The issue most debated by intelligent Tamils last May, the 2nd Anniversary of Mullivaaikkaal, was the following: why did the leadership of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), possessing more than three decades of military experience and expertise, stay in their last and shrinking base in Mullaiteevu until it was too late to escape into the Vanni jungle? On the 1st Anniversary we analysed the dimensions of the global war against the LTTE in the essay ‘The Tiger Safari’, of how more than 30 countries set the Organisation up for the kill, and all that the Sinhalese military did, in a manner of speaking, was pull the trigger. But the question is: why did the LTTE defend Mullivaaikkaal to the fatal end?
On foreign Santa Clauses
In the context of west’s military backing for the Colombo regime and the unfolding LTTE-led Tamil National Resistance, it is important to bear in mind the coordinates of western realpolitik encapsulated in Otto von Bismarck’s dictum: ‘The great questions of the day will not be decided by speeches and resolutions of majorities,’ [and, may we add, by conflict resolution] ‘but by blood and iron.’ The Americans, Europeans, including Norwegians, and Japanese have NOT come from thousands of miles away to altruistically assist the Tamil people secure their rights in Sri Lanka. They did and still do pretend to be a bunch of political Santa Clauses thirsting to help emancipate Tamils by promoting devolution out of sheer goodness of heart. They are entitled to their devious acrobatics. However, any Tamil, local or diaspora, who swallows that drivel is living in cloud cuckoo land!