Sri Lanka’s main Tamil party has renounced its demand for an independent Tamil homeland, but vowed to launch a Gandhi-style civil disobedience campaign for greater regional autonomy.
In a manifesto for parliamentary elections on April 8, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) also pledged to lobby the international community to help the islands’ Tamil ethnic minority following the defeat of the Tamil Tiger rebels last year.
The TNA used to be the political wing of the Tigers, but has been forced to re-invent itself since the end of the 26-year civil war.
"If the Sri Lankan state continues its present style of governance without due regard to the rights of the Tamil-speaking peoples, the TNA will launch a peaceful, non-violent campaign of civil disobedience on the Gandhian model," the party said.
"Power sharing arrangements must be established… based on a federal structure in a manner also acceptable to the Tamil-speaking Muslim people," it said.
The Tigers launched their armed struggle in 1983 to create an independent homeland for Sri Lanka’s Tamils to protect them from discrimination at the hands of the ethnic Sinhalese majority.
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