“The Tamil people need to resist
both MR and MS, but also those political elements within the Tamil
people who contribute to such a hegemonic agenda,” Jude Lal said in his
interview.
“If the common candidate of the opposition wins the
election – it will signify the next stage of the genocidal process
against the Tamil people. It will mark the beginning of the final stage
of the Genocide,” the Asia Editor of Alternative Sud opined.
“This
is when the US/UK, the real architects of the genocide of the Tamil
people, by pushing away the Rajapaksa regime, which has been identified
internationally as the public face of the massacre in 2009, will oversee
its replacement by ‘fresh new faces’ who will take on the baton to give
a new lease of life to the continued torment of the Tamil people,” he
said.
“It will also bring the US/UK closer to claiming its
military prize by undermining the Chinese influence - which had been
brought in by Rajapaksa in a desperate attempt to avoid his regime being
disposed of like a dirty rag after its usefulness is over. This is why
Rajapaksa is projecting the election campaign as a choice between China
and the USA, Professor Jude Lal said.
“If this is the democratic
dilemma for the Sinhala polity let them resolve it if they think that
they can do so, but let Tamil people have no part in it.”
“The
Tamil people are survivors of a colossal massacre, who have a collective
will to self-determination. This collective will to freedom can only be
effectively expressed at this moment only by totally distancing
themselves from the racist electoral competition of the Sinhala society
and polity, which is highly backed by the international powers who
maintain the unitary state,” he further said.
Full text of the interview follows:TamilNet:
This election is projected as an important step for democratic advance
for everyone living in the island. Does more democracy for the Sinhalese
lead to better conditions for Tamils to win their democratic rights?
Professor Jude Lal:
Tamil people will know from bitter experience that their democratic
rights are not advanced by the free expression of Sinhala popular
feeling.
Every Tamil will know that the majority consensus
feeling amongst the Sinhala population during the anti-Tamil pogroms in
83 or Mullivaikkal in 2009 had been one of jubilation - at the
subjugation and brutalization of the Tamil people and their rights. The
expression of the ‘democratic’ consensus of the Sinhala people in the
island has hardly ever bided well for the Tamils. We cannot address this
question without examining the historical process.
The Sinhala
consensus became an obstacle to Tamil people’s democratic rights well
before the island got ‘independence’ from the British in 1948.
The
possibility for a principled unity between the Sinhala and Tamil people
did exist during the latter part of the 1920’s. This was when the
vibrant ‘Jaffna Youth League’ called on the ‘Colombo Youth League’ to
form a progressive anti-colonial alliance against the British rule.
But,
with a carefully calibrated British plan to give democratic rights to
the people in the island by facilitating a Sinhala majoritarian mindset,
they were able to destroy the possibility of a real democratic unity
between the Sinhala and Tamil people.
The British managed to
incorporate even Sinhalese leaders with progressive credentials to their
scheme. By successfully internalizing British interests in Sinhala
population the British were able to control the Tamils (who could have
connected the population in the island to the rising Indian independence
movement) and thereby provide a stable military base to protect their
colonial interests in the Indian Ocean.
This mechanism, set into
motion by the British, where the expression of Sinhala people’s
collective will invariably undermining the rights of the Tamils,
continued to thrive after ‘independence’. And as the ‘democratic’
consensus of the Sinhalese became more and more antithetical to Tamil
people’s democratic rights the resistance based on the right to
self-determination developed. We all know the terrible violence and
racial pogroms that were the Sinhala answer throughout the decades of
non-violent protests by the Tamils.
And as the Sinhala consensus
supported the British architectured unitary state structure – the
Tamils in the north and east made a clear democratic expression to leave
it and form an independent state in 1977. The democratic voice of the
oppressed Tamil people was met with brutal violence with the full
consent of the majority of the Sinhala people. The collective political
will of the Sinhalese and the democratic aspiration of Tamils were
clearly diametrically opposed to each other.
The democratic
rights of the Tamils and the democratic rights of the Sinhalese are not
the same as the so-called Sinhala pro-democracy campaign claims.
The Sinhala majority wholeheartedly justified the massacre of the Tamil people in getting rid of the LTTE.
