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Home > Tamil National Forum > Selected Writings by Sachi Sri Kantha > Concerning Three Mules and Sister Rajani - A Rejoinder
Selected Writings by Sachi Sri Kantha
Concerning Three Mules and Sister Rajan - 11 April 2006
Following the appearance of my essay entitled, ‘Three Mules and Sister Rajani’recently, I read a criticism by a correspondent that I had relied solely on the words of Kumar Rupesinghe (as presented by him in January 2006) to infer the indirect link of the so-called University Teachers for Human Rights (UTHR) to JVP. Since this is a valid criticism, the onus was on me to provide another independent source to vindicate my view. I felt that it would be more credible, if this second source is an anti-LTTE partisan as well. I report here, that I have found this second source. And it is Rohan Gunaratna, the now widely-touted “terrorism expert”. I have previously even tagged Rohan Gunaratna, as the ‘Temple Drum [Kovil Melam] of Terrorism Industry’.
Before he entered the international circuit, sixteen years ago, Rohan Gunaratna published a political history of JVP. The book’s title was ‘Sri Lanka A Lost Revolution: The Inside Story of the JVP’ (Institute of Fundamental Studies, Kandy, 1990, 366pp). In the Author’s Note, Gunaratna had written, “[this] is the story of the struggle of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), a politico-military group, to change the country’s social and political system. The JVP revolted against three elected Governments within a span of 18 years.” For the details assembled [since the author of this book had feeds from the Sri Lankan state’s Intelligence arm] and because of ethno-cultural proximity Gunaratna had with the protagonists of JVP, I’d grade this book as a good contribution to the island’s political literature. Here are two excerpts from this book, which link the UTHR and Rajani Thiranagama to JVP and its offshoots.
As I have indicated in my previous essay, in his vituperative exchange, Kumar Rupesinghe had identified this “prominent lady lecturer” of UTHR as Hema Goonetilleka, the wife of Susantha Goonetilleka; and Susantha Goonetilleka has not refuted this identification.
Rohan Gunaratna has provided the following thread to Rajani Thiranagama, in his description of ‘Vikalpa kandayama’, one of the six JVP splinter radical groups.
Even in the sentence which states Rajani’s assassination in 1989, Rohan Gunaratna did not mention LTTE as her assassins. This is somewhat not insignificant, since Gunaratna has been a guy who would tag all the horrors in the world to LTTE’s deeds at the drop of a hat!
Inference
I can make two inferences. First, the links of UTHR (Jaffna) to JVP and its splinter radical group has thus been established, from two independent Sinhalese sources, who are also no LTTE sympathizers. In last January, even Susantha Goonetilleka (a virulent anti-Tamil polemicist), whose wife was the then chief organizer of UTHR activity, had corroborated this link. Secondly, by failing to confess on this deceitful UTHR-JVP link for the past 16 years, Rajan Hoole and his coterie have repeatedly attempted to hoodwink the Eelam Tamil public. |