to accept a political solution. As long as the LTTE is strong this cannot be achieved in Sri Lanka
    To understand the military approach one need to look at the past. During the JVP era how the government forces handled the situation. They managed to crush the rebellion in 3 years. People had seen the worse of human suffering during this time. Scores of Sinhalese were killed and displayed in a brutal way by then the forces (very unethical thing to do) but no international origination voiced their concern at that time simply because it was the majority killing the majority. Public were rounded up kept for questioning, searchers were conducted in the nights. Harassment of the general public was common phenomena at that time. Was the Tamils were harassed during that time? No. Searchers were conducted targeting the Sinhala population as the dissidents were hiding within this group. Loads of inconvenient and suffering for the general public but what was the end result? Crushing of the rebellion, had not the forces taken such drastic action that were not accepted by all human norms that crisis would have suffered the same situation and t would have taken our country to a chaotic era. Therefore sometime some drastic action is needed against few to save the majority. If you don’t take such action it would aggravate and eventually put the whole county in danger. Therefore we need to do it in the hard way this time around. We need to amputate the leg in order to save the wounded.

    We may be pressured by the West, by countries like UK who violate all human norms and invade other countries by making fault accusation such as Weapons of Mass Destruction, BC weapons etc. They have killed more people in other countries who had nothing to do with what May have happen in Europe. As per the NGO called body count, civilian death is over 160000 in Iraq. Those innocent people who had done no harm to UK are killed in their own county. Yet they tell us to solve our internal problem in a peaceful manner when the LTTE is threatening our county’s sovereignty and trying to split our country. If at all somebody needs to be tried on for war crimes it should be the leader of the West who had invaded other countries for apparent reason they cant even prove and killed scores in other countries in fear of they would be threaten but not leaders of countries like Sri Lanka trying very hard not to allow some terrorist to split the country. So let them protest what must be done must be done for the sake of the country and also for the sake of its people both Tamils and the Sinhalese.

  • 15. Naga UK  |  January 31st, 2008 at 11:26 am

    Dayan thinks he is crafty by quoting someone out of context from China and elsewhere. Of course he has to safeguard his position - co’mon lad, come out and tell what you really feel about it. Do not try to justify what is happening today for you deserve a better place in history than a post in the UN.

  • 16. Thamilan  |  January 31st, 2008 at 12:23 pm

    Dayan Jayatilleka,

    You are a fool who is drowning in your own foolishness. Good Luck!!

  • 17. Sri  |  January 31st, 2008 at 12:26 pm

    Dayan;
    You are talking about Soviet Union and the Second World War and the war against Fascism? Soviet Union defeated Fascism, so what?but where is the Soviet Union now?In the dust bin of History.
    What is the relevancy of Chinese Revolution, Mao and Dr Colvin R de Silva to your subject under discussion? Just name dropping to feel like an intellectual.

    The way the Americans used the term communism or our Marxist used Reactionaries in the good old days, you still use Fascism to attack your enemies.
    Good Marxists never quote from FBI or CIA favorably to prove a point and London Times and FBI and London Times have become gospel truth to you. What a pathetic level you have fallen, all for the sake of power, Once upon a time it was Varatharajaperumal, then Premadasa and now Mahinda Rajapaksa.Next who?

  • 18. Robin  |  January 31st, 2008 at 1:56 pm

    What a load of crap from Dayan Jayatillake. It is not Tamil nationalism or chauvanism which led to the current situation, but is the continuous suppression and marginalisation of the Tamils from 1948. It is the burning of Tamils alive and other atrocities your Sinhala Buddhists committed against the Tamils. Dayan, don’t pull wool over the eyes with an article quoting Putin , Kashmir, Lenin, Punjab etc etc. Tamil situation is unique.
    In 2002 India had a mini riot -Hindu/Muslim. Last week India filed action against Hindus who were the instigators and participants of the riots. What has the Sri Lankan Govts done with regard to the pogroms of 1956, 1977, 1983.
    Dayan, will you recommend to the UN that those involved are brought to the World Court. The Sri Lankan politicians and the military personnel who were responsible for the crimes aagainst the Tamils are still alive. Do you know that Nazis are still being hunted and even last week there was news about extraditing a Danish hiding in Bavaria. Will it ever happen to a Sinhalaese buddhist? Dayan, you are no better than the political masters in Sri Lanka. You are hiding behind LTTE and Prabaharan and trying to dilute the real issue.
    Your last three sentences says it all. Good luck to you in your new endeavour.

  • 19. Thilee  |  January 31st, 2008 at 2:19 pm

    I haven’t read any article from DJ before.

    He is confused, when proving his points. He ran into extra mile and got support from FBI to prove him. Will he accept that if tomorrow FBI says “Gotabaya made war crime”?

    After 60 years of governance, how come a government cannot win just the mind of 15 million people? Is it because of LTTE? Ok, as you are saying, if VP is a neo-Nazi, how far the war (’beginning of the end’) freed people of Sri Lanka (Tamil/Sinhala) from VP? The ‘issue’ in Sri Lanka as many world leaders quoted, is because of the visionless leaders. I can term you as hopeless too.

    You wrote ‘Doubtless Sinhala and Tamil nationalism or chauvinism caused the war to take place’. But the winning path you are supporting, could be able to overcome any of the ‘nationalism or chauvinism’ issues in the next 60 years? But any person who has very basic ‘knowledge’ knows that the ‘war on terror’ definitely will make the ‘issue’ too serious. So, what you are trying to win/solve? You have to make yourself clear first.

    After all you all should learn that the Bush mentality is just destructive to human society. But with a high human cost. For e.g. 9/11 killed 3000 innocent US people. But the war in Iraq killed more than 3000 US soldiers. But US had enough other ways to solve this (what about a simple mission killing just Sadam?).

    Mr. DJ! the same New York Times said in May/June 2007 that Jaffna is a open prison. You have proved here that you are not trustful.

    You are saying ‘..but whenever the island had a weak center, it was defeated..’. Are you talking about power sharing? SL had any such?

    You also want to prove you with Lenin’s words. Lenin said ‘whenever people of different nationality in a country could not get together, they have to separate’. (I cannot find the exact wordings but this was Lenin’s theory).

