Desecration of Tiger war memorials deserve condemnation
Symbolic postscript: A terrible violence
By Prof. Michael Roberts
The photographic images that have been deployed on web in my essay on “The Tamil Tigers and Their Practices of Homage” (http://thuppahi.wordpress.com) as well as a host of less accessible academic articles convey the importance placed on the commemoration of the fallen by Pirapāharan and the Tiger leadership. The institutionalisation of mortuary rites of burial for their fallen from circa 1989 – in a radical move away from the cremation for those of Saivite faith[i] – was a way of sustaining meaningful bonding between Tiger personnel and those who had sacrificed their lives for the cause of Eelam.[ii]
There were, of course, other facets to this vast investment in rites of commemoration: Māvīrar Nal on 27 November every year served as a means of legitimizing the Eelam project and the de facto LTTE state, while also inspiring the Tamil people in ways that encouraged mobilisation. It implanted firm bonds between Tigers, the Eelam cause and people. By 2001 there were 21 immaculately maintained tuyilam illam, or “resting places” for the Tiger fallen.[iii] They were widely regarded as “holy places” and “temples.”[iv] My photographs of the preparations for Māvīrar Nal at tuyilam illam at Kopay and Vadamarachy, as well as indelible memories of the vast concourse of perhaps 60,000 people at the tuyilam illam at Murrippu south of Kilinochchi in late November 2004, highlight the degree to which the sites were profound symbols for the Sri Lankan Tamils associated with the LTTE’s Eelam project.
That was then in 2004. Now, in mid-late 2009, after the LTTE was vanquished, these tuyilam illam are no more. My information from journalists and Tamil people[v] is that they have been bulldozed and obliterated by the army as the enforcing arm of a Sinhala dominated government. This can be deemed an act of desecration. It calls for condemnation. This essay is an indictment of this act, a protest that flows logically from the essay on “The Tamil Tigers and Their Practices of Homage.”
This was not the first occasion for such practices of obliteration. After the Army swept out of their beachhead around Palaly in late 1995 and reconquered the western two-thirds of the Jaffna Peninsula, they bulldozed the existing tuyilam illam at Kopay and Vadamarachy. When the ceasefire period from late 2001 enabled the LTTE to restore these holy sites, they took care to build a little memento of smashed-up epitaphs in glass cases with plaques delineating this act of desecration (see Figures 3 and 3).[vi]
When I mentioned the bulldozing demolition of the mid-1990s to Nanda Godage[vii] a few months after I had visited Kopay, he said that he had been appalled by this series of events and had expressed his displeasure within high quarters.
His reaction, as well as mine, bespeaks norms that are rooted in liberal humanism and in the principles reigning in the Western world in modern times. These norms have spread across the universe after the triumph and spread of Western imperialism in the 18th-to-20th centuries.
When leading Western countries inflicted two horrendous world wars upon themselves and on the rest of the world (with some aid from Japan in the second instance), many peoples had to deal with mountains of dead. It is through such experiences that those of us in the colonies learnt that these Western nations did not generally disturb the cemeteries of their enemies. The dead could usually rest in peace within their graves.
Such a code may not have been a universal phenomenon among the peoples of the world in pre-modern and early modern times. I do not know enough about this issue to make a pronouncement either way. But my disciplinary background inclines me to be sceptical about any universality in this field of human practice.
As it is, cremation was the most widespread mortuary practice in the lands of the Indian sub-continent so that burial sites did not exist to honour or dishonour the dead (the memorial stones for special forms of sacrificial death known as nadukal in parts of India being exceptions).
Paradoxically, Sri Lanka provides an outstanding counter-example to this suggestion. It is widely believed that when the Sinhala hero-king Dutugämunu “slew his Tamil rival, Elara” in the second century BCE, he “paid him in death all the honours due to a soldier and a king.” So, “the spot on which the Tamil king was cremated was to be venerated for all time: no music was to be played there and all persons, even kings had to pass by on foot.”[viii]
We are indebted to the Mahāvamsa of the sixth century CE for this tale. This particular detail is all the more remarkable because Dutugämunu is presented therein as a Sinhala Buddhist saviour who had rescued the island from foreign Tamil rule and unified it under one parasol for the benefit of the Buddhist dispensation.[ix]
Even though the veneration of Elāra’s shrine is said to have prevailed for many a century, I question any effort to take the moral import of this tale as a reference to standardized practices towards the enemy dead in the history of warfare in ancient, medieval and early modern Sri Lanka. For that matter, I doubt if such a principle held true within India in general over the two millennium CE: if anything, fragmentary data points in the other direction.
In the Tamil world of southern India in ancient times one has the mythological image of the kalavelvi, where the pey, or evil spirits, dance on the battleground and make ponkal (gruel) from the gore of the fallen.[x] Ponkal, significantly, is central to most Hindu festivals in the south and denotes regeneration, renewal and creativity.[xi]
Note, too, several contemporary instances of mutilating capital punishment from Sri Lanka’s ‘rich’ history of modern atrocity. When the Janatā Vimukti Peramuna (JVP) held sway as a subterranean government in the south-western parts of Sri Lanka in 1987-89, in “one confirmed instance,” they killed “a notorious seducer of village girls [by cutting him] ten times with a sword [and slicing] his genitals, supposedly the traditional punishment of the King’s justice for such crimes.”[xii]
The state’s death squads were no less beastly in their killings of suspected JVP personnel; and some of their counter-graffiti referred to impaling through the anus in the manner favoured by Sinhala kings in the past as a suitable method of execution befitting JVP persons.[xiii]
Indeed, evidence from such sources as Baldeaus and Knox as well as indigenous records indicate that both impaling (ulatiyennava) and the tearing apart of murderers, heinous criminals and rebels by elephants were common forms of punishment in the 16th to 19th centuries.[xiv] Here, of course, Sinhala practices were not all that different in broad ‘principle’ from those deployed in medieval Europe.
Nevertheless, there was (and is) a specific cultural logic at play in the practices favoured by the Sinhala stats and its peoples. We are indebted to Bruce Kapferer for developing the reasoning behind such processes and revealing how understandings of personhood bear on the passions of just retribution. By fragmenting the body of a victim, agents of vengeance ensure that s/he is cast adrift in the world of perētayō (ancestor spirits) in future lives.[xv] In effect, this form of death ramifies in both this world and the next by bedevilling the mutilated victim’s circle of kinfolk. In this manner the method of punishment is a way of maximising the outcome over time along extended networks of kin.
