No Federal, One National Anthem
– Rear Admiral Sarath Weeraekera
On August 12, 2016
(Interview with Daily Mirror)
Rear Admiral Sarath Weeraekera had been the Chief
of Staff of the Sri lanka Navy and the first Director General of the Civil
Defence Force. He was one of the five Heads felicitated by the nation for
winning the war. He was the Deputy Minister Labour and Labour Relations during
the previous government. He was the Director and the script writer of the film
Gamani (which shows the ruthlessness of
the terrorists ) which received 17 film awards including the best film, best
Director and best script writer of the year. He is also the President of the
newly formed National War Heroes Front. Here are some excerpts of his interview
with the Daily Mirror.
Q1. You have been very critical of this
government policies as seen in your recent articles to the news papers. What is
your main concern?
I don’t want to discuss about the disaster in the
economy we are in, but my main concern is of course about the national security
and the war heroes. We have fought the war for 3 decades , sacrificed immensely
to defeat Terrorism, and ensured the unitary nature of the country. Twenty nine
thousand men were killed, fourteen thousand critically wounded and others
fought and survived to make it happen. But this government , from the time they
came to power, are jeopardizing the national security, paving the way for LTTE
to re organize, and hell bent on pushing our war heroes to International
Criminal Court on charges of war crimes. That , is my concern.
Q2. That, is a very serious allegation against
the government, can you elaborate it, not as a politician but as a senior
military officer?
Well, you can’t deny the fact that I am already a
politician, but let me tell you this with great responsibility. Our government,
after winning the war, took very important measures to prevent LTTE from
reorganizing. We strengthened the Intelligence units and were able to crush
three attempts by LTTE to come up again between the years 2009 and 2014. We
banned INGO’s like Global Tamil Forum, under UN charter 1373, which supported
LTTE directly and also banned Tamil Net web which constantly pollute the minds
of the Tamil youth against the Sinhalese. Maximum possible lands and houses
were released keeping the most important to ensure security.This
government, remanded a very efficient
group of Int. officers no sooner she came to power, on a false murder charge, thereby demoralizing all other Int. officers
. They lifted the ban on all pro LTTE NGO’s and the Tamil Net, released
strategically important land without a proper military study, and released
hardcore LTTE’rs from prison. The NGO’s are now freely moving about in North, preparing a data base of all the
11,000 rehabilitated LTTE cadres and 4000 hard core LTTE’rs not surrendered to
the Army. With a very strong Int. unit if we were able to detect the reemerging
of LTTE on three occasions can you just imagine how well they must have
organized by now with no Intelligence and with pro LTTE NGO’s operating freely?
3. The
Taminet is again in full swing and the Chief Minister is giving leadership to
commemorate the dead terrorists. A suicide jacket , ammo and explosives were
detected a few weeks ago just by accident! Wigneshwaran is passing resolutions
in the PC demanding federal state and the government is keeping mum. What the
LTTE could’nt achieve militarily, Wigneshwaran, TNA and the Diaspora are trying
to achieve by other means with the blessings of the government. This of course
nothing but treason.
Q3. You
said the government is trying to push the soldiers to ICC. During the war, many
excesses may have happened. If a soldier has done something unacceptable, are
you telling that we must ignore it just because they won the war?
No. If a soldier has violated the law, done
something wrong, then he should be tried and punished as per the prevailing law
of the country. You can’t have special courts with foreign judges sitting in
judgment of our men. In our country, according to the constitution, everyone,
including the soldiers are supposed to be equal before the law. If there is a
special court only for the soldiers that means soldiers are not equal before
the law in our country. Is’nt it hilarious ? Is this the way to treat our men
who have sacrificed their entire lives for the country? The government is going
to the extent of even amending the constitution to allow foreign judges, Is’nt
it contemptuous? If the Office of the Missing Personnel ( OMP ) bill is passed
in the parliament, it is the last nail of the coffin of all those who fought
the war.
Q4. OMP is
for the benefit of the missing people during the war. Issuing death
certificates, paying compensations etc. are all done things after a war. How can
it be a last nail of the coffin of the soldier?
I am glad that you asked that question. I will
explain very briefly and you will be surprised to learn how this government is
prepared to let down the entire nation in the name of accountability, just to satisfy
the separatist Tamil Diaspora, TNA and
the West. Anyone can challenge in courts
what I say. This bill equals the terrorist who massacred the innocent civilians
and the soldier who sacrificed his life to save the nation. Compensations will
be paid to the next of kin of both the terrorists and the soldiers. This office
could sign agreements with foreign companies, receive foreign funds, recruit
foreigners without government approval. They can visit any tri Services camp,
police, CID at any time of the day
,demand and get any top secret document. Refusal would amounts to contempt of
court.
