SAKVITHI OF THE WANNI

sandman · Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 5:18 pm Post subject: SAKVITHI OF THE WANNI

ARTICLE FROM EDITORIAL OF THE ISLAND :

Sakvithi of the Wanni

These are bad times for con men in Sri Lanka. One big-time con artist has fled the country after the collapse of his business empire that stood on a foundation of other people's money and another is on the run with his military empire built on others' sweat, blood and money, caving in. The former is Sakvithi of the South or Sakvithi Ranasinghe and the latter Sakvithi of the Wanni or Velupillai Prabhakaran. Sakvithi, as we said in these columns the other day, means 'king of kings' or 'universal monarch'.

These two men may be as different as chalk and cheese in many respects. The one from the South has no history of violence unlike the other in the Wanni. But, their forte is the same––deceiving people. Both have run out of their tricks and are now up a gum tree with their victims baying for their blood.

Ranasinghe built his business from scratch as a teacher of English and had a meteoric rise to the giddy heights in the world of finance. He offered unbelievable interest rates to depositors and thousands of people fell for his wiles. "Come unto me," said he like a messiah, "I will deliver you from your financial woes." In fact, he did so initially. He and his family had a whale of a time at the expense of the unsuspecting depositors who reposed their trust in him. Finally, when his business came crashing down, he and his dear ones took wing to a faraway land, perhaps, never to return.

Our friend in the North, too, started his Murder, Inc. from scratch with a single minded will to succeed. Well fed on a diet of racism, he was only a teenager when he gunned down a popular Tamil political figure, Alfred Duraiappah. Having come of age as a fully fledged terrorist, he requested-––in most cases forced––people to invest in his venture. Funds poured in and volunteers lined up for enlisting. Begun as a joint venture with India, his enterprise was able to be on its own before long.

He had roaring business with billions of rupees at his disposal as a warlord in the North and the East of Sri Lanka. He promised to take his clients to Utopia and sacrificed their children and money to aggrandise himself. Almost all the democratic Tamil political leaders were eliminated together with a large number of Tami intellectuals. He also won the much coveted title among the scum of the earth, 'The Most Ruthless Terrorist of the World'. He and his family like the Con King of the South have had a nice time promising the sun and the moon to his 'shareholders'. He has educated his children abroad while using others' progeny as cannon fodder at home. As Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama has said in New York quoting UNICEF recently, child soldiers constitute more than one half of Prabhakaran's combatants.

Sakvithi of the Wanni has been in business for over twenty five years but instead of delivering the goods he has churned out corpses, as could be seen from the vast stretches of shrubby land in the Wanni dotted with thousands of LTTE graves, which are the dividends those who invested in his Murder, Inc. have received.

Editor of the Uthayan Australia has this to say in a recent article (reproduced in this newspaper today): "The Diaspora … was banking on the LTTE to keep on winning militarily. Now they are feeling useless. They have nothing to show for the millions they poured into the Tamil war chest. Their money is useful still but to construct more graveyards." (Emphasis added) The billion dollar question is: What has happened to the money invested in the Eelam Project all these years?

Sakvithi of the Wanni is doing a Usain Bolt in spite of having vowed to fight the final battle for Eelam. Heroes, we thought, were made of sterner stuff! They make a spectacle of themselves when they take flight. Hitler's bowels moved faster than his legs when the allied forces closed in on Berlin. Prabhakaran seems to be in a similar predicament.

That is the fate that awaits all the cowards who derive a sadistic pleasure from bloodletting from a safe distance. They die many times before their death and plead for mercy when their end nears. We saw Wijeweera shiver and stammer after his terror project had collapsed in the South. His last TV speech in captivity was a real weepy.

Those who pinned hopes on Sakvithi of the Wanni may continue to hope against hope. They are claiming that he will live (or run?) to fight another day. Yes, he may have to flee either abroad or into the jungles but it is only wishful thinking that he will succeed in carving out a separate state. For, this time around he will retreat into the jungles as a confirmed failure and not as a promising guerrilla needing time and assistance to prove himself. He is a package unwrapped. He has failed to achieve the goal of Eelam for twenty five years and reached the mandatory retirement age (for the members of the armed forces and workers in the private sector in this country). Small or sillera terror strikes would take him nowhere even if he were to live another twenty five years in the jungles.

The Uthayan Australia editor says, "Prabhakaran has also ceased to be the solution; instead he has become the problem." Time was when he used his military power to claim that his outfit was the sole representative of Tamils but today he has had to run for dear life. All the signs are that he will end up being Sri Lanka's Veerappan lording it over in the jungles of the North.

That is the fate that awaits all Sakvithis. Finally, they lay bare their true faces as failed con men. They can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but they cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

I AM BRAINLESS, SO PLEASE EXCUSE ME !!!!!!