18 May is the tenth an­niver­sary of Mul­li­vaikkal Re­mem­brance Day. In the dy­ing stages of the Ee­lam-Sri Lanka war for Tamil free­dom, WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh wrote an Open Let­ter to Charles An­thony, the son of Velupil­lai Prab­hakaran who was among the thou­sands of Tamil fight­ers ex­press­ing sol­i­dar­ity, hop­ing for Ee­lam vic­tory.   The Ee­lam Tamils lost their armed strug­gle against Sri Lanka as friends turned foes in a chang­ing geopo­lit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in South Asia and the world. Pay­ing trib­utes to Tamil mar­tyrs, WSN re­pro­duces the Open Let­ter.

Dear Charles An­thony:  Please ac­cept my sol­i­dar­ity with your strug­gle for sur­vival, iden­tity and free­dom. Hav­ing wit­nessed the strug­gle in Pun­jab from close quar­ters, I can un­der­stand the cir­cum­stances in which you and your peo­ple are wag­ing a fight for sur­vival.

In the me­dia, one day, your fa­ther –Vellupil­lai Prab­hakaran is a friend, the other day he is a foe. Some­day he was pro­tected, to­day he is haunted. For some he is a ter­ror­ist, for many, he is a sav­iour. What he is should be best left for his­tory to judge and not for op­por­tunis­tic coun­tries to de­cide.

I be­long to a mar­tial race. Sikhs are known to be­friend mar­tial peo­ple. Though many po­lit­i­cal lead­ers in Pun­jab may not have opened their mouths and made bold state­ments, be­lieve me, there are many who ad­mire the spirit, de­ter­mi­na­tion and fight­ing prowess of Tamil Ee­lam fight­ers.

The pre­sent news about the down­trend in your strug­gle has sad­dened many here. I write this let­ter to ex­press sol­i­dar­ity when you and your peo­ple face the chem­i­cal weapons and poi­so­nous gasses of the Sri Lankan army and when thou­sands of in­no­cents trapped in the cross­fire are given just a few hours to leave.

“Nor­we­gian Min­is­ter for In­ter­na­tional De­vel­op­ment Erik Sol­heim may not be able to per­form mir­a­cles, but at least he should have re­strained him­self from com­mit­ting blun­ders. Diplo­macy may be the art of the pos­si­ble, but a lib­er­a­tion strug­gle is to make im­pos­si­ble, pos­si­ble.”

I am moved by the suf­fer­ing of the Tamil Ee­lam pop­u­la­tion in Sri Lanka. The pho­tographs of the mis­ery of women and chil­dren should move moun­tains but sadly it does not. The whole world, thanks to 24-hour mul­ti­ple tele­vi­sion chan­nels have be­come im­mune to pain and suf­fer­ing.

I am moved by the suf­fer­ing of the Tamil Ee­lam pop­u­la­tion in Sri Lanka. The pho­tographs of the mis­ery of women and chil­dren should move moun­tains but sadly it does not. The whole world, thanks to 24-hour mul­ti­ple tele­vi­sion chan­nels have be­come im­mune to pain and suf­fer­ing.

My heart goes out to all men, women and chil­dren who are forced to flee their home­land and also to the core Tamil Ee­lam fight­ers. While writ­ing so, I feel a sense of guilt that my writ­ing is only an ex­pres­sion of my in­ner feel­ings, though as a Sikh the only thing that I should be do­ing is join­ing you in your fight. My prayers and good wishes are with you.

For the Tamil Ee­lam as for many or­ga­ni­za­tions world­wide, de­spite the best of timely and thor­ough doc­u­men­ta­tion, the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity has failed to take ac­tion to mit­i­gate the mis­ery and suf­fer­ing of the thou­sands in Sri Lanka. Like In­dia down­ing the Sikhs, Kash­miris and the peo­ple of the North-East and get­ting away with it, to­day, the Sri Lankan gov­ern­ment is get­ting away with broad day­light mur­der and may­hem.

It is heart­en­ing to see the Tamil Di­as­pora tak­ing to the streets and forc­ing di­a­logue in Eu­ro­pean cap­i­tals. I am par­tic­u­larly im­pressed by the re­tort of the Tamil Di­as­pora to the Nor­we­gian lead­er­ship. I have read re­ports that when Nor­we­gian Tamils laid a siege of the Oslo-based of­fice of the coun­try’s Prime Min­is­ter and con­fronted the gov­ern­ment there, the Nor­we­gian Min­is­ter for In­ter­na­tional De­vel­op­ment, Erik Sol­heim is re­ported to have said, “I can un­der­stand the level of des­per­a­tion among the Tamils in Nor­way. But, I can’t cause mir­a­cles.”

 Ee­lam Tamils, Plan­ta­tion Tamils and Sri Lanka -the gen­e­sis of a con­flict

He is re­ported to have replied to a ques­tion posed by the jour­nal­ists of Nor­we­gian state-owned NRK, “I can talk to the demon­stra­tors. I can talk to the USA, Japan and EU once again to see if there is any­thing more that could be done to stop the war in Sri Lanka.” Tamil writer K. P. Ar­avintham’s re­ply to him is apt and clas­sic. He said, “Sol­heim may not be able to per­form mir­a­cles, but at least he should have re­strained him­self from com­mit­ting blun­ders. Diplo­macy may be the art of the pos­si­ble, but a lib­er­a­tion strug­gle is to make im­pos­si­ble, pos­si­ble.”

