Jayalalithaa voices against Indian complicity

Jayalalithaa voices against Indian complicity, but considers Eezham Tamils as ‘minority’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 December 2013, 21:35 GMT]
India's “insensitive policy” and “overt act of defence cooperation with Sri Lanka”, which totally ignores the impact it may have upon not just the sentiments of the people of Tamil Nadu, but the direct effect on the right to livelihood of the Tamil Nadu fishermen, said Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Ms J Jayalalithaa in a strongly worded letter to Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Saturday. Indian Coast Guard is allowed to participate in a marine defence exercise and has deputed ships, officers and men to Trincomalee, to participate in an exercise, despite repeated calls from Tamil Nadu to issue a clear policy direction that the Ministry of Defence should not provide training, or engage in any form of co-operation with the Sri Lankan Armed Forces that were responsible for rights violations against “Tamil minority” in the island Ms Jayalalithaa said.

Ms. Jayalalithaa

Eezham Tamils are a nation of own country in the island and the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister referring to them as ‘minority’ is undermining the fundamentals of the struggle and is hurting, commented Tamils for alternative politics in the island, while welcoming her voice against the New Delhi Establishment on its military complicity with the genocidal state in Colombo.

The ‘minority’ perspective goes against the spirit of the resolutions passed by the Tamil Nadu State Assembly under the leadership of Ms. Jayalalithaa, the activists commented.

The structural genocidal situation in the island has now reached a point where the ‘minority’ perspective will have no effect at all. Every day allowed for the Colombo regime to rule over the Tamil territory is a step further in irrevocable genocide and this is engineered and carried out with full consciousness by the Establishments in New Delhi, Washington and London. Only a practical and drastic step taken up by Tamils all over the world, especially in Tamil Nadu, could save the situation, the activists further commented.

The activists also cited at the PPT not completing the investigation on the intent and involvement of New Delhi in the genocide of Eezham Tamils in the island and said that Tamil Nadu has a prime duty in bringing them to light.

* * *

Full text of the letter from Ms Jayalalithaa follows:

“Over the last two years, I have written to you a number of times bringing to your notice the deep, widespread and strong sentiments amongst all sections of Society and all shades of opinion in Tamil Nadu on the need to hold the present regime in Sri Lanka to account in the aftermath of the ethnic civil strife in Sri Lanka, which was marked by an ethnic pogrom and genocide against the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka. The Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly has already passed four Resolutions condemning the continuing discrimination against the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka and violation of their human rights and calling for strong response from the Government of India.

“The present Sri Lankan regime is also persisting with its harsh and unreasonable policy of launching punitive and totally unprovoked attacks upon innocent Tamil Nadu fishermen eking out their meagre livelihood by fishing in their traditional fishing waters. Such attacks and abductions are followed by extended periods of detention in Sri Lankan jails, confiscation of boats, fishing nets, and other fishing gear thereby causing extensive economic losses, reducing them to penury and condemning the fishermen and their families to considerable mental agony. The entire fishermen community in Tamil Nadu is agitated over the acts of indiscriminate abduction of our fishermen on the high seas and their prolonged incarceration in prison.

“Please refer to my letters dated 16.7.2012, 25.8.2012, 28.8.2012 and 8.6.2013, wherein I had unambiguously conveyed the deep sense of outrage of the people of Tamil Nadu regarding the imparting of training to Sri Lankan defence personnel at the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington, located in the Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu. While communicating Tamil Nadu’s strong protest, I had urged that the Government of India should issue a clear policy direction that the Ministry of Defence should not hereafter provide training, or engage in any form of co-operation with the Sri Lankan Armed Forces, until satisfactory and credible action is taken by the Government of Sri Lanka to completely stop the human rights violations against the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka and end the unprovoked and marauding attacks on fishermen from Tamil Nadu. I had also written to you on 11.9.2013 that the Government of India should cancel the agreement to supply naval warships to Sri Lanka and ensure that no support of any kind is provided to the Sri Lankan military forces. Most recently on 30.11.2013, I had written to condemn the insensitive proposal made by the Indian Chief of Naval Staff to enroll Sri Lankan Navy personnel in the four year Bachelor of Technology course currently offered to Indian Naval officers.

“I am, therefore, totally dismayed to note from media reports that the Indian Coast Guard is participating in a marine defence exercise and has deputed ships, officers and men to Trincomalee, to participate in this exercise which is reported to be commencing there on 21st December, 2013. This is in complete and callous disregard of the strong views and emotions of the people of Tamil Nadu clearly and unambiguously conveyed to the Government of India, in my letters referred to above, through Assembly Resolutions and through protests, agitations and demonstrations by the people of Tamil Nadu.

“However, the Government of India has still chosen to ride rough shod over the groundswell of emotions in Tamil Nadu and has persisted with its policy stance towards Sri Lanka. In fact, the Government of India has extended on open hand of co-operation to the Sri Lankan Navy through the defence related exercise. This is the same Sri Lankan Navy which continues to prey upon innocent fishermen from Tamil Nadu with impunity and subjects them to abduction, arrest, torture and long periods of detention. Such an overt act of defence co- operation with a nation that puts down its own hapless Tamil minority citizens and perpetrates serious human rights violations upon them, can only be termed as outrageous and condemnable.

“I wish to convey our strong protest against this insensitive policy of defence co-operation with Sri Lanka, which totally ignores the impact it may have upon not just the sentiments of the people of Tamil Nadu, but the direct effect on the right to livelihood of the fishermen in the coastal districts of the State. I, therefore, request you to urgently review this policy and instruct the Ministry of Defence not to participate in the naval exercises in Sri Lanka and to immediately recall the two Indian Coast Guard ships and personnel.

“May I request an urgent response on this sensitive issue?”

UN failed in Sri Lanka, says Dieng

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 December 2013, 04:11 GMT]
United Nation's Special Advisor on Prevention of Genocide to the Secretary General (SG), Adama Dieng, said during a UN panel discussion Wednesday that not only the United Nations but all member states failed the people of Sri Lanka. He implied that while the SG did not make use of Article 99 which bestows power on the SG to refer to the Security Council situations that threatened international security, the SG set up panels to identify witnesses and has now set up the "Rights Up Front plan," which might have prevented the situation [killings] in Sri Lanka. Meanwhile, Amady Ba, the Deputy Prosecutor to the International Criminal Court, referring to the killings, said that the ICC has no jurisdiction over countries that are not party to the Rome Statute.

Adama Dieng responds

The Genocide panel discussion was moderated by Mr. Tunku Varadarajan, a Research Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Mr. Amady Ba represented Mrs. Fatou Bensouda, the Prosecutor of the ICC who couldn't attend the event.

In the videos, Amady Ba and Adma Dieng were responding to the following question from the audience:

Amady Ba of ICC responds

"Could each speaker explain their perspective on handling difficult situations such as a precursor to what happened in Syria namely Sri Lanka, where allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide have been raised continuously since the end of armed conflict in 2009, but Sri Lanka is not a party to the Rome Statute and the UN Security Council has been polarized politically (just like Mr. Haid said) whenever the situation of Sri Lanka is raised? Meanwhile, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has reported that continuing impunity for Sri Lanka's atrocities in 2009 has enabled further deterioration in the situation -economic, social, cultural, personal security- of the Tamil and Muslim communities. What options for recourse and justice do Tamil victims have in situations like Sri Lanka, and how can issues of international justice and accountability be de-politicized (as many of you have questioned) to truly end impunity? Specifically with regards to Mr. Ba (reprentative member of ICC) -- can the prosecutor's propio motu powers be used against Sri Lanka?" and could the Secretary-General use Article 99 to take action to protect the Tamil community on the island?

UN Genocide panel answering questions

Amady Ba, Deputy Prosecutor ICC

Adama Dieng, Adviser to SG on Prevention of Genocide

Amady Ba refers to the "Proprio motu" power which is used to refer to a decision by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to initiate an investigation into a situation without a referral from the Security Council or a State Party; this power is granted by article 15(1) of the Rome Statute.

