If the so-called post 9/11 paradigm provided an opportunity for repressive forces to mobilise against various peoples in the world and if that worked against the liberation of Eezham Tamils, the recent uprising of peoples against establishments in North Africa and West Asia is a favourable trend the Eezham Tamils and the Tamils of Tamil Nadu have to carefully comprehend and make use of in bringing out changes in South Asia too. Progressive Sinhalese who see the need to recognise the nation of Eezham Tamils for a true reconciliation in the island should also join in. A democratic uprising in Tamil Nadu is crucial to changes in the entire region and that is a big hope for Eezham Tamils too. Tamil Nadu has the potentiality and the reasons for the uprising, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
Full text of the feature by TamilNet political commentator in Colombo follows:
The way a genocidal war against the nation of Eezham Tamils has been fought and ended by the Sri Lankan state in complicity with the three powers, India, USA and China and the other crony establishments, was a challenge to entire civilized humanity and was the beginning of a monstrous trend in global affairs in recent times.
While the entire world has to rise up to meet such threats to human civilisation posed by a few sitting in the establishments, a particular duty is vested with the Eezham Tamils, the Tamils of Tamil Nadu and their diaspora in transforming the injustice meted out to them into a global movement for justice and course-correction of global power polity.
If the so-called post 9/11 paradigm provided an opportunity for repressive forces to mobilise against various peoples in the world and if that worked against the liberation of Eezham Tamils, the recent uprising of peoples against establishments in North Africa and West Asia is a favourable trend the Eezham Tamils and the Tamils of Tamil Nadu have to carefully comprehend and make use of in bringing out changes in South Asia too. Progressive Sinhalese who see the need to recognise the nation of Eezham Tamils for a true reconciliation in the island should also join in.
Political observers and progressive political activists in the West are of the opinion that Tamils have not globally come out with enough concerted efforts to press for their justice. Elements that were in complicity to the genocide of Eezham Tamils continued to occupy key positions in important establishments. They orchestrate in every way to prove them right and to soon impose a subjugation formula unless Eezham Tamils work with vigilance, the Western observers caution.
Eezham Tamils and Tamils in Tamil Nadu should carefully note the tone with which Louise Arbour, president and CEO of the International Crisis Group ICG), an extra-state outfit of international crisis, passed arbitrary and unbalanced judgement in September last year on the chronic case on national question in the island:
“And yet, despite the increasing authoritarianism of the Sri Lanka government and its still appalling treatment of the Tamil minority, we believe that the best means of ensuring the Tamils’ right to self determination is within the existing borders of the Sri Lankan state, with the Sri Lankan government improving both the conditions in which Tamils live and mechanisms for their representation in government. We even argue that the Tamil diaspora – chief source of financial and ideological support for the defeated Tigers – must not only renounce LTTE methods but also move away from its separatist ideology if it is to play a useful role in resolving the conflict.”
“But our position on Kosovo independence has remained much the same for the last twelve years: we support Kosovo’s right to secede and to be recognized as an independent state,” Louise Arbour said in the same paper.
“In Sudan […] with a vote for independence likely, it is vital that the secession take place as peacefully as possible,” blessed Louise Arbour in September last year.
Appetite is erratic for the CEO of the ICG: “I mentioned Kosovo, Sri Lanka and Sudan, but I could just as easily have included Montenegro – where we have supported independence; Northern Iraq – we have defended the unity and territorial integrity of Iraq; or Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Somaliland, Aceh or Kashmir – where we have avoided taking explicit positions either for or against secession,” the CEO said.
Any assurance to Sri Lankan state on its integrity is indirect complicity to genocide of Tamils is the lesson learnt for decades. Only the ICG may be knowing what principles of democracy is there in arguing that the long-suffering Eezham Tamils should come away from their aspiration for national liberation. Not that the establishments and international organisations don’t know that the democratic quest of Eezham Tamils for independence predate the LTTE. But there is a sinister motive in them in linking the aspiration exclusively with the LTTE, while keeping the LTTE banned.
