22 Tamil MPs to visit India on December 10

(December 02, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) All the 22 Tamil parliament members of Sri Lanka will be visiting India on December 10 to exert pressure on New Delhi to prevail upon Colombo for stopping the military attacks against Tamils in the island.

Tamil Nationalist Alliance (TNA) MP M.K. Shivaji Lingam told newsmen in India’s Bangalore on Monday that the Rajapaksa Government is continuously violating the human rights of Tamils by targeting civilian population, schools and hospitals in north and eastern parts of the country.

“If the artillery attacks targeting Tamil-dominated areas is not stopped in the next 10 days, we will have to launch a programme to counter it. We will disclose our programme when all the MPs of TNA visit India on December 10, which is observed as International Human Rights Day,” he said.

Accusing the Sri Lankan Government of waging a war against the LTTE despite signing a peace accord in 2002 between the LTTE and the previous Government in Sri Lanka.

He described the military action in Sri Lanka as “state-sponsored terrorism and said half of the Tamil population in the country had been displaced who have abandoned their homes and have taken refuge in jungles”.

He urged the Government of India to intervene in the matter and prevail upon Sri Lanka to stop the military action and engage the Tamils in negotiations.

Mr. Lingam said that Tamils in Sri Lanka were not migrants.

“They are born there and living for generations. It was the British, which united Tamil-dominated and Sinhala-dominated areas and handed over power to the majority which was a blunder committed by the then British rulers,” he said. - Sri Lanka Guardian