Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam: Part Two

All clothes and no emperor

by Prof. Sisira Pinnawala

(July 22, Kandy, Sri Lanka Guardian) Selvarasa Pathmanathan, better known as KP proclaimed himself LTTE leader after Tiger supremo Prabakaran’s demise. KP chose Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran, a US based lawyer who was one time legal adviser to the LTTE negotiating team with the Government and later its unofficial ideologue after Anton Balasingham’s death, to explore the ways and means of forming a Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam. After the extraordinary rendition of Pathmanathan by the Government the unofficial mantel of leadership of the LTTE and the responsibility of forming the TGTE fell into the hands of Rudrakumaran. He authored the initial concept paper for the Provisional Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (PGTGE) which was further developed by a 14 member Advisory Committee consisting of representatives of the Diaspora and some prominent LTTE sympathizers of the International non-governmental sector that included Karen Parker, Professors Francis Boyle and Peter Schalk. The Advisory Committee report entitled Formation of a Provisional Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (PGTGE) and detailing its objectives, form and functions was launched on March 15, 2010.

Lack of political space

The Report justifies the formation of transnational government on the grounds that there is no political space for the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka to engage in a constructive political dialogue. It also presents theoretical justification of this project arguing that transnational links are a crucial force in contemporary politics and international relations which besides integrating markets, has also brought about the possibility of organization of political and social movements on a global scale. It further argues the Tamil Diaspora already has a well established and highly political transnational network and therefore it is natural for the Diaspora to take their transnational political mobilizations to another level, i.e. formation of a transnational Government.

The Report gives a detailed account of the electoral process of the TGTE and its functions. It sets the TGTE membership to 135 of which 115 are elected representatives and 20 nominated to represent the countries and communities that cannot have elections for practical reasons. The TGTE’s core functions are engagement with the international community and protecting the interests of the Eelam Tamils in the homeland, meaning the North and East. The elections for the Constituent Assembly of the TGTE were held between May 2 to 15, 2010 and the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam held its inaugural sessions in three cities in two continents, Philadelphia in the US and Geneva and London in Europe, from May 17 to 19, which incidentally is the LTTE leader’s first death anniversary.

Lack of Government in the TGTE

The objectives are many but they all boiled down to realizing the goal of statehood for Tamils in Sri Lanka.

The principal means of achieving these objectives, which is international engagement on the basis of Tamil nationhood, tells us what the TGTE is trying to do, is not new.

This is what the Tamil Diaspora organizations have been doing and failed. What is different in the new venture is that the leadership is forming a new apex body to control the Diaspora and trying to give it legitimacy by adopting an electoral process and get recognition on a different plane by calling it transnational government. The problem however, is that having a constitution, establishing structures with grandiose names like Constituent Assemblies and assigning government like functions to them do not make an organization a government. It will need to be able to function as a government within the State system. This is where the idea of a transnational government becomes hollow. The TGTE is transnational alright but there is certainly no government in it.

Government can be broadly defined as the agency through which a political unit exercises its power over its subjects and operates effectively within the state system which should recognize it has the authority in exercising this power. Government therefore is the political body that controls instruments of power in a polity within accepted norms of conduct of the State system. In abstract sense power of Government comes from its subjects, namely the people it claims to represent and by being recognized in the State system. The status of the TGTE is problematic here as it has no clear source of power and has no means of exercising authority over the people it claims to represent. The Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam claims to represent the Tamils in the homeland but they do not elect it. Instead they are represented by a proxy which is the Diaspora that elects the Constituent Assembly of the TGTE.

No authority over Tamils

Not only the TGTE does not derive power from Tamils in the homeland which it claims to represent but also it does not have any authority over them. This is because the TGTE neither has access to the homeland to exercise its authority directly controlling their destiny nor has recognition in the State system to make any claim or have indirect impact on the life of its subjects (This is the case of a Government in exile) who are Tamils in the homeland. The first is a practical problem the TGTE will not able to do anything about as the Government of Sri Lanka will not allow its access to the homeland. This will mean that TGTE will be a government without the ability to govern its subjects. The sponsors of the TGTE are aware of this fact but maintain that there is a Government by claiming it a novel experience. The TGTE is novel alright but in the sense that it is a novel way of glossing over the hollowness of the whole exercise.

It is not only an entity that has no recognition in the State system but also operates outside of it. The parallel that the promoters of the TGTE are trying to draw between the European Union and the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam, albeit implicitly, to show the world that their attempt makes sense, is not valid. It is true that EU is a transnational operation but its power and authority comes from its constituent states being part of the State system first and having recognition as such.

Not only that the TGTE lacks recognition by the State system but also if the proposers of the concept say is anything to go by the TGTE cannot expect any such recognition to come even in the future. The Report giving its reasons for opting to establish the TGTE instead of a Government in exile says that reason for not forming the latter is because foreign governments already recognize Sri Lankan Government.

What his means is that for the TGTE to receive recognition by the State system as a Government on par with other governments the international community has to de-recognize Sri Lankan Government first. This in other words means that the TGTE has no hope of being recognized. Its international engagement then becomes no more than that of a non governmental organization which in fact it is. This makes the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam all clothes and no emperor.

(The writer is attached to Sociology Department of Peradeniya University. He can be reached at
sisirap@pdn.ac.lk)