Open Letter to Col. Karuna, Commander Tamil Army, Batticaloa Division, Tamil Eelam

[From AppuArchie (Ramalingam Shanmugalingam), USA]

Greetings Col. Karuna

News reports are rather sketchy and hence I am not certain of your current position in the Tamil liberation struggle. Your loyalty to Tamil Eelam cause and to the national leader is exemplary. It looks as if the Sinhala leadership has succeeded in creating confusion within the freedom struggle cadres and the Tamil public, using the ceasefire that has led to complacency. This is no time for bickering within the Tamil army. As the saying goes,

“Forward, the light brigade!
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Someone had blunder’d:
Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die:”

Tamils were pushed into the valley of death by successive governments and it is only brave soldiers like you under the leadership of Velupillai Pirabakaran, stopped Sinhala government sponsored Tamil denigration and forced the government to the now doubtful negotiating table.

Mutiny within mercenary forces is a common phenomenon. It is however, disturbing to learn that you have opted to weaken the Tamil struggle by publicly rebelling or taking issues with established Tamil leadership. It is no less than treason. However, if the media reports are reliable, the leader has spared your life, and correctly so in times of ceasefire.

Dear Col. Please refrain from taking Tamil struggle down with you as any weakening of the struggle by a split will only make it easier for the several anti-Tamil forces to succeed that failed so far. ‘aRignar’ Anna gave up the demand for a separate Tamil Nadu when threatened by outside forces. The freedom struggle in Sri Lanka also took a page from Tamil Nadu, perhaps, and gave up the demand for secession under certain conditions. The threat to Tamil existence in Sri Lanka has not evaporated with the ceasefire lull. In fact, the current political mish mash only makes the Tamil case more precarious. It is not the time to be antithetical but should be creatively accommodative. If not, as Alfred Lord Tennyson painted, the sacrifice hitherto made may end like the “Light Brigade”:

“Flash’d all their sabers bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the saber-stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.”

Dear Col. Please do not make it easy for the Tamil bashers and Tamil haters to make their wishful thinking come true.

Thank you

Sincerely

‘AppuArchie’ Ramalingam Shanmugalingam
San Diego California USA
Tuesday, March 09, 2004