TNA meets Sri Lanka President; Chief Minister to take oath before the President

Sri Lanka's major Tamil constituent Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader R. Sampanthan paid a courtesy visit to the President Mahinda Rajapaksa today at the President's official residence Temple Trees.

The meeting was held this morning but the information regarding the discussion was yet to be released to media by either of the parties.

Meanwhile, the TNA announced today that the Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister C.V. Vigneswaran would swear in before the President on October 07.

The councilors of the Northern Provincial Council will take oaths before the Chief Minister and the parliamentarian R. Sambanthan on October 11, TNA media spokesman Suresh Premachandran said.

Process of granting solution to the ethnic problem of Sri Lanka reversed to 2005

Sri Lanka government is to have another round of talks with the major Tamil constituent Tamil National Alliance (TNA) today in Colombo, unconfirmed sources say.

This discussion was scheduled following the last dialogue held on June 23 in the Presidential Secretariat.

Today's discussion is believed an extension of the dialogue on the talks on the implementation of the 13th amendment to the constitution.

Reports say the TNA has proposed amendments to the concurrent list of the 13th amendment under which the central government and the Provincial Councils share equal powers in certain matters.

However, an earlier report said that TNA parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran had told the government was expected to respond to their proposals regarding power sharing within a week.

Earlier reports said that the next round of talks were scheduled for July 9.

Despite the talks with the TNA, the President told the main opposition United National Party’s co-deputy leader Karu Jayasuriya on Friday that the UPFA government’s official position was that the proposed Parliamentary Select Committee would determine whether the 13th Amendment should be part of a settlement for Tamil grievances.

President Rajapaksa’s remarks came when he met Jayasuriya when the two leaders attended the Higher Ordination Ceremony of the Sri Lanka Amarapura Nikaya (including all its 22 sectors) at the Kandana, Walpola Sri Wimalaratanarama Vidya Nivasa Pirivena, as reported by the Sunday Times.

The newspaper reported, "President Rajapaksa is learnt to have told Mr. Jayasuriya that he had already conveyed to India the UPFA government’s position that a settlement of whatever Tamil grievances would be determined by a Parliamentary Select Committee represented by all political parties. He had told Mr. Jayasuriya the three member Indian delegation that visited Sri Lanka had been informed of this position. The delegation comprised National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and Defence Secretary Pradeep Kumar."

Government appears to go back to 2005 in which year the Rajapaksa regime summoned an All Party Conference (APC) to seek the so called consent of all parties for a solution. The All Party Representative Committee (APRC) that was appointed by the APC first rejected a set of proposals submitted by an expert panel appointed by it and then went on discussing more than 100 times. Nobody knows what happened to the report submitted by the APRC to the President. The Marxist opportunist Lanka Sama Samaja Party leader Thissa Vitharana, Minister who chaired APRC that wasted public money and time remains tight-lipped.

The proposed Parliamentary Select Committee will be another move of the old tactic of taking time for which India appears granting consent to the move as it did since 2005. But what will be the outcome of this move? Who will benefit eventually?

First and foremost Tamil moderates will be a set of failures once again and militancy will be proved once again the only way the Tamils have.

All efforts of building a Lankan nation through negotiated settlement with minorities will be tarnished. Minorities will continue their struggle for ceding.

With the deepened alienation of the Tamils from Sinhala dominated Sri Lankan state, the government will further estrange with the international community.

The legitimacy of the Tamil struggle will boost and the Sinhala polity as a whole and the government leaders as a unit will face severe pressure at the international front.

The repercussions will create a situation that will make drastic changes in the polity and the perpetrators will have to reap whatever they are sowing now.


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Is this the democracy granted to the Tamils by Sri Lanka government?

Jaffna peninsula is in the hands of the Sri Lanka state security forces since 1995.

However, even after the Tamil rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) was defeated in two years back, still the normalcy does not appear to prevail in Jaffna.