Ba says the Prosecutor is helpless since Sri Lanka is not a party to the Rome Statute. In an earlier CNN interview, the former ICC Prosecutor, O'Campo also said the same.

On 17 July 2012, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the appointment of Adama Dieng of Senegal as Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide. Mr. Dieng has served as Registrar of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda since 2001. He began his career as Registrar of the Regional and Labour Courts in Senegal, and served as Registrar of the Supreme Court of Senegal for six years. From 1982 to 2001, Mr. Dieng worked for the International Commission of Jurists, for the last ten years as the organisation’s Secretary-General. During this period he was appointed as Envoy of the United Nations Secretary General to Malawi in 1993, and as the United Nations Independent Expert for Haiti from 1995 to 2000.

Related Articles:
16.02.10   UN rights chief says lack of progress in Sri Lanka investiga..


External Links:

UN:

Special Adviser on Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng

CHOGM mooted TRC, ill-fit for Sri Lanka

CHOGM mooted TRC, ill-fit for Sri Lanka, say ANU fellow, legal scholar

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 December 2013, 17:54 GMT]
Establishing a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) modeled on the South Africa (SA) experience, viewed by Sri Lanka backers as an urgent need to mitigate possible strong actions by the International Community against Sri Lanka over its rights violations, appears as an imminent outcome from the recently concluded Commonwealth Meeting [CHOGM]. But a Sri Lanka journalist who is a visiting Australian National University fellow, says whereas in the post-apartheid South Africa context and under the leadership of Mandela, TRC was made to work in SA, in Sri Lanka proposing a TRC without defining what it means, makes the effort appear only as "another procrastinating tactic." The scholar cautions, in Sri Lanka, no credible investigations into rights violations are likely to happen, and the consequences for Sri Lanka, in terms of being outlawed from the community of nations, are dire.

Ms. Kishali Jeyawardena writes, TRC "was meticulously planned and carefully executed by the country’s leading clergy, judicial figures and public personalities of unimpeachable integrity. Importantly this was accompanied by a gradual crafting of workable democratic structures, an advanced Bill of Rights and a proudly independent South African judiciary. "The TRC was not conceived out of the blue as it were and dropped down into the country as an excuse to avoid dealing with the general democratic process of government while everything remained dysfunctional elsewhere. It was peculiar to South Africa. Similar models have not worked elsewhere, even in the African region as we have well seen. Where Sri Lanka is concerned, suggesting a TRC without any conception of what this actually means but as another procrastinating tactic seems so childishly simplistic that it truly beggars belief," Ms Jeyawardena adds.

While the political and social context in post-war Sri Lanka and those of the post-apartheid SA differ markedly in the required fundamental aspects to make a TRC viable and a useful instrument to provide transitional justice, Sri Lanka will likely embrace TRC as an exercise to delay international action, political observers said.

Sri Lanka has routinely created several "sham" Commissions to forestall punitive actions from the IC over rights violations.

Experts have pointed out that the nearly twenty Truth Commissions have been active during the past 25 years and the general consensus of practitions of transnational justice is that the political and social context should drive, first whether a TRC is applicable to the prevailing environment, and if so, secondly, should the formation and sponsorship of the TRC.

A spokesperson for Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist organization, commented, "Functionally, a truth commission, in general, substitutes for the retributive accountability that is provided by a criminal justice tribunal, a non-punitive forum where reconciliation between the victim and victimizer is achieved through truth-telling. This model of transitional justice is unresponsive to a post-conflict scenario where the victimizer, such as the Rajapakse administration, denies wrongdoing, and where the alleged perpetrator gets to choose the form and membership, and generally control the outcome of the Commission.

"Denial of wrongdoing logically obviates the reasonable possibility of meaningful truth-telling, and by extension, reconciliation flowing from such truth-telling, which a truth commission is instituted to deliver. If implemented in such a scenario, a truth commission will not deter but rather will encourage the recurrence of wrongful conduct by signifying that the international community is willing to tolerate gross violations of international criminal law perpetrated by the GoSL without consequences," TAG said.

TRCs are set up in response to specific human rights abuses, which in turn are an outgrowth of the particular history, political culture, and institutional structure of a country. Experts acknowledge that any given political context provides both enabling and constraining forces, and provide five specific areas of importance, and the following highlights the unsuitability of a TRC for Sri Lanka.

• Nature of violence and human rights abuses to be investigated: The crimes to be investigated will likely point to command responsibility to high officials in the Government, (see Ambassador Butenis memo exposed by Wikileaks) including Sri Lanka's President, and one could see the futility of the local TRC officials allowing "their" President to be incriminated.
• Nature of political transition: Unlike in SA where the regime change involved the victims gaining power, in Sri Lanka, there was no change in power that would enable the victims to rightly expect justice. The perpetrators, the victors, and the rulers before and after the war are all Sinhalese.
• Extent of dominance and power of perpetrators after transition: While the victims, black africans, gained power under Mandela in SA, in Sri Lanka, the Rajapakse family rule was further consolidated after the war. UN High Commissioner, Navi Pillay, cautioned that Sri Lanka is moving towards an authoritarian state.
• Prevailing focus on healing or justice: In SA, the victims under the visionary leadership of Mandela pursued reconciliation with the perpetrators of the crime, and sought political accommodation in a democratic setup. In Sri Lanka, during the four years after the war, and years before, under Rajapakses, NGOs have documented sham commissions created by the ruling family to divert focus and as a delaying tactic.
• Public support for a truth commission: In Sri Lanka the support and opposition to TRC will likely be in the ethnic lines. TRC will unlikely to be accepted by the Tamils.

Sri Lanka legal scholar, Niran Anketell, concludes in a fitting article presented at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies in May 2013: "...any attempt to mimic a SA TRC process unless accompanied by a genuine and concrete change of behaviour and strategy on the part of government—including a demonstrable willingness to investigate and prosecute crimes, as well as securing a full and final political deal on restructuring the nature of the state through power sharing—will not succeed. The Sri Lankan government’s unwillingness to consider criminal investigation and prosecutions of those responsible for atrocities committed during and after the war forecloses the prospect of hidden truths being unearthed through a TRC. Further, with or without a political deal, a TRC that offers any amnesty to perpetrators will be perceived as illegitimate by Tamils and illegal by the international community, and will exacerbate divisions between the state and victims."

External Links:

jp:		Justice in perspective
CT:		Whither Justice? The Proposal For A South African Style TRC In Sri Lanka
SA:		South Africa TRC reports
TN:		Sri Lanka: Urgent need for accountability
CT:		Putting The Sri Lankan State On Notice Post CHOGM
WikiLeaks:		SRI LANKA WAR-CRIMES ACCOUNTABILITY: THE TAMIL PERSPECTIVE
jp:		Guatemala: Recovery of History memory project
usip:		TRC El Salvador: From Madness to hop; 12-year war
Harvard:		Strategic choices in the design of truth commissions

NZ Green MP urges Foreign Minister to change CHOGM chair

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 October 2013, 06:24 GMT]
New Zealand’s Green Party parliamentarian Ms Jan Logie on Friday wrote to New Zealand’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Murray McCully, urging him to support Canada’s political lead and publicly condemn Sri Lanka’s persistent failure to ensure justice for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. She also urged the Foreign Minister to take a strong stand on CHOGM and to call for another Chair to replace Rajapaksa when it comes time to appoint the Commonwealth Chairperson-in-office for the next two years.

Jan Logie MP

“Allowing Sri Lanka’s President to become the chair of the commonwealth would undermine our efforts to strengthen human rights in the Asia Pacific. It would undermine the UN efforts to get a proper investigation of the war crimes and it would also seriously undermine the charter just developed by the Commonwealth committing Commonwealth leaders to democracy, human rights, tolerance, freedom of expression, good governance and the rule of law – none of which are respected by the Rajapaksa government,” the parliamentarian said.

“To stay silent and then go to Sri Lanka and accept their President, even symbolically, as leader of the Commonwealth for two years would be inappropriate, inconsistent and counter to our regional interests,” she further wrote in her letter.

