TNA should quit constitutional steering committee: EPRLF

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 December 2016, 20:26 GMT]
The position of the TNA was that talks on political solution should precede the discourse on constitutional proposals. This has not taken place. The parties comprising the TNA are kept at dark by Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan and M.A. Sumanthiran. The duo has completely disregarded the exercise of participatory democracy of others in the TNA alliance, including the majority of other ITAK parliamentarians, said EPRLF Leader Suresh Premachandran on Wednesday this week. Except some ‘secret meetings’ organised by SL Foreign Ministry at Singapore and in London with some of their collaborators in the Tamil diaspora, the duo have kept the entire Tamil nation uninformed of their work, Mr Suresh Premachandran said.

The Tamils completely boycotted the 1972 Constitution and 1978 Constitution under the leadership of SJV Chelvanayakam and the TULF in the past. It was a clear and loud message to the South and to the entire world that Tamils will not accept anything less than a proper federal solution.

“But, now Mr Sampanthan and Mr Sumanthiran are the only two members representing Tamils on behalf of the TNA in the 21-member constitutional steering committee. Now, the General Secretary of the United People's Freedom Alliance and SL Minister Mahinda Amaraweera has openly stated that Mr Sampanthan has not demanded a federal solution or merged North-East in the steering committee sittings and that it was now time for [the Sinhala people] to use seize the opportunity and pass the constitution preserving the unitary character of the SL State,” Suresh Premachandran said also referring to other statements coming from all the parties taking part in the process.

The SL President and Prime Minister have said no to federal solution. The UNP, SLFP and the JVP have passed resolutions in their party meetings demanding to preserve the unitary system and the foremost place to Buddhism. They have also demanded that there should be no merger of North and East.

Instead of taking up the matter with the parties constituting the TNA and taking a clear stand by quitting the steering committee, the duo has completely taken a collaborative line with the SL regime, the EPRLF leader said.

When the position of denial has come from the South, Mr Sampanthan should have taken the matters regarding federalism and the merger of North and East with New Delhi and the Tamil diaspora. New Delhi was involved in 1987 Accord and the Tamil diaspora is another component to exert pressure through European countries, Mr Premachandran said.

There were expectations that an interim report would be in place before a parliamentary debate to take place as scheduled on 09, 10 and on 11 January. But, apart from the sub-committee reports, the main aspects are still being kept secretly in order to rush through a deceptive process, he said.

The TNA hierarchy is intentionally avoiding to convene a meeting of the constituent parties or the main body of the TNA, even after an official written letter was sent to Mr Sampanthan weeks ago by his party, Mr Premachandran said.

He was also blaming M.A. Sumanthiran for collaborating with the SL regime to get more time and space for the SL State and to postpone a review of the progress so far at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, which is supposed to take place in March 2017, he further said.

Commenting, political observers in Jaffna said politicians like Premachandran, apart from coming with valid criticisms against Sampanthan and Sumanthiran, are still not prepared to enlighten the masses on the real culprits who operate the duo, hijacking the Tamil polity and suppressing the rights-oriented political discourse and the struggle of Eezham Tamils.

The very same forces have already sabotaged the delivery of justice in Geneva two years ago and are now running the show of collaboration in the constitution process trading off decades-old Tamil demands for their interests of making inroad into the island, the political observers commented adding that there is an International Community of Establishment (ICE) and a Global Community and that Tamils should keep the Global Community informed in order to contain the ICE, which is facing a paradigm-shift at the moment.



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