They can get evidence from video conference from abroad, accept it, even
such evidences are not acceptable in
our courts according to the Evidence Ordnance. The most funniest thing is that,
if a missing person is found to be alive in any country, it can be revealed
ONLY with that person’s consent. For example, our In.t officers are in remand
for more than 320 days for the Ekneligoda missing/murder case. If Ekneligoda is
found to be alive somewhere you are not supposed to tell that unless Ekneligoda
agrees. If he does’nt, then our men will be in jail for ever whilst
Ekneligoda’s wife will continue to receive compensations given for the NOK’s of
missing personnel. This clause has been included for the benefit of the
terrorists who have fled the country and on record here as missing. Is’nt this
amounts to cheating?
This office, with those who are against our
soldiers in the staff, can prepare any type of false report against our
Generals, Brigadiers, and men, or the former Defence Secretary or the former
Commander in Chief, and send it to the UN security Council directly and it goes
as a report prepared by an office legitimately approved by the parliament of
Sri Lanka. Wigneshwaran’s resolution on Tamil genocide , which the government
has not denied, already sent to UN. Then as Mangala Samaraweera (our
government) has already agreed to submit our country to the Universal law, it will come to a
situation where our people will be arrested abroad and tried in any country.
Is’n t it a last nail on the coffin? This kind of betrayal is never heard of in
any country in the world.
Q5. The Tamil politicians demand a federal state
to the North to meet the aspirations of the Tamil people. Are you against
devolution of power? Don’ t you think that the Tamil people have a genuine
problem?
Im not against devolution of power but the center
must be in control. If a Chief Minister of a PC tries to do something against
the constitution of the country, the center/parliament should be able to intervene and stop it. If
not how can the parliament be supreme?I heard Mr.Wigneshwaran making a statement
in radio about federalism and Tamil aspirations. Wigneshwaran should be
reminded that out of the Tamil population in the country only 49% live in the
North and more than 50 % of the Tamils live in other parts of the country
amongst Sinhalese and Muslims. If
federalism is to meet the aspirations of
the Tamils in the North what about the
aspirations of the Tamils living outside? Does that means Wigneshwaran is not
concern about those Tamils or is he convinced that their aspirations are
already met/fulfilled? My frank opinion Sandun is, that people like
Wigneshwaran, Sumanthiran, Sivajilingam have no right to talk on behalf of the Tamils, let along their aspirations.
Q6. That statement of course needs further
elaboration.
I repeat that those politicians have no moral
right to talk about the welfare of the Tamils but we, as forces, have more
right than them. During the last stages of war, when the LTTE were forcibly
taking away school children aged 10 – 12
yrs and sending them over concertina wires in the battle field to be
killed so that the fighting cadre can
step on to their dead bodies and get inside and when the LTTE were firing point
blankly at the innocent Tamils running into the hands of the Army, instead of
asking /or appealing to LTTE to stop it, Sumanthiran ran to Europe asking for
assistance for LTTE. That was their concern about their own people.After the
war , when our valiant soldiers , risking their lives, were removing 495,000 AP
mines and 5125 AT mines laid by LTTE, to enable the displaced Tamils to
resettle, Wigneshwaran never had the decency to come and offer even a cup of
plain tea. When our soldiers, using their own money were building 8000 houses
for the displaced Tamils, Wigneshwaran or Sumanthiran never donated even a roof
tile for that project. When 295,000 Tamils were being resettled giving all the
facilities they never came and offered even a cup of yoghurt to a Tamil child.
During the last days of the war, when Prabakaran
was keeping around 300 innocent Tamils as a human shield inside the Nandikadal
lagoon and planted a large number of mines around him to deter soldiers, we
could have easily fired artillery and killed Prabakaran along with all the
civilians. Instead of resorting to that type of action our men walked over the heavy
mine field, knowing that they would lose their lives/limbs just to save the
innocent. More than half of the men who walked on that day are now in Ranaviru
hospital without legs and about 30 – 40 died on the spot. That was the concern
of our soldiers towards their Tamil brethren and Wigneshwaran, who demands
withdrawal of the Army from the North
after doing sweet nothing when “ his people” were in great danger, should hide in shame.
