Lanka Citizen

2005-11-24

The western media, the peace lobby and their fellow travellers have done it! They have dubbed Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse a hawk. How have they come to such a conclusion so soon? What he really intends to do by way of resolving the conflict remains to be seen. A man, we believe, should be judged by his deeds and not words.

In 1994, President Kumaratunga was hailed as a dove. But within a few months of assuming office, the dove metamorphosed into a hawk. She waged war on the Liberation Tigers for Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which met its match in her. With the passage of time she turned into a cross between a hawk and a dove (supposing such a thing is ever possible) and towards the end of her second term became a confirmed dove cooing for political reasons.

Even her worst critics (read the UNP) began to sing hosannas to her, when they knew her presidential days were numbered and went to the extent of offering her a job after retirement if Ranil became President.

Ranil, who had been the Prime Minister under President Wijetunga (1993-94), who was branded a hawk, was considered a dove and became elected Prime Minister on his promise to usher in peace, in 2001. LTTE Leader Prabhakran himself said at the Wanni Press conference in 2002 that the south had given a mandate for peace, implying that he, too, considered Ranil a dove. But, the Tigers let that dove down badly by thrusting a polls boycott on the Tamil people, though his government had been dislodged because of his CFA deal with the Tigers.

The UNP believes Ranil would have become President but for the LTTE-instigated boycott. Thus, we have a dove in the soup.

Thondaman and Hakeem, who joined forces with Ranil, because they considered him the only dove in the presidential race, capable of making peace, are whistling a different tune now and are billing and cooing with Mahinda, whom they considered a hawk only the other day.

A local saying comes to one’s mind: A kabaragoya (water monitor) becomes thalagoya (land monitor) when one feels like eating it.

Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake has also been dubbed a hawk because of his aversion to LTTE terror and his tough stand on it. What would those who call him a hawk call the LTTE Leader who has not only demonstrated his aversion to democracy but killed many a democratic leader and is issuing threats of war? A dove or a hawk?

If Mahinda is a hawk, then what is Bush, who is refusing to give in to America’s terrorists and unleashing unbridled force to eliminate those terrorists in other lands? By the same token he, too, must be a hawk, mustn’t he?

If Bush is a hawk, why are Sri Lanka’s NGO doves begging for funds from his hawkish government? Shall we call it a co-habitation between the hawk and the dove? Or, is it that Bush is a hawk only when the US interests are threatened, and he is a dove as regards others’ conflicts?

The same goes for Blair, who is bombing Iraq and Afghanistan into the Stone Age to safeguard British interests, while his government is pressuring Sri Lanka to make peace with the LTTE, having banned it in its soil.

We have a situation where the international hawks are feeding the local doves. What a paradox!

What if Mahinda, too, strikes a peace deal with the LTTE by any chance? (Politicians are noted for their lateral thinking.) Won’t he then be a dove all of a sudden just like Ranil? And won’t those who are calling him a hawk then have to eat their words?

In reality, there are no permanent hawks or permanent doves in this world. It is the circumstances that make a hawk or a dove of a leader. We have seen hawks becoming doves and vice versa in different situations.

It is still too early to say whether Mahinda is a hawk or a dove. On the other hand, what the peace activists and the western media should be concerned about is not so much whether Mahinda is a hawk or a dove but how to make a dove of the LTTE leader. If they could do that today, peace will dawn on this land tomorrow –– that’s for sure.

courtesy The Island