This is a complex issue of course. My brief summary and the instances from Tamil, Indian and Sinhala pasts as well as more recent examples from Lanka do not add up to a conclusive case. But they do suggest the probability that respect for the enemy dead was not standard practice when the Colas, Pandyans and Pallavas fought each other or when the Sītāvaka and Kandyan dynasties resisted the Portuguese and other imperial forces.
The war poems of the Sinhalese -- dating from the 1580s to the early nineteenth century -- are quite fierce in the denigration of their enemies.[xvi] The inference that one can extract from these hatan kavi is that the Sinhala militia may have cut up those enemy dead who were not already cut up.
Concluding Remarks
Such cultural groundings notwithstanding, the actions of the Sri Lankan military agencies in both 1995 and 2009 call for severe condemnation. We exist today in a context of modernity threaded by humanism and look to a future that cannot be moulded by indigenous practices that are indefensible and do not abide by the Asian value on compassion.
I will let others better placed than I am expand on the moral outrage that can be extended to this set of events. Let me, rather, conclude by arguing that the bulldozing of the tuyilam illam is also an instance of bad politics. That is, it contradicts the kind of “pragmatic politics” that Dayan Jayatilleka has enjoined on the regime he has so been so closely associated with.[xvii]
It is reasonable to surmise that the military chiefs who decided to demolish the tuyilam illam were motivated less by the type of cultural logic that I have brought to the fore than the instrumental reasoning that is so pervasive in the modern era: namely, they did not wish the defeated LTTE to have any focal points for resurgence.
That goal alone could have prompted such action – so that the cultural groundings that I have touched upon can be dismissed as esoteric nonsense by those readers attached to wholly instrumental thinking. In short, this line of destruction was pragmatic politics of the same type that inspired the government’s determination to ensure that no top-rung Tiger leader remained alive.[xviii]
With regard to the tuyilam illam, however, I challenge the pragmatic value attached to this course of action. For one: from circa September 2008 the Tamil people of the Vanni, perhaps some 300,000 to 350,000 all told, subjected themselves to multiple displacements or were pushed to do so by the LTTE. From January 2009 they found themselves corralled within increasingly limited space, subject to starvation diet and to the escalating jackboot of the LTTE. From that point they were a bargaining chip in the LTTE design, prisoners in the Eelam cause.
This meant that they were within the epicentre of modern warfare, caught between the withering blasts of gunfire and bombardment. Modern warfare is rarely ever anything but brutal. Death, injury and fear are its ‘daily fare’. UTHR No. 34 documents that which anyone familiar with warfare would have known – something which, indeed, was anticipated by a question raised and discussed in groundviews at the height of emotional concerns.[xix]
Within this body of entrapped Tamils, therefore, the circumstances were revolutionary in impact, though this turn of mind does not seem to have embraced the diehard supporters in their midst.[xx] Thus, the evidence provided by reporters behind army lines as well as the recent UTHR report confirm the conclusions one could draw from the many efforts by those entrapped to flee LTTE containment – even in the face of fire and death from Tiger interventions.
In brief, many (though not all) of these Tamils were thoroughly alienated by their experience of the last months of LTTE control. Such sentiments had the capacity to spread among other Tamils living in Sri Lanka. Such profound disquiet could have served as a foundation for some lines of reconciliation between these Tamils and the rest of the population -- even though the government too was blamed for the turmoils they went through.
In this limbo situation, think then of those Tamil families whose kinspersons lay commemorated in the tuyilam illam as fighters in a lost cause. The epitaphs serve as concrete links to loved ones. Standing in 2010 each epitaph would tell a surviving member of the family that their kinsperson had died in vain. The epitaphs, therefore, had the potential to stand as a monument to the futility of the LTTE enterprise rather than the other way round.
This conclusion would have been further animated by the experiences of those who walked through the shadows and shrubs of death in the north-eastern corner of the Vanni in early 2009. Those who had come to hate the LTTE during that inferno would have their thoughts consolidated by the epitaphs documenting the martyrdom of their Tiger kin of the recent past.
But, now, the acts of desecration have reduced such potential to nothing. The absence of tuyilam illam, in other words, will serve as a focal point for enhanced embitterment towards the government.
["Kallaraiyil villaketri" - Homage at the "resting place" ~ song in Tamil, featuring slides of memorials for the fallen]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
De Silva, K. M. 1981 A History of Sri Lanka, Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Jayatilleka, Dayan 2009 “Prudent Two-Point Program for Pragmatic Tamil Politics,” www.transcurrents.com, 13 Dec. 2009.
Kapferer, Bruce 1988. Legends of People, Myths of State. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Kapferer, Bruce 1997a The Feast of the Sorcerer. Practices of Consciousness and Power, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kapferer, Bruce 1997b “Remythologizing Discourses: State and Insurrectionary Violence in Sri Lanka,” in David E. Apter (ed) The Legitimization of Violence, New York: New York University Press, pp. 159-208.
Knox, Robert 1911 A Historical Relation of Ceylon, ed. by J. Ryan, Glasgow: James Maclehose & Sons.
Ludowyk, E. F. C. 1966 The Modern History of Ceylon, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Mines, Diane 2005 Fierce Gods. Inequality, Ritual and the Politics of Dignity in a South Indian Village, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Narayan Swamy, M. R. 2003, Tamil Tigers, 2nd edn., Colombo: Vijitha Yapa.
Natali, Christiana 2008 “Building Cemeteries, Constructing Identities: Funerary Practices and
Nationalist Discourse among the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka,” Contemporary South Asia 16/3: 287-301.
Reddy, B. Muralidhar 2009 “Multiple Displacements, Total Loss of Identity,” The Hindu Online, http://www.hindu.com/2009/05/27/stories/2009052755811500.htm.
Roberts, Michael 2004 Sinhala Consciousness in the Kandyan Period, 1590s to1818, Colombo: Vijitha Yapa Associates.
Roberts, Michael 2005a “Tamil Tiger ‘Martyrs’: Regenerating Divine Potency?” Studies in Conflict& Terrorism 28: 493-514.
Roberts, Michael 2005b “Saivite Symbolism, Sacrifice and Tamil Tiger Rites,” Social Analysis 49: 67-93.
Roberts, Michael 2006a “Pragmatic Action & Enchanted Worlds: A Black Tiger Rite of Commemoration,” Social Analysis, 50: 73-102.