  • 20. John  |  January 31st, 2008 at 5:41 pm

    God bless him, one day he will be a refugee like so many sinhalease. sorry to say i am one of them. I left srilanka 12 yrs ago, and myself catholic. Mr dayan dont make your self dump, you may get some think, defending sinhala budhist srilanka, we havent got any one to defend us , like tamils got mr velu. One day you will regret your action. Do not defend which is totally wrong.

  • 21. thiaga  |  January 31st, 2008 at 7:45 pm

    Mr. Dayan talks about a need for a strong core. Sure if it is concerned of the well being of the country and its citizens.
    But what we have is, one which rots from the head.
    One can judge the calibre of a man by the company he keeps or supports. Maybe he has an eye on ascendancy to the throne himself assuming it is going to be an one party totalitarian system that is in the making.
    Being a communist himself he has the feel for things how it evolved in the countries that he fondly quotes. First he needs to nod his head to whatever his corrupt masters are upto and show his contribution by means of rhetorics against UN officials and whoever he conceives as opposition and writing ill conceived articles like the above.
    He hates LTTE with passion since it stands as a thorn to his dream.
    Once the LTTE is defeated MR and his Bros and company will shed its military cloak and will put on a religious one. I am not sure he will mind even that as a long as he can share the loot.
    Shame on you my brother. But ride on it before the turn turns the other way hopefully sooner than later for the common good of our nation.

  • 22. R.Goonetilake  |  January 31st, 2008 at 7:52 pm

    Dr.Dayan.
    Your article has no relevance to todays’ event in the island nation.
    Those sinhalese who found happiness in Tamil Innocent Civilian murders, Tamil businesses looting and burning them, Burning of Jaffna Library, can now answer to the predicament of “Sinhala Only” nation they wished to build in the 50’s.
    Those who voted in SWRD and the SLFP time after time, can now answer to the current predicament of Sri Lanka.
    The history can be twisted by Dayan or any other and the FACT will always remain the same.
    It is the Sinhalese who started it. It will be the sinhalese who will finish it. Dayan is one of those wishes a Sinhalese favoured end to this.
    Good Luck

  • 23. Jack Ranasinghe  |  January 31st, 2008 at 9:27 pm

    Dayan is proof that the fruit CAN fall from the tree. His father (Mervin de Silva) was never capable of churning out bovine manure. Dayan has elevated the task to an art form.

  • 24. Thiru. S  |  January 31st, 2008 at 10:17 pm

    You are appointed to defend Human Rights in this August organization, but you are blatantly abusing that position by your statement . Instead of harboring any ill-will towards your own countrymen, you should peep into the basic teachings of Lord Buddha. It is a shame that you are exposing your Yaksha quality to the world. First, study the fundamentals of the UN, then try, repeat , try to speak of justice and fairplay, instead of reeking racism, as Srilanka does not need another hero of hatred, as there are overwhelming numbers, who are spearheading that poor 3rd world country, into oblivion. It is a pity that the average Sinhalese person has been brain-washed to believe in the diabolical lies of politicians, behaving like mad dogs in and out of the so called democratic parliament, lately proved by Mervin Silva. It is said that travel broadens ones mind, but this is not applicable to the so called elite Sinhalese.

  • 25. David Blacker  |  February 1st, 2008 at 12:33 am

    Excellent article, though weakened by the rather exaggerated comment that Chechnya and Russia are now living in peace and prosperity.

    I would disagree that it’s the beginning of the end though. We won’t see that until we’re able to inflict large casualties on elite Tiger units like the Charles Anthony and Imran Paandiyan which haven’t yet been committed to battle. The constant slow attrition is all well and good, but the Tiger defences won’t crumble until entire units are destroyed.

  • 26. Murugan  |  February 1st, 2008 at 12:51 am

    Mr. Jayatilleka,
    This article indicates that you want to
    1. Unleash the full military capabilities of the SLA against the LTTE in the retaking of the Vanni and Mullativu.
    2. Then instead of occupying the entire Northeast, you want to further empower Pillaiyan in the East and the EPDP in the North.
    a. These paramilitaries will rule the people by terror and will eventually defeat the LTTE.
    3. Then through divide and conquer you would have defeated the LTTE.

    Your game plan makes sense based on your ideology.
    You ideology is that the LTTE is the ultimate enemy.

    Unfortunately your ideology is wrong.

    The LTTE’s ‘Eelam or bust’ attitude is an obstacle towards finding a political solution, but the LTTE itself is not the absolute enemy. There are many obstacles towards peace in Sri Lanka, and the LTTE is just one of them. In your article you mention the problem with reducing complex concepts into simple concepts.

    You have done the ultimate reduction of a complex issue into a single issue. The Sri Lankan issue is so complex. There are so many obstacles to peace. To reduce the Sri Lankan conflict to LTTE terrorism, is disingenuous.

    If you defeat the LTTE by backing Tamil paramilitaries and unleashing the full force of the military, you would have only deepened the wounds of 25 years of war.

    The LTTE is not the cause of problems in Sri Lanka.
    The LTTE is the reaction to the 1956 Sinhala mindset.
    You need to cure the roots of the issue, instead off fighting the symptoms.

  • 27. Anthony  |  February 1st, 2008 at 3:04 am

    LTTE is the only and the correct answer to the SLG. Sinhalease know only one language, that is violence against Tamils. LTTE is the only , the leadr Prapagaran, can teach them the lesson they knew.

    Dayan believes that the others are fools. He made himself as fool, pretending a statesman.

    Thanks.

  • 28. R.Goonetilake  |  February 1st, 2008 at 3:24 am

    Hosannah and Amen to Mahinda Rajapakshe!

    This is all dayan had to say in this article. Everything else is crap.

    Dayan writes about history of Stalin, chinese revolution etc, etc and arrogantly avoids the history of tamil arm struggle and non violent struggle to get equality and self determination to their own natural habitats ie N-E.

    Dayan would be a balanced writer, if he includes why Tamils who normally are passive and placid took to arms to fight the Sinhalese.

    The same old SWRD slogan of sinhala & buddhism as the prime language and religion, Sinhala the only state language, all state institutions are operated in Sinhala and 90% of employees are sinhalese.

