Wow, the Sri Lankan Goverenment has got away with a lot of things in the name of catching Prabhakaran - the leader of Tamil Tigers. Amazing fact indeed, considering that the Government has killed journalists, aid workers, MPs, catholic and hindu priests, school children etc.
Tamil Tigers. Well, while lot of people take turns bashing them, I reflect back 20 years ago where I had an encounter with a Tamil Tiger fighter - a female fighter. I am thinking of some of the things that she said and did – her dream of a free country, and wonder if she is still alive.
Tamil Tigers….the name means different things to different people
My parents (and many in that generation) refer to them as Podiyal (boys)
I (like many in my generation) refer to them as the Iyakkum (the Movement)
My five year old says “Tamil Tigers…Not the Forest Tigers amma (mother)…but Tamil Tigers!”
Sri Lankan people who generally don’t like them call them by the abbreviation “LTTE”
People who hate them call them “Terrorists”
The International Media likes to call them with a range of names from – Rebels, LTTE, Tamil Tiger fighters, Terrorists with colourful adjectives such as “ruthless”, “dangerous”, “vicious”, “blood thirsty” (!)
I like to stand by what I have always called them – The Movement. A movement that was formed to fight for the steadily eroding rights of Tamil people after the British left Ceylon in 1949 (Remember, Sri Lanka is Singhalese name appointed during the 1972 constitutional change after sidelining minority rights even further), after the Singhala only policy of 1956 and after so many democratic and peaceful protests failed. The Tamils Tiger leader started the Movement after seeing political processes failing in a system designed to support the majority. Gosh, we (Tamils) were supposed to be free in 1949 after four hundreds of foreign rule.
The British….
Can someone in Europe file a court case in the European Union (they are very fond of legal cases) for what the British did to us?…How the British united the different territories of Tamil nation and Singhalese nation (administered as separate units by the Portuguese and Dutch) in 1833 under the Colebrook unification for “administrative convenience”
The birth of democracy in Ceylon or “Independence day” on Feb 4 1949 was the Death call for Tamils, who went into Colonial rule as separate territory and came out as a minority left in system that favours majority
ie Separate territory -> Under colonial rule -> Minority community in a “Democracy” with a hostile majority
Yet, Tamils would have been OK if not for the common Singhalese mindset soaked in the myth/legend of a “lion race of Ayran origins” as told by the mythical historical Mahavamsa chronicles.
No, I don’t feel like blaming the Tigers yet for anything
To be continued….
Links used above:
Taraki – journalist killed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taraki_Sivaram
Lasantha_Wickramatunga – journalist killed
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/opinion/19mon3.html?ref=opinion
Killing of local workers from aid group Action Contre La Faim (ACF) – “worst attack on humanitarian workers since the 2003 bombing of the United Nations compound in Baghdad”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/01/2204557.htm
Disappearance of Catholic priest (related to Navaly church bombing)
http://sangam.org/taraki/articles/2006/09-02_Three_Appeals.php?uid=1915
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navaly_church_bombing
61 School children killed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chencholai_airstrike
