“We [Eezham Tamils] are not [people of two] provinces. We are [the people of] a homeland. This reality is constitutionally not recognised in the Constitution. Would the Sinhala rulers of Sri Lanka ever be prepared to constitutionally recognise the joint North-East as the homeland of Tamils,” questioned exiled Eezham Tamil poet Kasi Anandan on Wednesday, speaking from Chennai, in an Internet-based video address on the occasion of a memorial event held in Batticaloa on the 10th anniversary of the assassinated TamilNet Senior Editor and popular columnist Sivaram Dharmeratnam (Taraki). The current Sinhala rulers [in the island of Sri Lanka] are only talking about ‘Tamils in the North’ whenever they refer to Tamils, Kasi Anandan observed.
A section of the participants at the memorial event in Batticaloa
“Sivaram was posthumously honoured as Maamanithar by Tamil Eelam National Leader Velupillai Pirapaharan,” Kasi Anandan said.
“When your sovereignty is threatened and compromised, you wage a defensive struggle (kaakkum poaraaddam). But, when your homeland is partly or fully destroyed, you opt to wage a struggle to retrieve the lost homeland (meedkum poaraaddam),” the Poet said.
Today, 75 percent of Tamil Eelam has been structurally and demographically colonised by the occupying Sri Lankan State and the Tamils in the homeland are now waging a struggle to retrieve their lost homeland, Kasi Anandan asserted.
“Sivaram was not armed with weapons in his fight,” the poet said.
Sivaram was not driven by racial emotions, the poet who is known as the Emotional Poet of Eezham Tamils, said.
“Sivaram was neutral. Tamils have always respected the existence of the Sinhala nation in the island. Sivaram never had any intention to think anything against the nation of Sinhalese,” he said. Sivaram wanted the Tamils and the Sinhalese to mutually respect each other’s distinct sovereignty to peacefully co-exist as nations in the island, he further said.
Kasi Anandan's address at the 10th memorial event held in Batticaloa
