There
is no difference between the genocidal Sinhala military that occupies
the country of Eezham Tamils and the ‘development military’ orchestrated
among civilian Eezham Tamils inside and outside, commented Tamil
activists for alternative politics in the island.
Just as the
Sinhala military is earnestly needed as ‘Lascarines’ for the regional
and global agendas of the ultimate culprits of Tamil genocide, the
‘development Lascarines’ currently orchestrated among Eezham Tamils,
especially in the diaspora, is also needed by the same culprits to
consolidate their position in the island without conceding anything to
Tamils, the activists said.
The process taking place in the NPC,
even though mainly spearheaded by an extra-South Asian bandwagon, has
to be compared with the process currently taking place in Tamil Nadu,
engineered by New Delhi in tandem.
Eezham Tamils have to realize
that without seeing anything substantial, endorsing anything
orchestrated through the diaspora or the agents inside the island is
nothing but endorsing the occupying Sinhala military and the genocidal
State in the island.
For more than 200 years, the external
forces have not changed in their fundamental outlook towards State in
the island that has led to all the miseries and ultimately the genocide
to follow. But they have the audacity to tell Eezham Tamils that it is
‘out-dated’ to cling to the fundamentals of Tamil aspirations, the
activists further said.
Eezham Tamils and their diaspora were
always demanding righteous ground realities and justice before entering
into any dialogue, facilitating the overlapping interests of them and
the agenda of the global forces.
However, the only ground
reality that could be facilitated by the external forces was luring a
class in the diaspora with ‘200% tax exemption’ for investments in the
North, ultimately to facilitate the ‘Army and Development’
counter-insurgency. This is the ‘Social Anthropology’ facilitation to
follow the ‘Peace Facilitation’ of 2001.
The diaspora members
who were caught in the trap have the responsibility to explain to the
masses whether their participation precipitating the current NPC crisis
was a result of their premeditation or gullibility, the activists
commented.
* * *
Tamil National
Alliance (TNA) comprises of four parties. Mavai Senathirajah
symbolically leads the main constituent langkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi
(ITAK). But, the ITAK is under the tight control of M.A. Sumanthiran and
R. Sampanthan.
The other three parties are ex-militant
organisations. Suresh Premachandran leads Eelam Peoples’ Revolutionary
Liberation Front (EPRLF). Selvam Adaikkalanathan leads Tamil Eelam
Liberation Organisation (TELO) and Tharmalingam Sitharthan leads
Peoples’ Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE).
All the TNA candidates during the NPC elections were fielded under the ITAK list.
Former
Supreme Court Justice C.V. Wigneswaran, who doesn't belong to any
political party or organisation, was approached by the TNA on behalf of
the entire alliance to be the common candidate for the position of Chief
Minister in the NPC elections held in 2013. He was featured as the
number 1 candidate in the TNA (ITAK) list for the administrative
district of Jaffna. There were 19 candidates in the TNA list for Jaffna
district. He was projected as the Chief Minister for NPC for the people
to have confidence on the NPC deception and vote.
In the
elections held on 21 September 2013, Justice Wigneswran polled the
highest number of preference votes, polling a total of 132,255 votes.
Next to him, Ananthy Sasitharan, the only female candidate on the TNA
list for Jaffna, polled 87,870 votes while C.V.K Sivagnanam managed to
secure 26,747 votes. P. Sathiyalingam, a physician from Vavuniyaa,
polled 19,656 votes from his electorate on behalf of the ITAK.
Following the victory, TNA secured 30 seats in the 38-member council.
Justice
Wigneswaran appointed Mr Sathiyalingam, considering his medical
background, as Minister of Health and Indigenous Medicine.
P.
Ayngaranesan who got his placement in the TNA list through the EPRLF,
was appointed as Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Irrigation and
Environment.
T. Kurukularajah, elected from Ki'linochchi
district representing the TNA was introduced as a candidate by S.
Shritharan MP, who had defected to the ITAK after entering electoral
politics through the EPRLF. Justice Wigneswaran appointed Kurukularajah,
a former Director of Education, as Minister of Education, Cultural
Affairs and Sports.
Attorney-at-Law Mr Deniswaran, representing
TELO (TNA) from Mannaar was appointed as Minister of Fisheries, Inland
Fisheries, Trade and Commerce.
Mr Sivagnanam became the chairman of the Council.