Roberts, Michael 2007 “Blunders in Tigerland: Pape’s Muddles on ‘Suicide Bombers’ in Sri Lanka,” Online publication within series known as Heidelberg Papers in South Asian and Comparative Politics (HPSACP), ISSN: 1617-5069.
Roberts, Michael 2008 “Tamil Tigers: Sacrificial Symbolism and ‘Dead Body Politics’,” Anthropology Today 24/3: 22-23.
Schalk, Peter 2003 “Beyond Hindu Festivals: The Celebration of Great Heroes’ Day by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Europe,” in Martin Baumann et al. (eds.) Tempel und Tamilien in Zweiter Heimat, Wurzburg: Ergon Verlag, pp. 391-411.
UTHR (University Teachers for Human Rights, Jaffna) 2009 Report No 34: When People Do Not Matter and Tyrannical Egos are Dressed-Up as Nations,
[i] Roberts, “Regenerating Divine Potency?” 2005a: 499-500.
[ii] See Schalk 2003 and Roberts 2005b, 2006 & 2008.
[iii] Information conveyed by the late Joe Ariyaratnam (Kilinochchi, 27 Nov. 2004).
[iv] Christiana Natali 2008: 298-99.and www.TamilNet.com, 27 November1998. Tuyilam illam can also be rendered as “sleeping house.”
[v] This includes one Tamil quite hostile to the LTTE whose parents live in Jaffna and another who happens to be visiting the Peninsula on holiday as I write.
[vi] Note Natali 2008: 293-94 and Narayan Swamy, Tigers, 2003: 355.
[vii] Godage had served in the Foreign Ministry and was a confidante of Chandrika Kumaratunga (who was President when the first act of demolition occurred).
[viii] Ludowyk, 1966: 5. I find the whole story quite puzzling. Deities are honoured with specific forms of music and a whole theory of pancaturyanāda (that is, sabda pūjā) elaborates on the value of religious music. Veneration via silence is contrary to this code.
[ix] For fuller analysis of the Dutugämunu-Elāra episode, see K. M. De Silva 1981: 14-16.
[x] Information from Professor K. Sivathamby, Nov. 2004. Also see Roberts, “Regenerating divine Potency?” 2005a: 85-87.
[xi] Mines 2005: 151-52. See the photographs (figs. 31-32) reproduced in Roberts, “Blunders,”
2007.
[xii] Kapferer, “Remythologizing Discourses,” 1997b: 181.
[xiii] Kapferer, “Remythologizing Discourses,” 1997b: 177-78. Also see Kapferer 1988 and 1997.
[xiv] Knox 1911: 63 and Roberts 2004: 152 and Figure 30 from Baldeaus.
[xv] Kapferer 1988, 1997a and 1997b.
[xvi] Roberts, Sinhala Consciousness, 2004: chaps. 7 and 9.
[xvii] Jayatilleka 2009.
[xviii] Obvious surmise in mid-May 2009, but also see UTHR (J) Report No. 34 just out.
[xix] See http://www.groundviews.org/2009/05/03/would-killing-50000-civilians-to-finish-off-the-ltte-bring-peace/
[xx] Reddy 2009.
37 Comments
Only the honorable honor the fallen....
We know the Sri Lankan Governments of past and present are do not fall in the category of "honorable". Add from what I read in these blogs, neither are the members of the Fighting Sinhala Patriotic Keyboard Brigade.
We can only hope for the future......
These memorials can lead to LTTE worship and encourage terrorism in future. They have to go! Sri Lanka is one country only!
All LTTE so-called Memorials and Tributes to their fallen TAMIL TERRORISTS should be LEVELED and DESTROYED. Only place for LTTE Memorabilia is in a few War Museums and with private collectors. No one keeps around any NAZI War Memorials, so why should we do the same of the LTTE?
This is NOT the Hindu tradition (as Roberts himself notes) to make rows and rows of toombstones. LTTE is an aberration for at least a significant percentage of Tamils who hated the LTTE for making cannon fodder of our children that they kidnapped. We can commemorate our dead by building them a koyil or Temple, and celebrate them collectively. We don't want Christian style "Kaerakoppu". We know that in a very short time every thing will get reduced to dilapidated, broken down places with thickets of vegetation, The Canadian or Australian pro-LTTE Tamils who sent money to prop up the LTTE weapons will soon forget the Tamils back home, and will NOT send us a penny. Every ethnic group has money when it comes to financing a war, but they have no money to look after cultural and other beneficial aspects of ethnicity. Look at the Tamilnet article
Tamils without Tamil which tells you the truth about Tamil attitude to its culture. The LTTE war had much to to with hate and nothing to do with culture. So, Dr. Roberts, if the Army did not raze these tombstones down, our people would remove them brick by brick in the night to built their own walls. The metal would disappear, the monuments would have other more practical uses. But build them a Kovil, secretly respecting the castes of the people who attend, and THEY WILL LOVE IT AND POUR MILK ON THE LINGAM.
You academics are as NAIVE AS HELL. Yo don't know how our society works
Hi Mr. Michael Roberts
i am sure you know who i am..but i thought i should pen a few words on regard to the above article you had written condemning what the sri lankan Govt and the Sri Lankan Authorities have done ( destroying the memoriam's of the fallen LTTE Cadres ) you would do well to first understand that the LTTE had no respect towards the SL govt nor its people . have they ( LTTE) respected us as a nation? have they respected the irrespective churches, temples, hindu kovils, mosques they bombed and killed innocent civilians in? i agree with another writer who had said i quote " were nazi's commemoratives allowed to be displayed? so why should be allow the LTTE to do so? "
unquote
this is very true. as far as any sri lankan who lived through this terrifying era would tell you the LTTE can only be compared to Hitler and his nazi's . why couldn't prabakaran if he was so caring towards his fallen cadres then financially support their families and not make them suffer? the LTTE and prabakaran was only interested in Prabakaran and his own philosophy which we all know now has become defunct and serves no purpose.
i am sure you remember that when the LTTE ran through elephant pass back in the 90's it destroyed all our commemorative statues and etc ? hope you remember that too? am not saying that two wrongs make one right. but i do believe no terrorist outfit should be allowed to display its history or its past in a way that people in the future would think that they ( the ltte) were actually hero's.
