Conflict in Sri Lanka: Ground Realities - Tamil Nation & Beyond

e trusted on a permanent basis. Their pacts, pledges andpromises can never be taken to their face value. Mr. Pirapakaranwho is acclaimed by a vast majority of Eelam Tamils both insideand outside of Sri Lanka as their National Leader enunciatedrecently the historically tested conviction of almost all Tamils,in his Great Heroes’ day Address, when he said, ‘…The Sinhalanation continues to be entrapped in the Mahavamsa mindset, inthat mythical ideology. The Sinhalese people are still caught upin the legendary fiction that the island of Sri Lanka is a divinegift to Theravada Buddhism, a holy land entitled to the Sinhalarace.” 12 It is unfortunate that even influential Sinhala historianswho claim to have had reasonable training in critical academicdisciplines, maintain without any hesitation that Mahavamsagives “a surprisingly full and accurate account of the island’s earlyhistory 13 ” It is therefore not surprising that the Tamil Nationalleader concluded that “it is because of this ideological blindness,the Sinhalese people and their political and religious (Buddhist)leaders are unable to grasp the authentic history of the island andthe social realities prevailing here. They are unable to comprehendand accept the very existence of a historically constituted nation ofTamil people living in their traditional homeland in north-easternSri Lanka, entitled to fundamental political rights and freedoms.It is because of the refusal by the Sinhala nation to perceive theexistential reality of the Tamils and their political aspirations theTamil national question persists as an unresolved complex issue. Wedo not expect a radical transformation in the social consciousness,in the political ideology, in the Mahavamsa mental structure ofthe Sinhalese people. The scope and power of Sinhala-Buddhisthegemony has not receded, rather, it has revived and taken newforms, exerting a powerful dominance on the southern politicalarena. In these objective conditions we do not believe that we cangain a reasonable solution from the Sinhala nation. We have to fightand win our rights. We have never entertained the idea that wecould obtain justice from the compassion of the Sinhala politicians.This has always been the view of our liberation organisation.” 14In essence, after engaging in almost a quarter century of apolitico-military liberation struggle Velupillai Pirapakaran cameto the conclusion that the Sinhala political leadership has always45