    Dayan would also be wise to write about why SLRC staff are targetted and forced to resign due to ministerial thugs (and m.rajapakshe big thug himself ) scaremongering..??
    Why JVP is against anything that APRC puts out as solution and when JVP is going to run into the jungle one more time?

    Peace Loving People of SL and sidelined and hawks like Dayan & Rajiva are to the fore and have availed themselves to be the mouthpieces of Rajapakshe in the west.

  • 29. Athos  |  February 1st, 2008 at 5:01 am

    LTTE are Tamil Fascists - no doubt.

    How and why LTTE was born had nothing to do with the majority. Sure Tamil politicians got beaten up once in a while. American civil rights movement Negro’s got beaten up so did Indians. But they produced Ghandis and Martin Luther Kings. Emancipation through non-violence by the clever and educated. Ceylon Tamil tried very hard and gave birth to fat Pirbha. The contrast between outcomes of the wise and the savage are glaring.

  • 30. Subra S.Massey  |  February 1st, 2008 at 8:02 am

    Mr Dyan Jayatilake,

    Sir I want you to kindly respond to a concern of mine. What do you think of Tamils? What do you think of Tamils being part of Sri Lanka? Should the Tamil stay or should they go.
    If they should stay, then should they be equal to every other citizen of Sri Lanka or be just underdogs?
    I need you answer these questions and then me and you one to one basis discuss the rest of the issues.If you think we must go then we want to make arranagement for safe passage of Tamil out of Sri Lanka. We will negotiate with the rest of the world to accept us.

  • 31. Tamil Nationalism  |  February 1st, 2008 at 8:08 am

    LTTE ,Tamil People,Tamil nationalism are all the same.The GOSL has evolved itself to a position of no return.Sinhalese Fascism is the cause of all these problems in Sri-Lanka.When the so called educated people holding responsible position write like this what do you expect from the rest of the sinhalese leadership.
    It is this very behaviour of the Sinhalese leadership that will deliver a separate state for tamils .Thank you keep on writing .Advice the Leaders to keep on killing innocent Tamils.GOSL you have fallen into the political trap set by the LTTE.LTTE always had a better strategy than its critique.

  • 32. Sen  |  February 1st, 2008 at 8:35 am

    There is proverb in Tamil, which is translated as -a thief gets appointed as village chief to avoid crimes- When this happens, it is natural that the thief gets confused. Dayan is in similar boat after being appointed to UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. But he should be sacked for advocating the violation of the fundamental principles of human rights.

  • 33. Subra S.Massey  |  February 1st, 2008 at 8:47 am

    Dr.Dayan,
    This time I read your article. I have to use two dictioneries and still I could not find meaning to one word. Anyways can you please write in such a way so that ordinary person like me can read and digest.? I spent more time reading than digesting.
    LTTE is not your absolute enemy, the rising power of Tamil money is your enemy. The absolute enemy is the Singhalese psyche. They have to break out of their mindset to become economically self sufficient. With so many billions owning to foreign countries you cannot have concrete resolve. The resolve will get diluted unless Singhalese wants to live in isolation.
    Whether you defeat LTTE or not, you have to live with the Tamil money pouring into Sri Lanka creating again the same racial disharmony and violence.
    Back to 1956 in two years guaranteed. So Dr. Jayatilake go defeat your own enemy before you defeat LTTE.

  • 34. dayan jayatilleka  |  February 1st, 2008 at 1:33 pm

    dear Thiaga, Thiru etc ,

    let’s set the record straight. i am not a sinhala buddhist. i am a sinhala catholic of mixed religious parentage ( my father was born and bred a buddhist but was non-practicising and an agnostic). i studied at st joseph’s college colombo and aquinas university college, and was the first winner of the (all island) Pope Paul VIth Prize for open religious essay. i was the mentored by the onetime head of the jesuit order in sri lanka, an italian and a scholar. one of the reasons i take the line i do on the war is because i am thoroughly aquainted with catholic theology on just war.

    dear x man,

    a first class degree (the best in decades at peradeniya), a Fulbright scholarship, an Mphil, a Phd (on two competitive international scholarships), and a book highly praised by Western scholar specialising in the field, co-published by a recognised US university press and celebrated in the latin american press, is…a “little education” in comparison to what?

  • 35. dayan jayatilleka  |  February 1st, 2008 at 2:07 pm

    dear denis,

    one of those i want sri lanka to take a cue from is abraham lincoln, who handpicked and unleashed generals grant and sherman on the separatists. he was hardly a tyrant. then there’s general david petraeus of the United States, hardly a tyranny. poor mawalage got beaten up, but what happened to gopalaswamy mahendrarajah alias mahattaya? and didn’t anyone of those who write to this website, see ‘No More tears sister’, narrated by michael ondaatje?

    dear rk,

    prabha was in the building when july ‘83 took place. what has east timor got to do with anything’ it was portuguese colony, which was invaded and annexed in 1975 by the indonesian dictatorship of suharto.

    dear sri,

    its isn’t only me who calls prabhakaran fascist. if so, it would be irrelevant. the point is that renowned scholar on fascism, prof walter laqueur defines the LTTE fascist…!

    dear jack,

    anyone who knew mervyn knew that he was an “SWRD man”, who supported mrs bandaranaike and the SLFP, while maintaining his autonomy. he was also very sympathetic to mr premadasa. mervyn was close to geoge and lakshman rajapakse, and was for years on the palestine solidarity committee with (current president) mahinda rajapakse. whe mervyn died, of the great many articles written about him, only to were by politicians. one was mr ashraff of the SLMC, and the other was mr mahinda rajapkse, who reminisced about listening to mervyn and his uncles discuss politics when he was a youngster. mervyn, george and lakshman shared a common progressive view, especially on foreign policy and the USSR. when mahinda rajapakse took over as leader of the opposition i assured him of my support because my father would have wanted me to do so. because it was no by accident that i was invited to deliver the DA rajapakse commemoration lecture as far back as 2003. i derive my non-aligned third worldist stance of combatting western hegemony and inervention from my father, who incidentally , introduced me to the figures of stalin, fidel castro, mao and che guevara. mervy was no sinhala buddhist, and nor am i, but he was sri lankan modern statist-nationalist, and a third world internationalist, as i am.