Michael makes sense in this note. Right or wrong, the fallen ones deserve our respect. Sorry Nadesan, your concluding lines are revealing.
Good job done .... No more LTTE war memorials.......What for???? Sri Lanka is aUnited country liberated by His Excellency Mahinda Rajapakse and the normal Tamil civilians love for detroying the Enemy who sucked the blood of the common Tamilian
As usual Devinda thinks before he writes....."No one keeps around any NAZI War memorials, why should be so the same of the LTTE"! Or perhaps the more charitable explanation is that he is just plain ignorant...A frog in a well, impressed by his own voice, just as most of the chauvinistic members of the Sinhala Patriotic Fighting Keyboard Brigade are....
If only he used "GOOGLE" more often, he would have heard of the Nazi Cemetery in Bitburg, Germany, one of hundreds where soldiers of the Third Reich (which my dear Devinda, means Nazi Germany) are buried and President Reagan (yes, Ronald Reagan) visited it in 1985.
As for friend Nadesan, does he realize that LTTE had large numbers of Catholic and Christan cadres? Its not all about the Hindus (I myself am one, and consider myself a Tamil first and Hindu second). And for his statemenet "So, Dr. Roberts, if the Army did not raze these tombstones down, our people would remove them brick by brick in the night to built their own walls", perhaps the Tamils of Sri Lanka have a more developed sense of Honour than he does?
I don't see any sane reason for keeping the anything to remember the insane LTTE terrorists.
They killed like madmen without any consideration. They killed infants, pregnant women and school children. I have no sympathy for them and don't give a d--n if their graves are destroyed and no remains are left behind. They were not a conventional army fighting only the SL military. They were blood thirsty terrorists killing the innocent civilians. As such, they do not deserve any of the normal honour and dignity afforded to normal, fallen soldiers.
Imagine if Nazi’s were allowed to have a memorial in Germany (let alone in England). Would any sensible government ever allow it? How about, Idi Amin, Pol pot? Same goes to the LTTE terror group as well and SL has done the right thing.
This is not only a good thing, but an essential thing to do to prevail the peace in the country. Memorials for the LTTE dead, most of them died carrying out terrorist operations, should not have a place in history. Do they have any memorials for the Nazi war criminals in Germany or elsewhere?
Not only the LTTE war memorials, anything to do with the LTTE ideology- the flags, symbols, literature-- all should be destroyed and the surviving LTTE cadres should be rehabilitated, re-educated and 'released' into normal life. Most of these kids were brainwashed, and when trained properly can turn out to be productive citizens for the country-
Readers so far seem to have ignored these fundamental questions:
1. Why did the LTTE come to being?
2. Who really created the LTTE?
The answer to both questions, to cut a long, horrible story short, are:
1. Due to post-1948 Ceylonese/Sri Lankan government policies and:
2. The majority Sinhalese leadership(s)seeking narrow political gains and political mileage
Now, the SL government and a strongly Sinhala nationalist leadership (with a Sinhala supremacist discourse, coated in the false and dis-orienting stance of 'patriots' and 'non-patriots') has militarily defeated and decimated its own 'bete noire'.
The main challenge now is that of reconciliation, making all Tamils (and other minorities) feel integrally Sri Lankan, and use all available talent and skills (especially from the Tamil community home and abroad) for post-conflict reconstruction, economic development and empowerment. In other words, all segments of the (divided)wider SL society have to be brought together around a common cause: to make Sri Lanka 'take off', make her part of the Asian economic boom and other global processes of fast-track and long-term development.
To reach these goals, a serious SL government needs to launch a massive project, based at least on two primary axes:
1. Political accommodation in terms of high politics - i.e. a political arrangement based on power-sharing in the N-E provinces, within a wider framework of devolution from the Centre (not the best gain, but the best available and realistically achievable option at the present stage)
2. National policy on reconciliation, mutual respect/understanding and coexistence - this is necessary to attempt at healing wounds of a 30-year conflict - A Truth and Reconciliation Commission should provide those affected by the war with a safe haven to 'express' their experiences and trauma - and record them for posterity. People's perspectives on the 'other' should be changed through government policy (i.e. Sinhalese views on Tamils, issues within the Tamil community - developing harmony and dialogue among Northern, Eastern and Up country Tamils, and better mutual understanding in the wider Sri Lankan community).
In this process [axe 2], what Prof. Roberts mentions in this article comes into play crucially - continuing a sophisticated tradition of honouring the 'fallen', LTTE memorials should be left undeterred - this will help develop a sense of appreciation of the SL govt among supporters of hardline Tamil nationalism, especially in the Diaspora. To make it more 'politically correct', similar memorials could be built to remember fallen members of other Tamil armed/non-armed political groups (from FPC to the Eelam Left, including civil society activists such as Dr. R Thiranagama).
Most importantly, these memorials will enable future generations from across the ethnic divide to witness and learn about a bitter phase of the 20th century history of their motherland.
Level all these cemeteries, war memorials and tomb-stones of terrorists to the ground. Sri Lanka do not need any "memories" of these terorists anymore. Its the past best forgotten. Instead, build some worthwhile buildings in these properties like schools, hospitals, etc. that will be of some benefit to the people residing in those respective areas. No one wants to respect these barbaric beasts who were responsible for murdering helpless and innocent people of our country. Comparing the LTTE to the Nazis of Germany is an insult to the Nazis. The LTTE and its leadership behaved more like Pol Pot and the murderous Khmer Rouge regime of Cambodia.
I support the removal of ALL LTTE war memorials on Sri Lankan soil. The LTTE stood for racism, fascism and terrorism. Their monuments cannot be allowed to stand. They must be dismantled as soon as possible.
What about the memorials of Saddam which were publicly put down by the Americans! What it means is, when you destroy what you want, you destroy it properly so that no memory remains. A kind of a forensic hard drive deletetion. I don't know what the Americans did was right or wrong. May be it is right if you are anti-Saddam and it is not if you are pro-Saddam.
Same goes to the LTTE, nearly 80-90% of the Sri Lankan population will want the LTTE name deleted properly, as it is associated with death, calamity and destruction. I feel very sorry for all the tamil youth who were forcibly recruited, or recruited as child soldiers, who later died or maimed. I don't see much difference between paedophillia and recruiting child soldiers; both deliver the same irreperable punch in different forms.
