2ND LEAD (Update)

Kalaikkoan's premonition proved right, Tamils cannot shy away from international struggle

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 May 2019, 23:41 GMT]
The chauvinist elements in the South which were behind the State-sponsored anti-Tamil pogrom in 1958 also chose to warn the Muslims and the Burghers that they would be the next targets in the aftermath. Many Tamils were chased out from South to Jaffna and Batticaloa, But they would be eradicated from there as well, in the future, through Sinhala militarisation, the warning claimed. Fifty years later, Colombo and the powers abetting its war, would be achieving that if the war was allowed to proceed the course it was taking, warned Kalaikkoan master, the head of LTTE's Navam Academy, in 2009. The 36-year-old student of history, who had almost lost sight in both of his eyes was an articulate teacher. He was subjected to enforced disappearance at the hands of the SL military on 17 May 2009. TamilNet releases the unedited audio of the Satellite phone communication with him from 13 April 2009.

The first ever pogrom to take place in the 20th century Ceylon was directed against the Tamil-speaking Muslims. It was during the British rule in 1915.

The Burghers are mostly descendants of the European colonial servicemen who had married native women in the island.

“I don't know whether we would be alive to put everything on record. Therefore, I want to convey what I have in my mind now. You are free to make use of this recording, edit and release it in whatever way you want,” Kalaikkoan told TamilNet on 13th April 2009.



The colonial British were the ones who were ultimately responsible for the plight of Eezham Tamils, and the British empire must be held accountable for the creation of the unitary state, an act which was based on their interests, Kalaikkoan explained.

“I have a 1958 warning which was issued by the chauvinist elements to the Muslims and the Burghers. The warning states that the island should be Sinhala-Buddhist in its entirety. The Tamils were warned. But, they failed to grasp the message. Now they are running towards Jaffna and Batticaloa. We will soon eradicate them also from there. Our Prime Minister is building a military to eradicate them from there, the warning read further,” Kalaikkoan said. He was referring to a copy of the warning issued as a notice in 1958, which he had obtained it from the Archives maintained by the LTTE (He wanted to send the document by email, but didn't manage to accomplish it due to the prevailing situation).

The systematic deployment of the occupying military was conceived in 1958. Already in 1961, the occupying Sinhala military exposed its aggressive agenda in one of the first violent military action against the peaceful, non-violent protesters at the Kachcheari in Jaffna, he said.

Kalaikkoan said that he wanted to convey his feelings, mainly two specific thoughts to those in the Tamil diaspora, whom he had met in Europe in 2004 when Norway was facilitating a ceasefire and the negotiations.

The first one was about the military counter-insurgency agenda and the orchestration in the media projecting the people and the Tigers as two separate entities.

The second one was about the genocidal intent originating from the Mahawansa ideology.

He was talking to TamilNet in the evening after listening to the BBC Tamil broadcast in which Sir John Holmes, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, was discussing the ‘temporary ceasefire’ aimed at providing a safe passage to the civilians.

However, the civilians, including the children, were dying as the SL military continued to fire disregarding its promise.

“I don't know whether you can hear the gunfire and the shelling in the background through this telephone,” he said.  

The SL state, which promised to suspend the aggression for two days starting from 13th April to facilitate safe passage, was continuing to direct fire towards the civilians since the morning disregarding its promise to the UN, Kalaikkoan said.

Kalaikkoan master has been subjected to enforced disappearance after he was separated from his family and detained by the SL military on the morning of 17th May 2009.

The fate of Paramanantham Kokulakrishnan alias Kalaikkoan, who hails from Va'n'naar-pa'n'nai, Jaffna, is not yet known.

Almost all the key personalities serving the de-facto state of Tamil Eelam, whom the SL military filtered away from their families at the end of the war, have been subjected to enforced disappearances.

Kalaikkoan believed that the Sinhala extremist sections determining the southern polity wanted to annihilate the Tamils also from the North-East according to the Mahawansa mindset instilled deeply into the psyche of the Sinhala establishment in the South. He went into narrating the mindset in detail.

The SL State and the powers that were backing it were also carrying out the onslaught on Vanni according to a militarily conceived counter-insurgency agenda against the Tamil national liberation struggle. The outside media was even orchestrating the counter-insurgency message, he said.

Even if we lose in the military battles of Ki'linochchi and Puthuk-kudiyiruppu, one cannot risk losing in the battles [of advocacy and forging solidarity] in the countries where Eezham Tamils were living in large numbers, before it is too late, he said.

Kalaikkoan master’s observations in 2009 on the significance of Tamils not losing the ‘battles’ outside the island, the genocidal attitude caused by the Mahawansa-mindset escalating the structural and heritage genocide in the North-East, the chauvinists turning against the Muslims, and the futility of those expecting the Colombo regime to honour agreements bereft of international guarantee, are the lessons gaining prominence at the tenth Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal Remembrance of Tamil genocide.

* * *

The following is a video recording of an advocacy-related lecture given by Kalaikkoan in 2008 after the Government of Sri Lanka unilaterally withdrew from the Ceasefire Agreement with the LTTE.



Tamil Eelam national leader often points out that the Sinhala mindset is deeply entrenched in the myths of Purana (ancient religious texts) times, Kalaikkoan observes in the video lecture.

He narrates in detail his interpretation of the Mahawansa mindset and why the SL State would never stick to a negotiated agreement. Only a solution with international community guaranteeing Tamils rights of self-determination and sovereignty would be able to last.

Instead of asking what the Sinhala state have learned from the history, Tamils have to ask ourselves, what the Sinhala state has taught us. The lesson is that it would not honour any pact it makes with the Tamils. It would rip apart the agreements, be it six months, six years or sixty years, he said.

In 1958, the SL State needed 6 months to tear apart an agreement it signed with the then leader of Tamils S.J.V Chelvanayakam. Now, it needed six years to walk away from the Ceasefire Agreement it signed with the current leader of Tamils, he explained in the video recorded in 2008.

There are those who say Tamil Eelam is a small nation and an independent state is not viable. Look at Kosovo which is 50% the size of Tamil Eelam. Even though Russia, a veto power, was refusing to recognise Kosovo, its independence became possible. Our struggle has been a prolonged one running across several decades compared to Kosovars. We have sacrificed a lot, he observed.

Does the international community act solely based on the interests of the powerful state actors or whether there is a question about its inability to grasp the significance of our struggle, is the question one got to ask, Kalaikkoan said.

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