By Athula Senanayake

This has reference to a welcome speech give by Tamil attorney George Willy at a reception hosted for President Rajapaksa in Houston recently, now available on YouTube.

According to Mr. Willy Prabhakaran came – Prabhakaran fought a noble war and then died like a hero on behalf of the Tamil people – so now please treat him with respect and undo what wrong that has been done by the Sinhalese.

He speaks of the great days of Jaffna when all was good and peaceful and everybody had all the rights due – and he is right. In fact, it was a de facto separate state where everyone spoke Tamil, every sign was in Tamil and where every democratically elected official was a Tamil. Any Sinhalese or Muslim who lived there learned the language and pursued the Tamil way of life – no complaints. The area was prosperous from the earnings from the south who bought their produces and all was well – I was there myself there and can concur with Mr. Willy.

The question is, who then destroyed all that? – it was Prabhakaran and he alone. He was a despotic tyrant who even killed a large number of democratically elected Tamil politicians who did not see it his way. He created an unrealistic and unjustified demand for a separate state for less that 8% of the country’s population who lived in the north – and we know that they were not all for him.

So for Mr. Willy – who strangely loves his forefathers yet rejects the name given by them – to stand there in his $3000 suit and to pontificate to a President of Sri Lanka, irrespective of the individual, is ludicrous. Willy is far removed from the reality as many of the Diaspora and has a romantic recollection of Jak fruit trees and ethnic integration, yet insists on referring to the destroyer of all that and the tyranny of Prabhakaran as a ‘rebellion’ and professes that ‘it is hard to say who is to blame’. Well – just look into your heart, Mr. Willy, and you will know who exactly that was.

The Tamil Diaspora still live in denial of the atrocities of Prabhakaran and looked to him to provide them with some identity as they go about as lesser citizens of their adoptive countries. Well, he is well and truly gone now and Sri Lanka as a whole has paid a heavy price.

The likes of Mr. Willy best take a hard and unbiased look at the facts before standing sanctimoniously and air-brushing the most barbaric terrorist of modern times – his comparison, I am sure, has even Elara turning in his grave.

http://www.dailymirror.lk/print/index.php/opinion1/25612-living-in-denial-the-tamil-diaspora-style.html