A country for 80 million Tamils

LTTE leader, Vellupillai wants a country exclusively for 80 millions Tamils, now living, spread all over the world. He, of course, would be the self-elected President and Prime Minister of that country! Before proceeding any further, I am reminded of what Lewis Mumford wrote in 1961 in his book City in History: "... each historic civilisation begins with a living, urban core, the polis, and ends in a common graveyard of dust and bones, a Necropolis or a city of the dead; fire-scorched ruins, shattered buildings, empty workshops, heaps of meaningless refuse, the population massacred or driven into a slavery." This is almost the present spectacle of the Wanni gangland, over which Velu reigns supreme, and that, too would be the fate of his greater Eelam with 80 million Tamils, if he does manage to establish such a country.

Velu, is, to my mind, a socially dangerous freak of the universe. His malignant aggression, evinced by his destructiveness and cruelty, is not merely a defence against a threat, but is characteristic of this man. Killing and cruelty have become to him pleasurable activities by themselves needing no external stimuli. He pays homage to death by exercising absolute control over the minds and bodies of his cadres, and by daily dispatching them to certain death either as suicide cadres of frontline combatants. He is incessantly seeking to transform living humans into corpses and destroy for the sake of destruction. How can such a man rule over others except by bullet and terror? An appropriate appellation for his death dealing organisation should be "LTTE Murderers Inc.."

This absolute control over his cadres and other hapless Tamils under him appears to have infused in him the delusion of omnipotence. This is the reason for his demand for an unattainable greater Eelam for 80 million Tamils. He would next "want the moon" like Caligula in Albert Camus' play. The figure, 80 million is a figment of his mind. He could not prove this figure.

There are nearly 60 of his 80 million––Tamils living in their own country under their own leaders exercising their semi-autonomous political life together with their language rights and enjoying their cultural life in Tamil Nadu.

He wants them all to live under his jackboot owing absolute allegiance and obedience to him. Would any of the Tamils now living in Tamil Nadu want Velu as their undisputed leader? Perhaps, only a few like Vaiko would want Velu and the greater Tamil Eelam. Other present democratic leaders of Tamil Nadu would not want Velu. The powerful Tamil Brahmins would reject him wholesale. The fact, however, is that Velu is so ambitious in his own mind and maniacally egotistical in his thinking that he is calling on all these people to come under his absolutely oppressive suzerainty.

In making this demand, Velu is launching a frontal onslaught on the Union Government in New Delhi and the present Constitution of India. He wants the dismantling of present-day India. Given the many active separatist forces in India, this mischievous and ominous call should be taken seriously by India. India needs to revisit its 16th Constitutional Amendment passed by Nehru (in 1963) against the DMK separatists. Velu has also attacked India on other grounds including the Indo-Lanka Accord in his 27th Nov. speech. Mighty India knows what should be done. But, will it move a finger?

Most Tamils now living in the western world would not abandon their newly acquired life styles to return to Velu's Eelam. Both materially and socially all these people are well-off beyond their dreams. Would any of them swap their affluent life for a miserable life of slavery and destitution with no freedoms and Human Rights of any kind? Perhaps, Velu is dreaming of a situation where the international community would promulgate a present-day Balfour Declaration (which created the modern day Israel) creating the greater Eelam centred in Sri Lanka. His expectation is that the Diapora Tamils will then flood his country to make it the newest country to join the UN with a flag full of bullets and a snarling tiger's head. This is the impossible dream for which he has sacrificed hundreds of innocent humans and is determined to continue this obscene violent oblation. His bloated ego needs "an object of devotion to be the focal point of all his strivings and the basis of all his effective - and not only proclaimed - values (Erich Fromm: The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness). This is his brand new country - the greater Eelam. He would not lay down his life for it, rather, he would kill others or have others killed for it.

In Sri Lanka itself, Velu is now restricted to a very small area of the country with hardly any natural resources. It is mainly a parched area in the north of Sri Lanka full of thorny shrub jungle, where the people eke out a meagre existence from dry land. He has direct control over 3 to 4 lakhs of people, most of whom are dependent on government handouts for their daily sustenance. This population is diminishing at accelerated velocity due both to emigration to government controlled areas, and unforgivable deaths due to his war with the GoSL. A few others live on the salaries and pensions paid by the government. Almost all of them are dependent on the government for their medical needs. The education of their children, too, is directly dependent on the government to the extent permitted by Velu and his cadres. For, Velu requires these children to fight his war rather than grow up as educated valuable citizens of the country. In short, if the government so wishes, it could throttle the life in Velu's tiny Eelam by withdrawing all support it now gives to the people living there. The state has not done so because it knows they live there under coercion and that they are not all supporters of the LTTE. They are citizens of this country in dire need. Given this precarious predicament Velu's vision of a greater Eelam smacks of a brain gone mad beyond redemption. The most suitable remedy for this malignity is a swift regime change in this renegade part of the country. Any GoSL pursuing this policy should be supported wholeheartedly.

There are quite a few lakhs of Tamils living outside Velu's control in the areas south of Sri Lanka. Once greater Eelamis founded, Velu expects them to return to this greater Eelam. Any straw poll of Tamils taken any time any day on any street on Colombo will drive a missile through this unfounded grand vision. In spite of the occasional difficulties and confrontations these Tamils have with the security forces, they will not abandon their comparatively comfortable lives to return to indigent hell hole of Velu. These Tamils are economically, socially and politically well-off. They can get their children educated without sacrificing them to the Sun God. They can protest without fear against the government whenever necessary. They can take their grievances to the Supreme Court and obtain relief. They can get their politicians to stage protest campaigns in the well of the Parliament itself whenever necessary. They can also marshal sympathetic press and electronic media and other civil and religious organisations on their behalf to obtain relief for any unmitigated grievances. All these actions are neither possible nor allowed under Velu in his tribal land. Therefore, these Tamils will not give up their present lives. Moreover, quite many of them did abandon their native north decades before the present armed conflict and their roots are firmly established in the south of the country. To them greater Eelam is a hollow meaningless vision not an attractive proposition beckoning them to prosperity and peace. This is the reason for the vast investment in buildings by Tamils all over the main towns in the south Sri Lanka.

It is quite clear that Velu wants to tear off Tamil Nadu from India and join it to the Northern and Eastern province of Sri Lanka to found his greater Eelam. If the Malaysian authorities are correct that their Tamil troublemakers have connection with LTTE, he must also be eyeing a portion of that country too, so that his present-day "Wijenagar empire" would be his undisputed domain. This is truly an unattainable dream of a mad man, and could have been left as idle prattle, but for the fact that this mad man has got arms, ammunition, death-dealing fanatical cadres and suicidal Black Tigers to pursue his dream.

He has to be halted by dealing with him in the same way he deals with others. He is as dangerous to Asia as Hitler was to Europe.