Rearing its ugly head again?

When the leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Rajavarothiam Sampanthan MP raised the Lion Flag on May Day, it was widely believed that this represented a change of heart among previously separatist Tamil politicians.

Sampanthan was widely criticised for this action in the organs of the rump of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the Tamil Diaspora. It was thought that the TNA would ditch the separatist agenda and shift to one in which the fight for ethnic Tamil rights would be within a united Sri Lanka.

Alas, it was not to be. The main constituent part of the TNA, the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) - which has taken on the mantle of the Federal party (FP), which had that name (meaning 'Sri Lanka Tamil Rule Party' in Tamil) earlier - held its 14th annual convention in Batticaloa last month. It was widely expected that ITAK constitution would be amended to remove from it indications that secession was the party's ultimate aim. However, the creation of Tamil- and Muslim-ruled entities as goals of the party remained in the ITAK constitution, unchanged and untouched by the convention.

Mathiaparanan Abraham Sumanthiran MP, the ITAK's legal and foreign affairs secretary told the Chennai-based Hindu newspaper that his party's goals were 'establishing of a unitary Tamil State and a unitary Muslim State and achieving political, economical and cultural freedom of the Tamil speaking community'.

Political structure

R. Sampanthan, MP

Minister Prof Tissa Vitharana

Erik Solheim

He did, though, clarify later that the original Tamil wording of the ITAK constitution specified autonomy or self-rule and not the creation of separate countries. The Sixth Amendment to the Sri Lanka constitution bars from Parliament those who demand the establishment of a separate state within the territory of Sri Lanka.

Sumanthiran had previously told a seminar in Jaffna that the TNA did not support a separate state of Tamil Eelam and had not included this demand in its manifesto.

Nonetheless, the address made by Sampanthan to the Batticaloa Convention was somewhat ambiguous, to say the least. He said that: 'Our hope for a solution to the problems of those in the North and the East the sovereignty of the Tamils is based on a political structure outside a unitary government, in a united Sri Lanka in which the Tamils have all the powers of government needed to live with self-respect and self-sufficiency. We believe that only within such a structure of government can the Tamils truly enjoy the right to internal self-determination - their inalienable right.'

So far, so good. Unfortunately, a little later he said that they 'must prove to the international community that we will never be able to realize our rights within a united Sri Lanka' and that 'the current practices of the international community may give us an opportunity to achieve, without the loss of life, the soaring aspirations we were unable to achieve by armed force'.

International community

This seems appallingly as if the grand aims of the LTTE, which they failed to achieve by terrorism, are those which the ITAK wishes to achieve through the intervention of the 'international community' - and that the 'international community' is indeed co-operating in this matter.

Indeed, the TNA appears to be playing mainly to foreign audiences. Its strategy appears to be broadly similar to that which the Roman dictator Quintus Fabius Maximus (nicknamed Cunctator - 'delayer') used against the brilliant Carthaginian General Hannibal Barca, which was to delay and provoke.

National question

The ITAK and the TNA are employing cunctatorial tactics against the government, in order to prove to the 'international community' that the latter is obdurate. Confirmation of this came with Sampanthan's speech, wherein he said 'Once we have reached the limits of our patience, we will move onto the next stage of our efforts'.

Further confirmation came last week when Senior Minister and former All Party Representatives Committee chairman Prof Tissa Vitharana said that the TNA was demanding pre-conditions to attend the proceedings of the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) to find a political solution to the national question.

Sampanthan's demands, he said, were the same as those made by the LTTE in November 2003 when they demanded an Interim Self-Governing Authority in the North and East. These included the unification of the North and East provinces and control of such subjects as Police powers, media, education, power generation, state lands, mineral resources, sea ports, foreign investment, financial institutions and a wide variety of taxes.

He said that these demands were unacceptable as preconditions. All parties, including the government and the TNA should participate in the deliberations of the PSC in a spirit of goodwill and cooperation and with no preconditions to reach a workable political solution to the ethnic issue.

Pro-terrorist pressures

Undoubtedly, the TNA and ITAK are under pressure from outside forces, particularly from the rump-LTTE. For example, last month, former Norwegian minister and former peace facilitator Erik Solheim took part in a seminar in Oslo, sharing the platform with TNA parliamentarian Arumugam Kandaiah ('Suresh') Premachandran.

In his speech he said there was an ongoing process to bring about a rapprochement between the Sri Lankan government and Tamil representatives. He advised Tamils to abjure separatism and renounce violence, and instead fight for equal and fair treatment and autonomy in Tamil-majority areas.

Tamilnet, the website representing the Diasporic hegemons, promptly attacked Solheim for joining 'the orchestration against independence' for and 'supporting the annihilation of the ancient nation of Eezham Tamils'. The website was, on the other hand, full of praise for Premachandran, who certainly did not pull his punches.

In bowing to such pro-terrorist pressures, the TNA should bear in mind the dangerous path it is riding. It should remember the words of TerryWaite, the Anglican Church envoy who was held hostage: 'The terrible thing about terrorism is that ultimately it destroys those who practise it. Slowly but surely, as they try to extinguish life in others, the light within them dies.'