TNA Seeks Self-determination For Tamils

By Easwaran Rutnam in Jaffna-Friday, July 31, 2015

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) says the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which was part of the Indo-Lanka Accord, is flawed as power is concentrated at the Center and its agent, the Governor.

In its election manifesto released in Jaffna yesterday, the TNA said that the Tamil people are entitled to self-determination in keeping with United Nations International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, both of which Sri Lanka has accepted and acceded to.

TNA leader R. Sampanthan, reading out from the TNA election manifesto at the launch event, said that power sharing arrangements must continue to be established as it existed earlier in a unit of a merged Northern and Eastern Provinces based on a federal structure.

“The Tamil speaking Muslim historical inhabitants shall be entitled to be beneficiaries of all power sharing arrangements to the North-East. This will no way inflict any disability on any people. Devolution of power on the basis of shared sovereignty shall be over land, law and order and enforcement of the law so as to ensure the safety and security of the Tamil people,” he said.

Former TNA Parliamentarians participated in the event but a notable absentee was the Chief Minister of the Northern Province and TNA member C. V. Wigneswaran.

Wigneswaran has been pushing for a war crimes investigation in Sri Lanka and Sampanthan said that the TNA manifesto also calls for the release of the report on the war in Sri Lanka by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

“Accountability and Reconciliation are fundamental to genuine and permanent peace in Sri Lanka,” he added.

The TNA election manifesto, however, stressed that all the proposals in the document must be enacted and implemented within the framework of a united and undivided Sri Lanka.

The TNA manifesto also calls for “meaningful demilitarization, resulting in the return to the pre-war situation, as it existed in 1983 before the commencement of hostilities, by the removal of armed forces, military apparatuses and High Security and Restricted Zones.

Sampanthan said that Tamil people, who have been displaced in the North and East due to the conflict, must be speedily resettled in their original places.

He also said that it is important that all political prisoners and other prisoners held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) in relation to war related activities must be released.