Every person who assisted the LTTE in procuring weapons, harbouring LTTE criminals and assisted them in numerous other ways should be investigated. This means all identified LTTE diaspora members and all identified Tamil politicians should be prosecuted.
Tamil politicians who knelt before the low caste Prabhakaran continue to venerate him. They have no self-respect.
The promulgation of a Constitution leading to Federalism and eventual separation is high treason, punishable by not only confiscation of property but with death. The Tamil politicians themselves will be safe, if police and land powers are not granted.
Originally, the Tamil population was about 11 percent. Now about half of them live outside Sri Lanka. Of the balance, over 50 percent live in the South. Therefore, Constitutional changes contemplated by the Tamils are to please about 500,000 living in the North and the East. The total population of the country is 21 million, so it is ridiculous to grant police and land powers to a miniscule Tamil population.
The previous government regrettably failed to amend the 13th Amendment, deleting police and land powers when they were at the height of their popularity. They had no intelligent advisors to advise the politicians.
The present government can muster a two-thirds majority to repeal the 13th Amendment or at least delete police and land powers. Even if Tamil MPs oppose this, the Joint Opposition will provide the numbers to secure the two-thirds majority, to end this problem conclusively.
13th Amendment
As long as police and land powers in the 13th Amendment remain on the Statute Book, the LTTE diaspora will pressurise the Tamil politicians to claim for it.
Rajiv Gandhi’s advisors were not intelligent enough to realise that police and land powers in the 13th Amendment (which was hurriedly drawn up) would affect the security of India and be political dynamite for India, let alone Sri Lanka. No Provincial Council including the Northern Provincial Council has enjoyed police and land powers for over a quarter century. Why are Tamil politicians hell bent on securing police and land powers at the behest of the LTTE diaspora, other than to fragment this country with the assistance of the Tamil Nadu politicians?
Why do we pay salaries and give enormous perks to Tamil politicians to brazenly act in a manner inimical to the country? Rather than dousing the fires, they are fanning the flames.
The Tamil Nadu politicians who were advocating separation from the central government of India in the 1960s, fell silent when the central government of India introduced the 16th amendment to the Constitution of India. Now, they are attempting by devious means to approach the same issue by first creating a separate state in Sri Lanka which will then be used as a launching pad to create a separate state in Tamil Nadu. This is the reason why Tamil Nadu and Tamil politicians want weapons and are determined to get police and land powers to create a separate state in Sri Lanka.
The 13th Amendment was foisted on our Government by India. It is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. This was no legislation designed for the benefit of the country. It is detrimental to us. It was drafted by the Rajiv Gandhi Government, and forced on President Jayewardene by using intimidatory tactics. Indian Air Force planes blatantly violating our Air Space, dropped food parcels over the North and the East of Sri Lanka, when our Security Forces had cornered the terrorists. Several Cabinet Ministers including the Prime Minister were against this Amendment, and did not attend the signing ceremony of the Accord, which was hurriedly assembled by JRJ and his cohorts, under curfew.
Tamils in the North, East and South of Sri Lanka are having a better quality life not having to contribute to fatten the LTTE coffers. They are leading a life free of fear. Their young are not forcibly conscripted to be cannon fodder, but enjoy free education and the chance to lead a qualitative life. India has a population of 1.2 billion. Only a few thousand (incited by some Tamil Nadu politicians) want to interfere with Sri Lanka. The vast majority of Indians are not interested in the 13th Amendment.
The threat of carving out a separate state exists even more than when Prabhakaran was using his military might. The diaspora and Tamil Nadu had Hillary Clinton in their clutches, so much so that when Clinton visited India she brazenly visited Tamil Nadu only and met the politicians there. She did not visit any other state in India. What is this unholy alliance with the Tamil politicians? Was she pressurised by the LTTE diaspora who she is under obligation to? A week before the end of the war Hillary Clinton sent David Milliband the Foreign Secretary of Britain and Kouchner the Foreign Secretary of France, to pressurise President Mahinda Rajapaksa to stop the battle a gainst serrorism and withdraw the troops.
Separate state
President Rajapaksa flatly refused, and the it was over in a week from then. The diaspora has vowed to carve out a separate state sooner or later, using police and land powers. They are hiding in India and some Western countries. They are wanted in Sri Lanka for war crimes. The only way they can come here and mix around with their kith and kin, is by having a separate state carved out here. They were terrorising the innocent Tamils in the West and extracting money. Those avenues of income have dried up now and they are hell bent on coming to Sri Lanka to start a new living and also due to the fear of Covid-19.
The US Country report unambiguously states that the diaspora are collecting funds and are in the process of purchasing weapons to restart violence.The Sri Lankan Government can overcome these arm twisting tactics of the LTTE diaspora, and Tamil Nadu politicians by holding a referendum in the whole country, as every citizen in Sri Lanka will be affected by the granting of police and land powers to traitors who are determined to divide the country.
The former Indian High Commissioner J.N.Dixit was like the Military Governor in Sri Lanka. India interfered in our internal affairs merely to satisfy Prabhakaran and some politicians of the Tamil Nadu government. The irony is that Prabhakaran himself rejected the 13th Amendment and the IPKF, and was engaged in a long drawn out battle with the IPKF! The 13th Amendment and the presence of the IPKF gave an excuse for the JVP to raise its head. Sri Lanka doesn’t want a recurrence of this scenario. The mighty IPKF withdrew in ignominy.