Excessive military presence and their high handedness prevents people enjoying the democratic rights at least to the level enjoyed by the people of the other parts of the country.

Following report is from Daily Mirror:

Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP Mavai Senathiraja accused the Army of dispersing a meeting they held at the Alawetti Mahajana College in Jaffna last evening using excessive force.
“More than 100 soldiers came to the College and said that we cannot hold the meeting here and subsequently began removing the microphones before assaulting the participants. When our bodyguards, who are also policemen, intervened they too were assaulted”, he said. “Several people had been injured and a complaint was lodged with the Thellipala police and also the Jaffna Security Forces Commander Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe”, he added.
The TNA held the meeting to introduce their candidates to the public for the forthcoming Local Government Elections. Parliamentarians Mavai Senathiraja, Suresh Premachandra, M.A Sumanthiran, A. Vinayagamoorthi and E. Sarawanabawan participated in the meeting.

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Is Sarath Fonseka having discussions to join the government?

(July 07, 2010, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Sri Lanka's Sinhala nationalist daily newspaper the Divaina reported today that an opposition party leader is discussing with a powerful government Minister to join the government.
The news story is written by a well-informed journalist Piyasena Disanayaka who has close links with political elite. He has not pointed out any name but says that a senior UNP MP is brokering the deal and having a dialogue with a senior Minister following informing the matter to the President.

Sri Lanka parliament has only three opposition parties. They are the United Nationalist Party (UNP) led by the Opposition Leader Ranil Wickramasinghe, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) led by R. Sambanthan and the Democratic National Alliance (DNA) led by ex-Army Commander and defeated Presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka.

Wickramasinghe and Sambanthan have never indicated they are in a need to join the government. The journalist points out that both the UNP MP and the party leader are facing immense difficulties. Fonseka is now in custody and facing a series of judicial procedures in court martial and civil courts regarding corruption and conduct. His son-in-law is evading arrest and last week a court confiscated his bank accounts with Rs. 15 million.

The government has isolated him and targeting him individually with the aim of pushing the war veteran to kneel down before his former bosses. He has had ample pressure to understand that he will not have solace until he surrenders.

Now Fonseka has applied to register his own political party.

The brokering MP can be guessed Puttlam district MP Palitha Range Bandara who is facing threats from a local leader of his own party that severely beat him physically, immediately following the April general election. His house was also burnt down by government politicians and he is in a position that he cannot come out of the mess by being an opposition MP. He recently met the President and held secret talks.


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Re-'regaining Sri Lanka', LTTE and the JVP

(April 28, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Tamil nationalist politics appears to moving towards a further distant goal that is apparently building of a Tamil nation in a broader perspective in a global context.

What is the reason for this drastic shift? Do the leaders of the Tamil nationalist movement think they were betrayed by Sri Lankan Tamil polity?

The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea, Mao Tse-Tung said.

Were the slain leaders of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) among people in their last phase of struggle? If they were not, was it a fault of the people? If the answer is yes, who decided the nature of this polity in the last thirty years?

Tamil polity of Sri Lanka is in the most pathetic situation of their history now. No need to mention the harsh conditions they undergo in the present context.

The remnants of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) that are well-secured in the economic and social fortitudes in the green pastures of Western Europe have betrayed them. They are let alone to deal with the Sinhala dominated Colombo government on their own. The 'knowledgeable' expatriate patriots that are called Tamil Diaspora wait and see until the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) that won 14 parliamentary seats in the recent elections fail to achieve a negotiated settlement with the Rajapaksa regime. They wait until Rajapaksa regime fails and an anarchy is built up in the state.

TNA may fail not because they are foolish to trust the Sinhala chauvinist rulers. They may fail because of the folly of the Sinhala polity and their leaders that fail to build up trust among the communities that live in the island.

Rajapaksa regime will definitely fail if they will not change and if they will proceed in the ways they are in now. However, they will fail in a different context after exposing the country into a rapid capitalist growth and a social change that follows it.

