In any civilisation, acts of omissions by a citizen is unforgivable, for it is a moral obligation than legal duty to inform fellow citizens. The failure to do so is considered as negative or unethical behavior and has been the cause of all miseries for the Tamils battered by the long drawn conflict in Sri Lanka.
Our religious teachings tells us that a negative or unethical behavior would result in negative consequences, is described as bad karma. Any bad karma that applies to all, be it the ruler or the ruled, earned from acts of omissions gets accumulated over time to end up with consequences on the communities and the country as a whole.
Thus all Sri Lankans have over the decades of long bloody civil-war and beyond continue to accumulate bad karma. This applies not just for the parties directly involved in conflict, but also to every unarmed civilian as bystanders in rest of the country.
As far as the bad karma of the Tamil civilians are concerned, they began accumulating it with their first act of omission in 1975. It was caused by their lack of condemnation of firing a bullet to assassinate a popular Tamil politician, who had served them well to that day. A Tamil separatist, did it in retaliation for supporting the state government.
With this assassination began the armed struggles against the state by the Tamils, protesting against loss of their civil rights. Latter, as state discrimination of the Tamils continued, it developed into a full scale bloody civil-war lasting several decades, with all its consequences.
Latter in 1999, a leading Tamil politician was condemned as a traitor was assassinated on the way to his office by a suicide bomber. As a constitutional lawyer, he worked to settle the ethnic conflict through peaceful means, considered out of order by the Tamil separatists.
Earlier in 1995, the lawyer drafted a constitutional reform package that involved merging of the Northern and Eastern provinces, expanding the subjects devolved to provincial councils, a practical mechanism to resolve disputes between the central and provincial governments and also gave greater recognition to all other minorities in the country.
Later, in the 1990s, it was the same constitutional lawyer, who worked to initiate peace talks between the Tamils separatist and the Sri Lankan government under a third party peace facilitator.
However, his package with these sweeping constitutional reforms, were dismissed without having even read it by the Tamils separatist leadership. It proved to be a grave loss for the minority Tamils, but their act of omission was very visible.
Long after his death, in 2002, the talks got into full force with Norway acting as mediator. In 2003, during the peace talks, the Tamil separatist proposed the Interim Self-Governing Authority (ISGA).
It was be the first set of concrete power sharing proposals ever put forward by the Tamils and for the Tamils, that itself was a significant achievement. But the proposals were disregarded by then Sri Lankan government from being considered as a subject of negotiation.
However, the ISGA proposal may have received a different reaction from the Sri Lankan government, if the constitutional lawyer was alive. For he would have encouraged peaceful negotiation and as the closest political adviser to the government, would have insisted on the proposals for consideration.
However, by killing him ultimately the Tamil separatist stabbed themselves in the back, as confirmed publicly by the political strategist and chief negotiator for the Tamil separatists. He realized the fatal mistake himself when he made a startling revelation in 2003 at the ceremonial opening of the bank named ‘vaippagam’ at Kilinochchi.
The speech was reported in full in the Jaffna based “Uthayan” of March 13, 2003. Where he acknowledged the original presented in 1995 by the constitutional lawyer to amend the constitution was the correct draft. That was acceptable, but later in 2000 government submitted an amended version was only a half-baked version of the original draft.
It was Tamil separatists, through decimation of Tamil intellectuals, ultimately helped seal their fate for what transpired in the final stages of 2009 as Tamils were slaughtered by the thousands just as many Tamil intellectuals had predicted would be the final result of the civil war.
The fact remains no matter who did it, both sides involved in the civil-war only differ in the number of unarmed civilians slaughtered. All of which constitute acts of omissions, as such are unforgivable, for it is a moral obligation than legal duty to inform fellow citizens.
As far as Tamil civilians, who remain in the country after the civil-war years are concerned, they having committed acts of omission, either inadvertently or wilfully have failed to perform everything required morally.
Bitter truth is, thus Sri Lankans are today facing the effects of resulting bad karma; their rulers themselves have earned during and after the civil-war was brought to finish in 2009. It has put pressure on the sovereignty of the nation with unwarranted interference from international communities and other countries.
In this scenario, the ruled must avoid fighting each other, like ‘kettle calling the pot black’; to enable the President, as ruler to lead the ruled by example. There is no better way than first start by resolving the issues of the ruled, including those of the most impacted Tamils!
Northern Breeze 