Army Wants More Troops In The North After Wiggie’s Prabha Remark
I September 15, 2013
The defence authorities have reacted angrily to remarks by Tamil National Alliance Chief Minister CandidateC.V. Wigneswaran in Velvettaiturai where the former Supreme Court Judge allegedly claimed Velupillai Prabhakaran was a ‘great hero‘.
C.V. Wigneswaran
The commanding officer of the northern province Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe has reportedly asked the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence Gotabaya Rajapaksa to increase troop numbers in the area since the statement could result in a regrouping of ex LTTE combatants, a Sinhala language newspaper reported this weekend.
Hathurusinghe and Wigneswaran have crossed swords previously when the ex-Judge questioned why the senior military official was making political statements and criticizing the political candidates.
Wigneswaran’s remarks at Velvattathurai which is also the LTTE Leader Prabhakaran’s birth place have been badly received in other parts of the country.
Critics say the former Justice has been making increasingly Tamil nationalistic speeches on Election platforms.
Portal, Precipice Or Political Suicide Bomb
Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka
“The Tamil Tigers…were the most supremely deadly and effective terrorist group to emerge at any time in the second half of the 20th century…There is no overall moral equivalence between the government of Sri Lanka and the Tigers.” - Greg Sheridan, Foreign Editor, The Australian, ‘Sri Lanka’s Path to Peace’ Sept 13, 2013
When the most authoritative commentator on Tamil politics, DBS Jeyaraj exposes (in his latest piece) proto-secessionist and pro-terrorist discourse on the part of the main Tamil parliamentary party the TNA, it gets my attention. It would take an idiot to ignore it. (‘Wigneswaran Praises Prabhakaran at Velvettiturai’, Daily Mirror, Sept 14th 2013).
The TNA is not a secessionist party, but when it is reliably reported that it has not broken with the secessionist paradigm and even flirts with dangerous secessionist discourse and symbolism, it must be recognised that Sri Lanka simply doesn’t possess the geostrategic space to regard the signs as unthreatening and unproblematic.
A call for a measure of ‘self-rule’, ‘self-government’ or ‘self-administration’ within a united country is entirely legitimate. The demand for the full implementation of the existing provisions for a measure of self rule within a unitary state, as enshrined in the 13th amendment, is also entirely legitimate. However, this isn’t all there is to it, as DBS Jeyaraj reveals:
“…Tamil nationalist politics in Sri Lanka, Tamil Nadu and within the global Tamil Diaspora continues to be under the shadow of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)notwithstanding the fact that the Tigers are no more in Sri Lanka. Despite the LTTE being a non-entity in the Island, many Sri Lankan Tamil politicians of the Tamil National Alliance refuse to be liberated from the residual hold of the Liberation Tigers…