The LTTE burial grounds should remain, as a dark reminder of the dark past in our country. It should remain as a memorial for the LTTE soldiers who were recruited as children or who were recruited under threat. It should remain as the reminder for the families of these befallen young youth. It should remain as a monument for the LTTE soldiers who fought like soldiers and fought like men. It should remain as an icon for the future development of this region.
But not for the scum who make money or made money out of this whole Tamil cause. Not for the scum who made themselves wealthier and powerful by selling the blood of young abled Tamil youth. Not for the scum politicians in the west to use as a platform to get their votes. Nor as a platform for promotion of terrorism in Sri Lanka or elsewhere!
Get real- when do countries leave martyr shrines for terrorism.
By the logic of Michael Roberts the US should erect a mausoleaum in Tikrit for Saddam, and the Combodians a shrine for Pol pot- no terrorism is no longer glorified in Sri Lanka!
LTTE is in history and will last forever in the minds of Tamil people and sympathizers all over the globe. It shows our foolishness, if we keep on destroying LTTE monuments etc. Even though VP is wrong or correct on different contexts, the courage shown by LTTE and its leader against a superior nation and her army, cannot be destroyed by uprooting all these LTTE monuments. Without proper reconciliation, open mindedness and apologies, we will be going nowhere when it comes to ethnic issue. Is All Party Conference in bins? Before constructing monuments for our victory we should seriously think of ways of reconciliation. Remember Dutugemunu-even though he is Dusta Gamini, gave a proper funeral to Elara at the end of the war. Thousand years later we, despite living in a modern world with more ethics and norms, shot all the leaders of LTTE including their wives, daughters and sons and buries them under the sands of Mulatieeve beach without giving a proper funeral. We did this to Wijeweera,but his family was lucky, thanks for some sensible individuals in the army in 1989. Even though we destroyed Wijeweera,JVP is the king maker since 1995.
Dear Rational man!,
Thanks for your comment and your effort to enlighten sinhala chavunists like ravindra.
Mr. Nadesan, you are a hindu and so does me. But first of all I am a Tamil, but I wonder whether you are.You can change your religion any time, but race you are born with. You cant change. Have you ever read Tamil literature in life? Have you ever heard 'nadu kal' in Tamil literature( aha and pura nanooru), which means tomb stone. So the original tamil tradition is to raise a tomb stone in thev memory of dead. The tigers were fighting for tamils and not for hindus. You can realise that from the fact that most christians supported for tamils struggle. We have no divide in the name of religion. We all are tamils. Thats it.
First be a tamil. What you have done so far in your life to uplift the lives of tamils or in getting their rights or the language of Tamil?.Mr.Nadesan, people like you do not also do any thing for the people and do not let others also doing it. You know the phrase for it in Tamil and English.
Good Luck. Be a son of a Tamil.
Karikalan
This Conclusion of this article is spot on! Its a reminder and message to everyone both Tamil and Sinhalese that all those who died ultimately died in vain! People suffered on both sides and will continue to do so until Sri Lanka sorts itself out...then only will they all rest in peace! (This applies to LTTE Cadres, Members of the Government Armed Forces, Civillians, POWs, Politicians, Journalists and who ever else that died due to the war!)
Half of the comments on here are a joke -
Navin De Alwis - Noone knows who you are and what you say is just complete right wing rubbish. Did the Sri Lankan government respect the Tamil people after independance - No they didnt! - they asked for a slap - by treating Tamils as 2nd class citizens, they got it right across the face from Prabhakaran and the LTTE. (The LTTE didnt form over night - anyone with intelligence knows that problems are caused by root causes! Is the root cause respect?)
If you look at the history of LTTE attacks or the shadowy Ellalan Force attacks on civillians they are tit for tat. Im sure you remember the notorious bus bombings a few years back! did you ever care to use your brain and think why would someone be doing this(what makes someone motivated to wake up in the morning, plant a bomb on the bus and happily go to sleep killing scores of people!?!?)....at this same period in time did the SLAF bomb the vanni everyday with kfirs, migs and k8s killing hundreds of civillians in LTTE controlled areas (remember the pictures of 30+ dead school kids). Like any political movement, government or terrorist what ever you want to label them they will take action to stop it and they did so with the bus bombs - which gave the sinhalese a bloody nose and stopped the indiscrimate bombing! Because as ordinary Tamil civillians in LTTE areas suffered, ordinary Sinhalese civillians in government areas suffered. I guess your argument of "Respect" could be correct.
You talk about religious sites - The LTTE werent angels and nor were the government - how many temples and churches did they (SLA,SLAF,SLN) bomb! how many temples were the scenes of bloody thirsty political assinations - yeh remember the TNA guy murdered a few years back near the xmas period! How many churches are burnt down in southern Sri Lanka by Sinhalese and how many Tamil temples are robbed and statues defaced! (Do the police do anything?) learn to shut your mouth when it comes to talking about respect Navin!
You refer to Prabhakaran as Hitler - what the hell does that make Mahinda Rajapakse - Mother Teresa?!?! A man who leads his country to victory by killing thousands of "Sri Lankans", locking up hundreds and thousands of "Sri Lankans" and treating them as Cattle - even after the war - have the Sinhalese government shown any RESPECT to the Tamil people? Have they shown any RESPECT to the diaspora? Has the diaspora shown any RESPECT to the government? Where is the RESPECT of human rights in this country? Where is the RESPECT to your neighbour? Where is the RESPECT to Humanity? I think both sides of the parties need to ask themselves these questions first before we can move on!
The christian belief system claims that the bodies will rise from the dead and go heaven or hell on the day of judgment. Until then you preserve the body which is ``sacred''.
Dr. Roberts has failed to escape the christian mentality and thinks that what is considered the correct, moral thing in Chirstian society is absolutely the moral thing in
all societies. This is just imerialism. The westerner can eat beef and laugh at us for respecting the cow. They don't respect our belief systems.
In Hindu society we don't maintain burial grounds for very good reasons.
Hindu belief system, and even in Buddhist and Jain systems. There, the dead body is defilement, to be quickly burnt and got rid of. The dead bodies are NOT sacred -just the opposite. So NO SPACIAL BOXED AREAS ARE TO BE ASSIGNED TO EACH BODY and buried as that defiles the earth itself (such defiled soil is known as aṭi-maṭai in tamil and may be used in witchcraft). The spirit may rise and become sacred or wretched as the karma may demand.