In the battle between the LTTE and the IPKF, hundreds of innocent Tamils died. Several women were raped by the IPKF soldiers. Two sons of the first Speaker of the State Council Sir Vythilingam Duraisamy, happened to be in Jaffna on the day the IPKF walked in. The scenario was worse than in the wild west. Several people including Sir Vythilingam’s two sons were shot for being spectators. The hatred towards India for pressurising Sri Lanka was so intense, that Rajiv Gandhi who came here to sign the Accord, was clobbered by a naval rating, with the butt of his gun. Rajiv escaped death by a whisker.
Now, Indian interests in Sri Lanka are enormous. Do they wish to jeopardize all this by pressurising us to implement the 13th Amendment? Don’t they realise the dangers it could cause to India and to Indian interests here? India has numerous internal problems. Do they wish to escalate those problems? Have they forgotten that all things imported from India were not permitted to be brought in? President JRJ’s sister-in-law Dr Gladys Jayewardene, Chairman of the State Pharmaceutical Corporation was murdered for importing Indian medicines. Several pharmacy owners were killed for stocking Indian medicines
Short-sighted policies
Does Narendra Modi want a recurrence of this? Right now the Indians are welcome in Sri Lanka. They should not drive us further into the arms of China, by their short sighted policies. In the 1980s Sri Lanka was not militarily powerful and did not have close friends such as China, Russia and many countries of the Middle East. India must tackle the miniscule LTTE diaspora and the handful of Tamil Nadu politicians in a different manner without bending over backwards to appease them. If Prime Minister Modi continues to give into Tamil Nadu they would continue blackmailing him. You give the Tamils an inch, they will demand a yard. It is in their blood.
India must view the 13th Amendment with caution and intelligence and realise that it would be the start of Eelam battle 5. Eelam battle 4 was concluded at the cost of many thousands of lives of military personnel and Tamil combatants and Tamil civilians. By giving enhanced power to Tamil politicians, it will be used for the achievement of a separate state here, which will eventually be detrimental to India herself. This would be the start of the fragmentation of India.
The 13th Amendment is political dynamite for both India and Sri Lanka.
The LTTE diaspora made/makes money through llegal and unethical means. They are known to bribe international politicians with their ill-gotten collection.
This diaspora is said to be tempting Tamil politicians with handsome allowances and free holidays abroad. They are being dictated to create an atmosphere which will assist them to instigate bedlam once again in Sri Lanka. Now the avenues of making money from innocent Tamils are running out. They do not want to lose their opulent lifestyles. It is only a handful of this diaspora members that are up to mischief.
As a result of Rajiv Gandhi’s short sighted policies he paid the supreme penalty by being murdered in cold blood in a village in Tamil Nadu by the LTTE itself; the very LTTE who his mother Indira and he were trying to appease. The whole world knows and is indeed admitted by the intelligentsia of India, that the Indira Gandhi government created the LTTE and nurtured, financed and trained them to create problems in Sri Lanka. Eventually, Indira Gandhi’s beloved son Rajiv was killed by the very group she created. She herself was killed in consequence of Sikh terrorism. How true is the saying, “those who live by the sword die by the sword.”
The Sri Lankan Tamils in the North, East and South are a happy and contented lot. Only the language problem needs to be sorted out. All Tamil businessmen are making good money and all professionals earn handsome salaries and perks while living an independent life. Development in the North and East is progressing at an accelerated pace. The refugees have been systematically settled.
The Tamils who were living amid the Sinhalese and the Muslims for safety during the battle against terrorism are now selling their properties in Wellawatte, Kotahena and other parts of Colombo and going back to their villages in the North and the East which have become absolutely safe, devoid of the fear and threat of the LTTE. They are not interested in giving additional powers to the LTTE diaspora agents – the Tamil politicians who will make their lives a misery.
They do not want to upset the equilibrium. Those who want to do so are the Tamil politicians and their acolytes. Tamil politicians, in addition to their tax-free salaries, free car permits and a host of other perks from the Sri Lankan Government are also rumoured to be getting huge allowances and free trips abroad from the LTTE diaspora. All they need to do is prostrate before the LTTE diaspora and do their bidding, just as they knelt before Prabhakaran and the LTTE.
Do the Tamil politicians represent the Tamils of Sri Lanka or the LTTE diaspora who are attempting to reintroduce violence in Sri Lanka, as is borne out by the Country Report of the US. It is up to the Government to educate the Sri Lankan Tamils that the Tamil politicians are attempting to take away the freedom they now enjoy after 30 years of suppression by the LTTE.
The Tamil politicians are clearly violating the 6th Amendment to the Constitution. We have had 11 unbroken years of peace. If any violence breaks out, whether in the North, East or anywhere else in the country, the Tamil politicians will be held responsible, for it is because they are stretching every sinew to cater to the LTTE diaspora and Tamil Nadu program, that such a situation would arise
Tamil politicians have conveniently forgotten that if not for the protection they were given by the Sri Lankan Government they too would have suffered the same fate as Amirthalingam, Sivasithamparan, Yogeswaran et al, at the hands of the LTTE. They are alive today because of the protection given by the Security Forces. They are indeed a very ungrateful lot.It is an offence in all Western countries to tender “Material support to a terrorist organization.”
This is exactly what the Tamil politicians are doing. If the Government decides to promulgate a new Constitution instead of amending the present Constitution, the entirety of the 13th Amendment would disappear, which would be most desirable. The Provincial Councils which are considered a white elephant would also be no more.
They are indeed skating on thin ice!