Sinhala ethnocracy's entrenched insecurity, ultimate spoiler of stability: Gajendrakumar

Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the leader of Tamil National Peoples' Front, was the first Tamil politician to warn – well in advance – that the powers collaborating with the SL State were risking instability in the island. The former Tamil parliamentarian came with the observation, which he has been implying for a long time, also in an interview to TamilNet in September 2018, two weeks ahead of Lt. Col. Thileepan's remembrance in Jaffna. The current political instability, predicted by Gajendrakumar in September, happened within 45 days, sending shockwaves across the international community. In a follow-up interview, just ahead of Maaveerar Remembrance in Jaffna, he indicates that any strategic collaboration between the external powers and the SL State, which is Sinhala-Buddhist ethnocracy in nature, would be doomed to falter, because of its entrenched attitude of insecurity. 



On the one hand, the SL military is behaving as victors who had vanquished the LTTE, but on the other hand, they are very insecure, even eight years after the war, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam said. 

Their behaviour against the public commemoration of Heroes Day of the Tamils is a testimony to this underlying attitude, he observed. 

“They think that anything that is symbolic in challenging their supremacist ideology has to be resisted, or in some way, contained.”

“Simply because that [the Sinhala-Buddhist] ideology is unable to compete,” Mr Ponnambalam said. 

The TNPF leader also implied that such insecurity could not be addressed through cosmetic changes to the existing SL constitution, through appeasement or naivety towards the Sinhala-Buddhist ethnocracy. 

Acknowledging that the ‘Sri Lankan’ state is the problem itself and recognising the mother of all causes, which is the Sinhala-Buddhist ethnocracy, is key to future stability. 

Reconstructing the state in a plurinational sense that recognises – not only the Sinhala nation as the custodians of the State, but also the Tamil nation – is the only possible way to get rid of the insecurity and to ensure sustainable stability. 

So far, the attitude shown by the international community, be it with regards to the Tamil commemoration or the Geneva resolutions, has been the same, Ponnambalam said.

“The international community has absolutely no qualms the very same military that stands accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in peacekeeping missions around the world,” he said adding that the high-ranking military personnel of the SL State were accepted as ambassadors in those respective countries. 

The USA and the other countries that “supported the resolutions in Geneva, and named and shamed the Sri Lankan Government, behaved in an opposite manner when a government which was much favourable to them came into power,” he observed. 

They turned a blind eye and were quite happy to have a very good relationship with the same military personalities they named and shamed during the previous regime. 

They were also happy to form military units and carry on with military exercises, all of which, they did not want to do with the previous regime - or pretended as not wanting to do with the previous regime, Ponnambalam observed.