The erratic thinking in the so-called democracy of the Western establishments is explicit in their recent venture in Libya. To safe 40,000 lives of Eezham Tamils killed on a national question they couldn’t take action. But for furtherance of killing in a real internal issue in Libya all of them have jumped in. Ironically enough, many of those who now wail against Western action in Libya supported the Rajapaksa regime committing genocide with the abetment of powers.
Any injustice supported on any part of the world will reflect on all others. If the civilised world doesn’t rise up to injustice in one place it succumbs in all other places. Injustice cannot have provenance cum context judgements as viewed by the ICG. This is not crisis management but crisis creation.
But, certain establishments faithfully follow the outlook of the ICG in silencing spirited sections of Eezham Tamils.
The outlook of the ICG and its ilk is a background why uprising of Eezham Tamils was hijacked, why the voice of sections in the diaspora was muffled and why there was discouragement when Eezham Tamils in the diaspora proved their democratic aspiration through referendum on Vaddukkoaddai Resolution.
Readers may remember the long discussions in TamilNet on the interpretations to the concept of ‘right to self determination,’ and the TamilNet view insisting on sovereignty. Look at how the ICG has interpreted the ‘right to self determination.’ Soon the Eezham Tamils will find hoodwinking manipulations leading towards that line, excluding those who are committed to the cause, if they are not vigilant enough.
Eezham Tamils talking about Sudan without appetite for their own people’s uprising is like our older generation politicians talking about Singapore and Isreal.
Meanwhile, the US cables on India accessed by The Hindu through Wikileaks, and are serialised in recent days, show that the ultimate decision of preventing international intervention and allowing the war crimes against Tamils in the island could be traced to the establishment in New Delhi.
The leaked cables provide a basis that the two gentlemen, MK Narayanan and Shiv Shankar Menon, shuttling between New Delhi and Colombo until the end of the war could be brought before any international investigation to answer who ultimately took the decisions in complicity to war crimes in the island.
All know that India stood against war crimes investigation and shielded Sri Lanka in the UN human rights council immediately after the war.
A few days before the massacre of thousands of Eezham Tamils in Vanni and incarceration of 3,00,000, the Congress President Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, electioneering in Tamil Nadu assured that everything would end well soon.
Now, roughly a month before Tamil Nadu elections, the lady has the audacity to tell (reportedly) a diaspora representative in London that she was with Tamils. This was given wide publicity in Tamil Nadu. She was reportedly silent on the question of war crimes investigation.
Dealing directly and transparently with politicians is of course a better idea than behind the screen dealings with intelligence personnel and diplomatic agents. It is also important that Eezham Tamils should equally engage with all the powers. But to what extent it is diplomacy to weaken genuine uprising in the minds of the people of Tamil Nadu by favouring the electioneering benefits of the insincere is the question.
Political observers in Tamil Nadu say whether the DMK or the AIADMK, the centre has hooks on both of them and has ways of roping in who ever wins. This is what that has given confidence to National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon to tell sometimes back that a ‘developing Tamil Nadu’ will not be interested in the Eezham Tamils.
People of Tamil Nadu cannot wash away their responsibility by merely citing the politicians. Their voting in the last Lok Sabha elections could have made a difference in the end of the war, in the post war subjugation of Eezham Tamils and in the international recognition of the cause of Tamils.
But the voting in Tamil Nadu gave confidence to New Delhi to shield Colombo in the UN, it gave confidence to Mr. Karunanidhi to erase the word Eezham and now it has given confidence to Ms. Jeyalalithaa to sideline politics actively sympathetic to Eezham Tamils.
The Eezham Tamil question is in fact there in the core of the mind of everybody, cutting across party lines. But Tamil Nadu is yet to find a way to translate that into an effective political programme compelling the Indian and international scenario to listen to reason.
Tamil Nadu going beyond New Delhi-controlled DMK –AIADMK fronts are not possible for some years is the opinion of others for many years now.
Non-political party movements and civil society movements have a great role to play in bringing out the changes and in seeing whether the current elections could in anyway show some intelligent trends paving way for future hopes.
A democratic uprising in Tamil Nadu is crucial to changes in the entire region and that is a big hope for Eezham Tamils too. Tamil Nadu has the potentiality and the reasons for the uprising.
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