Scan­di­na­vian coun­tries are par­tic­u­larly known for their courage and con­vic­tion in the area of hu­man rights and that is why per­haps your lead­er­ship had cho­sen the bro­ker­age of Nor­way. How­ever, Ar­avintham has hit the nail on the head when he said, “Nor­way failed in grasp­ing the point. Pos­ing as a neu­tral party to peace fa­cil­i­ta­tion, Nor­way has no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion in join­ing the co-chairs de­mand­ing the LTTE to lay down arms. More se­ri­ous is the stand ex­pect­ing the civil­ians of Vanni to for­feit them­selves into the geno­ci­dal hands of Colombo.

Scan­di­na­vian coun­tries are par­tic­u­larly known for their courage and con­vic­tion in the area of hu­man rights and that is why per­haps your lead­er­ship had cho­sen the bro­ker­age of Nor­way. How­ever, Ar­avintham has hit the nail on the head when he said, “Nor­way failed in grasp­ing the point. Pos­ing as a neu­tral party to peace fa­cil­i­ta­tion, Nor­way has no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion in join­ing the co-chairs de­mand­ing the LTTE to lay down arms. More se­ri­ous is the stand ex­pect­ing the civil­ians of Vanni to for­feit them­selves into the geno­ci­dal hands of Colombo.

Through their pro­ce­dural fail­ures, the Nor­we­gians have brought in dis­credit to the whole idea of in­ter­na­tional peace bro­ker­ing. There is still time for them to mend their ways if they can come out re­ally in­de­pen­dent from play­ing stooges to geopo­lit­i­cal am­bi­tions of pow­ers and are pre­pared to com­mit them­selves to the norms of global hu­man civ­i­liza­tion.”

The be­lea­guered peo­ple of Tamil Ee­lam con­tinue to reel un­der the jack­boots of the Sin­halese despots with ac­tive and pas­sive sup­port from In­dia and many other coun­tries. The affin­ity of Ee­lam Tamils with their brethren in the In­dian state of Tamil Nadu is also be­ing ig­nored. Thir­teen Tamil sis­ters and scores of oth­ers are on fast unto death in your sup­port, but do the me­dia and the gov­ern­ment care, par­tic­u­larly when the whole coun­try is in an elec­tion mode?

Like the stand of the Tamil lead­er­ship, the In­dian lead­er­ship also has been play­ing Chanakya with you and your lead­er­ship. And, suc­cess­fully. The world can­not clearly de­ci­pher whether In­dia is your foe or friend. In­dia rev­els in this kind of dou­ble en­ten­dre. It con­tin­ues to train and arm Sri Lankan army per­son­nel to the teeth and yet main­tains a soft face.

 Ee­lam Tamils, Plan­ta­tion Tamils and Sri Lanka -the gen­e­sis of a con­flict

I am not a de­fence an­a­lyst, but I think that when the Nor­way-led peace process started, the strug­gle of your peo­ple was hit hard. I am sure your lead­ers then had prac­ti­cal rea­sons for the de­ci­sion but in­vari­ably such peace process at­tempts of in­sin­cere gov­ern­ments en­able the en­trenched vi­o­la­tors to fur­ther arm them­selves and cause more death and de­struc­tion.

In­dia has al­ways done the same with Sikhs, Kash­miris, Na­gas and Mi­zos. The changed geopo­lit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion of the world af­ter 9/​11 has changed the par­a­digm of your strug­gle and this could also be the cause for shift­ing stands by the Nor­we­gians.

Last year around this time, Kosovo was born a new coun­try. A year be­fore that, Timor Leste at­tained free­dom. I was hop­ing that 2009 would be­long to Tamil Ee­lam. I am still hope­ful, though it does not ap­pear likely this year. There is an im­pres­sion world­wide that your strug­gle is at the last stage.

As the son of a man who ven­tures to change the ge­og­ra­phy of South Asia, I am sure you would keep the fight on. From my side, I have this to say, as I told the Koso­vars when they won their free­dom, “We have a say­ing at­trib­uted to the Tenth Mas­ter of the Sikhs, Guru Gob­ind Singh, which reads, “no one gives you free­dom on a plat­ter; those who have it, get it by the sheer grit of their own de­ter­mi­na­tion and strength.”

With truth as a ca­su­alty and facts not clearly emerg­ing, it is my sin­cere hope that it is not so. Your strug­gle must carry on. You must con­tinue to hold high the flag of re­bel­lion and free­dom. It is also my hope that for­mer US at­tor­ney Bruce Fein suc­ceeds in in­dict­ing US cit­i­zen Gothabaya Ra­japakse and green card holder Gen. Fon­seka for crimes against hu­man­ity.

The New York-based Geno­cide Pre­ven­tion Pro­ject has is­sued a red alert against eight coun­tries where geno­cide is hap­pen­ing and Sri Lanka is one of them. Let us hope they suc­ceed in height­en­ing aware­ness of the de­te­ri­o­rat­ing hu­man rights sit­u­a­tion in your home­land.

Even in the United Na­tions Se­cu­rity Coun­cil, there is a bleak hope the Mex­i­can am­bas­sador to UN -Claude Hel­len’s at­tempt to bring a res­o­lu­tion on the ques­tion of re­spon­si­bil­ity to pro­tect one’s own pop­u­la­tion goes through.

As the son of a man who ven­tures to change the ge­og­ra­phy of South Asia, I am sure you would keep the fight on. From my side, I have this to say, as I told the Koso­vars when they won their free­dom, “We have a say­ing at­trib­uted to the Tenth Mas­ter of the Sikhs, Guru Gob­ind Singh, which reads, “no one gives you free­dom on a plat­ter; those who have it, get it by the sheer grit of their own de­ter­mi­na­tion and strength.”

Sooner or later, you will have it. I wish you and your peo­ple to have the taste of free­dom in this life­time. Let God Almighty shower his bless­ings on the Tamil peo­ple and their suf­fer­ing end and let them stand tall as free peo­ple in the world.

Sin­cerely-in-faith

Jag­mo­han Singh