Ananthy
Sasitharan, who polled second largest number of votes in the entire
council and a survivor of genocidal onslaught on Vanni, was tasked by
the Chief Minister to represent human rights issues in the Human Rights
Council sessions in Geneva.
However, Mr Sumanthiran, who didn't
wish Ms Ananthy to articulate her position on Tamil genocide, was trying
to contain her role in Geneva. This was in tandem with the
genocide-denial of the ultimate culprits.
Later, the NPC council
adopted a unanimous resolution demanding international investigations
on Tamil genocide under the leadership of C.V. Wigneswaran. This
resolution process was taken forward while being sharply opposed by Mr
Sumanthiran, who was using ITAK hierarchy against the NPC position.
* * *
The
hostile discourse of Sumanthiran was shaped by the interests of outside
powers that have been using the plight of Eezham Tamils to seek
geo-political entry into the island. He became a genocide denier and was
collaborating with the UNP and the SLFP. He was opposing and ridiculing
the Genocide Resolution even after it was democratically passed with
unanimous support in the NPC.
Sumanthiran has been engineering
divisions within the NPC, using C.V.K Sivgnanam and lately
P.Sathiyalingam. Both the Speaker C.V.K Sivagnanam and Health Minister
P. Sathiyalingam were being repeatedly encouraged by Sumanthiran with
the ‘prospects’ of becoming the next Chief Minister if they helped him
to defeat Justice C.V. Wigneswaran.
In March 2016, sixteen
members of the NPC came with a written plea to the Chief Minister to
consider reshuffling NPC ministries. The allegations of abuse of power
or corruption by the ministers were also mounting. The restraint action
by the Chief Minister came only a few weeks ago when he appointed a
committee to investigate the allegations. The charges were against four
ministers.
It was easy to find faults with two of them. The
charges against the other two, including an agent of Sumanthiran, were
yet to be proven, as witnesses against them were either pulling out due
to outside influence or were reluctant to appear before the
investigators. On Wednesday, Justice Wigneswaran openly requested two of
the ministers to file their resignations. The other two on whom
investigations were yet to focus, were asked to go on compulsory leave,
initially for one month with the possibility of extending the leave
until the investigations are fully concluded.
Using the
opportunity, Attorney-at-Law Sumanthiran, who has always lost in his
tricks against Justice Wigneswran in the NPC politics, engineered the
move of no-confidence motion using the ITAK hierarchy. The SLFP led by
SL President Maithiripala Sirisena and the UNP led by SL Prime Minister
Ranil Wickramasinghe were working behind the scene to arrange the
opposition politicians from Sinhala, Muslim and Tamil opposition
councillors to back the move.
* * *
All
the ITAK members, except Ananthy Sasitharan (she acts independent of
ITAK membership), look upon Sumanthiran and Sampanthan or the forces
behind them, for their survival in the electoral politics. Minister of
Fisheries Deniswaran (TELO) joined them. The dissident group of
councillors want P. Sathiyalingam to be appointed as Chief Minister.
However,
three parties of the TNA alliance, EPRLF, TELO (except one councillor)
and PLOTE and independent councillor Ananthy Sasitharan are fully
backing the Chief Minister.
Mavai Senthirajah, the leader of the
ITAK, who was once aspiring for the portfolio of the Chief Minister,
lacks self-confidence and independency. M.A. Sumanthiran and R.
Sampanthan, who have taken a pro Establishment and pro agent-State
position, are handling him and he simply toes the line.
Sumanthiran
and Sampanthan are also aware that Justice C.V. Wigneswaran has gained
overwhelming confidence and trust among the people in the North.
* * *
Justice
Wignesswaran's popularity has steadily grown since becoming the chief
minister. Although he doesn't have prior administrative or political
leadership experience, his capacity to understand and grasp the
discourses of the global, regional and Colombo Establishments and his
independent ability to learn the realities on the ground through his
background as a prominent Justice, have placed him as the de-facto
symbolic leader of Eezham Tamils in the vacuum of political leadership
after May 2009.
The current crisis of the NPC engineered by
Sumanthiran, by external powers that operate him and by the agent-State
in Colombo, could also end up as a blessing in disguise, bringing the
symbolic leader and his genre currently serving a useless provincial
council into broader political leadership to shape the future political
discourse of Eezham Tamils in the island and elsewhere, commented Tamil
political observers in Jaffna on Wednesday.
Chronology:
