Presidential election is an opportunity for the Tamils to air their grievances and aspirations - Sivajilingham
By K.T.Rajasingham
Colombo, 17 December, (Asiantribune.com):
The Presidential election is an opportunity provided to bring to the notice, the grievances and aspirations of the Tamil nation. Therefore this golden opportunity should not be allowed to go by.
After filing his nomination today as an independent candidate in the Sri Lanka’s Presidential election, the former Tamil National Alliance Parliamentarian M.K.Sivajilingham speaking to Asian Tribune said that the Tamils’ participation is the need of the hour and that is exactly why I have come forward to contest in the election in the absence of a decision on the crucial question of the participation of our people in this election on the part of the TNA colleagues.
The former TNA parliamentarian Sivajilingham pointed out that “Both the major candidates for the Presidency, namely President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his main adversary retired General Sarath Fonseka have gone on record that in the event of their victory, the resolution of the national question would be based on the 13th Amendment to the Constitution – President Mahinda Rajapaksa states that he has a 13+ 1 formulae, while Sarath Fonseka says he will go beyond the 13th Amendment.”
He further said "These announcements do not make any differences. In other words both these candidates of the two major alliances have failed or to come with a political package to address our long felt political grievances, therefore either of these two candidates does not deserves the support of the Tamils, at the same time, we cannot allow the opportunity presented by the forthcoming presidential election to simply go by.”
Sivajilingham who was in India during the height of the war between the LTTE and the Government forces to bring to the notice of the international community the plight of the Tamils living in the war ravaged country said, "We have to face this election as a political challenge to express the political aspirations of the Tamil nation that remains oppressed in this country for the last 60 years since independence,” and further added "our aspirations need to be clearly explained in no uncertain terms."
He also said, that a sound and a meaningful electoral expression of the Tamil national sentiments should be pronounced.
He concluded by stating, "I am confident that a good majority of the Tamil National Alliance Parliamentarians would back me in this righteous mission."
Sivajilingham is the second Tamil candidate to contest in the Sri Lanka’s Presidential election. The first one to contest was Kumar Ponnampalam, in the election held on 20 October 1982 and polled 173, 934 votes which was 2.67 % of the total votes polled in that election.
- Asian Tribune -
Comments
Vanakkam Sivaji Aiya
Your return to politics after absconding or hiding or escaping or asylum seeking or whatever it is, proves one thing: President MR and Sri Lankan Armed Forces removed all obstacles on your path enabling you to engage in politics of your style without fear. What have you, the current saviour of Tamils, been doing when the same Tamils were being held hostage by your "Thamby"?
With no preasure from Thamby and with good food from your keepers in the West, you must be feeling rejuvanated to fool the Tamils who have begun to settle down in their villages. Have look in the mirror to check whether your fly is open before you start showing yourself. The country has had enough of the AHs like you and will not need them at least for the time being.
Is Mervyn's brother here?
The referenda taking place among Tamils in the Diaspora clearly tells who the Tamils think is enslaving and holding hostage whom. The war victory slogans of Thamby have a short shelf live and don’t sell well here any more!
Grievances
Who do not have grievances? We all do have the same problems whether they are Sinhalese or Tamils. But as an ethnic group in Sri Lanka we have a better position, percentage wise. Most of the Business is held by us, Trade with India is Tamil domination, Education advantage is all ours. Yes, we managed to get most of us sent to US, Canada and Europe although we were supposed to be trying to escape Sinhalese tyranny. How come we did not land in any other country closer home? I sometime wonder how idiotic Sinhalese race is. They have given us lots of advantages but yet we keep on asking more. Then we never negotiate, we demand and we get most of what we ask. During the time of Prbhakaran, he was the one who planted bombs and massacred civilians, but yet by twisting the media he managed to get sympathy for the Tamils. At least now we should work together to better ourselves. I do not see a Single Tamil leader getting on with the mission of nation building. Most of the Tamils only keeping blaming the others..
presidentail elections is another opportunity
First of all the People should know the profile of Mr. Sivajilingam. No one knows who he is, where he came from, Is he qualified for the voters to support him. However, he has every right to contest but what what is he going to gain by contesting. It tantamounts to Prabahran saying not to vote for either candidates Mr.Rajapakse and Mr.Fonseka. His explanation for contesting the elections is that he is again trying to fool the People. People are well aware of the full situation in Sri Lanka. Different views from different people is one thing, but a split in a party is a betrayal of the Tamil people. All these years the TNA members werre guided by Prabaharan. Once his is no more, these MPs are unable to think for themselves as to what to do. Another point is they are not interested about anybody but themselves.
So we have heard about Tamil
So we have heard about Tamil "grievances" non-stop for 60 years. What other community on earth does not have grievances?? What makes Tamils so special?
