Voicing on behalf of the present establishment in New Delhi, sections in the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) unnecessarily declaring against independence of Eezham Tamils and discouraging war crimes investigations are worst of the crimes committed not merely against Eezham Tamils but against human civilization, said Tamil national as well as Left political circles in the island and in the diaspora to TamilNet on Monday. The comments have come responding to TNA views expressed after its victory and during its campaign in the civic elections. TNA leader Sampanthan interpreted the victory as Tamil wish for solutions within ‘united Sri Lanka’ and a confidential document circulated among ‘friends of the TNA’ during the civic elections said that the war crimes investigations were actually directed against India than against Colombo, and hence Tamils should not pin hopes on them.
Non-TNA Tamil national circles in the island allege that there is a secret negotiation between New Delhi and the TNA for the latter to drop the war crimes charges in favour of New Delhi and Colombo implementing the meaningless 13th Amendment, perhaps with a new nametag.
Whether the continued SL militarisation and atrocities committed against Eezham Tamils with the silent nod of India are ultimately to make the subjugated Eezham Tamils to helplessly look upon New Delhi, is a question often asked in the feedbacks TamilNet is getting.
Tamil national circles in the island also pointed out that many didn’t vote in the civic elections, as they had no hopes in the simulated electoral process, the choice in polity and the choice in candidates. People of awareness are highly concerned about the next turn of affairs leading to the provincial council, non-TNA Tamil national political circles in the island said.
What is the need for TNA leader Sampanthan to interpret the civic elections victory as an Eezham Tamil decision to remain within ‘united Sri Lanka’? For whose sake he is proclaiming this, are questions that are widely asked among Tamils in the island, in the diaspora and in Tamil Nadu.
In this respect, the DMK in Tamil Nadu on Sunday came out with a resolution to call for a referendum among Tamils in the island.
Equal rights were a long-pending demand in the island nation and a separate Eelam was once seen as the way to achieve it. But, divergent views and stands among Tamil groups came in the way of realising this objective, the DMK’s general council observed while calling for a referendum to resolve the issue.
The DMK General Council also resolved that India and other countries that uphold human rights to ensure that those responsible for the war crimes, detailed in the report of a probe panel of the United Nations, face trial in the International Criminal Court.
While Ms. Jeyalalithaa contributed ingeniously in turning the table to provide the necessary political space for the Eezham Tamils, the DMK and Mr. Karunanidhi also could still do a lot more. Mr. Karunanidhi’s affidavit on the war crimes is of historic importance, Eezham Tamil politicians in the island said.
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Non-TNA Tamil national politicians in the island who had dialogues with diplomats of the West are concerned that the diplomats, while indirectly accepting Eezham Tamils as a nation in the island, don’t want to recognize the genocide committed on Eezham Tamils, their need to get independence and don’t show interest on the issues of Sinhala colonisation, economic and cultural subservience of Tamils etc. They see them as a natural process. Even those who see the realities see India as the impediment for conceding independence to Eezham Tamils, and the diplomats of the West don’t want to go against India, the politicians said.
Responding to the situation, an Eezham Tamil academic came out with the following comments:
Thirty years ago, this academic questioned some Sinhala academics in a seminar in Jaffna on their failure in recognizing the historicity of the nation of Eezham Tamils within the Sri Lanka-frame they were making, and asked how the picture would be if the frame was going to be a larger South Asia.
Professor K. Kailasapathy, who was silently watching the discussion, came and sat next to the academic the following day, and asked him how did the European countries resolved such long-lasting and violent national questions. It was 1981, and there was no European Union for the academic to answer Prof. Kailasapathy.
An independent country of Eezham Tamils having a worldwide diaspora can’t be an island. It has to willingly receive the Sinhalese, Indians and all the others with confidence.
But where is the need to achieve regional or global integration today by conquest, genocide, subjugation and extermination of the identity of a historical nation, when it could be very well achieved peacefully by conceding independence to Eezham Tamils. Why should the world uphold genocide and militarisation in the island as paradigm for regional or global integration? They are counter-productive in the island of Sri Lanka.
The post-EU diplomats in the West don’t understand much of the realities in the island. The entire West is shocked and shaken by what a single paranoid did in Norway. But an entire State was doing this for decades on Eezham Tamils, taking more than 200,000 lives.
An internationally supervised interim period, a fear-free period, set for the independence of Eezham Tamils would bring in a lot of desired results in genuine development, participation of people and it will alleviate if there are any fears about new leadership emerging from Eezham Tamils. Considering long-term interests, Colombo on its own, should involve in such a process and India could be given with a special role if it has any fear in international solutions coming to its backyard.
Independence of Eezham Tamils is of utmost importance in setting inspirations to a new democratic paradigm and peaceful regional integration in South Asia. Any hoodwink undertakings coming from the establishment in New Delhi has to be countered by civilized polity all over the world and public opinion inside India boldly spelling out the universal justice in conceding independence to Eezham Tamils, the academic in Jaffna said.
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Meanwhile, New Delhi is busy in manipulating opinion-making Tamil media in the island by regularly ‘summoning’ media dons to New Delhi and by bringing in ‘editorial’ changes, news sources in Colombo said.
War crimes investigation and delivery of justice are duties of humanity and its institutions, whatever time it may take. The victims pressing for justice and providing evidence are their duty, not only for the sake of themselves but also for the sake of human civilisation, to stop for ever anti-people establishments trying what they did to Eezham Tamils with others, human rights activists said.
But, in the style of the Dadas seen in Indian films, a former Indian intelligence bigwig still dealing with Sri Lanka, recently wrote that Colombo should deal with war crimes by paying ‘individual compensations’ to family members and relatives of the victims. This idea is now circulated by Colombo in the name of some Tamils in the service of Rajapaksa regime.
The very attitude is nauseating when it is the criminals who should be seeking amnesty after conceding the freedom of the nation on which they had committed the crimes, Eezham Tamil human rights activists said.
Two years ago a psychiatrist who studied the war victims made a particular note of them having a collective feeling of victimisation than individual.
Last week, Tamils all over the world were remembering Black July, the pogrom of 1983 against them, which actually transformed a militant struggle into a civil war. Remembered along with the observations was a photograph – a naked and assaulted Tamil surrounded by dancing Sinhalese – taken by a Sinhala journalist that had immortalized the genocidal attitude in the island.
In 2011, there is a YouTube video showing three Sinhalese youth singing and dancing. They accuse the UN for bringing in war crimes charges. Don’t divide us, we now ‘embrace’ the Tamils, don’t you see, they ask. Don’t they see that it is too late and too foul, is the question coming from international observers.
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