• CHOGM and Human Rights Abuses in Sri Lanka

NPC culture deviating from secularism of Vaddukkoaddai Resolution questioned

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 October 2013, 21:02 GMT]
The Vaddukkoaddai Resolution (VR) of 1976, mandated by Tamil speaking people of the North and East in the 1977 general elections, calling for the creation of a secular State of Tamil Eelam is well known. Whether the overwhelming mandate by the people of the North to the TNA in 2013, hijacked by the Sampanthan-Sumanthiran-Wigneswaran trio to interpret it as something that has superseded the VR, is also hijacked to supersede the secular outlook in the polity of the nation of Eezham Tamils, asked Tamil activists for alternative politics in Jaffna. They were cautioning on certain politico-cultural expressions surfacing with the Wigneswaran administration and said that Tamils have to rise above the culture of the genocidal State in Colombo than imitating it.

The comments of the Tamil activists for alternative politics have come in the wake of certain symbolic expressions and stage presentations brought out by the TNA and the NPC under the chief-minister-ship of Mr C.V. Wigneswaran.

The Colombo-centric State and its outside partners playing with Buddhism in their genocidal approach to imperialism cum agent-imperialism in the island, is well known.

Tamils should not ape the Sinhala-Buddhist State to prove their nationalism, because the Tamil identity, based on language, is something unparalleled in South Asia as it is the only language that served as medium to all the religions of past and present in the region.

It is not only the Sinhala-Buddhist State but also its outside partners and their visiting dignitaries, who try to engineer currents and counter currents by their chosen dealings and competitive deployment of religious symbols–all ultimately to manipulate and facilitate a course of crime against humanity in the pursuit of imperialism.

Tamils have to carefully watch the already unfolding scenario in South Asia and elsewhere in the world. If Tamils are not different, showing justice to their long civilisation, they cannot withstand the onslaught of the designs of the genocidal forces of imperialism that are operating against them.

It is with great understanding the Eezham Tamils had opted for secular Tamil Eelam in 1977. The Tamil militancy was neither practising nor showing symbols of any religion.

If any quarters, inside or outside, attempt insinuation into Tamil polity using any religious symbolism – even as a reaction to what the Sinhala-Buddhist State is doing in the country of Eezham Tamils – that has to be nipped in the bud by enlightened public vigilance and consensus. Otherwise, it will prove dangerous in the long run, said Tamil activists for alternative politics in Jaffna.

Prime responsibility to course correct TNA rests with people: Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 October 2013, 15:52 GMT]
The people who overwhelmingly voted for the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) had cast their votes with a different perception and anticipation than what the TNA has officially articulated in writing in its election manifesto, said Tamil National Peoples' Front (TNPF) leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam in Jaffna on Monday. “The people have a major responsibility now and they can't simply take the risk of allowing the TNA leadership to take a completely different path contrary to their intention and wait for the next elections,” he said adding that the people should involve them directly at political level course correcting, if the Tamil polity to be in sync with their political aspirations.

https://soundcloud.com/tamilnet/tnpf-press-meet-on-tnas

 The TNPF, in line with the mainstream Tamil national politics throughout the past several years, has categorically rejected the Provincial Council system under the unitary constitution of Sri Lanka and its 13th Amendment.

“Although the TNPF rejected the PC elections, we didn't ask the people to boycott it. We clearly stated that it is up to the people, to decide on their own, whether they want to take part or not. Now, they have taken part in the PC election in an unprecedented way and we respect their decision,” Mr Gajendrakumar told journalists at the press conference in Jaffna.

The manifesto states that the TNA wants to find a solution within the Sri Lankan constitution, which is a unitary constitution.

The same manifesto also goes on stating that the TNA was seeking a power-sharing solution based on federalism, which is completely a different thing.

Thirdly, the TNA went to the people on the ground promising its commitment to the Right to Self-Determination and nationhood, which is again at odds with the above two contradictory positions, he said.

Explaining further, he touched on how the Tamil mandate was expressed in key electoral manifestos and positions at all the key conjunctures of constitution forming in the island since the Soulbury Commission. The Tamil people have been consistent in completely rejecting the unitary constitution since its inception. But, this time, the TNA has made a positional blunder by giving an opposite twist without the consent of their people while making it look like the votes cast to the TNA were meant for the manifesto they have put out.

The manifesto is intended to the powers steering the TNA, but the promise on Self-Determination and Nationhood was used to secure votes.

Unitary Constitution, Power Sharing and Right to Self Determination are all contradicting positions with each other.

But, on the stage the TNA was only stressing on the Right to Self Determination.

The TNA even went to the extent of claiming that LTTE leader Pirpaharan as a Great Hero and singing the songs of the movement during the election campaign.

They were only talking of Right to Self Determination at the stage.

The TNA was also talking of war crimes of ‘both sides’ in its election manifesto. At the outset this stand may look like a reasonable position. But, the people should scrutinize the intention to equate their aggressor with their defender in a long-term struggle.

Mr Gajendrakumar was also stating that there are three spatial components of the Tamil struggle: the homeland, the diaspora and the Tamil Nadu.

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People's mandate projected differently by TNA MPs

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 October 2013, 20:15 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian S. Sritharan from Ki'linochchi delivered an emotional speech in Jaffna on Friday during the oath-taking ceremony of the members of the NPC. The address, also containing satire messages directed at the Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran, reminded the CM and his fellow NPC members on the aspiration of Eezham Tamils and what the real mandate the TNA had promised to its people at the grassroots level during the election campaign, while TNA parliamentary group leader R. Sampanthan and national list parliamentarian MA Sumanthiran were interpreting the mandate according to their manuscript produced without involving the majority of the TNA politicians or the candidates.

Mr Sritharan was reminding the elected representatives that the oath they were taking on Friday was for fighting for the political liberation. The focus should be on the political struggle and not on the powerless ministerial posts, which deal with powers enabling you to only populate ponds with small fish or to construct local lanes [under the 13th Amendment]. These are posts mandated to you by our people to be used as stones in the political struggle. This is the real mandate we secured from the people during the elections, he said.

Kidding a genocide affected nation

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 October 2013, 20:58 GMT]
NPC Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran, who claims that he has been installed in the position by the grace of India, and the TNA Parliamentary Group Leader R. Sampanthan, were ‘crowned’ at the end of the oath-taking ceremony for the NPC members, held in Jaffna on Friday. Wigneswaran, in addition, was handed over with a spear of God Murukan. In the beginning of the ceremony, the NPC members declined to wear even traditional garlands. Tamil public in Jaffna viewed the new ‘culture’ surfacing with Wigneswaran polity as obnoxious when the solution-path he is showing is hollow, non-descript and simulated by the very forces that were in complicity with the genocide, media circles in Jaffna said.

Wigneswaran was commenting on the ‘ego’ of the LTTE just in January this year.

The crowning episode on Friday took place only a few minutes after the following address by Sritharan MP from Ki'linochchi:



 

 https://soundcloud.com/tamilnet/s-sritharan-11-oct-2013-mp3

Chronology:

11.10.13  Kidding a genocide affected nation

11.10.13  New Delhi poses new challenge to Tamils

11.10.13  NPC members take oath in Jaffna after honouring fa..

10.10.13  ITAK announces NPC ministers, EPRLF challenges

08.10.13  New Delhi minister cancels press conference in Jaf..

08.10.13  Indian FM in Jaffna talks of ‘tri-lingual, united,..

08.10.13  TNA members boycotted oath-taking, Wigneswaran-tri..

06.10.13  Indian EA minister to lunch with SL governor, meet..

03.10.13  TNA should learn from history: Poonkuzhali Nedumar..

27.09.13  ‘Tamils vote in NPC not a legitimation of unitary ..

