'Only God can save the Tamil people'

Posted: Sunday, May 18, 2008 at 2254 hrs IST
Updated: Sunday, May 18, 2008 at 2254 hrs IST

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: today, only Vavuniya remains in their control. Most of the North, including Jaffna and the entire East has been recovered by the government forces.

How does it feel to be forced to stay elsewhere from one’s homeland, as refugees, on margins of society? What should be the role of western nations or even countries like India ?

India and the western nations ought to take moral responsibility for the human death toll in Sri Lanka today. These governments have taken turns in repeatedly selling arms to both the Lankan government and the Tigers. There are many small nations who have become sites where these superpowers can test out their capabilities. Sri Lanka is one of them. It is now a neo-colony. The public service infrastructure and land has been sold off to the multinational corporations. If there were not a state of ongoing war in Sri Lanka, they would not be able to exploit the resources of Sri Lanka without opposition.

Do you think both sides will get exhausted without reaching a situation that satisfies either?

The peace talks between the government and the Tigers have now fallen through. The government and the Tigers are caught in the jaws of a political trap, built by their unthinking support and development of a nationalism that now looks to swallow them both. The next stage for the Lankan government is to drag on the peace talks with controlled periods of ceasefire. As long as the fate of the people lies not only in the hands of the racist Lankan government and the Fascist Tigers, but also in extreme Tamil nationalists and capitalist powers, I can only repeat what the now deceased, Tamil Eelam leader, SJV Chelvanayagam said: “Only God can save the Tamil people.”

Has literature been an outlet for you?

I cannot claim, “I am outside of social institutions and political parties, and free as an artist.” The very same organisations that I believed would liberate the people have in turn presented the people with a life of oppression and pain. I will continue to raise my voice against authoritarianism in my literary work. I deeply believe that literature is a tool of social liberation....

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