Enragement over US-India stand results in Sumanthiran-effigy in Jaffna

| by P. Sivakumaran

( 01 March 2012, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The nominated parliamentarian of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) M.A. Sumanthiran faced the brunt of public enragement in Jaffna on Wednesday, for reflecting the stand of the USA and India, in handing over even the last of the trumps of Lankan Tamils to Sri Lankan state, by internalizing war-crimes accountability and political solution. Washington allegedly backs proposals at the UNHRC sessions in Geneva that will give international legitimacy to the LLRC hoodwink of Colombo and whatever the differences with New Delhi backing Colombo that could only be related to binding Colombo with a time frame for the implementation of the LLRC recommendations. Meanwhile, the stands of both the Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa and the DMK Chief Karunanidhi are also just confined to urging New Delhi to back the US proposal in Geneva that is ‘perceived’ to be against Sri Lanka.

Mr. Sumanthiran enraged Tamil public opinion in the island by recently saying to the BBC Sinhala Service, “TNA backs a domestic process to implement the LLRC recommendations. We should ask for an international probe only after a failure of that,” adding further, “It is a step-by-step process. It will take time. They took 30 years in Cambodia.”

Later, Mr. Sumanthiran circulated emails that he was only telling what was in the agenda of the powers and not his opinion. But the BBC stuck to its reporting.

As what Sumanthiran was telling was tallying with US-backed bailout of Sri Lanka at the Geneva sessions, more than a hundred students of the University of Jaffna on Wednesday evening, gathered inside the premises of the University and hanged the effigy of Mr. Sumanthiran on the wall of a multi-storey building with a question: where are the war-crimes investigations?

Meanwhile, the Jaffna University Students Union (JUSU), reflecting the sentiments of the people, came with a statement condemning the TNA leadership for withdrawing from their earlier announcement giving hope to the people that they would participate in the Geneva sessions.

The general opinion in the island is that the TNA that was fathoming public opinion through Sumanthiran’s speeches in Canada and his interview to the BBC, decided to ‘boycott’ the Geneva sessions just to save its face.

But some political circles think that it was planned to sabotage any Tamil representation being heard in Geneva.

Hoping that the TNA would represent the Tamil side in giving oral statements in Geneva before the deadline on 24th, the diaspora groups were concentrating on other aspects. But the TNA parliamentary group leader R. Sampanthan ‘leaked’ the story of TNA’s non-participation only on the 25th, not giving room for any others also to come forward with oral statements before the deadline, political sections of Lankan Tamils in the island said.

The statement by the Jaffna University Student Union on Wednesday condemned the stand of the TNA for listening to others but not to the people who elected it.

Talking to BBC Tamil Service on Tuesday, Sumanthiran said that they were ‘advised’ by the countries from which they were seeking advice, on the futility of the TNA going to Geneva at this time.

TNA was constantly under the advice of India and it has also sought the advice of the USA when a delegation of it including Sumanthiran and Sampanthan visited Washington recently.

The JUSU statement sought a change in TNAs stand and said it should bring the aspirations of Lankan Tamils to the global forum.

But, in a letter sent to UNHRC session in Geneva on Tuesday, the TNA leader Sampanthan reduced the aspirations of Lankan Tamils to the implementation of the LLRC.

“This Resolution [the proposed US-backed resolution on implementing the LLRC recommendations] will provide an opportunity for the fulfillment of the commitments repeatedly made by the government of Sri Lanka, and now contained in the recommendations of the LLRC, and thereby for the realization of the legitimate aspirations of the Tamil people,” Mr. Sampanthan concluded in the letter to the UNHRC.

Meanwhile, TNA parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran has publicly criticized the TNA decision of not participating in the Geneva sessions, as that of certain individuals and not that of the TNA.

Mr. Sampanthan has been reiterating his stand that the decision was that of the TNA.

The academics and civil society members have been trying to make a joint representation of all Tamil parties to the Geneva in the last minute, but the efforts have not materialized as TNA parliamentarians Sritharan and Mavai Senathiraja changed their stand to support Mr. Sampanthan.

The continued and orchestrated hoodwink of powers taking even their democratically elected politicians into ‘captivity’, has enraged the Tamil masses in the island and their anger turns against knowingly gullible politicians, political observers in the island said.

Unfortunately, but as usual, the puppets face the brunt of public anger, one of the political observers commented.

Further comments from the political observer follow:

The USA engineered an internationally orchestrated war in the island, tilting the balance against Lankan Tamils, knowing that it would end up in genocide. India joined in the orchestration, as revealed by the Wikileaks documents.

First the conduct of the genocidal war without witnesses was entirely handed over to state in Sri Lanka, then the ‘surrender’ and internment of Tamil civilians in the barbed-wire camps were hander over, later the rehabilitation–development–reconciliation farce was handed over, and now the entire accountability mechanism and future processes are also handed over exclusively to the genocidal state that has designed a time-set agenda in the name of the LLRC recommendations to complete the process by 2020.

The whole process, thoroughly international, has been engineered and executed to perfection to the end by the US–India partnership, to see that the victimised Lankan Tamils will not get any international scrutiny and will not get any international justice as well.

Both the US and India have worked out it long back, how to handle the Tamil polity after the genocidal war.

Homework has been done not only in the island and in the diaspora but also in Tamil Nadu.

The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton visited Jeyalalithaa when the latter won a historic victory mainly due to a wave of repulsion against her predecessor who failed in checking the genocide of Lankan Tamils.

Even though confined to the wanting paradigm of war crimes and not addressing on due political justice for a genocide-affected nation, Jeyalalithaa enacted a unanimous resolution in the state assembly, calling for international investigation of the war crimes in the island.

However, on Thursday, stopping just at reminding the earlier resolution on international investigations, Ms Jeyalalitha wrote to New Delhi: “I write to reiterate our stand and to insist India should support the US-backed resolution and condemn the Sri Lankan government when the same is brought forward in the UN Human Rights Council.”

According to a statement by Mr. Karunanidhi, “India should not back Sri Lanka at any cost when the UNHRC resolution comes up for voting.”

But the irony is that neither the US-backed resolution nor India ditching it or backing it, is going to be against the genocidal state in the island.

Lankan Tamils have long been following a repulsive and self-inflicting political culture of attacking their own people as ‘traitors’.

Experience has shown that it backfires on a small nation like ours with limited human resources in talent.

We have forgotten the saying in Tamil, “what is the point in blaming the arrow when there is the archer” (Eythavan irukka ampai noakalaama).

The conflict is no more confined to Tamils and Sinhalese in the island. At the end of a 60 years struggle of Lankan Tamils, both peaceful and militant, it has acquired a new perspective of international dimensions.

There is no more point in indirectly sending messages to the masters by disgracing the agents as traitors. If we have the guts, we should be able to directly rise against the masters in our struggles in the island, in the diaspora and in Tamil Nadu, commented a new generation Tamil politician in the island.

Global Tamils and their leaders should keep in mind that they are now vested with a new universal responsibility to fulfill, for the sake of themselves as well as for humanity in general, the politician further said.