25.09.13  Tamil Nadu answering Wigneswaran is answering New ..

23.09.13  Sampanthan, Sumanthiran find TNA victory supersedi..

21.09.13  Wigneswaran becomes chosen mouthpiece of imperiali..

16.09.13  The Justice fails as lawyer of Tamils too

13.09.13  Wigneswaran bares agenda of his sponsors

31.07.13  Wigneswaran seeks mandate for ‘IC-facilitated’ Nor..

21.07.13  Wigneswaran should not weaken diaspora and Tamil N..

28.04.13  Justice Wigneswaran delivers ITAK’s Chelva Memoria..

30.01.13  Retired Tamil Justice compares between own and occ..

16.12.11  Former SC judge sceptical of solution without inte..

New Delhi poses new challenge to Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 October 2013, 18:57 GMT]
NPC Chief Minister Mr C.V. Wigneswaran has to be profusely thanked and appreciated by Tamils for his honesty in conceding that he is not a natural leader of Eezham Tamils representing their aspirations, but a planted one by New Delhi to implement the 13th Amendment. Wigneswaran’s revelation and his efforts to muffle voices in Tamil Nadu and in the diaspora have to be understood in the background of what M.K. Narayanan had told the TNA in May 2009 that, “we know better what is good for Tamils.” New Delhi simulating a leadership for the political surrender of the Tamil cause poses new challenge to Tamils all over the world, writes an activist for alternative politics in Jaffna.

Talking to Indian media in Jaffna on Tuesday, Wigneswaran said: "Not that India brought me in but India, in an indirect way, was instrumental in allowing the provincial council elections to take place after 25 years."

He also added: “I am here because India almost had a hand in the elections being held when the (Sri Lankan) government as saying we are not going to have it or we are going to crap the 13th amendment and so on."

Tamils can do well with the implementation of the 13th Amendment and the LLRC recommendations, is the position of New Delhi and Washington that were in complicity with Colombo in the genocidal war.

Both the models are just confirmation of structural genocide and annihilation of the nation of Eezham Tamils and their territoriality in the island, when vested in the hands of the historically proven genocidial State in Colombo, is the assessment of Eezham Tamils, whose experience on this matter predates the formation of the New Delhi Establishment and the emergence of Washington as a super power.

Preparing for his entry into politics designed by the powers, Wigneswaran made his maiden speech of the current series at Vaddukkoaddai YMHA on the Pongkal Day, on 14 January this year.

In his speech, comparing the law and order situation between the LTTE times and the SL occupation times, he hinted at the difference between people under their own rule and an occupation rule.

Interestingly, Wigneswaran has also said in that meeting that, “a careful scrutiny would show how some one among us was there operating and still operating, behind every wrong committed by outsiders.”

We should build unity and an internal mechanism so that our people don’t turn into pimps and servants of outsiders, Wigneswaran further said in that meeting in January this year. He was meaning the occupying forces as ‘outsiders’.

He also was talking in that meeting about ‘ego’ [he used the Saiva Siddhantha terminology Aa’navam in Tamil] and indirectly targeted his attack on the LTTE, saying that we should think of what had happened to our youth who had been so powerful just a while before, and added that “who ever dance to their ego [Aa’navam] had to reap the consequences.

How the intellectual prowess or ego of the former Justice is now used to pimp ‘outsiders’, how it is used to cowardly interpret and hijack a popular vote to surrender the cause and self-respect of a nation that had not been surrendered by the LTTE even at the point of life and death, and how the intellectual ego that looks upon the masters now overstep in an unwarranted way to the extent of ridiculing and silencing voices of the kith and kin in the diaspora and in Tamil Nadu, are well known through Mr Wigneswaran’s own words.

The attack on Tamil Nadu for supporting the cause of Eezham Tamils has first come in recent times from genocidal Sri Lanka’s former military commander Sarath Fonseksa, then from Gotabhaya and KP, and now it comes from the intellectual ego of Wigneswaran, while Indian intelligence operatives are known for their view of considering Tamil Nadu polity as an impediment to their designs.

Meanwhile, Mr. Wigneswaran’s Sampanthi (son’s father-in-law] Mr Vasudeva Nanayakara, denouncing ‘extremists’ among both the Sinhalese and Tamils, and accusing them for unknowingly contributing to each other, has been quoted by media this week with an extremist statement that if Tamils take up arms again the answer [of the Sinhala State] will be the same as what the LTTE had been served with.

Tamils in their civilization cannot stop without getting an international answer of justice for the crime committed on their nation.

The world has not so far given an answer to those who have committed the genocide, commit genocide, those who participate in such Establishments, those who don’t shun genocide for their geopolitical greed, those who have global responsibilities but back the culprits in the State Establishments, those who have the responsibility for the region of South Asia but have brought in the first ever large-scale genocide into the region and those who now try to deny everything, shield everything and try to impose a hoodwink as solution which is nothing but continuity and confirmation of the crime.

New Delhi is in the forefront in this exercise and thus poses a new challenge to Tamils all over the world.

Last time when the New Delhi hoodwink came up the LTTE was there to effectively meet the challenge.

Wigneswaran has now allowed himself to be used by those who try to pre-empt any effective challenge coming from Tamil Nadu and the diaspora.

The intellectual ego of some among Tamils, ignoring righteous sentiments and necessities of the masses, failing them is not new to Tamils.

Colombo-centric media has already started hinting at the prospects of trained elephants taming wild elephants in making Jaffna to have no qualms about becoming another Colombo and Trincomalee.

Naturally there is simmering anger on the Wigneswaran-Sampanthan-Sumanthiran trio among the Tamil public in the island, in Tamil Nadu and in the diaspora.

But, a well-known adage in Tamil says that one should not blame the arrow but the bowman.

Unless Tamils everywhere are not prepared to address the struggle directly at New Delhi and Washington, Wigneswaran & Co cannot be course-corrected. Tamils also should be careful in not allowing the sentiments of discontentment to get hijacked by unbefitting elements.

The CHOGM in Colombo and the Geneva sessions in March may be some opportunities. But people of Tamil Nadu will be getting a solid chance around next May to make it a condition that their support is for only those who could conduct an investigation within India itself against those who were responsible for the genocide committed and being committed on the nation of Eezham Tamils.

Chronology:

11.10.13  Kidding a genocide affected nation

11.10.13  New Delhi poses new challenge to Tamils

11.10.13  NPC members take oath in Jaffna after honouring fa..

10.10.13  ITAK announces NPC ministers, EPRLF challenges

08.10.13  New Delhi minister cancels press conference in Jaf..

08.10.13  Indian FM in Jaffna talks of ‘tri-lingual, united,..

08.10.13  TNA members boycotted oath-taking, Wigneswaran-tri..

06.10.13  Indian EA minister to lunch with SL governor, meet..

03.10.13  TNA should learn from history: Poonkuzhali Nedumar..

27.09.13  ‘Tamils vote in NPC not a legitimation of unitary ..

25.09.13  Tamil Nadu answering Wigneswaran is answering New ..

23.09.13  Sampanthan, Sumanthiran find TNA victory supersedi..

21.09.13  Wigneswaran becomes chosen mouthpiece of imperiali..

16.09.13  The Justice fails as lawyer of Tamils too

13.09.13  Wigneswaran bares agenda of his sponsors

31.07.13  Wigneswaran seeks mandate for ‘IC-facilitated’ Nor..

21.07.13  Wigneswaran should not weaken diaspora and Tamil N..

28.04.13  Justice Wigneswaran delivers ITAK’s Chelva Memoria..

30.01.13  Retired Tamil Justice compares between own and occ..

16.12.11  Former SC judge sceptical of solution without inte..

NPC members take oath in Jaffna after honouring fallen Tamil Heroes

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 October 2013, 06:57 GMT]

Twenty members of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) elected to the Northern Provincial Council took oaths in Jaffna after visiting the memorial site of SJV Chelvanayakam and after observing honour to fallen Tamil Heroes (Maaveerar) and the people perished in the war, at Jaffna Veerasingham Hall Friday 9:00 a.m. EPRLF-leader Suresh Premachandran and five of the six EPRLF's elected members, TELO's M.K.Sivajilingam and an elected TELO member, PLOTE leader Tharmalingam Siththarthan and one elected PLOTE member were absent at the event. Ms Ananthi Sasitharan was present marking her independency between the ITAK and the portfolio-seekers. The ceremonial event took place without any celebrations and the members declined to wear traditional garlands at the function.

After reading a common oath, individual members signed their document in front of TNA Parliamentary Group Leader R. Sampanthan and handed their documents to the Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran, who had taken his oath as CM in front of Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa in Colombo.

