Rebirth of Tamil Civil Society

Dear  Friends,

With the defeat of LTTE, the Tamils looked helpless. Now the Tamil Civil Society has re-exerted itself and gave notice to those who have been pressured to settle for a deal that would be in confirmamtion with what the Sinhalese and their abetters want to offer. Please read on.

Visvanathan

Majority ITAK members welcome civil society report, seek course-correction

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 January 2012, 14:16 GMT]
Majority of the key members of the Ilangkai Thamizh Arasuk Kadchi (ITAK), who met Friday for a central committee meeting at the residence of TNA parliamentary group leader Mr. Rajavarothayam Sampanthan in Trincomalee, have welcomed the recent memorandum submitted by leading members of the Tamil civil society. Calling the TNA leaders to engage with the civil society, the ITAK group sought a course-correction in the process. Two civil society and ITAK senior members, and signatories, Professor emeritus of Archaeology, S.K. Sitrampalam, an ITAK stalwart, and Senior Lecturer at the Department of Hindu Civilisation of Jaffna University, Mrs. Naachiyar Selvanayagam, were present at the committee meeting and explained their concerns of accountability. The meeting resolved that Mr. Sampanthan should engage with the civil society as early as possible in January 2012.

The ITAK members said the concerns raised by the civil society were real and criticized those who attempted to brush away the valid criticisms put forward by the civil society.

The process of negotiation between GoSL and the TNA so far has been non-transparent even within the ITAK and the TNA, according to many of the participants at the central committee meeting.

Even the elected parliamentarians of the TNA have been kept away from the process without any knowledge, the members pointed out.

Many ITAK members also said that the impression created by those involved in the negotiations have raised serious concerns of a deviatory line.

The memorandum submitted by the civil society had urged firmness of leadership in political stand in convincing India and the US of the indispensability of addressing fundamentals of the aspirations of Eezham Tamils, i.e., nation and the right to self-determination.

The ITAK members also argued that the 80% of the civil society signatories to the memorandum, have worked for the TNA in the past elections without having any personal political ambitions. The civil society signatories included physicians, academics, civil representatives, engineers, lawyers and religious leaders, it is wrong to view them as having any political agenda behind the memorandum move, ITAK members said.

Two days before the meeting in Trincomalee, TNA MP Mr. Sritharan, who met the press at his residence in Jaffna on Wednesday, also put forward a crucial message welcoming the memorandum and said how the people of NorthEast in 2004 and 2010 placed genuine hope on TNA that TNA will stand committed to the fundamentals of the Eezham Tamil Nation.

Central committee meeting also discussed the long pending suggestion of formally registering the TNA. The suggestion had met opposition from some ITAK stalwarts and associates of Mr. Maavai Senathiraja, particularly Mr. C.V.K Sivagnanam, Mr. Kuganathan and Mr. Kanagasapathy, informed sources said.

However, many of the members who met in Trincomalee on Friday were of the view that the TNA should be registered.

When questions were raised on what role ITAK would play in the registered body of the TNA, a consensus was reached among the ITAK members on finding a formula acceptable to both the ITAK and other parties in the alliance. Arguing that ITAK members have had key positions in the TNA, the formula should pave way for continued wider significance of the ITAK in having a lead role in the TNA also in the future was the majority opinion among the ITAK members.

The meeting also resolved to include M.A. Sumanthiran, K. Sritharan, Yogeswaran, E. Saravanapan and P. Ariyaneththiran in the central committee of the ITAK.

The ITAK members also discussed holding a national convention of the party and Batticaloa was suggested as the venue for such a convention.

What the Civil Society Wants

TNA leadership faces admonition from civil society of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 December 2011, 23:50 GMT]
Prominent members of the Tamil civil society of all walks of life presented a memorandum to the Tamil National Alliance leadership on Tuesday, strongly condemning deception and deviatory polity of the leadership while times demand well-defined solutions to a long struggle. The civil society members urged firmness of leadership in political stand in convincing India and the US of the indispensability of addressing fundamentals of the aspirations of Eezham Tamils, i.e., nation and the right to self-determination. Tamils are not a ‘minority’ requesting concessions, but a nation demanding self-rule, the memorandum said. The impressive list of signatories included prominent religious leaders, academics, educationalists, professionals, trade unionists and community leaders. For the first time the TNA leadership faces such an open challenge of the first magnitude from the civil society.

