“Dr. Swamy said that India does not want refugees from Sri Lankan pouring into India, and that is why India is interested in finding a solution to the Sri Lankan problem. He said India will be watching Sri Lanka and impress the Government to go forward and devolve powers to the Tamils.”(November 13, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) A meeting was organized by the Canadian Democratic Tamil Cultural Association in Scarborough a the Centennial College Student Centre Main Event Hall on November 11th and the speaker was the Janatha Party Leader, a great articulate and former Law Minister of India Dr. Subramanian Swamy.
Dr. Swamy spoke on the topic - “South Asian Diaspora”. He spoke with clarity. He said that was no ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka but only a linguistic difference and they were reconcilable. He also said there were similarities in the Sinhalese and Tamil words and even the main religious Buddhism and Hinduism. Hence there could be a solution to the current problem in Sri Lanka only if the majority accepts that there are grievances for the minority and come forward to devolve power.
Dr. Swamy said that India does not support a separate State the Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka. India respects its sovereignty. India considers LTTE as a terrorist organization; therefore India will not bail out the LTTE or stop the Sri Lankan Government from defeating the LTTE terrorism militarily. India is very clear that the LTTE is not part of the solution but it is part of the problem he said. LTTE cannot be part of the administration in Sri Lanka. LTTE killed the Tamil leaders like Amirthalinagam, Neelan Thiruchelvam, Yogeswaran, Mrs. Yogeswaran and many more Tamils who did not accept the LTTE as the sole representative. There is no pluralism in the LTTE; hence LTTE cannot be the solution to the Tamil problem. But, the Sinhalese must realize that the Tamils have grievances and these grievances should be addressed by the Sri Lankan Government under a federal set up.
Sri Lankan has a track record of breaking all pacts in the past he said. The Chelva - Banda pact was broken even the Indo Lanka pact was broken. President Jayawardena signed the Indo-Sri Lankan pact and the IPKF was sent to Sri Lanka. The same Jeyawardena then signed another pact with the LTTE and gave the LTTE money and arms to fight the IPKF. Inspite of the North and East of Sri Lanka was a Tamil Province, which was in favour of the Tamils, and a Tamil Chief Minister was elected, the LTTE chose to fight the IPKF because they did not like the then Chief Minister. Although the past Presidents of Sri Lankan had done nothing much to help the Tamil grievances, only the present President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapakse has taken some positive steps forward to devolve power to the East and India wants him to go ahead and deliver. The powers given to the Eastern Chief Minister is not enough. The Eastern Province should be left to manage their own affairs. While the LTTE problem is solved by its decimation the powers also must be devolved to the Tamils according to the APRC proposals and India will impress on the Sri Lankan government till it does so. If not the Tamils will not trust the Sri Lankan Government. The Sri Lankan Government has to start somewhere and the 13th amendment would be a good one to start with he said. Now the Tamils are apprehensive, but if the powers are devolved the Tamils would support the Government and the LTTE could be defeated in no time. The LTTE could be pushed into hiding in the jungles. The Sinhalese need not fear that devolution of power would lead to secession, because there is a clause 356, which states that if the Central Government feels that a State is acting against National Interest, that State could be dismissed by the Central by all means. In 1991 when he was the Law Minister the Tamil Nadu Government was dismissed according to this clause, by the Central because it had links with the LTTE which is against the interest of India.
He said that All Indian would like to see Prabakaran brought to justice and that the whole of India unanimously united on this. He had assassinated India’s young leader Rajiv Gandhi on Indian soil. The LTTE provides funds and arms for the Indian terrorists groups in India. The LTTE smuggles narcotics into Tamil Nadu. Hence nobody in India will support the LTTE. Even the politicians in Tamil Nadu do not openly support the LTTE. They will only say that they will support the Tamils. So the Diaspora should not feel that that there is support for the LTTE in Tamil Nadu. He emphasized that only a handful of pro-LTTE elements in Tamil Nadu make noise.
Dr. Swamy said that India is impressed by the Sri Lankan Quality of Life Index, which is comparable to that of the Western countries, even though there is war. If there was no war he said Sri Lanka would be one of the best countries in the World. He also said that many Indians want to visit Sri Lanka, which has a rich history and heritage. There are about 37 places of interest from Ramayana in Sri Lanka. So many Hindus of India had asked him about touring Sri Lanka to see these places of interest.
During the question period after his speech Dr. Swamy was asked if India was taking revenge on the Tamils because their Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was killed. He said it was not revenge it is a lesson for everybody that no foreign terrorist group could dictate terms or punish one of our leaders for a policy that was endorsed by the Indian parliament. More over he said that India felt a betrayed when former President Jeyawardena and the LTTE turned against India, while the IPKF only went there after the pact was signed by Jeyawardena.
Next he was asked about genocide in Sri Lanka. Dr. Swamy emphatically denied that there was genocide in Sri Lanka. He said the term was bandied about by interested partisans and that there was no truth to it. He also said he looked up the human rights dictionary and according to that genocide means a systematic killing of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, which is not what is happening in Sri Lanka. He said yes, innocent civilians are being killed but this is what happens when there is war. There are innocent civilians being killed in Kashmir too. But once these incidents are brought to the attention of the authorities prompt action has to be taken he said. He also said that he had asked two very good human rights organizations to go to Sri Lankan and see if there was genocide. The reply that he got from both these organizations was, “we do not have to go there, there is no genocide in Sri Lanka”. There for there is no genocide in Sri Lanka.
Another question was that Vinayagamoorhty Muralitharan was part of the current government in Sri Lanka and he was a LTTE member. Swamy had in his speech mentioned that LTTE cannot be part of the solution or the administration in Sri Lanka. Dr. Swamy said yes, as long as they are in the LTTE they cannot be in the administration of the country but once they leave the organization and realizes that it was wrong then they should be accepted by the main stream and pardoned and given another chance to prove themselves. But they will be monitored to see if they are genuine about their decision. We had a person from the prison and a terrorist leader who turned themselves in and were Chief Ministers of States in India.
Dr. Swamy said that India does not want refugees from Sri Lankan pouring into India, and that is why India is interested in finding a solution to the Sri Lankan problem. He said India will be watching Sri Lanka and impress the Government to go forward and devolve powers to the Tamils.
Finally Dr. Swamy said that the Diaspora Tamils should form many democratic organizations and get people like him to come and address the Diaspora and educate them on the facts and the real situation. He asked the democratic forces to challenge the LTTE and speak out, because their days are numbered. No country in the World would support the LTTE because they all know that it is a terrorist group by their own doings. They have killed a country’s Leader on foreign soil. They had assaulted journalists on foreign soil. They had brutally assaulted the father of a Hindu journalist Krishna Gurusamy when they could not find him and so on. Even Norway is silent now. No more trips to Vanni and meeting the LTTE. He encouraged the democrats to speak out without fear and that would be the only way to defeat the LTTE and terrorism. Nobody would like to identify themselves as LTTE as it is a terrorist outfit, but they would only say they support the Tamils. Therefore reason out with the Tamil supporters and defeat terrorism, he said.
Finally the Secretary of the Canadian Democratic Tamil Cultural Association thanked Dr. Subramanian Swamy for speaking to the Sri Lankan Diaspora and thanked all those who were present to listen to him speak.- Sri Lanka Guardian
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