TNA leadership faces admonition from civil society of Eezham Tamils
[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 December 2011, 23:50 GMT]Prominent members of the Tamil civil society of all walks of life presented a memorandum to the Tamil National Alliance leadership on Tuesday, strongly condemning deception and deviatory polity of the leadership while times demand well-defined solutions to a long struggle. The civil society members urged firmness of leadership in political stand in convincing India and the US of the indispensability of addressing fundamentals of the aspirations of Eezham Tamils, i.e., nation and the right to self-determination. Tamils are not a ‘minority’ requesting concessions, but a nation demanding self-rule, the memorandum said. The impressive list of signatories included prominent religious leaders, academics, educationalists, professionals, trade unionists and community leaders. For the first time the TNA leadership faces such an open challenge of the first magnitude from the civil society.
The uprising of the civil society of Eezham Tamils, coming from a realization that nothing but fundamental solutions only could guarantee their existence, is inevitably impelled by the brutal and suffocating oppression committed on them by occupying Colombo, political observers in Jaffna said.
One SL military personnel for every 12 civilians in Jaffna, and for every 4 civilians in Vanni is the gravity of the nature of the military occupation. The international community ostensibly plays down the crucial fact that the occupying military cannot be considered a State military, but in this context is an ethnic Sinhala military of genocidal intentions and potentiality, the political observers said.
Taking advantage of the plight of Eezham Tamils gagged in the island, sections lured by collaborative polity in the diaspora used to project every truthful Tamil opinion coming from the island as fabricated ones, by citing them as 'unnamed'. But now, surging above all the oppression and pressures from the powers, the Tamil civil society in the island is openly up in arms, shaming the section of the impotent critics in the diaspora, the political observers further said.
For how long the simulated leadership in the clutches of powers attempting to hijack diaspora politics is going to sit on any uprising in the diaspora, they asked.
Representatives of the civil society of Eezham Tamils, after conducting a convention, handed over a 7-page memorandum signed by more than 75 signatories to TNA Secretary General Mavai Senathirajah MP at Uthayan Guest House in Jaffna on Tuesday evening.
Mr. Senathirajah's objection to the presence of journalists along with the civil society members and his enraged comments over the role of Tamil media in spoiling TNA's agenda, resulted in verbal exchanges between him and the journalists on the occasion.
The journalists later left the scene.
The TNA General Secretary told the civil society representatives that he could not freely discuss matters with them in the presence of the journalists. He was also enraged over certain points mentioned in the memorandum.
Main points of the memorandum, abridged and rendered in English by TamilNet:
It is deplorable that the TNA leadership that had earlier decided to come out of the futile talks with Colombo, decided to re-commence the talks at a time when the war crimes issue was to be taken up by the UN. This was only an attempt to protect Colombo.
When the SL government is not prepared to concede the unity of the North and East, police and land powers, there is no point in engaging with it in any talks.
The TNA leadership backed out from spelling out the status of Eezham Tamils as a nation and their right for self-determination, at the conference convened by Congress parliamentarian Dr. Natchiappan in New Delhi.
TNA leaders Sampanthan and Sumanthiran, by their polity of reducing Tamils as ‘minorities,’ differ from the broadly accepted political fundamentals of the Tamil National Alliance.
‘Minorities’ have to stop at requesting cultural concessions. Only a nation could demand for self-rule. Eezham Tamils are a nation needing self-rule.
The talk of ‘Equal Rights’ is not a substitute for autonomy or self-rule. Equal Rights could be achieved even by the restoration of the Rule of Law. But in the context of the island, even restored Rule of Law cannot resolve the issues faced by Tamils.
Ideas of nation and the right to self-determination not necessarily mean secession. No one can place a stigma on Tamils claiming for recognition of their status as a nation and for asserting to their right to self-determination.
Solutions based on the principles of nation and the right to self-determination could only bring in peaceful co-existence of Tamils and Sinhalese in the island and that only could prevent the interferences of outsiders.
The talk about the need to adopt ‘tactics’ is no excuse for forfeiting fundamentals.
Participation in Provincial Council (PC) elections is a tacit acceptance that political solution need not go further to the 13th Amendment.
By insisting on Tamil participation in the PC elections, the US and India only imply that they don’t wish for any further solution other than what is in the present constitution.
No one needs to tell the TNA leadership on the limitations and insufficiency of the 13th Amendment.
Besides, it is absurdity to accept and participate the PC elections of a divided North and East.
Participation in the PC elections is actually an impediment to finding solutions.
We have to firmly tell this to India and to the US, rather than succumbing to their pressure.
TNA is obliged to tell it to the world by refusing to participate in the PC elections.
If the concerned parties still insist on conducting the PC elections, then the TNA should consider alternative tactics in consultation with a wide spectrum of public opinion.
Tamils look upon the TNA and mandate it in every election, not as an ordinary political party of ‘electoral politics,’ but as a political liberation movement rising above electoral politics.
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