The
others (particularly the Sinhala liberal and progressive intelligentsia
who supported the peace process) keep silent about these massacres out
of fear of Sinhala chauvinists. They justify their fear by calling their
silence as pragmatism.
In effect, the promise of democracy by
the so-called Sinhala pro-democracy campaigners has totally and
radically different meanings for the Tamils and the Sinhalese. It means
good governance for the Sinhalese and continuation and furtherance of
subjugation for the Tamils. Establishing rule of law for the Sinhalese
and maintaining and increasing militarization in the Tamil homeland.
Let
us look at the agreement made between the common candidate and the JHU.
Freedom of information is promised only to the extent that it does not
hinder national security interests, which are associated with the
sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Sinhala state.
In
this sense, democracy is being built and will be built on the graveyards
of the Tamil people, like the British White settlers built the biggest
democracy in the world in the USA by annihilating the native Indians.
Majority of the those Sinhalese in the so called pro-democracy campaign
not only wholeheartedly supported the massacre of Tamils but also
continue to support the on going structural changes and have clearly
expressed to do the same in future. How can then the democratic rights
of the Tamils and Sinhalese be the same?
What is the core of the
electoral battle between MR and MS? Each is trying to demonstrate to
the Sinhala constituency who is more patriotic, meaning who is more
prepared to impose Sinhala hegemony over the whole island and maintain
the unitary state.
In essence, it is a competition to show who
is ready to be more racist and who is more prepared to crush any move by
the Tamil people to self-determination. This competition has engulfed
the Sinhala society more and more in an abyss of racism and militarism.
It is because of this abyss that MR and MS cannot be seen as the greater
evil and the lesser evil respectively.
As I said at the
beginning this phenomena is not new to Tamil people. What is new here is
that it continues even after a massive massacre of Tamils and the
Sinhala polity is seeking support from the Tamils again for a regime
change with false promises. It was this competitive racism that has been
resisted by the Tamil people for decades with thousands of lives.
Therefore, by joining the MS, TNA under the pressure of India and USA is
contributing to reinforce Sinhala hegemonic politics. They are leading
the Tamil people backward, rather than leading them forward. The TNA is
being used by these powers to reinforce Sinhala hegemony in the name of
democracy. The Tamil people need to resist both MR and MS, but also
those political elements within the Tamil people who contribute to such a
hegemonic agenda.
* * *
TamilNet:
Do you mean to say that there is no clear division between MR and MS
campaigns as claimed by the so-called pro-democracy groups?
Jude Lal:
Yes, there is no clear division from the perspective of the Tamil
people. Why then there is a division within the Sinhala polity? Is it a
division between those who want to highlight massacres of Tamils and
those who deny it? No, not at all. It is a division created by the
question ‘who are the real owners or stakeholders of the military
victory over the LTTE’. Is it the Rajapaksa family or the security
forces and the rest of the Sinhala polity and the society.
MS,
in fact, publicly stated that he was the defense minister during the
last week of the war in May in an attempt to gain credentials for
military victory.
Even the Sinhala liberal and progressive
intelligentsia in the so-called pro-democracy campaign, who once opposed
a military solution to the National Question during the 1990s and in
early 2000, are totally silent about mass atrocities committed against
the Tamil people. To put it bluntly asking the support from the TNA to
back MS means asking to support the military victory.
However
much TNA talks against denial of memory of massacres of Tamils, in
effect their opposition becomes impotent by supporting MS.
The
Tamil polity has been asked to support an agenda that erase the memory
of the massacre, an agenda that attempts to destroy the Tamil collective
political will to self-determination. This is what exactly those global
actors the UK, USA and India plan to do, and want to do. This is
another well-calculated step of on-going genocide which is being taken
with the consent of elite Tamil national polity… The Tamils are being
asked to choose between two candidates who maintain and promise to
continue the same genocidal policies and the process. This choice is
projected as a democratic election. A totally misleading and ethically
and politically indefensible question has been posed to the Tamils: Is
it MR and MS? This question does not have an iota of acceptance of the
collective rights of the Tamils as well as a recognition of mass
atrocities committed against them.
* * *
TamilNet:
So are you saying that the expression of Tamil people’s democratic
rights and those of the Sinhalese have always been in contradiction
since the 1920’s?
Jude Lal: No. But it was only
after several decades of armed struggle by the LTTE had broken the
UK/US military paradigm that this possibility arose. By demonstrating
the ability to fight the Sinhala armed forces to a standstill, the LTTE
in 2000 initiated a peace process attracting international actors that
opposed the war paradigm of the US/UK. Encouraged by powerful forces
from within the EU, Sinhala people made a historic break with the
military ethos that had been imposed on them and voted for peace talks
with the Tamils. This opened up the tantalizing possibility for the
Sinhalese to opt for sharing sovereignty with the Tamils through
negotiations. The period of the peace process provided the chance for
the Sinhalese to escape the straitjacket imposed by those who wanted to
maintain the usefulness of the island as a military post. It is only as a
unitary state that Sri Lanka can function as an asset optimum for war
fighting and projection of military power – like for the USA’s ‘pivot
Asia’ strategy. Sharing of sovereignty between the Sinhalese in the
south and the Tamils in the north and east would undermine the island’s
usefulness in a war fighting scenario. Especially so, as the Tamil
political movement had long proclaimed that the strategically valuable
north and east of the island should be part of an Indian Ocean zone of
peace and opposed stationing of foreign military bases
(
See page 12 of the Political Programme of the LTTE).
But
the fact that even under continuous pressure from the US/UK axis the
peace talks continued for several years was testimony for the
possibility that the Sinhalese could envisage sharing sovereignty with
the Tamils. It is evidence that the Sinhalese could imagine replacing
coercive bond of the unitary state with voluntary connection based of
mutual respect and understanding. But in a similar way to the 1920’s the
Sinhalese could not withstand the intervention of the external powers –
the US/UK now instead of the UK then.
* * *
TamilNet:
Does this not bring up the possibility that the opposition candidate in
the elections tomorrow could open up the possibility for the Sinhala
masses to revert to position it took during the peace talks?
Jude Lal:
No. Because the fundamental political positions taken by the opposition
is designed to prevents this from happening. By proclaiming complete
allegiance to the unitary state structure, by defending and justifying
the genocidal onslaught in Mullivaikal – the opposition is riding on the
Sinhala supremacist politics.
The JHU, the main architect of
establishing the politics for the war to commence during the peace talks
is a leading force within the opposition. In fact, it is JHU, which is
running the election office of MS. It is the JHU and the JVP, which
aligned themselves most clearly with the USA and the UK during the peace
process. These selfsame forces, who were the most strident warmongers
during the Rajapaksa period, are now supporting the common candidate.
If
the common candidate of the opposition wins the election – it will
signify the next stage of the genocidal process against the Tamil
people. It will mark the beginning of the final stage of the Genocide.
This is when the US/UK, the real architects of the genocide of the Tamil
people, by pushing away the Rajapaksa regime, which has been identified
internationally as the public face of the massacre in 2009, will
oversee its replacement by ‘fresh new faces’ who will take on the baton
to give a new lease of life to the continued torment of the Tamil
people. It will also bring the US/UK closer to claiming its military
prize by undermining the Chinese influence - which had been brought in
by Rajapaksa in a desperate attempt to avoid his regime being disposed
of like a dirty rag after its usefulness is over. This is why Rajapaksa
is projecting the election campaign as a choice between China and the
USA. If this is the democratic dilemma for the Sinhala polity let them
resolve it if they think that they can do so, but let Tamil people have
no part in it.
Respecting the memory of those who offered their
lives in thousands means to start reliving the principles of politics
that Tamils people have learnt through so much of suffering and pain for
decades. They are not victims who can be used in regime changes that
maintain the Sinhala hegemony as masterminded by the UK, USA and India.
The Tamil people are survivors of a colossal massacre, who have a
collective will to self-determination. This collective will to freedom
can only be effectively expressed at this moment only by totally
distancing themselves from the racist electoral competition of the
Sinhala society and polity, which is highly backed by the international
powers who maintain the unitary state. Such an effective distancing will
take the political struggle forward empowering the Tamil people more
and more… That is true democracy for the Tamil people.
Chronology:
