A visiting team of Sri Lankan Tamil political leaders addressed an interaction at the ORF Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation on 3 January 2008. The team comprised Mr V Anandasangaree, president of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), Mr D Sithardthan of the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) and Mr T Sritharan from the Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF).
A visiting team of Sri Lankan Tamil political leaders addressed an interaction at the ORF Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation on 3 January 2008. The team comprised Mr V Anandasangaree, president of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), Mr D Sithardthan of the People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) and Mr T Sritharan from the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF). They were in ORF Chennai after a week-long stay at New Delhi, where they reportedly met senior Indian officials, including the National Security Advisor, Mr M K Narayanan and the Foreign Secretary, Mr Shivshanker Menon.
The speakers clarified that they wanted a political solution to the ‘ethnic issue’ within a united Sri Lanka. “India, being the largest democracy in the region, should help Sri Lanka find a solution,” Mr Sritharan said. PLOTE’s Sithardthan went a step further to assert, “Without India’s role, there could be no peace.” New Delhi, he said, should bring pressure on the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the Opposition United National Party (UNP) to formulate a ‘consensus package’ on power-devolution, to be offered to the Tamil community. “If the LTTE does not accept such a proposal, it would be alienated from the Tamil community, which desired permanent peace,” he said.
Leading the trio, Mr Anandasangaree detailed their discussions in Delhi, and said that the ‘Indian model’ of power-devolution provided an ideal solution to the long drawn-out ethnic crisis in Sri Lanka. “It can be easily sold to our people,” he said. Conceding that there was a time when the Sri Lankan Army was hard on the Tamils, he said the Sinhalese were no more chauvinistic, as was being painted by some sections in Tamil Nadu. Most Sri Lankan Tamils now lived outside the ‘Tamil heartland’ of Jaffna, but did not face any harassment or harm, despite grave provocation in the form of LTTE-engineered bomb-blasts. In this context, he claimed that some parties in India were indulging in ‘anti-India propaganda’, and were making all kinds of claims.
The three Tamil leaders cautioned the Tamil Nadu polity against supporting the LTTE as it could expose south India to terrorism, as was the case with Sri Lanka. They said the anti-Sinhala propaganda being carried out by some prominent Indians could boomerang on India in general, and Tamil Nadu in particular. “We are not here to tell India what to in relation to the ethnic crisis in Sri Lanka. We are here to tell you what you should not do, to avoid a Jaffna-like situation emerging in India,” Mr Anandasangaree said.
Mr Anandasangaree wanted the Sri Lankan Government to come out with a reasonable solution that would be acceptable to the international community. “There is nothing wrong in pressuring the Sri Lankan President, Mr Mahinda Rajapakse, to unfold the long-pending political package even ahead of the visit of the Indian Prime Minister, Mr Manmohan Singh, to the island-nation,” he said. In this context, Mr Anandasangaree appealed to leaders in Tamil Nadu to persuade the LTTE to liberate the people that it had detained. “We have to liberate ourselves from the so-called liberators,” he said, referring to the LTTE. Mr Sitharthan added that the LTTE was not interested in solving the ethnic crisis for reasons best known only to LTTE leader, Prabahakaran. “The LTTE will not accept any suggestions put forth by other Tamil groups, or the Sinhala parties,” he asserted.
The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.
PREV