  • 36. Thilee  |  February 1st, 2008 at 4:32 pm

    Dear shaan fernando,

    I just want to point out few points on your comment.
    1. ‘30 million USD’.

    if you want to think differently: take a country which have around 5000-10,000 armed forces and managing around 10,000 square killomiter and over a million people (with 25 years in war). The budget of that country would be more than USD 30m. So, we can conclude this as a smaller budget of LTTE.

    2. ..74% of Sinhalese would never agree to give 2/3 of the country and of the sea area to just 12%..

    Amount of the land/sea is the problem you think?

    When Pakistan separated from India:
    it took 1/3 of the land for less than 9% of the people.

    Montenegro separated from Serbia:
    15% of the land separated for 6.3% of the people.

    The % you have given is an absolute random one. It is not a calculated one.

    If Sri Lankan government allowed to separate tamils with atlest 20% of the land they would willing to take it. Will you agree then?

    3. ‘JVP upraise’
    You are correct there were no international sought by then. Same thing happened when people in Sri Lanka killed in 1956, 1958, 1977, 1983 (all tamils) etc.
    Same thing happened when people in east Pakistan (now Bangladesh) killed in thousands.

    It is because of the global rule by that time. India had a different and strong foreign policy and influenced few countries in South Asia.

    US and USSR was in cold war period. The world order was completely different. Sri Lankan government communicated only with India and India gave support (1971 openly). Sri Lankan government didn’t go for a foreign mediator like Norway in Tamil’s issue. IC will act only for their benefit depends on their policies. No country never ever think as ‘Tamils and Sinhalese are different’. Tamils around the world giving enough pressure to their leaders to have a say in this issue. So, as you like, we cannot escape from the issue simply. Specially, when the current MR government handling the diplomatic issues in undiplomatic way. World has changed so much over the years.

    On the other hand we can learn 2 things form JVP era;
    a. JVP was almost fully destroyed in 1971, with the cost of 70,000 innocent lives. No political alternatives proposed. Only military solution. JVP came up and 1987 we had the same thing again. i.e. military solution. May be we will face the same soon.
    b. Also it will be applicable for Tamils military issue too. JVP upraise killed more than 120,000 Sri Lankan Sinhalese. Now more than 70,000 died in this war (other than riots before 1983). Don’t you think the 60 years of Independent Sri Lanka just got something seriously wrong? If you don’t change the mentality don’t want to find the rood cause, we will have similar 60 years.

    4. Iraq War:

    This war is a sample of Bush administrations’ foreign policy. The world order changed after 9/11. This dirty war killed more the numbers you provided. US had enogh and enough ways to handle to Iraq without war. Bush aimed at Sadam personally (for his Father Bush’s wish) rather then any other issues.
    Now the next US president should widthrow the forces from Iraq (as per the election campaign currently in US). It was a great mistake US committed along with Vietnam etc.

    You can find similarities in SL like Iraq war.

    a. Government had enough and enough ways to solve the issues.

    You would definitely say that govt tried enough and LTTE denied. Even if you think that is true, govt had chances even before 1983 to solve the problem with moderated tamil leaders.
    Even now govt can put pressure using on LTTE without the war. If govt decide to stop the war they can demand the IC to bring ltte for a solution. It will have a huge pressure for ltte. And govt can ask all foreign governments to stop funding ltte then.

    b. So many innocent people being killed without a reason and by the name of ‘war on terror’

    c. Problem has been created by the parties who fight for ‘war on terror’
    - US supported Sadam in 1980’s and So many tamils killed before LTTE/VP born.

    d. Many people in SL things VP is the issue like Sadam in Iraq. But if you have the root cause alive any thing can happen (like JVP). May be verse than the current one.

  • 37. Amaran  |  February 1st, 2008 at 5:58 pm

    This “most dangerous extremist rebel group in the world”and the ABSOLUTE ENENMY ,identified by DJ,did not suddenly drop from the skies! Everyone in Sri Lanka knows that the Tamils of Sri Lanka were a peaceful, law abiding and hard working community. How could they produce such a monster as the LTTE ? There should be some basic causes and circumstances for its emergence.If so what are these andwho created these root causes? Certainly not the Tamils or their leaders. Identification of the root causes and taking remedial measures promptly are more important than identifying the absolute enemy. There is no doubt that LTTE has degenerated into a terrorist outfit and the aspirations of the Sri Lankan Tamils and those of the LTTE are not the same. Therefore while dealing with this terrorist group in a way any responsible government should deal with, it is imperative that the Sri Lankan government should givepriority to address the core issues without wasting any time.Whatever solutions arrived at should be credible,acceptable and speedily implementable.One can identify and even eliminate this absolute enemy. But if the root causes are left withiout any genuine remedial measures, the history will repeat itself!

  • 38. Naga UK  |  February 2nd, 2008 at 10:47 am

    Dear Amaran
    You make the fundamental mistake of accusing of all Sinhalese people. That’s far from reality. The common Sinhalese and Tamils are living in perfect harmony. It is the misleaders from both communities lead them by their noses. Just imagine where would the Sinhalese (Budhists) be without leaders like Dr. Mevyn Silva and Dr.DJ? Couple of drop of poison in the pot of milk? I have some reservations for Dr.DJ as comapred to Dr.MS. the former has some fancy qualificartions and track record. I cannot bring myself to believe that he could quote from history out of context.

  • 39. Subra S.Massey  |  February 2nd, 2008 at 11:35 am

    Dr.Dayan Jayalilake and others,

    You guys are arguing over conflicts, statistics and history. But have any one of you spoke to the poor Sri Lankans cought inbetween the two warring groups. I think you guys are fueling the fire or fanning the flame of hatred. But you doctor with your education must talk in term of peace and prosperity. Can I ask you all one questions? Do you people come from dysfunctional families or broken families? People from loving and caring families do not bahave like you guys. Have you noticed the absence of women in this discussion? Because women don’t like to fight, they like to manage. Manage is to maintain peace!.

  • 40. Argonot  |  February 2nd, 2008 at 3:59 pm

    I do not know what the fuss is all about. Within the next 25 years Sri Lanka will become an Islamic Republic. All you have to do is to look at the birth rate and and the number of new mosques that has sprung up in the last 10 to 15 years.In addition whilst we keep arguing about LTTE overseas funding no body cares about foreign funding and its source to various Islamic organisations including the political parties!!

