Nittewa

Sticking to the Lonely Planet is perhaps the best way to restrict your holiday to things that other people before you have done. Nothing new. No expanding of horizons, which to me is what travel is supposed to be all about.

For instance if you take the LP:Sri Lanka, you'd be shocked at the number of really cool places that have been left out simply because whoever was covering the island for the book didn't think they were cool enough to appeal to the average traveller. It's just a book meant to protect the image of Sri Lanka (or any other country) in the way orientalist thinking shaped it for the west. It's a warped reality.

A lot of people also seem to follow a LP like guide to LTTE terrorism in Sri Lanka.

let's look at what sparked off all this recent anti-LTTE slogan-shouting. Lakshman Kadiragamar's killing. We still don't know who did it, and everyone I've spoken to in Sri Lanka thinks it was an inside job, and says this line of thinking has an ever increasing number of followers. Since I am not in Colombo I have no right to comment on this any further.

But let's have a look at how people have responded. Let's look at a few generic statements.

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The LTTE kills alternative Tamil leadership, and is therefore incapable of being a part of the democratic mainstream and needs to be crushed militarily.

Seriously, that's nothing new. To anyone who's had their eyes and ears open in Sri Lanka for the past 20 years this is a painfully obvious fact. From the assassination of Doraiappa to forced assimilation of the other armed Tamil groups in the mid 80s to recent killings in Colombo, this has never stopped.

But, we didn't hear them shouting that when the leader of the EPRLF, best known by his nickname: Robert, was killed in Jaffna.

We didn't hear them shouting that when the Media Secretary of the EPDP Balanataraj was killed outside 'House of Fashions'.

But we did hear them saying pretty much the same thing when Neelan Thiruchelvam was assassinated.

Why is that?

In the first place Lakshman Kadiragamar was not an alternative Tamil leader. Find me ten Tamil people who would have voted for him, and I'll dance naked in front of Town Hall. Maybe he did have aspirations of being a great Tamil leader, but they were just dreams.

Neelan Thiruchelvam (a good man whose killing is unforgivable) never wanted to be a leader of the Tamil people. His life's work was about trying to push everyone towards a negotiated settlement, and he most certainly would not have accepted the JVP and JHU using his killing as a big stick with which to beat the LTTE.

But this was a brilliant opportunity for them to shout out to the world 'LOOK, THE LTTE ELIMINATES THEIR ALTERNATIVES!!!'

To acknowledge the EPRLF, EPDP or any one of the other groups involved in active anti-LTTE politics in the North and East (themselves not without innnocent blood on their hands) is a little dangerous, because any one of these groups could provide leadership to the Tamil people. So let the LTTE finish them off one by one and we won't utter a word. 'The fewer Tamil leaders we have around here, the better it is for us' seems to be the motto for the right wing Sinhala nationalists.

So they distract Colombo and the rest of the world from one of the most terrible crimes perpetrated upon the Tamil people by the LTTE, while elevating nobodies and unwilling people to the level of the leaders of the Tamil people. Right out of the LP Guide to LTTE Terrorism.

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The LTTE are terrorists because of the Central Bank bombing/Dalada Maligawa bombing/Dehiwala train bombing/Town Hall bombing/murder of monks in Anuradhapura etc...

OK, the LTTE did do all of this, and that makes them literally 'terrorists'.

But these bombings carried out in Colombo, Kandy and the other frequently used examples are, to me, poor indicators of the LTTE's terroristness. The war mongers in Colombo do not care about the dozens of Sinhala and Muslim villages where entire families were massacred by the LTTE in the past 20 years. From Gonagala in Amparai to villages like Sungawila in Anuradhapura, and in a countless number of villages in the Mahaweli settlements the LTTE have murdered thousand of innocent men, women and children.

But the war-mongers in Colombo do not care about these people. Because the LTTE trying to blow up a fucking fake tooth we crawl on our knees to worship is way more serious than them hacking to death an entire village. To them the LTTE blowing up a few airplanes in the BIA is more important than the systematic abduction and murder of hundreds of Sinhala and Muslim farmers in the East.

The Wimal Weerawanses, Athuruliye Rathnas, Maduluwawe Sobithas, and now Indika Samarajeewas keep going on and on about these few incidents to tag the LTTE as terrorists because these are 'high profile' incidents. They make for good press and everyone knows the press loves gory pictures. If it bleeds it leads.

This only proves that these pseudo-patriots care not about exposing the true nature of LTTE terrorism, but about furthering their political agendas on a 'LTTE are terrorists' platform. To do this they do not have to go to the East to speak to Sinhala villagers affected by the LTTE. Those guys don't give good soundbytes for the cameras!

So again, they distract us from the real nature of LTTE terrorism so that they may reap the benefits of the political fallout. A warped reality that we swallow whole simply because it's much easier to digest. One more from the LP Guide to LTTE terrorism.

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And there you have it folks, that's me trying to understand the Lonely Planet Guide to LTTE Terrorism.
Co-authored by Wimal Weerawanse, Athuruliye Rathna and Champika Ranawaka.
Layout done by our own Indika Samarajeewa.

NOTE FROM MORQUENDI
I believe the LTTE to be a group that frequently resorts to terrorism. But I also believe the Government of Sri Lanka also engages in terrorism. More debate on this later, just wanted to let those of you who read this know that I'm not the run-of-the-mill GoSL loving LTTE basher.

posted by Morquendi @  10:32 AM   || 23 opinion/s ||