Apart from the religious leaders were present at the function, a notable visitor to the event was the Consul General of India Mr V. Mahalaingam.

@As the details of portfolios and other roles of elected members were released to the media, it became clear that all the key functions, including the revenue generating areas, have come under the CM's portfolio, political observers in Jaffna said.

Informed sources within the ITAK also said the controversial appointment of Mr Aingaranesan was a decision taken by Mr R. Sampanthan on the request by India.

• Division of ministries of the NPC & subjects for councillors

Chronology:

11.10.13  NPC members take oath in Jaffna after honouring fa..

10.10.13  ITAK announces NPC ministers, EPRLF challenges

Occupying SLAF demands money from people

Occupying SLAF demands money from people to access their beach in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 October 2013, 23:35 GMT]
The Sri Lankan Air Force, which had appropriated the popular Marble Beach in 2001 at the southern tip of Trincomalee under the pretext of providing ‘high security’ to the SL Air Force base at China Bay, has transformed it into a military run corporate outfit after the war, naming it ‘Marble Beach Air Force Resort’. The occupying SL Air Force has now started to charge money from the public to even access that limited area, civil sources in Trincomalee said.

The occupying SLAF personnel harass the people visiting their beach to pay 20 rupees each to ‘Air Force Command Welfare Fund’.

The ‘Marble Beach Air Force Resort’ was declared opened by the SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa in March 2011.

In the beginning, the SLAF said it allowed people of Trincomalee to access an ‘open area’ in the beach, but now the entire beach has been under the administrative control of the occupying SL military.

Legal sources in Trincomalee alleged that the occupying Sri Lankan Air Force had also violated the Sri Lankan parliamentary act called Coast Conservation Act (Act No. 57 of 1981), in appropriating the beach and making it into a military run corporate property.

New Delhi minister cancels press conference

New Delhi minister cancels press conference in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 October 2013, 17:44 GMT]
New Delhi Establishment’s External Affairs Minister Salman Kurshid, visiting Jaffna on Tuesday, cancelled the ‘press conference’ he had scheduled at a hotel room in Jaffna exclusively for the Indian media accompanying him, after protest by local media about its exclusion. Eight journalists from Indian mainstream media, including The Hindu, accompanied the minister to set opinion orchestration in India. New Delhi official in Jaffna, Suresh Menon, had earlier announced that the press conference was for Indian journalists. The minister responded to the local media protest by cancelling media meet with all, and thus he also escaped answering questions from the local media, news circles in Jaffna said.

Whatever the media in Jaffna was able to cover was what the minister had said in a meeting that was organized for distributing money to some war-affected families of Vanni.

In that meeting, the Indian officials who were found seated with the public, set the ‘lead’ for clapping, and the beneficiaries who had come were made to follow the ‘clapping’.

The Indian official ‘lead’ for clapping was particularly set when the minister was talking about the 13th Amendment.

Other than the beneficiaries, the general public in Jaffna ignored the New Delhi minister and his visit.

Salman Khurshid [middle] in Jaffna

Chronology:

08.10.13  New Delhi minister cancels press conference in Jaf..

08.10.13  Indian FM in Jaffna talks of ‘tri-lingual, united,..

08.10.13  TNA members boycotted oath-taking, Wigneswaran-tri..

06.10.13  Indian EA minister to lunch with SL governor, meet..

03.10.13  TNA should learn from history: Poonkuzhali Nedumar..

27.09.13  ‘Tamils vote in NPC not a legitimation of unitary ..

25.09.13  Tamil Nadu answering Wigneswaran is answering New ..

23.09.13  Sampanthan, Sumanthiran find TNA victory supersedi..

21.09.13  Wigneswaran becomes chosen mouthpiece of imperiali..

16.09.13  The Justice fails as lawyer of Tamils too

13.09.13  Wigneswaran bares agenda of his sponsors

Indian FM in Jaffna talks of ‘tri-lingual, united Sri Lanka

Indian FM in Jaffna talks of ‘tri-lingual, united, sovereign, devolved and connected’ Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 October 2013, 17:12 GMT]
Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, who visited Jaffna on Tuesday, ceremonially opened two houses of the controversial ‘50,000 House Project’, by visiting Thanthai Chelvapuram village at Thellippazhai in Valikaamam North, after landing in Palaali, meeting SL military officials and paying tribute to slain Indian soldiers in the war 23 years ago. Mr Khurshid then proceeded to lunch with the war-crimes accused Sri Lankan colonial governor in North and thereafter met the Chief Minister of Northern Provincial Council. Salman Khurshid, addressing the beneficiaries of financial asssistance and the journalists at Tilko hotel was talking of devolved Sri Lanka under the 13 Amendment, for a happy, prosperous and tri-lingual Sri Lanka which is sovereign and united and connected with India.

Salman Khurshid [middle] in Jaffna

He was also talking about India's plan to technically assist 10-year national project of “Tri-lingual Sri Lanka” [This is based on Sri Lanka's LLRC although the Indian minister didn't mention the name LLRC in his address].

A “friendly, sovereign and united Sri Lanka was the vision that all we have,” he reiterated.

“I consider myself very lucky that this visit coincides with your successful elections of the NPC and the oath that was taken yesterday by the Chief Minister who will serve you and who will be your symbol of the aspirations and who will help in the process of reconciliation and reconstruction and growth and prosperity for all the people,” the visiting minister was telling the journalists in Jaffna.

“I urge, hope and expect that your representative, the chief minister, ministers - all your representatives - will work in collaboration and cooperation and closely in dialogue with the federal government - with the government of Sri Lanka- to bring about satisfaction and happiness to the people of this region and this province commensurate with their aspirations and desire to live a life worth of dignity and equality, of justice and self-respect, under a devolved and reconstructed constitutional provisions that we describe in short as Amendment 13, but reflecting on the true consensual dialogue of the people of this province with other citizens and establishments of this country,” he said while concluding his address.

(The New Delhi Minister used the word “federal government” for the unitary Colombo India worked out through the 13th Amendment. Some Indian media also nowadays chooses to use the empty word to hoodwink the public)

Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid with Chief Minister of Northern Province CV Wigneswaran

In his address, Mr Khushid claimed that the Northern Railway line project was progressing, and that the Yaazh Theavi Express would resume services by 2014.

Seaward connectivity would be restarted with the ferry service between Thalai-Mannaar and Rameswaram, he said noting the assistance by India to develop Thalai Mannaar pier.

The dredging process of KKS port is done with Indian assistance and this will allow for greater growth of the economic activity, he claimed.

Palaali airport is being developed into a full-fledged civilian airport with regional connectivity, he claimed.

“We have made landmark agreements and MOUs for Champoor Power Project,” he said adding it was “for the benefit of all citizens including you”.

“I hope that all this will ensure working that we want to do for you is to bring you happiness and bring you an opportunity to take advantage of the important position that you have between Indian and Sri Lanka,” he said adding that “the situation that you have is a critical situation of great importance from the point view of commerce, tourism and many other fields.”

He was also talking of a new cultural connectivity project, Jaffna Cultural Centre at a location close to Jaffna Public Library. “This would be a very important landmark of important cultural connectivity of our people.”

On the burning issue of fishermen, he came with the following remark: “We have also agreed that representatives of fishermen from both sides, from India and from Sri Lanka, will come together very soon to find resolution to this constant irritant that comes on the livelihood.”

During his visit to Jaffna, Mr Salman Khurshid was particular in conveying through the visiting Indian journalists who are present in Jaffna, an image of India as the major assistance provider to the war-affected Eezham Tamils.

Salman Khurshid at Chelvapuram in Thellippazhai

The visiting minister in Jaffna described the housing project as the “largest grants assistance programme that government of India has undertaken anywhere in the world and how happy it made the families who were able now to receive the certificates of their completed houses in which they will live happily.” He mentioned that 1,000 houses have been completed so far. Claiming that 16,000 houses were under various stages of their construction, and gave a new deadline for the completion of the 50,000 before the 2015.