    Dayan, you had better learn to pray five times a day

  • 41. Expatriate  |  February 2nd, 2008 at 11:07 pm

    Faced with the fact that a large percentage of the Sinhalese population thinks nothing of calling for a continuation of sinister state terrorism and alliance of southern terrorists, as evidenced by the call by Mr. Jayatilleka here, a terrorist himself, if Tamil people say that despite the LTTE’s totalitarian nature, the focus of Tamil people’s outrage at this juncture should be on the absolute terror unleashed by the State and allied terrorists, they are justified.

    As far as the Tamil people are concerned, the GoSL and all those who support its murderous ways—the Rajapaksas at the top supported by their minions and sycophants, including the likes of Mr. Dayan Jayatilleka and Mr. Rajiva Wijesinha and Tamil stooges– are their absolute enemies. The problem of LTTE’s totalitarian nature can be handled by Tamils themselves. The destruction of the state’s capacity to commit murders and rapes in the Tamil homeland is our topmost priority, followed by the transformation of the LTTE into some other force under civilian control (without its current leadership).

    It is one thing to say that the LTTE has indulged in the kind of violence that can be considered fascistic in nature–just as the GoSL and its minions have committed fascist crimes since 1948– and quite entirely another thing to say the Tamil people’s quest for statehood is illegitimate.

    The Tamil call for statehood is entirely justified given the implacable nature of Sri Lanka’s State terrorists, and it is for the Tamil people themselves to decide what to do about the land of their ancestors.

    The criminals who govern Sri Lanka and unleash their security forces–armed thugs who disembowel and rape innocent Tamil women and children and murder Tamils indiscriminately— on innocent Tamil citizens, have no right to tell the Tamil people what they should do.

    Mad leftist terrorists like Jayatilleka who admire Stalin and think nothing of mass murders of thousands, and who have absolutely no conception of individual rights, need to be dismissed with all the contempt one can muster. The SL state as it is constituted today is illegitimate and its representatives who are sent abroad to lie about their country are also illegitimate. Indeed, Tamil people may have no choice but to show their fists and their guns to save themselves from the Southern terrorist alliance of which the terrorist author of this article speaks.

  • 42. Brian Senewiratne  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 9:14 am

    I met this guy, the unworthy son of a worthy father, when I was attending the UN Human Rights Council meetings in June last year.
    He is smooth and talks all sorts of crap with convincing smoothness.

    I knwo this guy’s background. It will do the readers of this crap to find out. Then they will not get worked up about what he writes.
    Frankly, I have better things to do than deal with this crap. All I can say is that it is tha=e likes of Dayan Jayatillike who make it mandatory that a State of Tamil Eelam be established.

    The Tamils (or some Tamils) and the international communty, want negotiatios to restart. Negotiate with whom? Negotiate for what? In fact, I asked these very same questions before the last so-called ‘peace talks’. Talk about what? Talk to whom? Talk for what purpose?
    Talk to people like DJ?

    What we need is to lobby the international community to the absolute need for a separate Tamil State (and a separate Sinhala State) so that both States can develop. Once they are, perhaps in 50 years time, we can consider a Confederation.

    DJ, like all blind Sinhalese (of whim he is one of the best examples), thinks that the problem will be crushed if the LTTE are crushed. Prabhakaran and the LTTE are not the problem, but the result of the problem. The problem is the concept that multietnic, multireligious, multilingual, multicultural Sri Lanka will be a Sinhala-Buddhist nation. THAT is the problem that has to be crushed, and it will be.

    It is not the LTTE who wanted a Separate State, it was the Tamil civtilian population in the N&E who, in the 1977 general Election (the last time they were able to vote), voted overwhelmingly for the establishment of a Separate Stata Eelam.

    So, Mr Ambassador, you and your buddies in Colombo will have to crush all the Tamil people. That in my book is called Genocide. Would you like to have a copy of the 5 dvds I have recently released to show the world what your maniac President is doing to his ciizens, and may I remind you, that the Tamils are citizens of the Democratic Socialist Republic.
    Lord Reith said “There are some whom it is our duty to offend”. I think he was referring to the likes of DJ

    I met you once in Geneva. Why I shook your hand I would not know. It wont happen again, I assure you. I will bring a pair of glove next time.
    Incidntally, DJ was also appointed as the Ambassador to the Vatican. The Vatican showed him the door. Good on you Cardinals. You are better that the head of my church, the disgraceful Archbisop of Canterbury. It is one reason why I do not go to Chuch anymore.

    yours sincerely
    Brian Senewiratne
    Australia
    (who apologises on behalf of the SANER Sinhalese for the crap written in that article which I was hoping that people would ignore).

  • 43. Ratnam Ganesh  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 10:47 am

    Mr.Dayan. Jayatilleka
    It will never be the beginning of the end or the end of the end without a lasting political solution. Your ridiculous analogy of quoting Winston Churchill does not hold water here. It is different as cheese is to guns. This is a civil war and not a world war and further Churchill who at the outset supported fascist Hitler as a bulwark against communism may be to you a prophet for all times. Tamils have to live as citizens with all the rights as their Sinhala counterparts. Even if their struggle is suppressed for the present it will crop up again and again as in Algeria and or in Venezuela until they achieve self-determination. Suppression will mean that the problem like a cancer will come back to haunt you over and over again.

    The true left has never confused the terms nationalism, even chauvinism, to fight fascism etc… Left is well aware of the purport of those terms and has defined them although is they at times changed their strategies to suit situations. That is why Marxism is still a live force even today. Fascism in your terms is applicable is to the present Sri Lankan Government to-day. You have only to look at various UN and HRW reports on human rights violations, Children used in battles etc. It is fascist sate of Sri Lanka that created the LTTE. I will say no more.
    Re.your statement on the lessons of history……..”Incarnated in the LTTE and led by Prabaharan…. “ In this context you are trying to drive a wedge between the LTTE and the Tamils. I am not LTTE but I hope a solution that could be found to all minority communities (in that I mean Tamils of North East, Muslims, up country Tamils and other minority communities) and live together as Sri Lankans.
    Pirapaharan just like many other kids was from a good family. But it is the racist violence against the Tamil people sponsored by the successive governments since D.S time that turned him to find a solution to the Tamil question. Not even the FP tried this. Therefore it is for the state to change this perception try as they may. Let me assure you that this could never happen as it depends on chauvinists like the JVP and JHU for their own survival. Rajapakse brothers have to survive lest they be spat at.

