Top military post for genocidaire Sinhala commander, Quisling acid-test to Tamil academic

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 January 2019, 23:18 GMT]
Two appointments recently made by the president of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka have evoked much attention. One is the appointment of a Tamil person, Dr Suren Raghavan, who has been serving him for some time, as the Governor of the Northern Province; and the other is the appointment of Major General Shavendra Silva as the new Chief of Staff of the Sri Lanka Army. The appointments manifest in a classic setting of the genocidal Mahavansa-and-Mahaweli mindset of the Polonnaruwa-Anuradhapura establishment of Maithiripala Sirisena, commented Tamil political observers in Jaffna. The intentions behind the appointment of a Tamil academic, who is loyal to Sirisena and ‘acceptable’ to the Maha Sangha of the Sinhala Theravada Buddhist establishment, should be easy to grasp, they said.

Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian from Ki'linochchi S. Shritharan told TamilNet that the Eezham Tamils viewed the position of SL Governor to North as a shadow of the Sinhala rulers. Tamils have no say in the affairs of the unitary state after losing their sovereignty, he commented further.

Although the appointment of a Tamil person was something that should be welcomed, one must also perceive it as nothing else than an acid test for the persona involved, Mr Shritharan further observed. One cannot expect any tangible change in the conduct of SL Governor's affairs, which are determined by the Sinhala-centric ruling establishment in Colombo, he said. “He will only be an agent executing the orders of the SL President.” 

At the same time, Tamils witness the appointment of Shavendra Silva as SL State dealing a blow to the international community's quest for human rights approach, Mr Shritharan said.



The critics of the TNA in Jaffna commented that the Sinhala establishment was now attempting to groom a new genre of Tamil Quislings than the paramilitary ones from the times of war or the post-2009 top hierarchy of the ITAK. The TNA was ultimately responsible for the worsening trend, they said.

Mr Sirisena combines Sinhala-Buddhicisation with the so-called ‘development, heritage and conservation of environment’ in the North-East. He is also the Commander-in-Chief of the occupying SL military.

The staunch Sinhala-Buddhist establishments of Kandy, Coastal-South and North-Central province are now competing with each other in the race for the ‘civilisational advancement’ of the Sinhala nation through the annihilation of the ancient heritage of Eezham Tamils in the island, the political observers in Jaffna said.

The first step was the physical genocide. It is now superseded with accelerated structural and heritage genocide with the ultimate aim of annihilating the existence of Eezham Tamils as a nation in the North-East.

Gazafication of the occupied Tamil land is advanced through heavy militarisation and the Sinhala Buddhicisation of strategic corridors, which are critical to the contiguity of the territorial integrity of the secular homeland of the nation of Eezham Tamils.

In the process, the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka makes necessary sophistications through deploying Colombo-centric Sinhala Catholics such as Cardinal Malcolm Ranjit and Reginald Cooray against the Tamil Catholics.

A similar trend is also seen in the East where it uses the divide-and-rule tactics by setting Tamil-speaking Muslims and the Eezham Tamils against each other to advance the ‘Mahavansa and Mahaweli’ oriented ‘development and heritage’ genocide.

The latest appointment of M. L. A. M. Hizbullah as the governor to the Eastern Province is just another manifestation of the trend, Tamil-speaking observers in Batticaloa said.

The ‘sophistication’ which seeks Quisling-transformations also has a diaspora dimension to it, they said.

The Tamil diaspora, which is yet to effectively challenge the genocide-abetting notions such as the deceit of ‘development’, the farce of transitional justice without international justice and the one-way ‘reconciliation’ without any transition towards a political solution to the national question, is now risking its younger generation to Quisling politics.

The Sinhala establishment is also trying to advance the agenda of posting SL military to various UN tasks to strengthen its international image, the Tamil political observers said.

Shavendra Silva, through his various UN appointments in the past has the know-how to achieve it was the thinking of the military establishment in Colombo.

At the same time, Sirisena wants to strengthen his hold on the military, the observers in Jaffna said.

SLA's 58 Division, led by Major General Shavendra Silva, was behind assassinating LTTE members who carried white flags as advised by foreign diplomats and ministers such as Erik Solheim in May 2009.

In the meantime, Colombo moved with appointing the retired Major General as its deputy permanent UN representative in August 2010.

Some of the war crimes committed by the 58 Division, especially at the final stages of the Vanni war in 2009, have been detailed by the Report of the Secretary General's Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka in 2011.

However, the retired SL commander was rescued in 2011 from a civil litigation in a New York court over war-crimes allegations.

Despite serious allegations of war crimes, Silva was also "selected" as an advisor for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Senior Advisory Group.

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