The Mahinda Rajapaksa group believes that India and America intervened to topple the previous regime and the incumbent government is guided by this combination of super powers.
He once said: “India should not do this. They have to be very cautious about it. Because when the people go against you all, go against the country it is not good for them, not good for us.”
However Rajapaksa has admitted receiving New Delhi’s help to defeat the LTTE. Also, he has admitted that there was ‘some truth’ in the criticism that he failed to unite the country after the civil war ended. “When I wanted to move on political solutions, I invited Sampanthan and other political parties. They did not want to have anything to do with me at that time.
They did not even want to discuss with me,” he said. The Tamil leaders expressed the feelings among the Tamil people who suffered under the genocidal attack of the Rajapaksa regime. Mahinda Rajapaksa came to power after sabotaging the peace attempt by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
However Rajapaksa, based on his imperialist theory, made a scathing attack on the United States, which vocally criticised him during his presidency. He said the US had spent nearly 650 million dollars to bring about a regime change.
Shared values and common objectives
The MR team always blamed the civil society for supporting western imperialism. In that scenario, the Pakiyasothy Saravanamuththu narrative contributes a significant change. “I don’t think we have the licence or the liberty to sit on the sidelines and criticise. We have to engage in a critical and constructive engagement with the government on the basis of shared values and common objectives,” he said.
“One of the arguments J R Jayewardene of the UNP made in the 1970s was that we need a strong executive to ensure uninterrupted and smooth economic development. But interestingly, after the executive presidency was set up, there was an insurgency in the South and a civil war which went on for three decades,” he said. That is a powerful argument against the dictatorial presidency.
Obviously the answer is to share and diffuse power and there should not be a single office relatively immune to checks and balances. “That is why it is important to move back to the parliament democracy we had before 1972, and not after 1972,” he said.
This intervention counter balances the activities of the JVP and its offshoots, including the Weerawansa faction. After all, still JVP has not completely broken out of Sinhala Buddhist majoritist thinking. That influences all offshoots including Frontline Socialist Party.
TNA leaders
Then in the North, liberal minded Sumanthiran has come under terror attack. The arrested suspects are former LTTE members. Information available from the government investigation, about overseas Tiger involvement in the plot, indicates that serious steps are taken for the security of the MP.
Some believe this was another exercise in the series of attempts by the Diaspora Tigers to revive the LTTE again in the country. The TNA leaders believe that it was too premature to arrive at conclusions whether this was a case of the LTTE being revived or not.
What is clear now is that some misguided former LTTE cadres living in Lanka are being exploited by certain overseas elements through cash incentives to engage in acts of violence on Lankan soil.
The Mahinda Rajapaksa group is also interested in creating clashes and violence. Considering various conspiracies going on, no one can be sure at this time whether this is an individual act targeting Sumanthiran or whether it is part of a more comprehensive design to revive the LTTE again. The TNA is confident that the security agencies will probe this further and arrive at definite conclusions very soon.
Sinhala and Tamil radicals
Sumanthiran is hated by both Sinhala and Tamil radicals. Sinhala chauvinists consider Sumanthiran to be a clever rascal working-out Eelam project with the support of US and other western countries.
As a leader emerged from Chelvanayakam tradition, he has become the ‘western agent’ of Tamil plot to destroy Sinhala nation. On the other hand, Tamil radicals believe Sumanthiran is a traitor come to destroy the Tamil Eelam project.
So, Sumanthiran has the right to say that it is too early to speculate whether the targeting him is an isolated matter or part of another broader attempt to revive the LTTE again in Lanka.
There have been many such attempts before and have been discussed seriously both in the north and in the south.
Sumanthiran has been playing a very fearless role in bridging the gulf among the nationalities and striving to ensure the liberation of Tamil people, through mass struggle in democracy.
In recent times he has been making a creative contribution to the Constitution making process as the TNA member of the Constitutional Assembly steering committee with Dr Jayampathy Wickramarathne.
It is the expectation of all democratic people that the enactment of a progressive Constitution would be a significant achievement in the struggle for resolving the Tamil national problem. Hence both Sinhala fascistic groups as well as Tamil separatists are being united in opposition to the envisaged Constitution for different reasons. It is necessary to defeat both tendencies and go forward in the path of democracy.
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