Killing was the hight of Anty - Sociality
Hector Abhayavardhana, Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP)
It is no exag
geration to characterise the assassination in Madras on 19 June 1990 of K.Pathmanbha. Secretary-General of the EPRLF, and 14 of his principal associates as an act of supreme folly. There is little doubt today that this act was the work of the LTTE. A recent newspaper report referred to the arrest of a number of men in Tamilnadu, some of whom were alleged to be members of the LTTE, on suspicion of involvement in this assasination.Pathmanbha did not figure prominently in the events that constituted the recent history of the struggle of the Tamil people for their national rights in Sri Lanka. He chose not to occupy a place too close to the footlights. There were others to figure in the more prominent parts and assume the necessary responsibility. But Pathmanbha was the leader of his party and at the time of his assassination he was in council with members of his executive committee assembled at his residence. The assassins literally invaded a private residence and ruthlessly shot down everybody within reach.
Pathmanabha was not. perhaps, as popular in Tamilnadu as Prabhakaran, his antagonist. And even if Prabhakaran’s LTTE appeared to enjoy the patronage of the Tamilnadu Chief Minister, this did not provide him with let or licence to invade private residences and kill people inside them with impunity. There were signs for quite some time that the people of Tamilnadu generally were beginning to be impatient with the boorish manners and open commission of crimes in both public and private places by heavily armed LTTE gangs. But the murder of Pathmanbha and his 14 associates was the highest of anti sociality: if tolerated, it would make social existence itself impossible.
Speaking for myself, I did not have the privilege of knowing Pathmanbha personally, though I did know some of the members of his party. I am certain, however, that he wouldnot look for any tears to be shed on his behalf. What, perhaps, would most concern him is the sorry pass at which social existence has arrived in Sri Lanka. For Pathmanabha and his 14 comrades were not the only victims of savagery that passes as politics in our country in recent times. The LTTE appears to believe that the killing of their most prominent political opponents constitutes the shortest cut to power. The murder of TULF leaders Amirthalingam and Yogeswaran and EPRLF MP Sam Thambimuthu and his wife may never have taken place for concern that the Government of Sri Lanka and its police force have displayed in regard to them. And though public admission of responsibility for many of these murders has been made by the LTTE, that has not deterred the President of Sri Lanka from consorting with LTTE leaders as his state guests and negotiating with them as harbingers of peace.
