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Rote Lies
When it comes to the spread of lies, William Butler Yeats was apt in his
assessment of statesmen and journalists. In my search for the origin of ‘Pol
Potist’ label on Pirabhakaran, I came across two more relevant citations,
which substantiate my viewpoint (see, The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon – part
21). In fact, the Pol Potist label was first tagged to Rohana Wijeweera in
1988, an year before his assassination. Here is an excerpt from the Time
magazine’s commentary by Marguerite Johnson.
“While most Sri Lankans think the JVP is the only force that could
break Jayewardene’s iron clad on power, they do not view it as an
alternative. Privately, some politicians compare the JVP’s elusive
leader, Rohana Wijeweera, to Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge head widely
held responsible for the deaths of more than 1 million Cambodians
between 1975 and 1979. Even in its stronghold in the South, the
savagery of the JVP generated more fear than support…”[Time
magazine, International edition, Nov.28, 1988, p.13]
Wijeweera’s profile was a carbon copy of Pol Pot’s profile. Both were bred
in the milieu of Theravada Buddhism cum half-baked communism. While
Pol Pot went to France for his higher studies and absorbed the leftist
ideology, Wijeweera made his pilgrimage to Moscow. Later, both Pol Pot
and Wijeweera became fanatics of the Chinese brand of communism. Thus,
the comparison of Wijeweera to Pol Pot is not without some merits.
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The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 22 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part22.htm
“…To Indian police, the careful plotting of the murder and the cold
calm of the killer point to the Black Tigers, a suicide-attack unit of Sri
Lanka’s notorious rebel group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
The Tigers deny responsibility, but the Gandhi assassination has
nonetheless embellished their reputation as one of the world’s most
dangerous and disciplined guerrilla armies. ‘There is no one like them’,
says N.Ram, a Madras journalist who has studied the Tamil rebels for
years: ‘They are totally self-sacrificing’.
The Tigers are also ruthless. Their international network of moral and
financial support is more sophisticated than the Irish Republican
Army’s. Their brutality approaches that of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge
or Peru’s Shining Path…”[Newsweek magazine, July 1, 1991, p.13]
One snippet in this Steve Le Vine’s report which piqued my interest was the
following blurb on Mahattaya.
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The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 22 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part22.htm
The Indian Intelligence wallahs had convinced themselves that LTTE was
behind Rajiv Gandhi’s murder.
(3) The story leak that Mahattaya had been punished by Pirabhakaran
suggests that Mahattaya would be extricated from the charges of
involvement in Rajiv Gandhi assassination. This later turned out to be
true.
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The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 22 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part22.htm
“It was the LTTE which the RAW never succeeded in controlling or
manipulating. How did this happen? This is where Velupillai
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The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 22 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part22.htm
Thus, Rajan Hoole, the self-anointed grapevine digger on LTTE, is not sure
about the fate of Senkathir. But he has noted that Senkathir was a protégé of
Mahattaya. My curiosity was aroused by the coincidences of Mahattaya’s
protégés tagged as assassins of Amirthalingam, Yogeswaran and Rajani
Thiranagama, whose deaths occurred within a narrow span of less than ten
weeks. Within this tumultuous ten-week period, there had also been an
attempt on Pirabhakaran’s life by the RAW operatives, which failed. Now,
to clarify the gray areas of the Indian intrigue, I quote from Rohan
Gunaratna’s observations made in 1993.
“[Around April 1989] when news reached RAW that Premadasa had
established a communication with the LTTE… disinformation
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The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 22 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part22.htm
specialists at RAW fed a story that Prabhakaran had agreed for peace
talks with the Sri Lankan government due to a serious injury Mahattaya
had suffered and therefore needed urgent medical treatment.
Though Gunaratna failed to specify exactly when this happened, this bizarre
promotion of Mahattaya by the RAW operatives following the assassinations
of Amirthalingam, Yogeswaran and Uma Maheswaran. Gunaratna also had
observed in another location of his book, what RAW operatives did to
counter Premadasa’s Battaramulla declaration of June 1, 1989. According to
him,
“A total of seven letters, of which six were made public by the Sri
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The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 22 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part22.htm
India’s foremost policy wonk of that era, J.N.Dixit, in his book Assignment
Colombo (1998), placed his spin briefly as follows:
“There was a great deal of confusion about the political identity of the
killers. Some said that Visu, who headed the LTTE political wing in
Vavuniya after the disappearance of Dinesh, had left the movement.
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The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 22 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part22.htm
Others said that Visu was still with the LTTE. The LTTE London
head-office, however, issued a statement denying any involvement. It
condemned the murders and charged that forces inimical to the then
LTTE-government talks had committed them to discredit the LTTE.
‘The LTTE learnt with deep distress the tragic demise of the TULF
leaders. Amirthalingam and Yogeswaran. We suspect that diabolical
forces are at work to discredit the organization and to disrupt the
current peace talks between the LTTE and the government of Sri
Lanka’.
The LTTE denial failed to remove the doubts of the people about its
involvement. The great importance that the government attached to the
current peace talks was reflected in the manner the government-
controlled newspaper, Daily News, treated the story on 14 July
[1989]. It said, ‘The authorities were checking on the possibility that
an attempt was being made to falsely father the killings on the LTTE,
high ranking officials said.’ [p.11]
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The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 22 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part22.htm
Only solution for this paradox seems to be: ‘Pirabhakaran tells the truth for
one assassination; but does not tell the truth for another assassination’. Isn’t
this funny? But, at least it shows that the frequency of Pirabhakaran telling
the truth is higher than those who work in the same league, such as
politicians, army generals and Intelligence operatives of all nations.
(Continued)
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