It has almost become a habitual show, since the 27 November 2010 visit of the previous Indian External Affairs Minister SM Krishna, to declare open one or two houses every time an Indian official or politician visit North. But, the housing scheme has gone through a lot of controversies and is progressing at a snail's pace from its inception.

When many countries were prepared to assist the uprooted people with constructing houses after 2009, India rushed with its announcement of constructing 50,000 houses, ousting others from the scene. Initially, Indian contractors were hired to put up the houses. The project went very slow even after spending 550,000 Indian rupees for constructing each house which was budgeted at 550,000 Sri Lankan rupees.

The houses constructed were of poor quality and some of these houses were damaged even before they were declared opened. As the delivery was very slow and the quality of the houses were not to the standards, the Indian authorities decided to give the allocated money, 550,000 SL rupees to the chosen beneficiaries to construct the houses. But, the beneficiaries ended up with borrowing money to complete the houses that cost around 1,300,000 each. 90% of the recipients are still on waiting list and the management by the Sri Lankan Red Cross (SLRC) chosen to oversee the project has come under criticism.

Each house consists of two rooms, a kitchen and an outdoor toilet. The kitchen doesn't have enough space to accommodate two people, the beneficiaries complain.

The visiting Indian External Affairs Minister also provided micro loans, promised long ago but not delivered hitherto, to a few selected recipients during his visit.

Scores of villages have been appropriated by genocidal Sri Lanka to create a Sinhala Military Zone in the neighbourhood of the housing scheme opened by Salman Khurshid on Tuesday and the New Delhi government never raises a finger about it.

A house being constructed at Thellippazhai

Chelvapuram, Thellippazhai, was under SL military occupation for 19 years till 2010

Chronology:

08.10.13  New Delhi minister cancels press conference in Jaf..

08.10.13  Indian FM in Jaffna talks of ‘tri-lingual, united,..

08.10.13  TNA members boycotted oath-taking, Wigneswaran-tri..

06.10.13  Indian EA minister to lunch with SL governor, meet..

03.10.13  TNA should learn from history: Poonkuzhali Nedumar..

27.09.13  ‘Tamils vote in NPC not a legitimation of unitary ..

25.09.13  Tamil Nadu answering Wigneswaran is answering New ..

23.09.13  Sampanthan, Sumanthiran find TNA victory supersedi..

21.09.13  Wigneswaran becomes chosen mouthpiece of imperiali..

16.09.13  The Justice fails as lawyer of Tamils too

13.09.13  Wigneswaran bares agenda of his sponsors

Diaspora teen-ager records the Vanni she witnessed

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 October 2013, 23:37 GMT]
“Was I a Stranger in My Homeland? Has One Two Lives?” is the title of a book by a young Norwegian Eezham Tamil girl, Malavi Sivakanesan. The book tells the story of how she, as an 8-year-old girl visiting Vanni, enjoyed playing in the sands of her homeland to how she, 6 years later at the age of 14, powerlessly witnessed from Norway the unfolding genocidal onslaught on the coastal strip of the same Vanni in 2009. With a lot of questions on why the global Establishments didn’t do anything to stop the genocidal onslaught despite hundreds of thousands of Tamils, including the children of her age, took to the streets staging demonstrations in an unprecedented way in the West, to why the Tamil youth are still struggling with questions on what is going on and what they should do, she publishes the book at the age of 17.

In an interview to TamilNet this weekend, she said that Norway, which had an important role in the conflict, has not done enough for the Tamils to get justice. The Norwegian politicians should listen more to the Tamils and understand what the Tamils are going through and look at it objectively.

In the course of writing the book, she had met former Norwegian State Secretary Vidar Helgesen and the former Special Envoy and later Development Minister of Norway, the failed Norwegian peace broker Erik Solheim.

She appreciated her interaction with Mr Vidar Helgesan, who according to Malavai, understood what she had to say. But, Mr Erik Solheim, who was preoccupied with finding faults with the Tamil Tigers and described the LTTE leader Mr Pirapaharan as a ‘complicated person’ didn’t strike well with her that she didn’t find it appropriate to include that conversation in her book.

On the diaspora youth of her age, she said the youth abroad, despite their emotional attachment, have a limited amount of knowledge when it comes to the conflict in their homeland. The youth need more workshops where they can discuss, debate and learn more about the conflict in order to shape their role in providing leadership in the diaspora, she said.

Ms Nithiya Nareshkumar, a medical student at the University of Oslo interviewed Ms Malavi Sivakanesan.

Malavi, describing her two visits to Tamil Eelam in 2003 and 2004 with her family, goes in detail in her book describing her experience witnessing his family’s meeting with the LTTE leader Velupillai Pirapaharan, who was visiting the dental clinic and the training programme conducted by her father on behalf of the charity, the Norwegian Tamils Health Organisation (NTHO) during the times of the peace process.

The book that records a diaspora child experiencing her homeland under Tamil rule and how she experienced her interactions with the Tiger akkaas (sisters) and a’n’naas (brothers) and the maamaas (uncles), also narrates the story of her friends; a Tamil boy, who had gone to Vanni from Norway, joined the Tigers and survived the genocidal onslaught on Vanni and the love story of one of her friends in London, a story that also touches on the cultural divide of East and West.

The book, published through Xlibris, a US-based self-publishing company, is to be released on 19 October in London.

A passage from her book follows:

“One evening, just before it got dark, an old skinny man waddled through the gate with a wagon full of nongus. He wore a loincloth which was fastened around his waist, pleated neatly and draped between his legs. He was quite dark, and his upper body was bare. Though the wagon looked heavy, he did not seem to have a hard time manoeuvring, probably because he was used to it.

“Before I go further, let me tell you what a nongu looks like. It is a fruit with a hard shell and three eyelets on top and is full of white jelly-like pulp in the centre. Even though it is not exactly my favourite fruit, I must admit that it is extremely tasty. The man then skillfully cut the top off the fruits one by one with his sickle-like cutter. I could see that he was adept at the task, and it was extremely exciting watching him work. He distributed the fruit to everyone around. I was slightly confused about the right way of eating the nongu and waited for someone to explain the next step. Immediately, a Tamil Tiger behind offered to help and kindly showed me the art of eating them. At first I made a mess, but as soon as I finished, I asked for another, then another, and so on. I ate to my heart’s content. I had six nongus in a single sitting which is rather unusual for a little girl. In Norway, at the most, I often get to eat overripe apples and pears. Canned tropical fruits and vegetables sold in exotic food shops in Norway can hardly compare to the vendors who come peddling the fresh variety, door to door in Tamil Eelam.”

SL, govt service means officialising genocidal land grab

SL govt service in East means officialising genocidal land grab

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 October 2013, 23:53 GMT]
The occupying Colombo government has forced the Tamil divisional secretaries in Trincomalee district to comply with its genocidal land grab and Sinhalicisation schemes if they are to retain their jobs, informed civil sources in Trincomalee said. The latest victim to such pressure is the divisional secretary of Trincomalee Town and Gravets division, the sources said alleging that the divisional secretary Ms Sasithevi Jalatheepan has been instructed to identify lands without deeds and to allocate those lands to the occupying Sri Lankan military to set up new camps.

Neither the world establishments in complicity with genocidal State in the island nor the UN officials utter any word on the land grab genocide that is taking place in an accelerated way in the North and East.

The UN Human Rights chief Ms Navanetham Pillay who recently visited the North and East said that legal proof is needed to use the word genocide. She said it without any effort on the part of the UN to investigate the matter. Whether the UN is also ‘forced’ to internationally officialise the land grab genocide that takes place against the country of Eezham Tamils, the civil sources in Trincomalee asked.

Sri Lanka Army has forcibly appropriated the general market of the Trincomalee Urban Council constructed at Power House Road. The general market was appropriated by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in the year 2006 and is still being used as their camps.

The divisional secretary is unable to voice against continued occupation of the UC market. When questioned on the actions taken to get the lands back from the SL military, the divisional secretary chose to explain that the UC market is situated in a private land.

