THESE are bad times for con men in Sri Lanka. One big time con artist has fled the country after the collapse of his business empire that stood on the foundation of other people's money and another is on the run, with his military empire built on others' sweat, blood and money, caving in. The former is Sakvithi of the South or Sakvithi Ranasinghe and the latter Sakvithi of the Wanni or Velupillai Prabhakaran.... These two men may be as different as chalk and cheese in many respects. The one from the South has no history of violence unlike the other in the Wanni. But, their forte is the same — deceiving people.... Ranasinghe built his business from scratch as a teacher of English and had a meteoric rise... in the world of finance. He offered unbelievable interest rates to depositors and thousands of people fell for his wiles....
...Our friend in the North, too, started his Murder, Inc. from scratch with a single-minded will to succeed. Well fed on a diet of racism, he was only a teenager when he gunned down a popular Tamil political figure.... Having come of age as a full-fledged terrorist, he... forced... people to invest in his venture.... He had roaring business with billions of rupees at his disposal as a warlord in the north and the east of Sri Lanka....
Sakvithi of the Wanni has been in business for over 25 years but instead of delivering the goods he has churned out corpses, as... thousands of LTTE graves...are the dividends those who invested in his Murder, Inc. have received....
Those who pinned hopes on Sakvithi of the Wanni may continue to hope against hope. They are claiming that he will live ...to fight another day. Yes, he may have to flee ...abroad or into the jungles but it is only wishful thinking that he will succeed in carving out a separate state. For, this time around he will retreat into the jungles as a confirmed failure and not as a promising guerrilla.... He has failed to achieve the goal of Eelam... and reached the mandatory retirement age.... Small...terror strikes would take him nowhere....
That is the fate that awaits all Sakvithis. Finally, they lay bare their true faces as failed con men. They can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but they cannot fool all of the people all of the time. — (Oct 3)