Tamil parties missed directing USA on LLRC: Gajendrakumar

Had the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) been firm on the stand of Eezham Tamils, the USA couldn’t have ended up with the LLRC solution at Geneva, but the TNA blindly backed the US resolution at Geneva. It is after the Geneva resolution the land grab and the structural genocide of Eezham Tamils by the Sri Lankan state got accelerated, said former TNA parliamentarian and TNPF leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam in his second part of interview to TamilNet’s Palaka’ni, covering current political situation of Eezham Tamils. The US-backed resolution was passed in Geneva essentially to resolve the Tamil issue in the island, but it is not serving the Tamil issue, he further said.

Mr Glenn Mc Mohan for TamilNet interviewed Mr. Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam in London, when he had come for the British Tamil Forum (BTF) conference in mid November.

Our position is that the LLRC recommendations have to be rejected in toto. Even the TNA initially came out with a comprehensive rejection of the LLRC recommendations. But the God only knows how they started welcoming it later, Gajendrakumar said.

Describing the current situation faced by Eezham Tamils as one that of multi-faceted genocide, Gajendrakumar elucidated on the accelerated process of land grab, militarisation, colonisation and Sinhalicisation of the territory of Eezham Tamils in the island in the last three years.

He highlighted the planned affliction inflicted on the Eezham Tamil fishing communities resulting in Eezham Tamils losing the coastal stretch of their territory.

Gajendrakumar_Ponnampalam_Italy_100940_200 Out of the total 20 odd divisions of SL military, 18 divisions are stationed in the North and East of the island and 15 of the divisions are deployed in the North alone, Gajendrakumar said, explaining the gravity of occupied militarisation in the territory of Tamils.

“I can’t go to any house and meet people without the military coming there,” he said on the nature of SL-occupied militarisation in the country of Eezham Tamils.

The ultimate aim is to deconstruct Tamils as a nation in the island. Sri Lanka will be happy to reduce Tamils into a minority. This is nothing but genocide. The International Community knows this well, the TNPF leader said.

Answering a question on allowing time to Colombo, he said that when you look at what is happening and if you still give time, then the time is for some agenda.

According the Gajendrakumar, International outfits talking only of the war crimes of the present regime is meaningless. War crimes took place for 30 years and even before.

Our experience is that the genocidal policies started ever since the British left the island.

As far as Eezham Tamils were concerned, every regime of post-British Colombo was the worst at its own time.

What is happening today is a terror campaign to make Tamils to withdraw their struggle and to make weird people to take over the leadership. We believe in the opposite, Gajendrakumar said, adding that the responsibility to change things on the ground is vested with the people.

Commenting on the BTF resolution pronouncing the genocide faced by Eezham Tamils, Gajendrakumar said that it was a landmark resolution in content and in the composition of the people who made it, as it was jointly made by people from the island, from the diaspora and from Tamil Nadu.

However, he came out with a note of caution that the resolution is meaningful only when they stay true to it.

[Full Coverage]

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