So Hindus don't bury the dead, and do not have burial grounds which are considered sacred. The body is burnt, and it is the ashes that are scattered over the earth, or in exceptional cases, enshrined. These burial grounds were NOT requested by parents, but they are the brain child of Prabhakaran. Hindus comemorate their departed family in anniversary ceremonies in the Temple.
In the case of Ellalan (Elaara of the Mahavmsa), it is the ashes which is entombed.
If bodies are buried, contraray to chistian belief that the body will stay there (as it did in the desert in Jordan or Gallilee), the body is attacked by beetles, bugs, microbes etc. It perishes.
In Europe, where Christianity prevails, churches have their graveyards, often under surveillance, because young thugs come and draw swasthikas and defile the tombs behind the Synagogue. The Other groups go and retaliate in the
church - there is constant friction.
If these tombs had been there, it would be constant friction, between various ex-miltatnt groups, where the TELO and the LTTE etc. were constantly at each other, leaving aside the Sinhalerse.
So, Robert's article is a perfect example of someone who has assumed that western values are absolute values. We who don't practice them are barbarians.
Senguttavan & Co. Make me laugh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_hitlerum
Devinda, If I may quote the scripture to ...... (you know what I mean)
Once upon a time....you said.......
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"That's right,...keep Up this REDUCTIO AD HITLERUM Rhethoric and then wonder why you get no sympathy from Sinhalese people.
People Like Senguttavan should realize that when they Throw around such VILE RHETORIC in an attempt to Vilify the Sinhalese by any means necessary you are only bringing about more Negative Consequences to your own Race. Watch what you say old man, even speech has consequences.
Posted by: Devinda Fernando | June 24, 2009 10:01 AM"
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REDUCTIO AD HITLERUM Rhethoric? Do you suffer memory loss or are you just a hypocrite?
When I read these virulent "why should the Sinhalese leave the monuments intact because the the Nazi cemeteries were demolished", I am appalled by the ignorance. The cemeteries of the soldiers of the Third Reich were not desecrated by the victorious allies. With people like these Sri Lanka has no hope.
Even though the civil war is over, the nation will remain divided until the fallen on both sides are properly remembered. United States is a perfect example. Wherever the epic battles took place, there are memorials for both the union and confederate soldiers. That is how America could unite and rebuild after civil war. Otherwise the wounds of the civil war will remain and if the "Winner takes all" attitude of the srilankan state continues, there is no doubt that the next cycle of violence is not far off.
Reply to Mr. X
i never expected a idiot to spring up and expect someone who does not even have the guts to say his own name to know who i am in the first place. so i shall leave that alone.
lets get to the point... you speak of the Government making the tamil people feel like they were second class citizens. let me remind you even as off now most of the corporate big giants in colombo are run by tamils. if you want me to i could name you a few starting from the former John Keels Chairman to the directors board's at Bartleets, Hayleys, Aitken Spence etc. your accusations against the majority sinhalese and its governments are absolute ludicrous and ridiculous in the same vain. tamil people sadly have a fear psychosis that their people will only be independent if they have a independent state ( a minority of tamils). they better get over the fact their eelam will not be achieved in SL any time soon. you also speak of prabakaran giving it back to the SL govts and it's people. the only thing he gave back to the Govts and its people was destruction and total mayhem against the poor common tamil folk and also raising racism levels against the common tamil man who live in Colombo and its suburbs with the rest of us sri lankans without any issue.your accusations are once again absolute bullocks and goes on to show how much you know...if i was you i would shut up and stop making a fool out of myself.
you talk about aerial bombings against the tamil civilans in the LTTE controlled areas. you need to once again get your head examined. we all know that the LTTE used common civilian shelters to install their SAM's ( surface to air missiles) and when the SL forces reacted to this they made sure the LTTE cadres were wearing civilian clothing etc. you would do well to investigate this issue or at least read about these idiotic accusations you are levelling against the SL forces.did you ever think for a moment if these so called accusations you are levelling against the SL forces were actually investigated and were found guilty that they would be punished without bieng swept under the carpet by the UN and the ICRC? there would have been sanctions against us.. how silly of you to even come up with these idiotic accusations once again.
you speak of Mahinda Rajapaksha not being a angel. have i ever written on this column saying that he is a angel? no one denies that he is a corrupt politician. name me one non corrupt tamil politician in Parliament? if you have anything called a brain between your ears you would realise that corruption among politicians around the world is even evident in the most developed countries ( the UK for example) ... i in no way support Mahinda R nor any other politician but i hate how people like you who do not even have the gutts to come out on the open with your real name have the audacity of accusing me and the rest of us who have innocently made a reply to this article written by Mr. Roberts.
you finally speak of the catholic churches and the christian churches being stoned and burn down by the Buddhist racist elements. once again i ask of you to think before you make a accusation. i am a catholic myself and i have seen these so called racist elements destroying churches etc because of some idiotic monks.. but that does not mean the majority of Buddhist are racist or they go about destroying churches etc. Buddhism is a way of life and is not even a religion its a way of life where it teaches you to be calm and think clearly before you act. clearly once again you have no clue about any religions or do not have the brains to think before you talk.
we all know that Prabakaran and his idiotic ideologies are and will always be a myth and will never be achieved. the only thing he achieved was more distance and more hatred against the poor common tamil man because of his idiotic actions. he killed so many of the tamil intellects in our country . i am sure you know who i am talking about. if you don't let me give you some examples..
Alfred D, Neelan Thiruchelvam, Kumar Ponnambalam, Lakshman Kadirgamar and the list goes on...
so the next time you feel like replying this post at least grow up and give your name out or we will have to call you the big wimp!
Please destroy LTTE memorials as they are terrorists afterall. You are totally right Navin.
Nanin, Navin, Navin. Of course you can provide ancedotal evidence about a Tamil director here or a Tamil minister there. And most of them are from years past, way, way, past. There ia a saying in English "None So Blind as Those That Will Not See". I really suggest you go back and read Ceylon history from 1948 to an 1977. Read Tarzie Vittachi' "Emergency 58". Read other books that have been written by Nuetral observers. Read William McGowan's "Only man is vile". Here is a good example... List of Sri Lankan non-career diplomats (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sri_Lankan_non-career_diplomats). And now tell me Tamils are treated equally. (of course you are going to say Yes, because you are the type of person who is wilfully blind to the injustices of Tamils.
And Have you heard of 58, 77 and 83 riots?