The Sri Lankan Government Agent of Trincomalee, Major General (retd) T.T.R. De Silva, had earlier instructed the divisional secretary to assist the construction of a Buddhist Vihare close to the Trincomalee Clock Tower and the Fish Market in the heart of Trincomalee city. The civil sources also allege that the divisional secretary was not able convey the sentiments of the people on the construction of Buddhist vihare at Kanniyaa Hot Wells area to the SL military GA of the district.

TNA should learn from history: Poonkuzhali Nedumaran

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 October 2013, 23:38 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) should learn from history, and from the experience of their predecessors, on what should NOT be done, writes Tamil Nadu political activist Poonkuzhali Nedumaran in a feature sent to TamilNet this week. She cited the history of TNA’s predecessor TULF failing in upholding the responsibility it was vested with by the people in 1977, compromising with District Councils and how that triggered the Tamil youth to lose confidence in parliamentary methods. The NPC election results mean communication of a will than participation in governance. With the Eezham Tamils rejecting the polity and rule of the State in Colombo, the TNA must understand the responsibility vested with them by the people, she further said.

The Eelam Tamils know very well, that after the elections, the Sinhala rulers, having lost the elections, will avenge them outrageously with their military. Even then, they have risked their life and have sent out their message, Poonkuzhali said, adding that the message is nothing but rejection of the polity and rule of the Sinhala State in Colombo.

The election also shows that the Eelam Tamils are slowly coming out of the trauma and have started to fight back. That is why - beyond dense military presence, attacks on Tamil candidates, intimidation and humiliation in polling booths, Eelam Tamils have risked their lives to restore their dignity, she observed.

She traced a pattern in Tamil voting since 1977: TULF contesting on the Vaddukkoaddai Resolution based manifesto captured 18 out of 19 seats in 1977; 95 per cent boycotted local body elections in 1983 when the LTTE called for a boycott; TNA won 22 out of 23 seats in 2004; in 2005 when the LTTE wanted people to boycott the presidential elections, 95 per cent boycotted, and now the TNA victory.

The pattern is that whenever Eezham Tamils get a chance to vote they listen only to their own parties and not to any Sinhalese party. They categorically reject the rule of Sinhala polity and the rule of southern Sri Lanka over them, Poonkuzhali observed.

The election results also show what dangers are awaiting Eezham Tamils in the North, through demographic changes in the model that had already endangered the East, she cautioned.

“There are chances that this election results would have sent alarming messages to the ruling Sinhalese, which will motivate them to increase the unauthorised rampant settlement of Sinhalese in the North. Already the coastal areas of Vanni, Mannar and Mullaitheevu and the fertile lands of Vavuniya are occupied by the Sinhalese settlers. If this increases, the Eelam Tamils will be losing their legal hold on their homeland,” she cautioned further.

What Poonkuzhali fears should be achieved by the State in Colombo as quickly as possible, as the ‘lasting solution’ for the national question in the island, is the envisagement of New Delhi and Washington that have designed and decided the course of the genocidal war, and have set an internationally binding post-war process based on the Sinhala State’s LLRC recommendations.

Therefore, unless the Eezham Tamils, global Tamils and especially the Tamils in Tamil Nadu exercise their geopolitical weight and address the struggle directly and specifically against those two Establishments to the extent of affecting their geopolitical interests, no solution is going to come especially to the danger last mentioned by Poonkuzhali, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island.

How the politicians were chosen for the NPC elections and what they have uttered before and after the voting are also messages sent to Tamils everywhere that the struggle is no more local or regional and that it has entered into a hitherto unseen internationalised phase, and that Tamils have to be prepared for that, the activists further commented.

* * *

Full text of the feature by Poonkuzhali Nedumaran:

As nation-states move past war or even genocide, politics should eventually return to normal. But Eelam Tamils, still recovering from the killing field at Mullivaikaal in 2009, are put in a position to take up an abnormal political course, while the intention of genocide against them is very much alive and the structural genocide in a hitherto unseen and accelerated way is a daily routine. It is in such a context, the recent NPC election stands out, being different from all the ones that preceded it in the island in the post-colonial times.

Electoral politics in Sri Lanka can not be reasonably disentangled from political definition of provinces in Sri Lanka’s constitutional scheme. The provinces are the first level administrative divisions, and were first established under British colonial rule in 1833, after abolishing the territorial identities of the three kingdoms I the island. Initially there were five provinces which became nine later. However, over the next century most of the administrative functions were transferred to the districts, the second level administrative division, and by the mid-20th century, the provinces had become merely ceremonial, vacant of meaningfully delegated political power.

The state’s allocation of, or lack thereof, of Tamil political power within the constitutional scheme of government has been a contentious issue since the dawn of the post-colonial era on the island. Tamil political parties have consistently requested for a greater voice in the political system, be it through federalism or the exercise of the right to self-determination. For example, right from 1948, the first political demand of the Eelam Tamils was a Federal System of Government, in which the Eelam Tamils have a single Province of their own with rights to rule themselves. This demand had been insisted time and again by several Tamil political leaders.

The 1987 Indo-Sri Lanka Accord signed between Rajiv Gandhi and J. R. Jayawardane, proposed an amendment to the 1978 Constitution of Sri Lanka, calling for Provincial Councils as an elected administrative body. This amendment is popularly known as the 13th amendment. History suggests, the 13th amendment was subterfuge for denying, rather than granting Eelam Tamils greater political autonomy. Though it was said that the purpose of 13th amendment was decentralization of powers, in practice it was not so.

While the Eelam Tamil demand was for the integration of the North and East of Sri Lanka as a single Province drawn from the Tamil homeland, the 13th amendment essentially did the opposite. It failed in categorically asserting to the unity of the North and East and it provided space for Sri Lanka’s judiciary to delink even the provisional unity of the contiguous space of Eezham Tamils. Furthermore, the demand for a Tamil Province was primarily for the Eelam Tamils to have control over their homeland. However, to obstruct and dilute this aspect, the 13th amendment devolved power to all the 9 Provinces, of which demographically, seven were Sinhala, and two were Tamil Provinces. While there is not much need for the Sinhala Provinces to have additional powers, as the Government of Sri Lanka is by itself a Sinhalese State, the need of the Eelam Tamils was overlooked, obfuscated within the political concept of unitary Sri Lankan identity. The Provincial Councils thus formed are powerless. Even the basic local administrative organs of Land and Police were vested with the Government of Sri Lanka. This was nowhere near the Federal System of Government. The Provincial Councils are neither federal in form nor in substance.

Now with Sri Lanka hosting the Commonwealth Conference in November 2013, and with the mounting International pressure, the Government of Sri Lanka is forced to show the world that the Eelam Tamils are at peace and the Government has restored democracy back in the island.

It is in this context that the Provincial Council Elections were conducted in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka comprising of Jaffna and Vanni regions, which form the main part of Eelam Tamils' traditional home land. The first election to the Northern Province under a provisionally combined North and East, was conducted in 1987 with the presence of the IPKF. After that, this is the second time that the Northern Province of the island is voting to elect a Provincial Council. To camouflage the disparity existing in the political arena, elections were conducted for the Central Province and the North Western Province also along with the Northern Province.

In the Northern Province, Tamil National Alliance, comprising now of 5 Tamil Political parties, viz., TELO, EPRLF, PLOTE, TULF and ITAK, has won 28 out of the 36 seats, thereby qualifying to get 2 bonus seats. The ruling alliance, UPFA of Mahinda Rajapakse has got 7 seats and Sri Lanka Muslim Congress has won 1 seat.

Setting aside the debate on what powers that the Provincial council has, or whether TNA is going to bring about a change, there is much more to understand from the statistics the results provide.

Statistics indicate that TNA has secured 84.37% of the total votes polled in Jaffna and 65.89% of the total votes polled in Vanni region. Rajapakse's UPFA has secured 14.2% in Jaffna and 22.1% in Vanni. Ranil's UNP has secured 0.34% in Jaffna and 1.04% in Vanni. The Jaffna and Vanni region have faced 5 elections after the tragic end of the war in 2009. These include the Presidential Election in 2010, General Parliament Election in 2010, Local Body elections in 2009 and 2011 and the recent Provincial Elections - 2013. The Presidential Elections which were held within one year of the end of the war had one Tamil contestant among the list of contestants. The lone Tamil contestant, M. K. Sivajilingam - an ex-member of Parliament - was at that time not openly supported by any political party. Mahinda Rajapakse who won this election secured 24.75% of votes in Jaffna and 27.31% of votes in Vanni.