The uprising of the civil society of Eezham Tamils, coming from a realization that nothing but fundamental solutions only could guarantee their existence, is inevitably impelled by the brutal and suffocating oppression committed on them by occupying Colombo, political observers in Jaffna said.

One SL military personnel for every 12 civilians in Jaffna, and for every 4 civilians in Vanni is the gravity of the nature of the military occupation. The international community ostensibly plays down the crucial fact that the occupying military cannot be considered a State military, but in this context is an ethnic Sinhala military of genocidal intentions and potentiality, the political observers said.

Taking advantage of the plight of Eezham Tamils gagged in the island, sections lured by collaborative polity in the diaspora used to project every truthful Tamil opinion coming from the island as fabricated ones, by citing them as 'unnamed'. But now, surging above all the oppression and pressures from the powers, the Tamil civil society in the island is openly up in arms, shaming the section of the impotent critics in the diaspora, the political observers further said.

For how long the simulated leadership in the clutches of powers attempting to hijack diaspora politics is going to sit on any uprising in the diaspora, they asked.

Representatives of the civil society of Eezham Tamils, after conducting a convention, handed over a 7-page memorandum signed by more than 75 signatories to TNA Secretary General Mavai Senathirajah MP at Uthayan Guest House in Jaffna on Tuesday evening.

Mr. Senathirajah's objection to the presence of journalists along with the civil society members and his enraged comments over the role of Tamil media in spoiling TNA's agenda, resulted in verbal exchanges between him and the journalists on the occasion.

The journalists later left the scene.

The TNA General Secretary told the civil society representatives that he could not freely discuss matters with them in the presence of the journalists. He was also enraged over certain points mentioned in the memorandum.

Main points of the memorandum, abridged and rendered in English by TamilNet:

It is deplorable that the TNA leadership that had earlier decided to come out of the futile talks with Colombo, decided to re-commence the talks at a time when the war crimes issue was to be taken up by the UN. This was only an attempt to protect Colombo.

When the SL government is not prepared to concede the unity of the North and East, police and land powers, there is no point in engaging with it in any talks.

The TNA leadership backed out from spelling out the status of Eezham Tamils as a nation and their right for self-determination, at the conference convened by Congress parliamentarian Dr. Natchiappan in New Delhi.

TNA leaders Sampanthan and Sumanthiran, by their polity of reducing Tamils as ‘minorities,’ differ from the broadly accepted political fundamentals of the Tamil National Alliance.

‘Minorities’ have to stop at requesting cultural concessions. Only a nation could demand for self-rule. Eezham Tamils are a nation needing self-rule.

The talk of ‘Equal Rights’ is not a substitute for autonomy or self-rule. Equal Rights could be achieved even by the restoration of the Rule of Law. But in the context of the island, even restored Rule of Law cannot resolve the issues faced by Tamils.

Ideas of nation and the right to self-determination not necessarily mean secession. No one can place a stigma on Tamils claiming for recognition of their status as a nation and for asserting to their right to self-determination.

Solutions based on the principles of nation and the right to self-determination could only bring in peaceful co-existence of Tamils and Sinhalese in the island and that only could prevent the interferences of outsiders.

The talk about the need to adopt ‘tactics’ is no excuse for forfeiting fundamentals.

Participation in Provincial Council (PC) elections is a tacit acceptance that political solution need not go further to the 13th Amendment.

By insisting on Tamil participation in the PC elections, the US and India only imply that they don’t wish for any further solution other than what is in the present constitution.

No one needs to tell the TNA leadership on the limitations and insufficiency of the 13th Amendment.

Besides, it is absurdity to accept and participate the PC elections of a divided North and East.

Participation in the PC elections is actually an impediment to finding solutions.

We have to firmly tell this to India and to the US, rather than succumbing to their pressure.

TNA is obliged to tell it to the world by refusing to participate in the PC elections.

If the concerned parties still insist on conducting the PC elections, then the TNA should consider alternative tactics in consultation with a wide spectrum of public opinion.

Tamils look upon the TNA and mandate it in every election, not as an ordinary political party of ‘electoral politics,’ but as a political liberation movement rising above electoral politics.