Shenali D Waduge

The northern province has become a virtual Tamil only province by virtue of chasing out Sinhalese & Muslims who had been living prior to Independence. Implementing 13A in full would mean this Tamil Only Northern Province will get the Tamil Eelam State their politicians politically vied for & Tamil militants fought for which Sri Lanka’s soldiers prevented by sacrificing their lives to ensure the Island nation was not separated. Such a political betrayal cannot be allowed.

Those that take offence when Sinhalese say the island nation was built by Sinhale kings & make a fuss about the place of Buddhism, see no fault in creating a Tamil Only province, with Tamil as Official language, administered by Tamils, Tamil laws & police, land owned by only Tamils! The audacity is that while North is to remain only Tamil, in all other provinces Tamils must be given EQUAL RIGHTS as Sinhalese and Sinhalese & Buddhism cannot have any special place. The hypocrisy is unbelievable. Those that point out these hypocrisies are even called ‘racists’ & fundamentalists.

To claim a Tamil Homeland and a Tamil Eelam State, the Sinhalese & Muslims needed to be chased out of the North. LTTE began the ethnic cleansing of Sinhalese & Muslims from the North in the late 1980s/1990s. None of the human rights organizations or foreign governments have bothered to resettle these people to their original habitats. What about their lands & their land ownership? No one has the right to forcibly take them over.

This was how North Sri Lanka came to refer to the North as only Tamils and for only Tamils.

These Tamil politicians have the audacity to claim Sinhalese living in the North as ‘colonization’ while Tamils are coming in numbers to settle down in other parts of Sri Lanka, buying land, property, engaged in livelihoods and employment & educating their children too. Is this not colonization of Tamils in Sinhala areas?

No one is interested to resettle Sinhalese & Muslims chased out of the North. The handful that are living with difficulty are likely to be chased out subtly. The West finds it easier to manipulate Tamils as they have done historically. Caste discrimination is opportunity to increase flocks as those denied entry to kovils or marginalized by society are accepted with open arms to the Church. The scenario of appeasement is ideal for a satellite state. It will become an eventual showdown  for India & West when the balkanization of India begins.

If anyone questions why the Sinhalese oppose giving 13^thAmendment with land & police powers. The reasons are simple.

1. Tamil politicians have sought a separate Tamil state since formation of ITAK in 1949
2. Tamil politicians openly called for a separate sovereign socialist state of Tamil Eelam in 1976 with Vaddukoddai Resolution
3. Prabakaran renamed his Tamil New Tigers (set up in 1972) to LTTE in 1976 & hijacked the call for a Tamil State after being secretly trained by India in armed warfare. This internationalized the quest & sympathy for separate state.
4. Indian stooge Varatharaja Perumal was appointed Chief Minister of the merged North East Province in 1988. In March 1990 he declared unilateral declaration of independence after India had trained the Tamil National Army to replace LTTE. President Premadasa had to annul the Province & impose direct rule.
5. LTTE created TNA in 2001 as a political front when the War on Terror was declared following 9/11
6. ITAK & TNA leader Sambanthan endorsed Vaddukoddai separatist declaration in 2008 merging the quest into one single political objective. TNA manifestos endorse LTTE & LTTE had their own police, courts, lawyers, currency.
7. The separatist objective was further strengthened by replacing federal (shamashthi) with confederal (innaipachchi) in 2008. TNA leaders, Wigneswaran, LTTE fronts all use confederal terms when making demands & these are clues to their real objective. A federal state cannot separate from the Centre, a confederal state can. This is the catch.
8. TGTE began drafting the Constitution of Tamil Eelam in 2015.
9. Reference to Tamil speaking people” is a ruse to get Muslims on board while pro-separatist Muslims are happy to join to buy time to prepare their quest for a separate state in the East. This was mooted by Ashroff who was present at the Vadukoddai Resolution in 1976. The Oluvil Declaration gives a clue to the separatist bid in the East.

The bid to separate Sri Lanka was stopped twice. In 1990 after the unilateral declaration of independence by EPRLF leader & Chief Minister of merged NE Province Varatharaja Perumal who had an army” prepared to take over. The Centre had to intervene & impose direct rule.

The 2^nd bid to separate Sri Lanka was stopped after suffering 30 years of terror & after Presidential orders were given to militarily defeat the LTTE. This victory came after sacrificing close to 30,000 lives and a similar number injured for life.

Successive Presidents realized the dangers of giving land & police powers to the provinces when the players vying to lead the North have not given up their bid to separate Sri Lanka.

When the North is virtually a Tamil Only province, giving land & police powers means politically giving the Tamil Eelam state.

What is the purpose of this when Constitutionally, no land area can be mono-ethnic, no community can be given rights above the others, no one’s aspirations are more important than the others, Jaffna Tamils are not superior to other Tamils or other communities. When more Tamils live outside of the North, why should only the North have a province only for Tamils? These and more questions should be on everyone’s minds. People must demand answers from their political parties.

Political parties cannot simply claim to endorse giving land & police powers to gain votes without realizing the dangers & repercussions.

As for the majority Sinhalese, our stand is that the soldiers sacrificed their lives to bring the Island under one flag, politicians voted for a term of office cannot decide to separate the Island. The world is a global village, no community can live in segregation & therefore no community should be carved out land areas to call their own while also reserving the right to live in other areas & gain equal rights in those areas while they deny rights to other communities in the area they rule. This is the highest form of hypocrisy.

Shenali D Waduge