This is the same change the LTTE and the brethren Sinhala peasant movement People's Liberation Front (JVP) were terrified by the United National Party (UNP) regime during 2001 - 2004. These two forces joined hands in political underneath to defeat the UNP's 'Regaining Sri Lanka' programme that was launched in a neo-liberalist pro-Western context.

Now the same capitalist programme is set forth by the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime but in a very anti-democratic and a propagandistic anti-Western outlook.

As same as the UNP targeted to obtain a massive loan of Rs. 4.5 billion from West, the Rajapaksa regime is obtaining massive loans from China and open financial markets chaining generations of Sri Lankans in a massive debt burden. Growth strategy is same, developing infrastructure to attract foreign investment. One visible deviation is the existence of strong state enterprises. But one should not mistake them as public enterprises. They are sheer companies from which the political and official elite profit.

The final solution of the UNP and the Rajapaksa regime for the ethnic problem is the same, i.e., liquidizing the Tamil nationalist armed forces. UNP wanted to do it through a negotiated settlement but the Rajapaksas resorted to ethnic war although the pundits argue the peace achieved through it is not sustainable.

The social change that is to follow the targeted rapid growth is yet to be observed. All in all, the mass movements like the LTTE and the JVP have to go for a serious retrospection and they have to review and make drastic changes in their strategies if they want to re-emerge as deciding factors of the politics of Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka's Tamil National Alliance cracked into four pieces; two strong rivals

(February 27, Colombo - Lanka Polity)  Tamil National Alliance (TNA) of Sri Lanka has split into four identical groups although there are only two powerful factions. They are the TNA led by R. Sampanthan and the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) led by Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the son of late Kumar Ponnambalam and the grand son of late G.G. Ponnambalam.

Former MPs S. Gjendran and Pathmini Sithamparanathan also contest under ACTC ticket showing political lining up of the Tamil nationalists.

Moderate liberal capitalist TNA contests for five districts with former MPs of the former parliament.

Tamil leftist MPs M.K. Sivajilingam and N. Srikantha have joined with Sinhala leftist Left Liberation Front led by Dr. Vickramabahu Karunaratna.

Meanwhile the Karuna loyal Ms. Thangeswari Kathiraman contests under ruling United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) ticket together with Sivanathan Kishor and S. Kanagaratnam.

The government earlier accused Vanni district MP S. Kanagaratnam who was in custody for eight months for living with his people that were besieged a terrorism supporter. His son is in custody in suspicion of involving in the Colombo air raids of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Ealam (LTTE).

what is the crisis in the Tamil National Alliance?

(February 25, Colombo - Lanka Polity)  Many ex-MPs of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) of Sri Lanka have not been given the opportunity to run for the elections under the ticket of the TNA. A number of those who lost nominations have become the pets of the government. But, a considerable number of MPs like Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, S. Kajendran, Pathmini Sithamparanathan, M.K. Sivajilingam and N. Srikantha etc. are denied nominations due to political reasons.

The division of the TNA is clearly on political lines. After the military debacle of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE), a wide gap is being created in the Tamil polity. This is symbolically depicted as the gap between the Diaspora Tamils and the Tamils living in Sri Lanka.

Robert Templer of the International Crisis Group says, "Most in the country are exhausted by decades of war and are more concerned with rebuilding their lives under difficult circumstances than in continuing the fight for an independent state. Without the LTTE to enforce a common political line, Tamil leaders in Sri Lanka are proposing substantial reforms within a united Sri Lanka."

But the gap exists within the people that live in the island too. You might not see it and you might misunderstand it since most of the Tamil nationalists that live in the country remain silent maintaining a low profile in fear of punishment.

In fact, the present TNA leaders appear to accept something beyond the Provincial Councils and to go for co-habitation with the Colombo government under favorable conditions. The split of the TNA is actually between those who have dropped the call for self-determination of the Tamils and those who still fight for it.

