Agitation for Independence

Anagarika Dharmapala was obliged to change his activities from Buddhist research and missionary work to social services and political agitation.

When a nation is politically dependent on another nation, the weaker nation loses its individuality. India, the land of Gods, the land of Brahmans, the land of Buddhas, the land of great monarchs like Asoka, Siladitya, Vikramaditya, the land of Aryan Culture is today a corpse of millions of starving people, illiterate ignorant, living like dumb-beasts without high ideals in a state of moral inferiority, victims of fatalism, full of fear, superstitious to an abnormal degree, receiving not a word of sympathy – This is the India that gave a beneficient civilisation built on ethical ideals.

After a hundred years of British rule, the Sinhalese as a consolidated race is on the decline. Crime is increasing year by year. Ignorance of the people appalling. Without local industries the peasant proprietors is on the verge of starvation. Cattle are dying for want of fodder and grazing grounds. Our own weavers are starving while we are purchasing cloth manufactured abroad. Also he said that in today's context the bullock cart will not do as we have to compete with people who have the motor lorry and motor car.

For the sake of filthy lucre the British Government opened liquor shops and thereby forced the villagers to drink intoxicants. Opium, alcohol, arrack, ganja and other poisons are distributed in the villages by people holding licences.

In 1922, he said that a native church managed by the natives themselves with no white supervision and supported by the converts themselves would help them to be an unusual foreigner to the soil.

His call was to Christians, Hindus, Muslims to rally together with the Buddhists to secure national independence and aspired for an age of religious tolerance and co-existence.

His stratergy was spearhead a social movement to change the behaviours and aspirations of the people from within.

He advocated the Indian Saree for women and the simple Cloth and Banian for men.

He strove to generate a sense of national pride by recalling the nation's history and demonstrated that no one has to abandon his cultural identity and pride of language, religion, or customs to be able to enjoy the fruits of modern science and technology.

National Economy

We must unite and work in harmony to increase our wealth, learn to love our poor, the village goviya. It is the agricultural class that form the backbone of the nation. We consume, but we do not produce fresh wealth. Let our youths leave Ceylon and visit the developed countries to learn technical science, scientific agriculture, irrigation so that on their return, the country will benefit. Revive our industries and give work to our countrymen. We have been a nation to jump at anything foreign. He pleaded for self-sufficiency in food. Do not have too many children.

The ignorant, helpless Sinhalese villager is made a victim by aliens who rob him even of his ancestral land. Many a Sinhala Buddhist entrepreneur migrated to Colombo and Up-country at his bidding.

His advice to us will be to reject "bullock cart methods" and look towards the Space Age.

"Religion did not prevent Sun Yat Sen the son of a Chinese Christian from working for the elevation of the Chinese people"."

Unite and work harmoniously for the good of the helpless many.

His copious quotes from Hindu, Christian, Jewish and Muslim scriptures show his wide range of knowledge.

Sunit Kumar Chatterji put it somewhat like this:

"Anagarika Dharmapala, as his name suggests was a man without a permanent home and a true protector and saviour of the law. Though he had Ceylon and India as his homeland, he was at home everywhere in the world wherever there was respect for the Saddharma or the Good Law."

Recent History

The late Mr. G.G. Ponnambalam joined the TULF. His son, Kumar Ponnambalam got out of the TULF. Mr. Vinayagamoorthy succeeded the late Kumar Ponnambalam. There are some who fear to speak against the view that the LTTE are the only representatives of the Tamils. The LTTE is also a force that created an atmosphere for granting the rights of Tamils.

Now everybody including the UNF is for peace.

However, when the LTTE opposed the opening of the Jaffna Library by TULF leader Anandasangaree, it left a bad taste in the mouth.

The LTTE should have been gracious enough to enlist representatives of other Tamil parties to participate in the Peace Effort.

Fund Raising Methods Of Terrorist Organisations

Terrorist Organisations registered charities to fund terrorist activities. This is an old game.

The British Charity Commission raided the TRO Office in the U.K. and seized their Bank Accounts. The exposures hit the LTTE hard.

In August, 2005 the British Charity Commission removed the TRO from the British Charity Register. Their final report highlights large cash withdrawals from the charity and its LTTE links. Several other charities which are LTTE fronts are under investigation: Once LTTE lost control of TRO (UK), funds were diverted away from it.

In Canada and the USA, the TRO is the LTTE primary fund raising vehicle masquerading as a re-habilitation organisation. After the loss of TRO, a new charity by the name of White Pigeon has been launched and are involved in moving funds from the UK.

White Pigeon is also under investigation. These are some of the LTTE methods of obtaining and transferring funds.

Terrorists & Terrorism

As I have mentioned early in Prose Selections One, although one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, terror is terror and those who indulge in it are terrorists. It is the deliberate and systematic murder, maiming and menacing of the innocent to inspire fear. Terrorists attack defenceless civilians old men, women and children. Retaliation against terrorism is nothing but self-defence. It is the duty of the government to protect its citizens.

There are two types of terrorism in today's world. Terrorism by individual groups and terrorism by States.

Terrorists will strike in the most unexpected places and double standards should not be adopted when dealing with terrorism. If terrorism is bad, it is bad for everybody. It is not enough to raise your voice in horror when it only effects you. A fight for liberation cannot be equated with terrorism.

In the case of terrorists, once you yield to blackmail there is no end to it. More demands and still more demands.

Of what us is it to speak of freedom, if people are afraid to make sacrifices for it!