The parliamentary elections which followed also saw Mahinda Rajapakse's UPFA win. The TNA, which contested in this election won 5 out of 9 seats in Jaffna securing 43.85% of votes and 3 out of 6 seats in Vanni securing 38.96% of votes. Rajapakse's UPFA closely followed TNA winning 3 seats in Jaffna securing 32.07% of votes and 2 seats in Vanni with 35.07% of votes. Ranil Wickremasinge's UNP won one seat each in both Jaffna and Vanni. In the local body elections that were conducted in 2011, UPFA secured 24.43% in Jaffna and 31.04% in Vanni, while TNA secured 64.85% in Jaffna and 46.57% in Vanni.

These details project a picture that from 2009, UPFA has been securing 24 - 32% of votes in Jaffna and 27 - 35% of votes in Vanni, which means that UPFA has almost one-third of the people supporting it. The current results which shows that UPFA has secured just 14.2% in Jaffna and 22.1% in Vanni is intrepreted as the fall in the reputation of UPFA as a ruling party. In any elections held in any part of the world, it is natural that parties may win or lose based on their general reputation. But the elections in the Tamil Provinces of Sri Lanka cannot be weighed with the same scale, and must be distinguished. More than the reputation of parties, an ideological paradigm has a significant influence on these polls.

To understand this, we must analyze the the details of the election results. It is important to note that the above details are calculated based on the Total number of votes polled and not based on the number of registered voters. Statistically, it is normal to evaluate the results based on the number of votes polled (Quantitative). But these election results not only reflect the numbers, but the minds of people in a conflict situation (Qualitative). So it is essential to take into account the polling percentage and also to evaluate the reputation of each party based on the total registered voters.

For Instance, in the Presidential Elections of 2005, when LTTE called in for a boycott, Mahinda Rajapakse is said to have secured 28.31% of votes in Jaffna and Ranil Wickramasinghe 68.72%. But the overall polling in Jaffna was just 0.73%. Hence if the polling percentage and the votes against the total registered voters is not considered, the data is bound to mislead. In this background, it is notable that the Presidential Election of 2010, the general Parliament election of 2010 both saw just 25.66% and 23.33% of polling respectively in Jaffna and 40.33% and 43.89% in respectively in Vanni. Now, if we analyse the votes secured by UPFA in these elections based on the total number of registered voters, it is evident that UPFA has secured just 6.12% in Jaffna and 10.77% in Vanni in the Presidential Elections. Similarly, in the Parliament Elections of 2010, UPFA has secured just 6.6% in Jaffna and 14.05% in Vanni. If we apply the same parameter in the current Provincial Council Elections in which the polling was 64.15% in Jaffna and 72.44% in Vanni, the votes secured by UPFA stands at 8.43% in Jaffna and 16.01% in Vanni.

On the contrary, applying the same parameter, the TNA which secured just 9.03% of the total registered voters in the Parliament Elections of 2010, has now secured 50.12% of the total registered voters in Jaffna. Similarly in Vanni, TNA which had secured 15.61% in 2010 has now secured 47.73% of the total registered voters. While the votes secured by UPFA have not shown much difference with the change in the polling percentage, the votes secured by TNA shows a proportionate increase. If we need to accept that there is not much change in the reputation of Rajapakse and his governance, we must also accept that the reputation of TNA has increased so rapidly from 2010 to 2013.

But both are not true. The truth is that, whenever the Eelam Tamils people get a chance to vote, they vote for their own Party, and not for any Sinhalese party. They have categorically rejected the Sinhalese parties and thereby Southern Sri Lanka ruling them. In 2010, the people were deprived of thier fundamental right to cast their vote. Does that mean the Eelam Tamil's right to vote is being reinstated now? Or the democracy is restored in Sri Lanka? Rather, it is only that, the Eelam Tamils are slowly coming out of the trauma and have started to fight back. That is why - beyond dense military presence, attacks on Tamil candidates, intimidation and humiliation in polling booths, Eelam Tamils have risked their lives to restore their dignity. From 1977, the elections were used by the Eelam Tamils to communicate more than just who their representative was. The elections held in the Tamil homeland in the island was never just to acquire seats and go by the governance of Sri Lanka but rather was a vehicle to communicate their will.

In 1977, when the TULF contested the Parliamentary election with a single point manifesto to achieve 'Self-Determination of Tamils through a separate Tamil Nation', out of the 19 seats 18 seats were won by them, indicating that the majority of the people were for separate Tamil Eelam Nation. In 1983, during the Local bodies election, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam called for the people to boycott the election, on the line of the struggle for a separate Tamil Eelam Nation. Though LTTE was at that time just one among the 5 militant organisations and the smallest in number, the people accepted their call and 95% of them boycott the election. In 2004 Parliamentary elections, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), then comprising of 4 Tamil Political parties, viz., TELO, EPRLF, ITAK and ACTC, contested the election stating that they accept the leadership of LTTE in the struggle for a separate Tamil Eelam Nation. TNA won 22 of the total 23 seats. In 2005 Presidential Elections, LTTE called for boycott and more than 95% boycott the election. In Jaffna, which was under Government Control at that time, the polling was only 1.21%.

As such, this Provincial Election too, has been effectively used as a tool by the Eelam Tamils to express themselves to the world, who are otherwise completely restricted of any expressions due to the absence of constitutional free speech protections and dense post-war militarization of Tamil home land. This is not just a mandate in support of TNA as a political party. The people's decision clearly indicates that the people want to rule among themselves and do not want to be ruled by any Sinhalese party. It is nothing but a complete rejection of the Sinhalese and the Southern Sri Lanka from ruling them.

Further, this election cannot in anyway serve as a facade for eluding Sri Lanka's responsibility for war crimes and genocide. In fact, the attacks by the military on the candidates and other such intimidating actions add to the crimes and human rights violations of the Government of Sri Lanka.

An other important message this Election results convey is the effect of Sinhalese settlements, that bring about demographic changes in the Tamil homeland thereby paving way for the Sinhalese parties to anchor themselves in the Tamil homeland. This has already been achieved in the East. There are chances that this election results would have sent alarming messages to the ruling Sinhalese, which will motivate them to increase the unauthorised rampant settlement of Sinhalese in the North. Already the coastal areas of Vanni, Mannar and Mullaitheevu and the fertile lands of Vavuniya are occupied by the Sinhalese settlers. If this increases, the Eelam Tamils will be losing their legal hold on their home land.

The Eelam Tamils know very well, that after the elections, the Sinhala rulers, having lost the elections, will avenge them outrageously with their military. Even then, they have risked their life and sent out their message. With the Eelam Tamils rejecting the Sinhalese polity and the State in Colombo amidst draconian laws and horrifying conditions, TNA must understand the responsibility vested with them by the people through this elections. In 1977, the TULF was vested with such responsibility. TULF contested the elections with a single manifesto of 'Self-Determination of Tamils through a separate Tamil Nation', which gained the overwhelming support of the Eelam Tamils. But after the sudden demise of SJV Chelvanayakam, TULF gave up its will to Self-Determination, and agreed for District Councils. This is what triggered the Tamil youth to lose their confidence in such Parliamentary methods. They were pushed to take up arms to defend and restore the rights of their people and land. The TNA should learn from history. They should learn from their predecessors of what should NOT be done.

Chronology:

03.10.13  TNA should learn from history: Poonkuzhali Nedumar..

27.09.13  ‘Tamils vote in NPC not a legitimation of unitary ..

25.09.13  Tamil Nadu answering Wigneswaran is answering New ..

23.09.13  Sampanthan, Sumanthiran find TNA victory supersedi..

21.09.13  Wigneswaran becomes chosen mouthpiece of imperiali..

16.09.13  The Justice fails as lawyer of Tamils too

13.09.13  Wigneswaran bares agenda of his sponsors