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“There was a time when Sri Lankan Tamil poets like Somasundarappulavar of Navaly sang Mavali Sool Ilangai Naadengal Naade (This land where the Mahaveli flows is our country).This spirit was not reciprocated and Sinhala poets like Mahagamasekera sang only of a Sinhala preserve Me Sinhale Apagey Ratai, Api Ipadune Marana Ratai (This Sinhala is our land, A land where we are born and die).

The reaction from the Tamil side was predictable. Kasi Anandan, the foremost Sri Lankan Tamil nationalist poet wrote thus Engal Arunthamil mannai… Angulamum ini naangal ayal veriyar Aalavid… Thangathamil Eelam Thamilanukke, Thamilanukke (We will not allow alien fanatics to rule an inch of our beloved Tamil soil. Golden Tamil Eelam is for the Tamils)” – DBS Jeyaraj in “The Historical Quest to Restore Tamil Rights”

By K.T. Kumaran

The poets sang praise of the free flowing water, ethnic pride and more pride!

In the many wars between LTTE and Sri Lankan armed forces, a river nor water has never been the precise factor for fighting. Nevertheless, the scorching heat and dehydration of the fighting forces had worked to the advantage of LTTE, in places like the Elephant Pass.

But on July 26th, Israeli made Kfir jets belonging to the Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF) wounded 2 civilians in a bombing campaign near Verukal river, a branch of Sri Lanka’s longest river Mahaweli. It was the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) response to a protest over water and irrigation at the Mavilaru site in Vakarai, where Tamil civilians had closed water supply running through LTTE controlled area towards the GoSL controlled area.

The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) held discussion with the LTTE and GoSL regarding the removal of water blockade, but President Rajapakse’s “Chintanaya” seem to have gone over board with an “overwhelming” response to appease his constituents. There were no reports of any senior representative of GoSL visiting the area for any negotiations. However, once again the pictures of a few monks and mobs at the site hit the wire services. They were causing “appe Mahinda” to act, and for their appeasement, a “humanitarian operation” with bombing is now underway.

The government Defense Spokesman, Keheliya Rambukwela, told Hindustan Times “It is a humanitarian operation and not a military operation.”

GoSL sources say the blockade has resulted in about 1500 families and 30,000 acres of land being affected on their side.

Government spokespersons have pointed out that the LTTE blockade violates the Geneva Conventions which prohibit military action that is solely targeted against civilian life supporting infrastructure.

Geneva conventions which sovereign nation states are bound to be is recognized by the GoSL spokespeople in the context of the current “humanitarian operation!” Perhaps the GoSL spokespersons now accept the unitary state is in paper and two states are a reality in the island?

“The LTTE wanted such a reaction from the government,” Major General Ulf Henricsson said referring to GoSL dispatching the SLAF to bomb the area for the blockade. The flow of water from the Mavil Aaru dam in Trincomalee district on July 20 was shut to press the government for attention. SLAF bombs fell 6 days later.

The head of the SLMM, Major General Ulf Henricsson, talked to journalists at a Sri Lanka Foreign Correspondents Association event on Monday. He said that water might not be the real issue behind the on-going military clash between GoSL and the LTTE in North Eastern Sri Lanka. However, he would not answer the question as to what the two sides were really wanting.

The two sides may have been waiting to ignite a brush fire in the ongoing low intensity conflict and they have chosen water to stroke the fiery canons.

Somasundarappulavar’s lyrics revoke the waiting of the people in Pattalipuram, Pallikudiruppu, Malaimunthal and other remote hamlets which are suffering without proper drinking water facilities.

The “Chintanaya” let looses the mob to protest and agitate in tune with Mahagamasekera verses. Sri Lanka Army Chief of Staff Major General Nandha Mallawarchchi was seen with Athuraliye Rathana Thera, a monk and parliamentary group leader for the National Heritage Party (JHU) at the protest. The Army Chief was there to stop demonstrators on a protest march towards a sluice gate in Mavilaru.

The lines in response to the mob protest are from Kasi Anandan, “We will not allow alien fanatics to rule an inch of our beloved Tamil soil. Golden Tamil Eelam is for the Tamils”.

The works of these poets are being enacted!

The arid lands of the North-East depend on vital irrigation projects for bumper harvests. The river less Jaffna peninsula however is home to farming that is fully depended on Mother Nature and monsoon and backbreaking hard work of the farmers. Many of such peninsula farms now linger under the High Security Zones (HSZ) in violation of the 2002 CFA, and farmers languish as IDPs.

The tragedy of humanity, is that the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the North and East have been treading water without access to their lands and homes for several years. Even in GoSL controlled Jaffna, there is periodic shortage of essentials such as “Anchor” milk powder. None of these are heeded by the “Chintanaya”.

War and water have always been inextricably linked

Yitzhak Rabin, the former Israeli Prime Minister, once said that “if we solve every other problem in the Middle East, but do not satisfactorily resolve the water problem, our region will explode”.

This Middle East with stark water problems too may have encouraged the GoSL action according to a columnist and NGO activist. Writing in a Colombo daily on July 31st, he says “Governmental confidence may be coming from the observation of the Israeli retaliation in Lebanon against the Hezbollah militancy.”

It’s a hopeless situation where no country has come forward so far to man the much talked about ‘”outside” force to monitor the war torn Southern Lebanon.

“Chintanaya” may be inclined to follow the new Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, but LTTE is unlike Hezbollah and certainly Sri Lanka is no Israel.

Either way, Isreali Prime Minister Ehud Omert’s words on July 31st are more akin to what Poet Kasi Anandan said about “Golden Tamil Eelam”. Omert said, “Citizens of Lebanon, we are sorry for the pain caused to you, and the fact that you had to pick up and flee your homes, and also the casualties caused among innocents. But we will not apologize to those who put a question mark on the right of Israel to exist.”

Many polls in the US indicate that Americans now believe that Arabs and Israelis are never going to be able to solve their problems. Is this the path “Chintanaya” wants to take too?

“Break the cycle of hate and vengeance”, says a reader in his comment to my earlier article – “Rajapakse talks Lebanon with Indian women Press Corps”. He wrote, “Is there no commitment to honesty? Every killing, whether precise and targeted, or crude and general is met with claim and counterclaim, but not with an adequate investigation. It is both a sham and a shame — a cruel effort to mislead the world, as innocents die, lose all hope for the future, and risk their lives to escape. When we learn to break the cycle of hate and vengeance transmitted thru generations?”