3RD LEAD (UPDATE)

TGTE constitution to be drafted within 3 months

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 May 2010, 18:39 GMT]
The elected representatives of the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) who met in three spots of the world on a 3-day session since 17 May to 19 May resolved to draft the constitution of the TGTE within 3 months and set up an Interim Executive Committee (IEC) Wednesday constituting 8 members, 2 from USA, 2 from UK, 1 from Australia, 1 from Canada and 2 representing the other countries of Europe. Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran from USA was appointed as the Interim Chief Executive of the IEC, TGTE members who attended the inauguration told TamilNet Thursday.

The representatives from 11 countries and members of Advisory panel met in a transnational session over three days.

Despite the sectarian politics that prevailed during the pre-formation process, and alleged malpractices in some of the constituencies and unresolved disputes, a conducive atmosphere has been created in the 3-day session as most of the representatives who chose to be elected on a common platform were determined to make TGTE a success, a member from USA told TamilNet adding that much depended now on the statesmanship and collective leadership of all the members of the ICE in the coming weeks.

Ms. Karen Parker, a Humanitarian Law attorney and an Advisory Committee member, addressed the Constitutional Assembly on its functions.

Gerard Francis, Janarthanan Pulendran, Mahinthan Sivasubramanium, Rudrakumaran Visuvanathan, Sam Sangarasivam, Sasithar Maheswaran, Selva Selvanathan and Vithya Jeyashanker are the members of the TGTE-ICE.

Mr. Rudrakumaran, the interim executive of the TGTE-ICE, proposed to elect a Speaker for the Constitution Assembly for the TGTE.

Pon. Balarajan from Canada was was unanimously elected as the Speaker of the Assembly.

Professor N. Sriskandajarah from Sweden, a member of the advisory panel, who had set the agenda for the inaugural session in advance and presided the sessions, proposed to have the Advisory Panel functioning till the Constitution Assembly completes the drafting of the constitution.

There was no mention of maintaining the entity named 'International Secretariat' and many of the elected members were not aware of its modus operandi.

Non-transparent operations associated with the pre-formation process, such as the 'International Secretariat' had only caused miseries to the unity of the Tamil national voice and had been detrimental to the democratisation of the struggle and to the process of popular will taking its course.

However, democratically elected TGTE members said all operations involved in the democratic exercise will be transparent in the future.

47 TGTE members (including 24 from Canada and 10 from US) attended the session in Philadelphia, 14 in London, 12 in Geneva and others joined from their constituencies.

The TGTE members have discussed about setting up sub committees for Drafting Constitution, Education, Health, Sports and Culture in homeland, Economic Development in homeland, International Relations, War crimes and Human Rights in homeland, Women, Children and Elders in homeland, Business Development, Heroes' Families, Prisoners of War, Resource Protection in homeland and Youth Participation.

The exact composition of the sub-committees are yet to be finalised, the sources said.



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