    I am in agreement with you about Colvin’s opinion. As a Trotskyite he believed that only a working class (as in Russia) can lead a revolution. Have you forgotten that the LSSP got splintered and dismembered mainly due to their capitulation to the bourgeoisie /petite bourgeoisie namely the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) in 1964 and then in 1970 influenced by the revisionism of Pablo who was secretary to the Fourth International in 1951 and his associate Ernest Mandel. Both Pablo and Mandel advocated the political subordination of the Fourth International to any political force that dominated the labour movement in any given country. That is a position something that Trotskysts themselves should review. The examples are India against the colonial rule was by bourgeois and bourgeois groups .China by peasants and the present South American countries adopt various methods and differ from each other in their strategies in their respective countries.
    There are are many countries plagued by ethno national conflicts as you mentioned. All these are created by their governments and not by the people. We can see Sri Lanka as an example. In Sri Lanka the average Sinhalese does not not hate the tamils and vice versa .I worked in Colombo for many years and managed workers who were 95% Sinhalese. We still move as friends and it is the Sinhalese who provided safety to me and my family during the pogrom initiated by J.R.
    Federalism is not an idea that emerged from the Tamils. It was initially from the Kandyan Sinhalese and later from Bandaranaike. Sinhalese did not reject this idea. This is something that you as an individual and other parties like the JVP who call themselves Marxists for their own survival trying to create and project that federalism as something detrimental to the Sinhalese.

  • 44. miller  |  February 3rd, 2008 at 7:31 pm

    My dear Tamil, Singhalese, a and Muslim people all living SL they have all rights. But SL government provide to whom live there. You guys think 3 degrades of war will be continue? Because nobody want to solve these problem. They still in small circle they didn’t think for wide range of solution for the rights like, Canada, USA, and Europe. LTTE they didn’t come from the sky they come from the people. If you guys think they force to joint the LTTE for people. If they joint after they have weapon they can turn against to them, why didn’t happen? Air strike, mbl, shelling, gunfire’s, and claymore attacks these attacks do from the SL that thing find LTTE only? They are killing so many civilians also. If 1 or 2 family members like father or mother or siblings will die these attacks other family member will join LTTE. If will be continue like these attacks military solution will never happen peace. So every Singhalese people think about they have to give to rights Tamils and Muslims live in SL. So people have to push Singhalese leaders. Find the good solution and peace. Otherwise can’t stop both side civilians die. Think all kind of people.

  • 45. Suresh M  |  February 4th, 2008 at 2:41 pm

    Dayan Jayatilleka! I can’t believe you head a mission that promotes Human Rights.

    God saves HR mission in Geneva.

  • 46. Thiru. S  |  February 4th, 2008 at 5:05 pm

    Hi Dayan J:
    You are hiding behind religion, by saying that you are NOT a Buddhist, but a good Catholic, and connections with Vatican. How do you justify, as a Josephian, when, if you recall, at the round-about on McCallum/Darley Road, our Rector was to install a statue honouring one of the founders of St.Joseph’s College, Colombo, when overnight, a small Buddha statue was installed and there was pandemonium the next day, when the general public saw this, but the Rector at that time, acted wisely and there was no blood-shed, but YOU a shameful so called Catholic, is now sucking-up to this brutal, racist, regime. May you be born a Tamil in your next life in the bombed-out any part of the North or East, and so be it with all the Sinhalese who want innocent Tamils killed, raped, tortured, robbed, locked-up, deprived of jobs, education, free movement, food embargo, etc. etc. So, now you guys know how terrorists are growing in numbers. Wait till the average Sinhalese open their eyes to the devastating economic situation!!!!!

  • 47. Ganga.S  |  February 5th, 2008 at 1:22 am

    I agree with Mr.Suresh (#43) above, DJ supports the cruel war machine. The war is bringing death and destructions on a daily basis to Sri Lankans living in North, South, East, West and Central regions on a daily basis. How come this man perform not only as as a representative (sick) at HR council but also a Vice President? It is a disgrace and shame on the whole UN system. But when you look at this man’s history you will not be surpirsed. He always through out the history stood with killers and murderers in Sri Lanka. Once with Varada Rajaperumal, next with Ranasinghe Premadasa, now with Mahinda Rajapakse. My humble request to him, atleast be honest to what you propose and preach, Mr.DJ, Get out of UN Human Rights Council and go join the SL state terrorist War Council with those Rajapakse killers, Mahinda, Gota, Basil and Sarath Fonseka. End up at some FDL.!

  • 48. Nalan, Trincomalee  |  February 5th, 2008 at 2:32 am

    We tamils, continue to identify people like you, as our absolute enemy.

    You are nothing but “HMV”, echoeing His Master’s (MR) Voice!

    What is this Lenin/Marx garbage. Are you try to equate their beliefs to our pathetic-GOSL, please give me a break.

    The UN, recently made you head of their Anti-racism panel. Isn’t it similar to appointing a ‘KKK; member to safeguard the minority rights in the USA.

    The only difference, I find between you and Udaya Nanayakara is, that he is falsifying information locally and you are doing it globally.

    I thought people educated in mixed ethnic schools fare better, unfortunately you had proved it to me, that my thinking was dead wrong!

  • 49. pooranasanthiran  |  February 5th, 2008 at 11:30 am

    Dear Mr Jayatilleke,
    You appear to be ignorant of the genesis of the problems of theTamils. If you care to read history of the Tamil problem as given by DBS Jeyaraj this week and next week in this website I am sure you would appreciate how tamils have been deceived by the sinhala leadership before and after independence.The terrorrism you speak of is only a by-product of the insincerity of the sinhala leadership

  • 50. nandasena  |  February 5th, 2008 at 1:05 pm

    Dayan,

    You may have impressive degrees. But you are selling your soul for the money and power. You are singing for your supper!

  • 51. Villa Anand  |  February 5th, 2008 at 4:32 pm

    Can D.J explain why the Jaffna library was burned under the supervision of then Minister Gamini Dissanayake? Was it to teach Praba and LTTE a lesson?