2. Q.7
The Northern Province has passed many resolutions in the recent past and many
have their own reservations, how do you view that ?
Yes, the
Chief Minister Wigneshwaran, as I said before, seems to be very active in
passing resolutions specially after this government came into power. In fact he
prevented submitting the Tamil genocide bill during the last government and
passed it during this government, and that is hypocrisy. Passing that type of
resolutions and sending them to Geneva is a part of the conspiracy to separate
the North as all such reports would be considered during their final push for
federalism.He studied at Royal college
amongst Sinhalese, entered Law College with the Sinhalese, became a Magistrate,
High Court Judge, Judge in the Court of Appeal and promoted to a Supreme Court
Judge. So much for the discrimination against Tamils by the Sinhalese. He lived
65 years with the Sinhalese and, has the audacity to say that Sinhalese do not
have a right to live in the North. His both sons are married to Sinhalese women
but he shamelessly pronounce that the Tamils should not marry Sinhalese. That
is his contribution to the so called “reconciliation”.
In my 35 years of service in the navy I have
served many years in Jaffna and we have donated blood to the Tamil brothers and
sisters on many occasions. We are happy that our blood is mixed in our Tamil
friends. I am sure Wigneshwaran or Sumanthiran never have donated even a single
drop of blood to “their people” to date.
If they are Vellalas, they would never even dream of donating blood to
the Tamils in other casts. Before talking about equal status with the
Sinhalese, he must first look into the extreme discrimination prevalent in the
Jaffna Tamil society against low cast innocent
Tamils by the so called high class Tamils.
Q8. You have made a mark in parliament during the
last government. You were the only one who opposed the 19 A and also you were
the one who was vehemently against the National Anthem being sung in
Tamil. Tamils could understand the
meaning instantly when it is sung in their mother tongue, so what is wrong in
it ? Do you still think that you were correct in that regard?
I have always acted according to my conscious to
date. First, about the 19 A. Now only
people realize why I voted against the
19A. The constitutional council ( CC )is the one which appoints people for all
the important appointments in the country. It has nine members, ie The Prime
Minister, Leader of Opposition ( LOO), 5 members appointed by PM and LOO, one
member appointed by the President and one from a party other than the two major
parties. So the PM and the LOO always have 7 votes out of 9 in the CC and
their decision always prevail. The
President has only one vote. So as per today, persons for all important
appointments such as Chief Justice, IG, AG, Governor of Central Bank etc. are
decided by Sambanthan and Ranil Wickramasinghe and not by the President. The
President is elected by the whole country and Sambanthan/Ranil represent only
two districts. The executive power of the President is taken away from him and
given to Sambanthan and Ranil. Is’nt it
ridiculous? That’s not what Ven Sobhitha wanted although he was the main pillar
behind it but that was what has mainly happened with 19 A. .
Singing the National Anthem ( NA )in Tamil is
a blatant violation of the Constitution
and I have showed very clearly in TV
debates. Leave aside violation of the constitution, I strongly believe that a
country should have only one NA. It is used as official patriotic symbol which
strengthens the nation’s resolve which is not supposed to be pampered at the
whims and fancies of corrupt politicians. NAs are rarely noted for their
musical quality or for their texts. It’s the patriotic fervor that
matters. So the argument of “understanding the meaning” does’nt blend
with the true spirit of the NA.
There are 70 million Tamils in India together
with other communities such as Muslims, Hindus, Marati, Gujarati, Panjab etc.
but the NA in India is one and only Jana gana mana abhi nayaka jayahe bharatha
bagya vidhatha….written in Bengali by Rabindranath Thagore. I have seen even
the eyes of a Marathi man filling with tears when the NA was sung at the Indian
National Day in New Delhi.. He was not suffering from conjunctivitis but it was
the “feeling for the country “ which had brought tears into his eyes. No
separatist in India would dare to demand that
the NA should be translated into his respective language because it is a known fact that the
Indian Cabinet, although comprised of people of different communities, always
act patriotically, not as spineless cowards who would do anything to remain in
power, when it comes to aspects
effecting the sovereignty of the nation . NA is about the social cohesion of
the people and can it ever happen in a country with two NAs allowed based on
ethnicity? It will not bring communities together but separate them further.
Even the Intelligent Tamil people realize that
allowing to sing NA in Tamil is not a holy act to create reconciliation. It is
yet another cowardly act to fulfill another underhand promise given to
separatist Tamil Diaspora, just like appointing Sambanthan as the LOO ,by
forming a national government.
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