பேச்சு:டக்ளஸ் தேவானந்தா
கட்டற்ற கலைக்களஞ்சியமான விக்கிபீடியாவில் இருந்து.
[தொகு] ஆங்கில கட்டுரையை இங்கு இட்டவரின் கவனத்துக்கு
- முற்றிலும் ஆங்கில மொழிவழி பக்கங்கள் தமிழ் விக்கிபீடியாவில் சேர்க்கப்படுவதை பொதுவாக ஏற்பதில்லை என்பதை கவனிக்கவும்.
- இந்தக்கட்டுரை மொழிபெயர்க்கப்படவேண்டும்.
- தமிழ் விக்கிபீடியாவின் நடுநிலைமை கொள்கைக்கு மீறியும், பக்க சார்பாகவும் இக்கட்டுரை இப்பது போல் தெரிகின்றது.
- தயவு செய்து கட்டுரையை இங்கு இட்டவர் மேற்கூறிய கருத்துக்களை கவனத்தில் கொள்ளவும்.
--Natkeeran 22:16, 26 மே 2006 (UTC)
- Natkeeran, இந்தக் கட்டுரை பெயர் குறிப்பிட விரும்பாத ஒரு அநாமதேய பயனரால் இடப்பட்டுள்ளது. அவர் இங்கு இனி வந்து தனது கட்டுரையை திருத்தி அமைக்கப்போவதில்லை. எனவே இந்தக் கட்டுரையில் உள்ள சில பகுதிகளை மட்டும் அங்கு வைத்து விட்டு மீதமானவற்றை இங்கு உரையாடல் பகுதிக்கு மாற்றி விடுமாறு பரிந்துரைக்கிறேன்.--Kanags 01:25, 27 மே 2006 (UTC)
[தொகு] Douglas Devananda
Devananda was born in Jaffna on 10th November 1957 as the second of the four sons and one daughter of Subramaniam Kathiravelu. His mother Maheswary died when he was only six years old. Kathiravelu was a member of the Sri Lanka Communist Party, a leading member of the Government Clerical Service Union (GCSU), and editor of the GCSU publication ‘Redtape’. Kathiravelu served in the Department of Inland Revenue and later joined the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, where he rose up as one of its Regional Managers.
Devananda had his primary and secondary education at the Jaffna Central College, where his mother was a teacher, till her death. While being a teenage student in Jaffna, he was exposed to, and influenced by his father’s political work and that of his uncle K.C.Nithyananda, who was a leading trade unionist of his day. In 1970, at the age of 13, Devananda joined the Manavar Peravai (Students Federation), being distressed by the government’s scheme of standardisation of marks for admission to universities.
From Jaffna, in 1974, Devananda was sent to Colombo for further studies under K.C. Nithyananda’s tutelage. Nithyananda joined the government service as a clerk and was a President of the GCSU. He rose to become a member of the Ceylon Administrative Service and served in the Ministry of Transport and the General Treasury. Nithyananda assumed the role of Devananda’s parent and mentor. In Colombo, however, it was not studies that interested Devananda, the teenager, but politics. Sinhala chauvinism and Tamil extremism enveloping the country disturbed him. He wanted to be actively engaged in the Tamil liberation struggle of the day. He joined the Eelam Liberation Organisation (ELO). He organised the General Union of Eelam Students (GUES) in Colombo, and coordinated its activities in the North and East of Sri Lanka. In 1975, he became a founder member of the Eelam Revolutionary Organisers (EROs). It was then that he assumed the pseudonym of Douglas.
When anti-Tamil riots broke out in south and central Sri Lanka, following the Parliamentary general election in August 1977, Nithyananda and his Tamil Refugees Rehabilitation Organisation (TRRO) worked tirelessly in the task of providing temporary accommodation and food to thousands of Tamil refugees. Young Devananda threw his full weight behind that humanitarian task.
When President Jayewardene appointed Nithyananda as the Chairman of the newly formed Palmyrah Development Board, Devananda functioned as his personal assistant. This was only for a short period. In 1978, the EROs dispatched Devananda alias Douglas for military training with Al Fatah of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. He successfully completed the training and returned to Sri Lanka.
Trouble was brewing in the hierarchy of the EROs. The organisation, with its leadership based mainly in London, broke up into two. A section, including Padmanabha and Douglas left EROs and formed the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF). The student body GUES of the EROs, attached itself with the EPRLF. In the EPRLF, Douglas served as a member of the politbureau and as the commander of its military wing, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
In 1980, the Sri Lanka government arrested Douglas twice under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. He was incarcerated in Batticaloa prison, Magazine prison, Panagoda detention centre, and in Welikada prison. When the July 1983 anti-Tamil riots broke out, Douglas was an inmate of Welikada. He was one of the few prisoners who escaped death at the hands of the Sinhala criminals who were let loose by the authorities on 25th and 27th July to kill the Tamil political prisoners. After the two massacres in Welikada, which resulted in the death of 53 inmates, Douglas along with 27 other survivors was transferred to Batticaloa prison. In September 1983, he along with all the other Tamil political prisoners escaped from the Batticaloa prison and fled to Tamil Nadu in India.