  • 52. dayan jayatilleka  |  February 6th, 2008 at 7:50 am

    dear mr villa anand, and friends,

    its is precisely because of the burning the jaffna library , july 83 that i took up the path of political militancy and was inicted together with the EPRLF’s pathmanabha, dayapala tiranagama et al, on 14 counts under the PTA and emergency. however, the sruggle bore fruit with the indo-lanka accord and specialy its preamble which defined sri lanka a multiethnic, multi lingual etc. it is prabhakaran who waged war against that accord and murdered rajiv gandhi to boot! many of us, tamil and sinhala, wound up allying with the state - Indian and lankan - because of the the fascist character of the LTTE .

    Friends, just for the information of the ill informed, Prof rajiva wijesinghe is no sinhala buddhist hawk. he is the oxford educated (a batchmate of benazir bhutto) nephew of bishop lakshman wickremesinghe, and is currently a vice president of the Liberal International.

    speaking of sinhala buddhist hawks, you should all know that the man who liberated jaffna in operation riviresa, army chief gen gerry de silva, was a catholic, a josephian and was married to a tamil! army chief sirilal weerasooriya is also christian. general janaka perera was a josephian. HL de Silva PC, is the president of the Ceylon Bible Society. SL gunasekara is a Christian recently turned agnostic.

  • 53. Subra S.Massey  |  February 6th, 2008 at 8:35 am

    Dr. Dayan Jayalilake,
    Can you please email me a copy of your Ph.D thesis.
    I want see your work and want see if it has any parallel to Mein Kemph by Hitler. Or tell me where you got your Doctorate and we will get it.
    I want to see if there is any evidence to take appropriate actions.

  • 54. Subra S.Massey  |  February 6th, 2008 at 8:35 am

    Dr. Dayan,
    my email is tidol@pathcom.com

  • 55. Suresh M  |  February 6th, 2008 at 2:27 pm

    # 52, Dayan Jayatilleka

    Sinhala-Buddhist is a policy of Sinhala supremacy over other ethnics. Unbelievable that you have listed of persons that are non Buddhist to support your argument. Yes, SWRD, JR all were Christians too to begin with.

    You’re well fit to represent Rajapakse bothers, good choice.

  • 56. N  |  February 6th, 2008 at 11:12 pm

    If Sri Lanka is truly democratic then why not let the people of the NE decide their fate? Why not let a UN Security Council initiated and monitored referendum on the status of the NE take place. If as the government claims the LTTE is the root of the problem let the tamils and others peoples of the NE vote and decide what they want; seperation, federation, or unitary?

  • 57. Sri  |  February 7th, 2008 at 12:10 am

    Dayan,
    You are talking about Marx,Lenin,Castro,Ho-Chi-Minh and others to justify your theory of absolute enemy forgetting or misrepresenting what these great teachers actually taught.
    Shall we got to the basics?Two types of contradictions antagonistic and non antagonisti?.A revolution deals with only antagonistic contradiction.what are they?The answer given by the great teahers are Capitalism,imperialism,neo colonialism ….and so on.Globalisation also should be somewhere there.it was Lenin who said imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism.I will call globalization is the highest stage of capitalism.
    But we have Russia, china,Vietnam and other model not in the way the leaders like Marx, Lenin,Mao and ho chi Minh faught but as a mirror image of the enemy against whom these leaders faught.Look at modern China Russia,Vietnam and other countries.So who is your absolute enemy.?
    To my simple mind,violaters of human rights are the absolute enemies.the right to life,free from torture,non discrimination,equity and equality.quality of Life.What is your stand Dr Dayan? Donot continue to drop names and quote out of context,others are also could doit,be human first all others will follow, thanks.

  • 58. krish  |  February 7th, 2008 at 12:25 am

    Tamils do not need to despair.

    Hitlers like Rajapakses come and go. Hitler believed in the supremacy of the Aryan race as Rajapakse does now. Time will tell how history will record the Mahinda era.

    Untill then DJs can spin any record they like.

  • 59. Sri  |  February 7th, 2008 at 1:41 am

    Dayan,

    So you have identified the absolute enemy in Sri LankaThe problem is identified.
    Now the solution is simple.

    You have to eliminate only the absolute enemy. You seems to have a very good rapport with present leaders of Sri Lanka

    .In fact as you told us earlier it was your advice to implement only 13th Amendment minus.

    Now advice the leaders how to fight only with the absolute enemy-To reopen A9 highway.-No aerial bombing of civilians No artillery, No killing No abductions No ransomsNo ,,torture.because they are not your absolute enemy.
    Great!
    Don’t come out with an argument that you are unable to differentiate between your absolute enemy and the so called not so absolute enemies and that is why innocent civilians are killed.

    Why are you so scared about the presence of Human Rights monitors? Being in the UN you must encourage transparency, rule of law ,human rights.

    One of your’s and your colleague’s arguments is that you must take action first against the greatest violators like USA,UK ……..Your violation is very much less than theirs .Therefore as long as you are not exceeding the violations of the so called international community,noone should speak about our violations and we are safe. not to worry about UN?
    Strange logic indeed!

    This is the logic of Jathiga chinthanaya?
    Dayan if you want to respond to me only to respond to what I say and not to what I did not say. as you did earlier..Again thank you

  • 60. villa anand  |  February 8th, 2008 at 9:11 am

    Dear DJ - Comment 52

    I am surprised how you an academic is replying to a Question on Jaffana library burning by referring to your personal and other’s personal life. It is immaterial weather a person is a Sinhala Buddhist, catholic, Hindu, married to a Tamil or agnostic.

    The reason I pointed out that incident was to show that LTTE is not the cause for the current situation. Suppressing the minorities politically, depriving them in education and employment, economic starvation and not hesitating to resort to violence either directly or indirectly was the policy of Sri Lankan governments since independence.
    When I say government it is not to do away with the responsibility of the people. Governments represent the people either democratic or not. In Sri Lanka they represented the interest of the petty bourgeois that are benefited by racial, religious, cast and gender divisions. Ordinary people even though they do not belong to this class, are influenced by this bourgeois by using false interpretation of the history, heritage and fear. In Sri Lanka the average Sinhalese does not hate the Tamils and vice versa. But it is not hatred, lack of progressive thinking, as a person’s position is determined by birth, gender, race, status, cast etc and using such difference to gain over the other. Question is, will they give up their advantage of being a majority, cast, family status, gender superiority and try to be equal with every one to be judged and rewarded only by their own merit. There is no conducive evidence for that in Sri Lanka.

