“We are of the firm opinion that the recognition of the Tamil People in the island of Sri Lanka as a distinct Nation entitled to the Right to Self-Determination is necessary to ensure the continued existence and protection of the Tamils as a People. Only then would any negotiations with the Sri Lankan State be meaningful,” said All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) in a separate statement as no consensus was reached in the meeting of Eezham Tamil political parties in New Delhi Tuesday and Wednesday. “We therefore call upon India and the International Community to recognize these rightful claims made by the Tamil Nation and emphasis such as the basis for any solution within one country,” the statement further said.
Meanwhile, the section of political parties that wanted to avoid the wordings on fundamentals came out with the following version:
“The Indian government and the people of India should immediately ensure mechanisms to arrest the deterioration of the situation of Tamils and to guarantee the protection of their distinct identity recognized by the International Community.”
The section that opposed to specified wordings of the ACTC did that to please New Delhi, informed circles said.
The convenor of the meet and Congress parliamentarian Dr EM Sudharshana Natchiappan who on Tuesday told the parties to have a free discussion was later seen interfering to ‘soften’ the stand of the Tamil parties on Wednesday.
A few weeks ago, speaking to the diaspora in London, TNA’s Sumanthiran advised Tamils to avoid specific political terminology in finding a political solution to their national question.
On Saturday, Dr Suryanarayan writing in South Asia Analysis Group (SAAG) said, “Sri Lanka will have to evolve innovative institutional structures so that participatory democracy gets strengthened at all levels. In another essay I shall touch upon this significant dimension of Sri Lankan political system.”
Suryanarayan, long known for his opposition to the independence of Eezham Tamils, is a member of the advisory committee to the National Security Council of India and the SAAG has close connections to Indian intelligence agencies.
Suryanarayan only reflects the agenda of New Delhi to reject the status of Eezham Tamils as a nation and to be non-specific about a political solution, observers said. He took the liberty of writing his opinion with the wording, “From an Indian perspective…”
A few days ago, a venture related to Sri Lanka initiated by Sudharshana Natchiappan of the Congress party was co-sponsored by Observer Research Foundation (ORF), an outfit run by an Indian corporate, Reliance Industries Ltd that has considerable business interests in Colombo-centric Sri Lanka. Reliance is the largest private sector company in India.
Dr Natchiappan also got the assistance of an anti-LTTE diaspora Tamil, Mr. Selliah Nagaraja from Melbourne, Australia, in conducting the New Delhi meet. Mr. Nagaraja is a regular contributor to Uthayam newspaper in Australia and “Asian Tribune”. He tried to hijack the agenda of the meet, participants said.
The agenda of the meet was “Agony and Solace” which carefully avoided ‘solution’.
Two weeks ago, the Speaker of the Indian parliament ‘corrected’ the title of discussion in the parliament on Sri Lanka from “Alleged killing of Sri Lankan Tamils by the island nation’s Lankan army in 2009 as recently revealed in a United Nations report” to “On the steps taken by Government of India for relief and resettlement of Tamils in Sri Lanka and other measures to promote their welfare.”
The discussion in the Lok Sabha was tabled by the DMK.
The Rajya Sabha of the Indian parliament on Wednesday once again postponed discussing Sri Lanka. The DMK walked out, protesting it.
The current escalation of military oppression in the island is to intimidate Tamils to look upon and to be contended with whatever the least that comes from the New Delhi-Colombo agenda, political observers said.
Since the Colombo-New Delhi partnered war ending in genocide, both Colombo’s and New Delhi’s agents have entered into a campaign that the diaspora living in comfort and demanding ‘unrealistic’ political solutions doesn’t know the practical problems of their kith and kin in the island and they only know it better.
The biggest mistake the Tamil Nadu politics make is that its hesitation to demand the independence of Eezham Tamils in concrete terms, and this provides local and international space for all the hoodwinks of the genocidal elements, political observers further said.
The full text of the statement by All Ceylon Tamil Congress on Wednesday, released from New Delhi:
The Tamil People has been negotiating with the Sri Lankan State the terms by which they could share in the Governance of the Island since the end of Western colonial rule in 1948.
Several successive negotiations and even agreements reached ended in failure, whereby, through the use of its majority, the Sinhala polity would not even accommodate a devolved scheme of sharing governmental power.
This 60-year experience has been repeated all over again even in the last one year.
Since the end of the war in May 2009, the Government of Sri Lanka has intensified its agenda of decimating the distinct identity of the Tamil People. It is done with the use of the presence of the military in the North-East, which actively aides in the destruction of the Tamil, linguistic, cultural, social and religious identities and economic life, and by the forcible occupation of the Sinhala people in the North-East, even private properties owned by the Tamil people, to which they are prevented from returning. The ultimate objective of this programme is to nullify the existence of Tamils as distinct People.
In this background, we are of the firm opinion that the recognition of the Tamil People in the island of Sri Lanka as a distinct Nation entitled to the Right to Self-Determination is necessary to ensure the continued existence and protection of the Tamils as a People. Only then would any negotiations with the Sri Lankan State be meaningful.
We therefore call upon India and the International Community to recognize these rightful claims made by the Tamil Nation and emphasis such as the basis for any solution within one country.
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