And can you quote a reliable figure about the number of Sinhalese civilians killed by the LTTE? I am prepared to accept the Sri Lankan Govenment figures if you cannot find anyone else. We all know that about 70 to 80 thousand tamils died. And of these how many were killed by the Tigers? I am prepared to accept any published figures.
I offer my full support for the destruction of LTTE war memorials. I am by no means anti-Tamil. I support a federal solution to Sri Lanka's ethnic quagmire. But I just don't think memorials built for terrorists should be allowed to stand on Sri Lankan soil.
Oh, Navin, one more thing..... You say.. "Buddhism is a way of life and is not even a religion its a way of life where it teaches you to be calm and think clearly before you act. clearly once again you have no clue about any religions or do not have the brains to think before you talk". I have no doubt what Lord Buddha taught is exactly that! But unfortunately that is not what is practiced in Sri Lanka. Having first hand seen, screaming mobs lead by those yellow robed thugs in 1983, I can assure you, Buddhisim was nowere in action during the dark days on July 83. And when I see these yellow robed men, at election rallys with politicans, I get recurring nightmares.
Try not to hide behind the noble ideals of Lord Buddha or Jesus Christ. Just admit that you are a flaming racist. Be honest with yourself!
Prof. Michael Roberts: "Paradoxically, Sri Lanka provides an outstanding counter-example to this suggestion. It is widely believed that when the Sinhala hero-king Dutugämunu “slew his Tamil rival, Elara” in the second century BCE"
If it is only "widely believed" then there is no meaning in stating that it provides a paradox.
In fact anyway there is no paradox at all.
It is true that Dutugämunu is these days held up as or believed to be a "Sinhala hero-king".
But in fact he was a Buddhist Tamil of Pandyan heritage - and it is right there in the Mahavamsa itself - and Ellalan was a Hindu Tamil of Chola heritage. (But nevertherless he was a king over the Sinhalese!)
Those people have nothing to do with the present day beastly Sinhala-Buddhist extremists.
Also while those memorials were built by the LTTE, they are not "Tiger war memorials" but memorials to loved ones who fell in war fighting for what they believed in.
That is why their desecration is thoroughly repugnant.
It is understandable however that a victor at the time would wish to remove monuments that were simply to do with glorifying the other side.
But the beastly Sinhala-Buddhist extremists are obviously too insensitized and dull to tell the difference!
Re: Rationalman1
let me first thank you on your advice on what books i should read. let me first ask of you which history books you have read before we gained independence from the British in 1948?
i have read many books on the history of Sri Lanka and i am pretty sure i am up to scrap on what i have read and what i have seen over the years but once again i thank you for your advice on the books you have suggested to me to read. ( i will once i do get my hands on them read them and let you know what i think of them). anyway you had asked me a question as to what instigated the racial riots in 83 which were the famous july riots. if you were in SL at that time i am pretty sure you would know that a group of LTTE'ers in the east had slaughtered few hundred buddhist monks and some muslims .. and this instigated the whole of the unfortunate incidents which occurred after that. you are not the first to talk about this and point fingers at every sinhaleese man alive at that time nor will you be the last. but let me tell you that people such as my father and many other sinhaleese people at that time helped our tamil brothers/sisters by protecting them and keeping them safe and away from the thugs and goons who were instigated by the state or other avenues.did you also know that the IGP at that time was a Tamil? did you also know that the six senior most DIG's at that time were also tamil? what the hell did they do? there were many singhaleese who saw tamil speaking people take the mobs to poor innocent tamil people's houses and ask them to be either gunned down or shoot them on site? no excuses to what happened nevertheless and the whole nation paid a huge price for this by virtue of the 27 year old war in SL.you have also stated that quote "Of course you can provide ancedotal evidence about a Tamil director here or a Tamil minister there. And most of them are from years past, way, way, past" unquote
one director here or there? excuse me mate if i was you i would actually read up on annual reports of the blue chip organisations which are there in SL RIGHT NOW. and you will find many tamils who are running these organisations.. this was not from the past but from now.
please do also tell me why a sinhaleese or a none tamil is not allowed to own land in Jaffna or the northern provinces? how come that is right?
what if this happened in colombo? i can only imagine how people like you would have jumped up and down and started yelling towards your so called NGO's and other organisations on how racist that is .. which is only right but how come none of you speak of this? then you speak of trying to hide behind Lord Buddha or Jesus Christ. in my opinion the only person hiding behind something is YOU. who does not have the gutts to tell us who you are in the first place. at least i have the gutts to do so and come out with my real name. but in your case i am sad to say you need to practice what you preach. do not measure everyone with one yard stick mate. not every sinhaleese is a racist like not every tamil is a LTTE supporter. their are many tamils who have been killed by the LTTE. you ask me for a figure of how many sinhaleese against tamils have been killed during the war. you know what? i don't segregate a tamil and a sinhaleese to that extent to count the deaths individually. as far as i am concerned we have lost over 70000 sri lankans in this war. which is sad.but if my stand against eelam or a seperate state means that i need to be called a sinhaleese racist be there as it may you are more than welcome to call me that. as i was first born as a Sri lankan before a sinhaleese. i do not ever call myself a sinhaleese but a Sri lankan. i would like to challenge people such as you who live in glass houses to try that for a moment .
The graves of dead people should NOT be removed for whatever reason. LET THEM BE THERE. Let those who see it gain whatever they are after. Some may hate it some may admire it and be proud of it...But let us NOT interfere with these graves and other monuments.
After all if the victory of our forces is so great then we have to acknowledge that the opponent who opposed us is very good at least...If we downgrade, under estimate our enemy then we are under estimating or over estimating our victory.
If a mother, sister,father,brother wife, son, or daughter wishes to come to this cemetry or memorial and place a simple flower or light a lamp we MUST give them that opportunity at least...There is NO politics here just simple humanity. After ALL we fight we died as humans. That we must accept and respect
Oh come on Navin! If you do not know what instigated the July riots - the way you have mentioned it - I think all your other arguments are also out of context. Get your facts straight first. I witnessed the 77 and the 83 riots personally and know how the people behaved towards the Tamils. Mind you all of them were not goondas, some of them were perfectly respectable people.
Just knowing a few facts does not make you know everything. As long as people with your mindset live we will have this ethnic problem to live and to deal with.
Navin you need to get your head examined! I dont have the time to come down to your petty level anymore and squabble like a child (Even though personally i think you have some serious flaws in your arguments - stop reading sinhaya.com or defence.lk and believing the rubbish they tell you in the name of a united Sri Lanka.
