TNA sabotages Tamils proving will for genocide investigation

Despite the mounting pressure on the planted Colombo-centric polity controlling the affairs of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the alliance has once again sabotaged Eezham Tamils' call for international investigations on genocide. The General Election Manifesto produced by R Sampanthan and M.A. Sumanthiran undermines the unanimous and democratically established position of the elected members of its own alliance in the Northern and Eastern provincial councils on the question of genocide. TNA's manifesto is also non-descript with regards to its demand to the SL State on expected constitutional framework, political solution and the question of accountability, deploying self-contradictory and ambiguous terminology.

In August 2014, the majority of TNA's provincial councillors in the North and East, in a joint letter addressed to the then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Ms Navnetham Pillay, demanded international investigations on genocide.

In October 2014, the planted section led by M.A. Sumanthiran responded with a written instruction to the Speaker of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) stating that NPC demanding genocide investigation or talking of genocide was not only inappropriate but also could affect the ‘credibility’ and independent function of the OISL investigations.

Mr Sumanthiran went on to state that the Panel of Experts appointed by the UN Secretary General did not find credible allegations of the crime of genocide within the temporal scope of their mandate. Further, the ‘legal note’ of instruction to NPC stated that “it would be improper and inappropriate for the Northern Provincial Council or any other political body to make pronouncements in the form of resolutions or otherwise on matters of evidence and law currently being considered by the OISL”.

In February 2015, Chief Minister of NPC, Justice CV Wigneswaran, passed a landmark resolution in the Council demanding OISL to “comprehensively investigate and report on the charge of genocide” to the UN. The resolution also demanded the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Sri Lanka to the International Criminal Court for prosecutions based on war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

As soon as the resolution came, the representatives of the ultimate culprits and the UN diplomats influenced by them, rushed to Jaffna to question Mr Wigneswaran why the NPC had chosen to pass the resolution at that particular juncture.

The Chief Minister was firm in stating that that was the time the truth should be told and the justice should come. “If the Geneva process doesn’t tell the truth now and if the military is not removed from the Tamil land now, then the future sufferings of Tamils will be endless. This has to be understood by Sinhalese too in forging a new political culture. That’s why this resolution and this is not against the Sinhala people,” Justice Wigneswaran explained to them.

Now, again in July 2015, the TNA's planted politicians have sabotaged the chance for Eezham Tamils in North-East to use their ballot to at least prove their will for investigations on genocide.

Seeking “fulfilment of the resolutions adopted at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in March 2012, March 2013, and March 2014 and the Report of the international investigation mandated by the March 2014 resolution to be released in September 2015,” the TNA manifesto was limiting the scope to fit to a ‘domestic’ process as being envisaged by the ultimate culprits who are influencing the United Nations mechanisms.

Although the TNA manifesto was pointing out that the Tamils lost their right to self-determination first through foreign conquests and later due to a system of government that reinforced ‘majoritarian hegemony’ not accepted by the Tamil people and that the first and second Sri Lankan Republican constitutions having entrenched a Unitary State were enacted without the consent of the Tamil people, the document remained abstract without articulating the basis of sovereignty claims of the Eezham Tamils.

The concept of Right to Self-Determination was clearly eroded in the TNA manifesto as it was only talking about the UN definition of Self-Determination to People which has been intentionally watered down not to contradict with the principle of State sovereignty.

The manifesto, which avoided to mention Vaddukkoaddai Resolution and its political mandate, the only democratic mandate of the Eezham Tamils so far with regards to their political aspiration, was particular on citing an invalid phrase from the ‘Oslo Communiqué’ signed by the late Mr Anton Balasingham and UNP leader Ranil Wickramasinghe in December 2002 – a move that violated the Tamil Sovereignty School of Thought and carried out without the consent of LTTE leader V. Pirapaharan.