From India, in 1984, he was sent by the EPRLF for advanced military training, and to lead a group of other EPRLF members, both men and women, for training with the Democratic Palestine Liberation Front (DPLF). Following the training, he returned to North-East Sri Lanka and resumed charge as the commander of the PLA. Based in Jaffna, he was also in charge of all political and military activities of the EPRLF in the North and East of Sri Lanka. In May 1985, Deva lost his teenage cousin sister, Shobha in the Karainagar Naval Base attack. The search lights of the Navy gun boats caught up with her and she was shredded in a hail of heavy machine gun bullets. She was the first woman cadre martyr in our freedom struggle.
In May 1986, serious internal contradictions cropped up within the EPRLF. As most of its politbureau members were based in Tamil Nadu, Douglas undertook a sea voyage to Tamil Nadu to sort out the problems. His first sea voyage ended up in a tragedy, which resulted in the death of seven of the nineteen-member entourage of Douglas. Though Douglas arrived safely on the second sea voyage, the internal contradictions could not be resolved. Consequently, Douglas and his loyalists parted company from the others, and laid claim as the real EPRLF. The two factions were however dubbed as the EPRLF (D) and the EPRLF (R).
In October 1986, certain forces in Tamil Nadu together with EPRLF (R ) framed criminal charges against Douglas for an incident in Choolaimedu in Chennai and had him arrested. He was however released on bail. Following this incident, cleavage between the two factions of the EPRLF became permanent. In May 1987, EPRLF (D) under the leadership of Douglas, together with Paranthan Rajan who led a breakaway group of the People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) formed the Eelam National Democratic Liberation Front (ENDLF) in Tamil Nadu. However, this arrangement did not last long. Thereafter, EPRLF (D) transformed itself into the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP).
Following the Indo Sri Lanka Agreement of July 1987, the EPDP also decided to give up the armed struggle and to join the democratic process in Sri Lanka. The earlier upbringing of Douglas by Nithyananda made it easy for him to decide to eschew the path of violence and to work for the rights of the Tamil-speaking people with the cooperation of the progressive forces in the south of Sri Lanka. Douglas decided to enter the democratic mainstream as Kathiravelu Nithyananda Douglas Devananda.
The LTTE wanted to exploit the situation to wipe out all other Tamil militant organisations. It was around that time that Douglas’ brother Premananda who had just returned from India, and Sivakaran, both members of the EPDP, were abducted by the LTTE in Jaffna and tortured. To date, their fate is not known. While Douglas was making preparations to leave Tamil Nadu and resettle in Sri Lanka, once again certain forces were hatching a sinister plot to arrest him and to implicate him in some crime in India. He however managed to arrive in Colombo by the end of May 1990. When Padmanabha was assassinated by the LTTE in Chennai in June 1990, these very same forces were disappointed to discover that Douglas was in Sri Lanka weeks before the incident.
Having entered the democratic mainstream, Douglas worked hard to build his party in the North-East Province of Sri Lanka. His efforts paid dividends when nine members of the EPDP, including himself were elected to Parliament from the Jaffna District, in August 1994. Douglas was reelected to Parliament in October 2000, and again in December 2001.
In October 1995, Douglas’ residence in Colombo was attacked by the LTTE. He survived this attack due to the valiant efforts of his party cadres and bodyguards, four of whom paid the supreme sacrifice in the incident. In June 1998, Douglas was brutally attacked by the LTTE mafia detained in Kalutara Prison, when he visited the detainees who were on a hunger strike to air their grievances. He survived this attack as well, due to the excellent medical attention given by Sri Lankan medical personnel, his own will power, and the prayers of the populace that loved him. He however lost his sight in one eye.
In October 2000, Douglas was appointed as the Minister of Development, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of the North, and Tamil Affairs, North and East, in the People’s Alliance Government headed by President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. During the very short stint as Minister, he worked tirelessly to provide means of livelihood to thousands and improve the lives of the people who had placed faith in him. The rehabilitated roads, community centers, schools, the information technology park and other infrastructure, and the towering temples, churches, viharas and mosques seen today in the North are all testimony to his work.
With the formation of a United National Front Government headed by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in December 2001, Douglas sits in the official opposition in Parliament, but maintains a healthy dialogue with President Chandrika Bandranaike Kumaratunga of the People’s Alliance and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe of the United National Front, as he believes that only a joint effort by both of them could result in a lasting solution to the ethnic problem of Sri Lanka. Throughout the period commencing August 1994, and to date, Douglas has been involved in negotiations and other activities relating to a lasting political solution to the ethnic problem of Sri Lanka.
Douglas Devananda is a self-confident idealist, who is a unique fighter against fascism. He is kind, humble and simple, and a believer in humanism,. He is determined to serve his people, despite the fact that he has been wounded, scarred and blinded in one eye, and compelled to live a life in the shadow of death.