The Post-War Wars
by Tisaranee Gunasekara-Thursday, September 12, 2013
“ The war will stop only after all the enemies who acted to the detriment of their motherland were brought to book irrespective of whether they were local or international”.
- Gotabhaya Rajapaksa (Indian Express – 11.8.2009).
( September 12, 2013, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) If the LTTE wanted what the TNA is asking for, the Eelam War would have ended long before 2009, in a negotiated solution.
Vellupillai Pirapaharan did not want federalism or even confederation. He wanted Tiger Eelam, a state wholly owned by and totally subservient to him. His maximum programme was his only programme. Had he wanted anything less than Eelam, he would have accepted either the Oslo Declaration (federalism in a single country, supported by the SLFP and the UNP1) or the quasi-separationist ISGA. He rejected both as betrayals. Eventually he engineered the defeat of Ranil Wickremesinghe and the victory of Mahinda Rajapaksa, because he wanted to escape peace and re-embrace war.