The fact of the matter is that Tamil "grievances" can never be addressed because they are entirely bogus and are in reality attempts to grab more power and privileges than they as a community deserve. Every time we try and address these unreasonable demands and in many cases give into them, they slap down another ten.
What Tamils really want is to dominate the Sinhala people and return to the apartheid system of Government they had under the British where they were held all the power, and wealth and were buttressed ahead for simply being Tamil. After Independence this racist system was dismantled and a fairer one was put in its place that treated all communities equally. Unfortunately Tamils found it hard to stomach the idea of being put on an equal platform to those they viewed as inferior, furthermore Tamils not only opposed but were disgusted by the idea of restoring Sinhala rights, denied to Sinhala people for 400 years. Tamils also struggled in a system where you were no longer favoured and pushed ahead of others for simply being Tamil.
All this nonsense about "grievances" and "discrimination" is just a ploy, a despicable ploy at that, to regain the British given wealth, power, and dominance they "earned" by siding with the British against the native Sinhalas, privileges provided for them at the expense of the innocent non-Tamil communities in Sri Lanka. Tamils have always had equal rights, what they want is special rights, special treatment, to be MORE equal.
And if an election is all it takes why did Tamils launch an "armed struggle" and subject innocent Sinhala people to brutal violence? Because they know very well that you cannot "democratically" create an apartheid state which violates the human rights of others. The LTTE was the conduit by which this violence was to carried out with backing and support from India or West depending on when and what agenda and interests aligned together.
For now Tamils violence has been halted, yet immediately upon this halt Tamils hurriedly return to race based parties and racist discriminatory practices, voting and ideology –albeit during the decades before and after Tamil sponsored violence began they did the same. Its was this racist ideology and chauvinism which they followed that resulted in them trying to suppress non-Tamils who did not subscribe to their ideology of Tamil supremacy with force, guess they have not learnt a thing.
Simply put what Tamils call "grievances" and "discrimination" is a manifestation of Tamil chauvinism and greed. While they scream the loudest about human rights, they show no respect for the rights of others as we have seen during the last 30 years of Tamil terrorism and barbaric violence they have subjected innocent non-Tamils too and the last 60 years of political agitation driven by selfishness.
ADAPT OR PERISH
The paranoia expressed here typifies the deeply rooted, but genuine fears of most Sinhalese people. These can only be addressed through compassion and wisdom and importantly require the understanding of the Tamil people. The wall that has existed for over 60 years must be broken through so that we can reach-out to one-another. Perhaps the first step in this process is to cease being negative and advance positive notions and gestures. As implied in the recent Report by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a national dialogue must be begun and it should be initiated and driven by the Government. The fact is there are grievances across the entire social spectrum by all communities of the nation, including the Sinhalese people. The outright rejection that there do not exist any nation issues closes doors shut to discussion and national reconciliation. The challenge is to discuss these and evolve solutions acceptable to all the people.
The underlying reason (for these paranoia of the Sinhalese), i.e. that the Sinhalese are a global and regional minority and therefore someday will become extinct is a redundant notion in a fast converging world where ethno-nationalism is fast giving way to global unification and a newly emerging global identification. Those who resist this inevitable natural evolution are the ones who will be left out and destined for extinction. The challenge is to open, integrate and converge and not be closed, separate and diverge. Sri Lankans have lived for far too long in self-imposed isolation and most have already missed the bus. We should make sure that this would not be the case with future generations. While Mahavamsa may have been once glorious it is futile to re-create or live in the past. We have little choice – as per Darwin we must adapt or perish.
National Dialogue
Unless we all turn down our rhetoric and attacking individuals, rather than focusing what they stand for and their policies, we will be putting off the national dialogue. This is true for the president and his party hinge men . If the country wants to grasp the opportunity to agree on a power sharing deal among all communities, the head of state and his men has to show more wisdom than what has been shown so far. If he continue to behave as he has being doing so far; to remain in power with what ever means; grabbing votes is only priority with rhetoric, the dream of a united prosperous Sri Lanka is blown away for ever.
Power sharing with all communities, good governance and development should be the centre of this election debate. Instead, what we are seeing is personal attack on individuals and all forms of intimidation of the opposite parties. I haven’t heard any concrete proposal or a way forward on these items from either candidate. We were promised a lot from MR on power sharing, we still waiting for improvement on the ground. What we are hearing is “I won the war” and “ I stand by the arm forces” , “ I take full responsibility” etc. Let move on as you suggested.
Rightly, Sivajilingham has raised few short term issues; we still haven’t heard any response from either of the candidates. These are day to day problems faced by the Tamil Speaking people.
Lets start the real discussion on Power sharing, good governance and development
And so the "American"
And so the "American" speaks...
If there are no problems to
If there are no problems to solve, why does Prez Rajapakse keep saying that he will solve the problems after he gets re-elected. It is ridiculous to suggest that Prez Rajapakse keeps saying that he is going to solve problems that do not exist. And this point has been pointed out umpteen times at this site.