Kadirgamar and Wijewardene: killings on both sides
should be condemned
Editorial - Northeastern Monthly - September 1, 2005
The assassination of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar on 12 August has to
be condemned. It has to be condemned despite Kadirgamar’s persistent and tireless
efforts to undermine the Tamil struggle for self-determination. His plan was to ensure
a weak Tamil leadership, which would settle for any crumb at the negotiating table.
Kadirgamar was so militantly against Tamil self-determination that he was relentless
in his pursuit of the LTTE despite that organisation consenting to scale down its
original demand for a separate state, to one of federalism and internal self-
determination. His virulence was such that his action can by no stretch of one’s
imagination be interpreted as a wish to see a Sri Lanka in which all communities
could enjoy equality, freedom and justice.
But while condemning the killing of Kadirgamar who was a member of the
government, we should condemn equally government forces carrying out
assassinations against the LTTE using both personnel from military intelligence as
well as the Karuna group. There can be no double standards here, because both
the government and the LTTE are parties to the ceasefire. If they signed the CFA
from a position of parity, killing by one side cannot be condoned, while that of the
other side is condemned.
In the game of tit-for-tat assassinations, the murder in Jaffna of Superintendent of
Police Charles Wijewardene sticks up as a sore thumb. Though it might fit into the
logic of killing and counter-killing going on in the northeast, the way the job was
executed leaves much to be desired.
Before Wijewardene was murdered, gunshots at a hairdressing shop killed a
resident of Jaffna. There are conflicting reports as to whether the shooting was
deliberate or an accident. At the wake of this, a mob began throwing stones and
disturbing the peace in the vicinity of the killing.
It was at this point that Wijewardene and a posse of policemen had arrived at the
scene in a bid to restore order. According to reports yet to be contradicted, he was
requested to alight from his vehicle apparently to negotiate with the leadership of the
mob. He was allegedly unarmed. He waded into the mob, was swallowed by it, and
only emerged many hours later as a corpse.
It is agreed the military’s campaign against Tamils for over two decades has been
mostly terrorising unarmed civilians – men, women and children. Not only were they
shot, but bombed and blasted from a long range, or arrested on the flimsiest of
excuses to be tortured, summarily executed or made to disappear. They had no
arms to defend themselves and under the law led away meekly, some never to be
seen again.
Similarly, this magazine has been constantly urging for selective civil disobedience
and non-cooperation with state authorities as a way of forcing the powers that be to
address the burning issues confronting the Tamils such as the failures of the
government to uphold the ceasefire agreement.
What is troubling is not whether Wijewardene paid with his life for the sins of others.
Nor is it civilian-based non-cooperation against the police and military, which people
of the northeast are well versed in carrying out from the early 1960s. It is the mode
in which the whole operation was carried out that is troubling.
The Tamils have a martial tradition celebrated in the literature of the Sangam. In
past nearly three decades, the prowess of the militant groups, notably the LTTE,
has become a byword for courage, commitment and efficiency.
It is therefore unfortunate that the murder of an unarmed policeman takes place that
casts a slur on the reputation of the Tamil people and denigrates the hallowed
culture of which they are part. If such activity is allowed to go on unchecked it will
only result in anarchy which, except perhaps for very brief periods, has never been
a reality in the Tamils’ struggle for their rights.
[Courtesy: Northeastern Monthly - September 1, 2005