Kadirgamar was an unwavering opponent of terrorism
By PK Balachandran
Urbane and articulate, with a penchant for an attractive turn of phrase, Sri Lanka's
Former Foreign Minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar (73), had always been a journalist's
delight. Mediapersons would throng his press conferences not just because he would
have something significant to say, but because he had a way with words which made for
excellent copy.
Having been a leading light of the Oxford Debating Society as a student at Balliol
College, Kadirgamar brought to his legal practice and political career back in Sri Lanka
an unusually analytical mind and a persuasiveness which few of his adversaries could
match.
As a lawyer, Kadirgamar touched the pinnacle, becoming a President's Counsel, and as
a politician, he reached a height no other minority Tamil did, as a participant in the
Sinhala-dominated, mainstream Sri Lankan politics. He became Foreign Minister, the first
Tamil to hold that post. He brought to his post the rich international experience he had
gained as a top official of a Geneva-based international organization dealing with
intellectual property rights.
By any yardstick Kadirgamar was an outstanding Foreign Minister. "One of the best in the
world," as former Indian High Commissioner Gopal Gandhi put it. "The best chairperson
for international conferences," said External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh.
As Foreign Minister, Kadirgamar did what most Sri Lankans thought was impossible - get
the West - the US and UK - to ban the LTTE. And few Sinhalese expected a Tamil to
pursue this objective with such devotion and energy.
Right from the early eighties, the West had been very sympathetic to Tamil militancy and
tended to blame the Sri Lankan state for it. But Kadirgamar's tireless efforts and lobbying
in key world capitals, yielded unexpected results. While stressing the justifiability of the
Tamil cause, he deprecated the separatism, fascism and the crass militarism which had
come to characterize the Tamil struggle for rights since the mid eighties.
"Separatism is a kind of tribalism and I am not a tribalist," he once said. He was also
passionately against the partition of countries, though ethnic nationalisms consider it a
panacea. "Partitions create a haemorrhage which lasts for generations," he said.
In a situation, where separatism had become the accepted and legitimate creed of the Sri
Lankan Tamils, it was not surprising that Kadirgamar had incurred the wrath of the
Tamils. To the LTTE, he was the quintessential "drohi" ie: a betrayer, and, was only too
well known, his life was under severe threat because of that. But Kadirgamar was
unfazed. "I've got used to living with this threat," he would say nonchalantly. A hunted
man, he was ringed by tight security.
In a country which had been craving for the internationalization of its domestic ethnic
problem, Kadirgamar's cry for the preservation of independence and sovereignty was a
voice in the wilderness.
"Sovereignty is another term for self-respect and is the condition for survival in this world,
he would say. "If a nation loses its self respect, nobody would respect it," he told
Hindustan Times recently.
A small nation should not, and need not, cringe and crawl in the presence of bigger and
stronger countries, he felt." A small country can negotiate successfully with bigger and
more powerful countries by presenting its case with self assurance and dignity," he
asserted. [Courtesy: Hindustan Times]