M.A.Sumanthiran MP

Tamil statesman politician in the making at last

| by Pearl Thevanayagam

(May 14, 2012, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) The May 11, 2012 adjournment motion speech of M.A. Sumanthiran MP in parliament is perhaps the most eloquent and hard-hitting delivery by a Tamil politician in recent times. He minced no words and he did not prevaricate. The only other politician with guts would have been Kumar Ponnambalam but alas he was slain by the government supported military group of EPDP led by Douglas Devananda for his outspoken views on January 05, 2000 and we lost a vociferous voice for the Tamils.

Kumar Ponnambalam was never voted into parliament, in that although a human rights lawyer and son of that versatile and internationally respected criminal lawyer G.G. Ponnambalam QC and advocate of 50:50 parity for Tamils post independence, he chose his own path in defending Tamil rights but was never taken seriously by the Federal Party aka Tamil Arasu Kadchi. There were rumours doing the rounds in Colombo circles that Kumar, whose penny pinching is well-known, chose not to spend the Rs 100,000 donated by a businessman for his presidential candidature in 1994 on posters thereby losing out.

Sumanthiran spoke from the bottom of his heart and his sincerity and commitment for his beliefs left no parliamentarian in doubt although A.H.M Azwer tried his level best to send volleys to defend the Rajapakse regime much to the chagrin of the wounded Muslims who were reeling from the barbaric defilement on their Holy Mosque in Dambulla in April by some fanatic monks and their supporters who brought shame to Lord Buddha's preachings and precept of tolerance and equality. Even the deputy speaker allowed him more time than allocated since the House was spell-bound by his heart-rending speech.

Contrast this MP with other Tamils who graced the halls of parliament in bygone years, particularly in the last two decades. Perhaps because they are not at ease speaking in English or perhaps due to the well-grounded fear of reprisals from the LTTE you could hardly hear a whimper from them even when it came to crucial issues affecting the Tamils. But they joyfully enjoyed all the perks and privileges that comes with being elected to parliament such as SUVs, body-guards and subsidised housing.

In the 1990's, a full seven course lunch was available for a heavily subsidised rate of five rupees in the parliament dining room. Many a lazy reporter choose to cover parliament where the only skill required is to sit through parliamentary proceedings and if you miss out on them one simply gets to the Hansard recorders after enjoying the sumptuous lunch at tax-payers' expense. It is not uncommon to see members including our Tamil MPs dozing off with their feet raised on the benches in front. No wonder people have no trust in our politicians.

One does not need to be a valedictorian to tell the House the grievances of their constituents although it certainly helped that MP Sumanthiran is a human rights lawyer and was fully prepared with his arguments as he stressed the urgent need for international independent investigation into the murders of aid workers for a French NGO in the East and the university students in Trincomalee.

Within minutes before winding down MP Sumanthiran takes the President to task for appointing a committee to inquire into his own appointed LLRC's recommendations. How cool is that? Going by his arguments it's turtles all the way down. Would there be another committee to probe into the committee he appointed and so on and so forth. He also touched on the government's promises to implement 13A and 17th Amendment which have been put on cold storage.

Hopefully we have not heard the end of the MP's speech and may we have more of these erudite and justified presentations in the House which are long overdue.

( The writer is Asia Pacific Journalism Fellow at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, California and a print journalist for 22 years. She can be reached at pearltheva@hotmail.com)