  • 61. Dharma  |  February 8th, 2008 at 1:45 pm

    The logic of your article. as far as I understood is, that LTTE is the absolute & only enemy and has to be defeated. Well whose enemy is it? Enemy of Tamil people?, the Sinhala people., or the Srilankan state that dance to the agenda of Sinhala national socialists like JVP and Sinhala Bhudist hegemonists like JHU? Of course LTTE is undemocratic, militaristic and if you like, fascistic in nature and ideology. But that does not mean the Srilankan state is humane & democratic. The Srilankan State is equally fascistic if not more than the LTTE. As far as the Tamil people are concerned the Srilankan state’s genocidal fascism which is pursuing the “Endlosung” (Final solution a la Nazis) for the Tamil question, is a greater evil than .LTTE’s fascism. Tamil people have never elected the LTTE as their representative, but all the governments that have waged war against Tamil people were elected and sometime overwhelmingly by Sinhalese. LTTE’s fascism is an imposed one never endorsed in a free election. while Srilankan state fascism is elected and endorsed by the majority of Sinhalese. May be the defeat & elimination of Pirabaharan’s leadership is a blessing in disguise for the Tamil people that will remove the biggest obstacle in their legitimate struggle for emancipation and will provide the Tamil people an opportunity to wage a genuine struggle for self determination and independence. Also removal of Pirabakaran from the scene will create a more conducive environment for India to play a more active and aggressive roll in enforcing a quasi federal solution that will pacify its southern state. It is Pirabaharans leadership that is preventing the international community from expressing its concern to the suffering of the Tamils and considering a solution similar to one imposed by them in East Timor. You who was at one time very close Premadasa must be aware of his thinking that it is not Pirabaharan but Varadaraja Perumal who was the biggest threat to the unity of Srilanka. That is why he bailed out Pirabaharan when he was cornered by the Indians.
    Given the above I do not think the Rajapakse regime even it has the military power to defeat and eliminate Pirabaharan will do so. Elimination of Pirabaharan will pave the way for the option of partition as a rational solution to the conflict to be pushed up for consideration by the International community

  • 62. Naga UK  |  February 10th, 2008 at 7:49 pm

    #40
    Well summarised!!

  • 63. Raj  |  February 11th, 2008 at 12:55 am

    Prabha like Hitler and other unspekable evil will pass, we must dismantle him and his machine piece by piece.

  • 64. Gamini  |  February 11th, 2008 at 1:06 am

    Comment 42:
    Same all crap everyone else is too blame except the terrorist who are blowing up the inncoent, you are nothing but petty apologist for terror.

    You have nothing decent to add to the debate but waste your time on a personal attacks and incoherent diatribe the same BS you spew on the terror websites.

  • 65. Vije  |  February 11th, 2008 at 11:26 am

    Comment 40 and 62
    Don not forget. They also dominate in several economic areas.
    The gem business, agriculture in the eastern province, advantage over others in finding jobs in middle east, transport business etc. Any one traveling in Colombo and Kandy can see how much properties have changed hands from Tamils and Singhalese to Muslims.
    But this not to criticize them. It is free for all and they are making use of the opportunity.

  • 66. nandasena  |  February 12th, 2008 at 11:41 pm

    Comment #64,

    “Same all crap everyone else is too blame except the terrorist who are blowing up the inncoent, you are nothing but petty apologist for terror”

    Gamini is accepting that both LTTE and the Sri Lankan Governments are Terrorists!! Only difference is that the Government has the money and the means to use MIG to blow up innocent lives in large numbers and the Colombo papers do not publish the damage inflicted by the government with pictures!!

    People in the South conveniently deny STATE TERRORISM !!

  • 67. Devinda Fernando  |  February 13th, 2008 at 3:54 pm

    *** People in the South conveniently deny STATE TERRORISM !! ***

    What State Terrorism? - just because you shout it does not make it true…

  • 68. Subra S.Massey  |  February 13th, 2008 at 6:08 pm

    Dr.Jayatilake,

    I hope you know about the Nuremberg war crime trials.
    You and your government may win the war but ultimately we will get you . There is no escape from retribution. Mrs. Indira Ghandi invaded the golden temple and the she later was killed by her own body guard. Doctor when you knowingly commit attrocites you yourself will retribute on yourself. Your mind will go through soul searching and you will go and sacrifice yourself to punish yourself. Eg Suicide. If you escape it then you know how the Isrealis went to South America and brought a war criminal to Isreal.
    So doctor as a father and grand father I humbly ask you to use your education for good purpose. Think of your life after you commit a crime. Crime against humanity.
    Pick up the phone today called Rajapaksa and tell him to stop the war and return to the table.
    Doctor if your mother, wife , sister or daughter is raped in your presence at gun point what will you do, what can you do and how will you feel after?
    Think about it. I think you need a massive dose of medicine to cure your insanity.

  • 69. Gamini  |  February 13th, 2008 at 9:17 pm

    #66.
    Ah yes the now famous Hezbollah defense, crying out ’state terror’ when the democratically elected governments such as Sri Lanka seek to end the free run of terrorists. It is is every terrorists favorite get out of jail card when cornered.

    Other examples where cornered terrorist cry out State terror
    India Kasmere,
    Israel in West Bank ,
    Pakistan in Afghan border,
    Russia in Chechyna,
    Turkey in Iraq border
    etc etc

  • 70. Subra S.Massey  |  February 16th, 2008 at 9:38 am

    Dr.Jayatilake,

    The absolute enemy was your own mindset.
    I hear you are getting fired!
    See as an educated man you should be careful.
    I may get away but no you. I am an ordinary person with no clout, but you at the mantle of morality.

  • 71. chandra weerasinghe  |  February 22nd, 2008 at 3:14 pm

    I see pundit Dayan Jayatilleke misquoting Churchil whose words were ” end of the beginning and begenning of the end. what is this end of the end?

  • 72. Lala  |  March 17th, 2008 at 5:34 am

    Dear writer
    your writing is not a fullfill. do you chage your minestup pleas

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