I'm not an LTTE supporter ( I sympathise with their cause) - but I know my facts that annoy people like you - I like to consider myself as fairly rational (A Liberal with a fist) - hence why i said the attacks were pretty much Tit for Tat. I and many others saw the pictures of the dead kids that were bombed from the air- seriously if you are to ever be respected just admit that they weren't LTTE cadres! The SLN has a great history of forcing Tamil fishermen onboard to make sure the Sea Tigers never attacked their vessels. Sounds to me like the LTTE and the SLA/N/F were all just as bad as each other - when using human shields?
I dont want to give my name out because the next time I visit Sri Lanka i will probably disappear like the other "Sri Lankans" who didnt follow your political views! So please stop thinking you are a hero.
People like you are actually wrong...you are a diehard "Sri Lankan" or "Sinhalese" nationalist (One United Country) and it is the same with the diehard Tamil nationalists (Two seperate countries)...The two groups are extremists and with people like you on both sides who are unwilling to compromise - Sri Lanka will never go forward, unless you manage a way to sweep things under the carpet - which will never happen due to the carnage that has occured on both your sides!
If Sri Lanka is ever to progress and explore sustainable solutions to peace - people like you need to disappear and the vermin that comes out of your mouth needs to stop. There are people in the middle - Liberals - Yes Navin we exist! So feel free to get off your high horse - because NOT ALL "Sri Lankans" share the same views as you. Navin I like to think that Transcurrents.com is a place where us Liberals can debate and people like you on both sides can seek suitable alternative political guidance!
*** REDUCTIO AD HITLERUM Rhethoric? Do you suffer memory loss or are you just a hypocrite? ***
LOL! Not at all, my analogy and comparison is completely Valid!
LTTE = RACIST TERRORISTS THUGS who engaged in the slaughter of all those who were not Tamil.
NAZIs = RACIST TERRORISTS THUGS who engaged in the slaughter of all those who were not Aryan.
as you can see, its very apt. Look it up, they hide those sorts of Facts and Figures in these nifty little things called books... But if that's good enough for you, you should go to TORONTO or LONDON and I'm sure you'll find a few LTTE Museums springing up... and in there all the BLAME-THE-SINHALESE-CRYBABY-RHETORIC can be heard... and all the FAKE OUT-OF-CONTEXT-PROPAGANDA PHOTOS of Dead Tamils (who were in all likeliness killed by the LTTE) can be viewed... and you can all engage in telling the LIES you spun for the past THREE DECADES to justify the DESTRUCTION of your own Race and Culture over, and over, and over again....
*** If only he used "GOOGLE" more often, he would have heard of the Nazi Cemetery in Bitburg, Germany, one of hundreds where soldiers of the Third Reich (which my dear Devinda, means Nazi Germany) are buried and President Reagan (yes, Ronald Reagan) visited it in 1985. ***
Many Germans who were part of the THIRD REICH were also in the armed forces for WWII.... before there was Hitler and the Nazis. Many were not Nazis, they were soldiers following orders - Military Service was MANDATORY if you ever bothered to read your History.
The LTTE Memorials are for their BLACK TIGERS and those who voluntarily chose to BECOME TAMIL TERRORISTS....
While there may be war memorials for German Soldiers ...I guarantee you there are no Nazi War Memorials for Dead members of the WAFFEN SS or the EINSATZGRUPPEN (Death Squads)...
and that should be the same for these TERRORIST BOMBERS of innocent civilians on buses and buildings. Their MEMORIES should be ERASED from our History and our Land. Bulldoze all those Cemeteries and dump the garbage debris into the Ocean.
Reply to Mr X
quote " I'm not an LTTE supporter ( I sympathise with their cause"
you must be one seriously confused individual as the only cause the LTTE was interested in was that prabakaran's interest in making money out of those poor tamils in the north and the east. what good has come out of this war towards the tamils in the north and the east? absolutely nothing . they not only lost their homes they also lost their loved ones as they were forcefully recruited by the LTTE for prabakaran's cause. may be its difficult for people such as you to get that in to your thick scull. people like you who dream of a homeland in Tamil Nadu, Malaysia and Jaffna can only dream about it. because as far as people such as us are alive we will never ever allow idiots to come in and try their antics in trying to threaten the poor innocent civilians by way of war and destruction. you can argue all you want with me . but your LTTE and its leaders are dead nobs. they made not only fools of themselves but they also thought they will never be defeated.Sri lanka is a culturally enriched nations with enough of natural resources and enough of talent to go forward as a developed nation but that will only be if we eradicate the terrorist threat and also believe in living in democratic country as one Sri lanka. and if you think otherwise the best solution for people such as them is to either live in canada and make those canadian citizens further more frustrated and also think twice about taking rouge refugees to their countries. you can call me a racist or anything you want as much as you want mate. but you will be quite astonished to realise that most of my closest friends are non sinhalese. and if i was a racist i would not be having friends who are tamil, muslim, burgher or malay. i do not judge my friends by the colour of their skin nor by their ethnicity . i judge them purely on how genuine they are.if i was you i would seriously try to take a leaf out of what a idiot prabakaran made out of the whole eelam or independent state dream he had. after all the idiot ended up dead didn't he?
finally the only mutt who needs to get their head examined is idiots like who advocate terrorism as means of self determination or self respect. if you learn to respect your own people and stop being cast concious towards your own race i am sure you can learn to leave harmoniously with the rest of the ethnicities in SL
finally i would like say try to learn something from devinda may be you can learn something which you may know!
Hey Mr X
Remember LTTE are a violent fanatical death cult and they deserved to be crushed! They are far worse than AL Qaeda!
You sympathize with LTTE and that proves your true intentions. Prabhakaran only wanted to annihilate all Sinhalese.
LTTE terrorists massacred thousands of innocent Sinhalese and Muslims and destroyed plenty of Sinhala Buddhist monuments in the North and East. LTTE should ask for a seperate homeland in Tamil Nadu.
Prabhakaran is a definite Hitler. This was a war between a legitimate democratically elected government of a sovereign nation and a terrorist organization the LTTE! So crushing all terror glorifying monuments must happen!
We never deliberately targetted Tamil civilians after 83 riots. Most of the time when the SLA attaced LTTE terrorists, they use civilians as shields in an attempt to pass the blame on the government!