Self-determination literally means cessation although it does not essentially mean a separate state. That is for what thousands of Tamils gave their lives and there can be elements in the polity that do not wish to give up the will to fight for what their brethren gave their lives. They have the right to carry on their struggle and those who wish to give up the ideals for pragmatic solutions also have the right to do so.

But, the ball still remains in the court of the Sinhalese. Do they like to engage in a dialogue and a political process with at least the Tamils that looks moderate to them while they are looked down on as submissive leaders amidst some elements of their own polity?

TNA constituents like Federal Party, EPRLF and TELO that have now grabbed the grip loosened by the LTTE are in a liberal stand and they can be expected to come to a settlement with Colombo government under a liberal capitalist framework. This can happen easily if a coalition under United National Front comes to power. Ruling United National Freedom Alliance is far backward and antagonistic to reforms.

Tamil leaders, drop your error of considering the Sinhala polity as a single chauvinist element

(September 18, 2009 - Lanka Polity) “We cannot achieve anything through disunity and violence. There is a pressing need for us to unite under one umbrella. This is essential. In such a situation, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) and other Muslim parties should also be accommodated,” said R. Sampanthan, the leader of the Sri Lanka’s major Tamil constituency in parliament, Tamil National Alliance (TNA).
We consider this as a progressive proposal made in the context of total disarray of the minority political parties in Sri Lanka whilst the majority Sinhala polity has united at least in one aspect, i.e., not granting the rights of the minority communities.

Sri Lanka government totally annihilated the rebel Liberation Tigers for Tamil Ealam (LTTE) that fought a bloody battle for national liberation for three decades and eliminated the entire local leadership in May this year. The executive-President led government has taken control of the entire island now and the limited devolution of power under Provincial Councils has become a mockery. The Tamil dominated Eastern Provincial Council that is administered by ex-rebel Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan is taking the brunt of the anti-devolution policy of the President Mahinda Rajapakse as the Province is governed either by the President’s brother Basil Rajapakse, MP, or by the Governor, an Army official, designated by President Mahinda Rajapakse instead of the Provincial Council. The Northern Province where most of the population is displaced and held in refugee camps with blocked mobility is also under a military Governor.

Almost all in the world were blaming the ultra-nationalist LTTE for the plight of the Tamils and the entire Sri Lankan polity and the Sinhala chauvinism went unheeded amidst the pandemonium. Now the LTTE is no more and the blamers have the responsibility to render their yeoman services that were blocked by rebels to the polity.

But the Tamil leadership is divided into molecules and atoms. Even the pro-nationalist elements like LTTE’s international wing and the TNA are now speedily departing. TNA should first of all try to unite the Tamils before they stretch their hand to the Muslims who were once thrown out of the Tamil lingual unity by the LTTE with the silent approval of the other Tamils.

Sri Lankan Muslims are also in total disarray and not only the political parties but also the religious community is divided under petit inclinations. A severe rift can be seen among the followers of ‘orthodox’ Islam and the newly erupted chapters. Two persons were killed and more than 100 were arrested by police recently in Beruwala, a Muslim coastal town in Western Province, due to clashes between Islam groups.

One thing is too sure now. In the post-LTTE context, as the entire polity is held by a new tyranny upheld by the Sinhala chauvinist majority, the minority communities will never have their rights without uniting and fighting. It is true that the violence will take them nowhere sans further destruction in the context the violence of the rulers is unmatched in any way.

Minority parties like TNA should not forget that there is a Sinhala minority too. That is comprised of leftists, workers, progressives and liberal democrats who really need the unity of nationalities with respect to each other. There are Sinhalese that wish to accept minority communities as equals with the same dignity. They want share power as well as life with Tamils, Muslims and other minority communities.

Minority community leaders should drop their long-held error of considering the Sinhala polity as a single chauvinist element.