Sunday Celebrity: Thillaiampalam Sritharan for cooperation, not confrontation with Colombo

Thillaiampalam Sritharan, a Boston- based Sri Lankan Tamil activist and a former Bank of Boston employee, who once spearheaded the Eelam movement with his two brothers in US and who later got disillusioned with the idea when a group of people started taking up arms, killing people, leaders, peers, killing each other, was in Chennai on a brief visit.

Talking to this writer of Asian Tribune last week after his one trip to his homeland and a peep into the camps in the North and East, Sritharan said he is on a different mission now. He visited Sri Lanka after 20 years, now that the fear factor is no more there.

He says all the funds and aid materials generated from India and from other donor countries is going only to the North IDPs. He is drawing the attention of the authorities that be here in India and elsewhere to divert some to the East camps too. Sritharan, a resourceful person, who went sore with killings in his homeland, is now asking for more for eastern IDPs.

“In fact, they are the first displaced persons. Even before the civil war ended in May, they moved to the camps on a call from the government. There are the Muslims driven away by Tigers,” Sritharan says and adds “although USAID and American help is taking care of them, the IDPs in the east are still wanting.”

He met a few politicians here in Tamil Nadu and was going back to Sri Lanka to meet President Mahinda Rajapaksha, before returning to Boston.

Sritharan met the Rajya Sabha MP and Chief Minister’s daughter, Ms Kanimozhi, along with Chairman of OfERR Mr. Chandrahasan, and impressed on her the need to divert some fund to the eastern IDPs. She was receptive to the request and promised to take it up with Government officials and find a solution to it.

He met his old friend and Janata Party president Dr. Subramanian Swamy. “The MPs delegation from Tamil Nadu that visited recently the camps in Northern Lanka did not see the condition of the East campers. May be they are not subsequent to war ending.”

Sritharan met the Editor-in-Chief N. Ram and Editor N. Ravi of The Hindu in Chennai, who were appreciative of Sritharan’s moderate approach. He is carrying a message from N. Ram to his President Rajapaksha about the release of the journalist Thissanayakam.

In Tamil Nadu, Sritharan was taken around by Mr. Chandrahasan to a number of refugee camps run by his OfERR, with the help of Tamil Nadu government. He was impressed the inmates conditions were better. He expressed satisfaction with the government handling refugees here, although condition in one camp (Spl. Camp at Chengleput) needs to improve.

Visits IDPs in the North

In his visit to Jaffna, Sritharan says he found people happy, and the city bustling with activities. Armymen and civilians were getting together in a friendly manner. Sritharan accompanied Lankan Minister Dougles Devananda.

“I saw myself what was happening—the condition of the people, found out their longing to return back to their own homes. What best can be done is happening. It has definitely improved from what has been there during the civil war and before,” he says.

“Now that on monthly basis IDPs are allowed to return to their homes to resettle is encouraging. This will ease the pressure on the government and the people so that those that are remaining will share the limited facility to their full,” Sritharan feels.

Dwelling further on his visit to the IDPs, he said the schools and shopping centres were back to business. He met with officials who are managing the camps to make sure that the people in the camps are cared better. Later meeting the government officials in Colombo, Sritharan impressed upon them early settlement and rehabilitation. For delay would be read as denied by the restless people, he said.

Talking about the future of the Tamils, Sritharan said “the Tamils should have a rethink and re-planning. Confrontational attitude is no longer suitable, should vibe with the changing times. He pointed out the open invitation given by Rajapaksha to all Tamils within and without to come forward to build a united nation of Sri Lanka. We can trust his words, he is fair, reasonable and practical.”

‘Keep us not on tender hooks’

Conversely Sritharan places a request the President: “To get the support of the International community, and win the confidence of the Tamil Diaspora the President should openly say what solution he has to solve the Tamils problem. Dr. Swamy also said the same to me. The president had been telling let the war end, a solution to the Tamils would be addressed. Now that the civil war has ended, he should not keep us on tender hooks any longer. We are an impatient people, tossed now and then by time and tides.”

Enlarging further he said: “Start first implementing what is in the Constitution, including the 13th Amendment. This will infuse confidence in the Tamils mind, and that way the initial confidence would be won; the Tamil Diaspora world over would follow suit on seeing some action in the right direction.”

To improve the economic conditions of the Tamils once they resettle in the own homes, the government, which is starting industries, banks and stock exchanges, should invite the Tamils Diaspora to invest in the Northern Lanka, directly or through the stock exchanges; the money would swell, and the economy of the people would improve fast, Sritharan says.

Boastful ‘Boston Brothers’

Sritharan had been a moderate, serious and a thoughtful person, his elder brother Sri, more serious, committed and “plunged into” sort of person and the eldest Srikanthan, a cautious fence-sitter. The trio boasted themselves as “Boston brothers” and was popularly were known so, and they later realised they had wasted their time and energy rallying round support for Eelam. They even managed to get a resolution in favour of Tamil Eelam adopted by the Massachusetts State Assembly.

They lobbied state and local officials about the abuse of Tamils at the hands of the Sri Lankan government, prompting a Massachusetts boycott. The then-Governor Edward J. King announced his support for a Tamil homeland. Their lobbying, of course, had boosted a Tamil rebel army fighting in Sri Lanka. They frittered away the results.

But ruthless killings were order of the day back home. This did the change of heart in Sritharan and he started propagating the idea of peaceful coexistence in Sri Lanka as only manthra. Very recently (April this year) he echoed this sentiments in an interview to Tamil Osai, the Tamil Language Service of the BBC, and made it clear, “I am no longer interested in division and separation of the country.” The bitter truth, he said, is that “the Sinhalese and the Tamils have to coexist in Sri Lanka.”