The fatal delays in meeting sudden terrorist attacks that overwhelmed Sri Lanka in the past are yet fresh in our minds.

Terrorism is war without declarations aimed at traditional societies which have been painstakingly built.

If a nations surrenders the democratic process in order to survive, it loses the moral reasons for fighting. The rights of citizens to make free decisions about where they lived and how they lived suffers as a result.

The Rape of Nanking

Iris Chang first heard the frightening stories from her Chinese Emigre Parents in America about the Nanking Massacre. It was about the Japanese rape and slaughter of the captive population on Nanking, China in 1937 and 1938.

In California she saw some poster-sized photos from Nanking on display and saw for herself the helpless terrorized looks of those about to die, the piles of bodies and the grins on the faces of the soldiers participating.

One picture showed a Japanese Officer with sword raised high about to decapititate a bound and kneeling Chinese prisoner. There was also a picture of a Chinese boy bayoneted five times before a Red-Cross worker saved his life.

From the Yale Divinity School Library, New Haven, Connecticut to the National Archives in Washington, to China and Taiwan she found a lot of material.

Her research was also about the long Sino-Japanese War (1937-45) that retains a special place in the annals of human butchery.

After capturing Shanghai, the Japanese Army was outside Nanking. Rather than deal with the tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers who had surrendered, the Japanese systematically exterminated them. Women suffered most. Irrespective of their age, the fate of rape and murder awaited them.

The Rape of Nanking triggered political and intellectual attention in Japan and China. Chang has played a significant role in forcing the world to remember what happened in Nanking. Perhaps the individual victims of torture and murder will not be forgotten!

ABOUT JAFFNA

The Education in Jaffna was so exemplary, especially in the Missionaty Schools, that people from down South used to send their children to Jaffna for their education.

In this book "Inside an Elusive Mind", M.R.Narayan Swamy in a vivid description of Ancient Jaffna says:-

Visitors to Jaffna Peninsula would think they were in South India. Shops blared Indian Tamil Film Songs on loudspeakers. There were posters of Indian Tamil Movies and Magazines. Walls were painted with commercial ads of Indian products such as sarees, the elegant women's wear, many school teachers in Jaffna hailed from Tamil Nadu and were a respected lot. Sri Lankan Tamils saw themselves as Indians too, and considered India their virtual motherland. Almost very Tamil home displayed framed photographs of Indian Independence Heroes such as Mahathma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose. Bose broke ranks with Gandhi, and emerged as Prabhakaran's hero. Sri Lankan Tamils celebrated the Indian Independence with fervour. Jaffna's Tamil Newspapers carried Special Supplements on the occasion and were read with avid interest.

Prabhakaran Maxims

Inside an Elusive Mind is actually a biography of the LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. The chapters in this book have been preceded by a statement by Prabhakaran who is described as a fearsome leader determined to carve out a homeland for Tamils in Sri Lanka.

For the benefit of readers, they are as follows:-

1. People like you are afraid of blood. You have to kill.

2. As long as the Sinhala Nation is buried in the mud of racist policies, we cannot expect a fair and reasonable solution from the Sinhalese ruling classes.

3. The racial riots and agonies the Tamils had to endure impelled me to militancy.

4. I wanted to achieve something through action, rather than waste time in idle fancies.

5. The life of a guerilla is full of expression, of sorrow. happiness, frustration.

6. The most frustrating aspect has been the betrayal of some of my trusted friends.

7. The years of struggle have strengthened my determination and sharpened my vision.

8. We do need India's support and sympathy.

9. We should not allow the enemy to relax.

10. The July Holocaust has united all sections of the Tamil Masses.

11. India deliberately aggravated Sri Lanka's Ethnic Crisis.

12. We have the courage, confidence and determination to fight and win our freedom.

13. Nature is my friend, life my philosopher, and history my guide.

14. I never felt lonely at any point of time.

15. The struggle will compel us to unite against the common enemy.

16. We should never trust the TULF.

17. I will certainly act against errant Tamil groups.

18. There is a plan to murder me.

19. We are freedom fighters, not terrorists.

20. No force on earth can stop the Tamil Eelam Process.

21. You cannot impose upon a people anything against their will.

22. I am a fighter for my people.

23. People cannot give up their cause for fear of defeat.

24. LTTE will never allow a foreign force to intervene and dominate our people.

25. If we are cheated or betrayed, we will react.

26. Our liberation struggle is unique.

27. In the LTTE traitors have never been forgotten and will never be forgiven.

28. We have been facing various crises and setbacks at different times.

29. The invasion of Jaffna is a gigantic historical blunder.

30. One day, when the enemy knocks at our doors, we will extend our hand of friendship.

In addition to what has happened to innocent Tamils by Sinhala mobs from 1956 onwards culminating in the July, 1983 holocaust which according to some, united the Tamil masses, let us turn our attention to LTTE atrocities of the recent past.

1975 A.T. Duraiappah S.L.F.P. Mayor of Jaffna

1981 A.Thiyagarajah, ex Vadukoddai M.P.

1983 K.T.Pulendran, U.N.P. Organiser, Vavuniya

1983 A.J. Rajasooriyar, U.N.P. Organiser, Jaffna

1983 Mala Ramachandiram, U.N.P. M.M.C. Batticaloa

1985 Gnanachandran, G.A.Mullaitivu

1985 C.E. Anandarajah, Principal, St. John's College, Jaffna

1985 P.Thambipillai, President, Citizens Committee, Oddusuddam