In 1956, shortly after the country gained independence, when the Sri Lankan government declared Sinhalese to be the only official language, it forced many Tamils out of government jobs. When Tamils protested, they were beaten by thugs. Sritharan as a teenager was fascinated by politics. He too protested by defacing the Sinhalese words on the licence plates of government buses - and landed in jail. In 1961, he joined a strike that shut down government offices.

Things developing worse day by day and seeking to advance his career, a decade later, Sritharan moved to Somerville in Boston to live with his older brother, Srikanthan, an engineer. He got a job with the Bank of Boston.

Sritharan always thought he would return to Sri Lanka, but things kept getting worse and worse. “Now there seems to hope, we might frequent often,” he says as his children have settled in the States. (He has two daughters, both well settled in US).

By the late 1970s, some of Sritharan's friends in Sri Lanka formed a new nonviolent political party, the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), which demanded a separate state. After it became the largest opposition bloc in Sri Lanka's Parliament in 1977, its separatist views were swiftly given up.

This frustrated many Tamils who took up arms, joining a group of militants called the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), led by Velupillai Prabhakaran. The militants killed 13 Sri Lankan soldiers in 1983 and riots and revenge killings followed, sparking a mass exodus of Tamils.

The Tamils scattered into all countries. And those refugees who poured into Somerville, were welcomed by the Thillaiampalams— Srikanthan, Sri and Sritharan. A substantial crowd having gathered, it was but natural a new body was formed-- the Eelam Tamil Association of America (ETAA).

Garners support for Tamils’ cause

They opened a PO Box and got vanity/fancy license plates - Eelam One and Eelam Two. They lobbied their state representative, Marie Howe, an Irish-American who sympathized with their tales of marginalization, discrimination and struggle.

Howe persuaded Governor King to declare his support for Eelam and pushed through a divestment resolution modeled on the anti-apartheid campaign. She introduced the trio brothers to Senator Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry, a rising star in politics. Howe also helped get Somerville to declare Eelam Tamil Day, and to become a sister city to Trincomalee, a Sri Lankan port in the Eastern province. The Boston brothers were also responsible for the Tamil United Liberation Front flag being raised over City Hall by the subsequent mayors of Somerville.

They lobbied state and local officials about the abuse of Tamils at the hands of the Sri Lankan government, prompting a Massachusetts boycott. Then-Governor Edward J. King announced his support for a Tamil homeland. Their lobbying boosted a Tamil rebel army fighting in Sri Lanka.

The Boston brothers’ contact with the Somerville Mayors, the then House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, the then Senator Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry created an impression they were millionaires and the US government was backing Eelam fully.

It shocked the Sri Lankan government, which complained to the State Department. But it impressed Tamil politicians, who began to make regular US visits to meet the brothers, who in turn introduced them to politicians and State Department officials, helping to block millions in foreign aid to Sri Lanka.

The trio brothers caught the attention of India, a regional superpower with a Tamil population of its own. They met Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and her son and successor, Rajiv Gandhi, and begged for India's intervention. The brothers also met with Tiger militants in India.

"We thought they were doing a great thing, sacrificing their lives to fight the Sri Lankan Army," said Sritharan. "We called them our younger brothers. Through emissaries Prabhakaran would say, 'Send us money.' "

In 1984, Sri helped orchestrate a successful meeting between Indira Ghandi and Tamil militants who were seeking weapons and training from India, including Prabhakaran.

"They looked at us as someone who would make the world move," Sritharan said. "They asked us to be part of the team. We said no. We had to draw a line, where we get off. We are not getting involved in fighting."

In 1986, the brothers held a conference in New York and invited militants to participate, according to Sritharan. But the Tigers refused, and wanted only financial support.

Change of heart

By 1987, the brothers' work seemed to be coming to fruition. India sent peacekeepers (IPKF) and prodded the Sri Lankan government to agree to set up a semi-autonomous regional council in the Tamil north. “Tamils problems could have ended there. Twenty years were lost for peace.”

But the Tigers refused to accept anything short of a separate state. They attacked the Indian peacekeepers and later assassinated Rajiv Gandhi, who had sent them. They killed moderate Tamil politicians who tried to join the regional council.

They shot the Tamil leader who had traveled to Boston to meet Ed King. They killed Neelan Tiruchelvam, a Harvard-educated lawyer who advocated federalism instead of Eelam. They killed Sri Lanka's foreign minister, a Tamil, and the head of the Tamil United Liberation Front, one of Sritharan's best friends. Tiger suicide bombers, who pioneered the technique before it became common in the Middle East, also killed scores of Sinhalese civilians.

The violence prompted Srikanthan, the eldest Thillaiampalam brother, to give up activism. Now he is living in Winchester. Sritharan, too, had a radical change of heart. He shows a lot of newspaper clippings and photos of himself with famous people who are now dead, and explains why he stopped lobbying for Eelam.

Now, he believes Tamils will have a better future. He supports Douglas Devananda, a former Tamil militant serving in Sri Lanka's Cabinet. He traveled to the United Nations to meet Sri Lanka's president recently.

In 1998, the US government designated the Tigers a terrorist organization. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, people began to shy away from the Tamil cause. The US government cracked down on Tiger fund-raising.

The Eelam Tamil Association faded away, replaced by the Boston Thamil Association, which members say is solely for organizing cultural festivals and language training.

The Boston trios have two more brothers—Sivaramalingham, who after his retirement from London, is doing a green revolution in Chennai and Srigananathan who is in the States. It is striking to note all the five brothers names begin with ‘S’ like Sri Lanka.

- Asian Tribune -