TNA Parliamentarians, what they are - unmasked

The Tamil National Alliance is a loose political group made up of Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchchi, Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization, Eelam People’s Revolutionary Front and All Ceylon Tamil Congress.

The Tamil National Alliance is a political formation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). This political outfit was formed in 2001 on the diktat of the late Velupillai Prabhakaran – the former LTTE Supremo.

The LTTE leadership roped in, by threat and intimidation, the four parties, viz., the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchchi, Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization, Eelam People’s Revolutionary Front, and All Ceylon Tamil Congress, into one group to serve it as its political face.

In the beginning, the LTTE contacted the Tamil United Liberation Front stalwarts to Kilinochchi and the LTTE political Czar S.P. Tamilselvan met with V. Anandasangaree, R. Sampanthan, Mavai Senathirajah and N. Raviraj to convey authoritatively to fall in line with their thinking and be part of their political formation.

TELO and Malaysian Ministers

At this juncture, it is appropriate to reveal an incident. When TELO leader Selvam Adaikalanathan, Raviraj and a few other TNA MPs visited Bangkok in 2003 to participate in the Asian Political Parties Conference in Bangkok, I arranged a meeting for them with the leaders of the ruling Party of Malaysia, majority of whom were Ministers, to discuss about the development for the Tamils of Sri Lanka in particular and in general the country as a whole.

Selvam Adaikalanathan and others told me that they cannot talk about development and any other things connected with the Tamils of Sri Lanka without obtaining permission from Tamilselvan and they just met the Malaysian delegation and exchanged pleasantries and that’s all.

Anandasangaree, who was present in Bangkok, dissuaded me not to arrange the meeting for them with anyone, and in the beginning, I could not understand why he dissuaded me, but after the meeting he explained to me that they had no power or authority to talk about matters connected with the Tamil civilians. He also said they had already given those authorities to the LTTE and so they were only puppets in the hands of the LTTE.

Anandasangaree’s opposition to TNA

Except for Anandasangaree, the President of the TULF, the other three agreed to fall in line with LTTE and joined the LTTE’s political formation. Following the trio joining with the LTTE, the TELO, EPRLF and ACTC had agreed to be part of the LTTE’s political formation, and thus they came under the jackboot of the LTTE.

And so there was an attempt to divest the leadership of TULF from Anandasangaree. But Anandasangaree refused to part with the Presidency of the TULF and he contested in the courts, the claims of R. Sampanthan who was the General Secretary of the TULF, that Anandasangaree, had no control over the TULF, as the President of the outfit.

As the matter had been referred for a judicial decision, LTTE was forced to find a way out for their political formation to contest in the parliamentary General elections held on April 2004.

Acquiring Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchchi

Subsequently, they decided to contest under the ‘House’ symbol of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchchi (ITAK). At that time Mavai Senathirajah who remained a confidante of the late A. Amirthalingham, was made the General Secretary of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchchi, after the demise of Arunasalam Thankathurai from Muthur, who was at that time the Parliamentarian from the Trincomalee electoral district.

But the President of the ITAK Avarangal Sinnathurai who was at that time living with his family in London, opposed LTTE making use of the party founded by S.J.V. Chelvanayakam. When I contacted him he told me that he was planning file a court action against the move.
Subsequently, by threat and intimidation Tamilselvan managed to coerce Sinnathurai to agree to resign his presidentship and conferred the position to Sampanthan.

2004 Parliamentary Elections

Once the hurdles were cleared, LTTE selected all those they wanted to contest in the parliamentary elections held on 02 April 2004.

At the 2004 Parliamentary elections ITAK, TELO, EPRLF and ACTC and also nearly 10 nominees of the LTTE were elected and the they received 2 seats as bonus and managed to have 22 seats in the 225 unicameral Sri Lankan Parliament.

Following the victory, TNA parliamentarians were summoned to Vanni and Tamilselvan ordered them to keep their mouths shut and open only whenever they were asked to speak. In that meeting R.Sampanthan was made the leader of the parliamentary group of the TNA.

Sampanthan and the 2005 election boycott

Thus Sampanthan was made as the Parliamentary Group Leader and not as leader of the political formation.

Due to the fear of reprisals by the LTTE, other TNA parliamentarians accepted the Group Leadership of Sampanthan – a man who never had any distinction of leading any party in his political career.

In 2005 Presidential election, LTTE decided to boycott the Presidential election. According to their decision, Tamilselvan summoned the TNA parliamentarians and told them of their decision to boycott the presidential election. He told the TNA parliamentarians that if they are not happy with the decision of the LTTE to boycott the election, they may leave the TNA and go. However, the LTTE’s diktat was accepted without any whimper or resentment.

The Parliamentary Group Leader Sampanthan accepted the diktat even without any mumblings. Sampanthan who joined the TNA by stabbing Anandsangaree in his back kept quiet. He never had the chance of meeting the former LTTE supremo. He was only dealt with by Tamilselvan and later by P.Nadesan who succeeded Tamilselvan.

Parliamentary Group Leader Sampanthan

The LTTE’s intelligence report clearly indicated Sampanthan’s weakness for women, alcohol and money. Sampanthan was well aware that LTTE supremo and Tamilselvan were aware of all his weaknesses.

Earlier on July 29, 1999, a male suicide bomber killed Dr. Neelan Tiruchelvam, vice-president of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) and an internationally recognized Constitutional authority.

Immediately Samapanthan went and prostrated in front President Chandrika Kumaratunga and she provided a bulletproof car, convoy of vehicles and Army commandos’ security.

According to reports available, just after the tsunami in 2004 December, President Chandrika supported Sampanthan to reconstruct his tsunami affected house.

Suddenly it dawned on Sampanthan that after the government wiping the LTTE leader and the cadres, he quietly asserted his position as the group leader to dominate TNA Parliamentarians.

Mavai Senathirajah supported him. The duo, which controlled the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchchi, had more clout over the other TNA Parliamentarians.

Suddenly after LTTE routed, the TNA Parliamentarians felt the void of the powerful LTTE leadership, and they came up with a mantra saying that TNA should remain united. This cry was not to safeguard the Tamils but to safeguard their position.

Sampanthan takes over TNA Leadership

The TNA parliamentarians are of the view until otherwise they don’t take in their hands the issue of ‘Tamil Nationalism’; they have no place in the political arena of the country.

Furthermore, Sampanthan has unwittingly expressed the fear of his uncertain future when he met for the last time Sri Lanka President and the Government delegation. He said whatever the government came forward to offer for the demands of the TNA, the credit would go to Minister Douglas Devananda, Minister Vinayagamurthy Muralitharan alias Karuna Amman, and the Eastern province’s Chief Minister Sivanesathuria Chanthirakanthan alias Pillaiyan and it would only popularize them.

This comment clearly indicated that Sampanthan was only worried about the political future of himself as well as that the TNA Parliamentarians.

Furthermore, in the East a hostile environment prevails and it was not possible for TNA to conduct any propaganda campaign on behalf of the opposition candidate.

Recently intimations were sent in the name of an unknown outfit called Intelligentsia’s (Puththijeevikal) Forum for a conference to discuss about the development of the Trincomalee district at the Trincomalee Town Hall.

It is learnt that less than 100 people gathered and suddenly Sampanthan and others showed up and hastily conducted meeting calling for the support of the Tamils to the retired General Sarath Fonseka.

It is learnt that it has become impossible for the TNA to have any propaganda campaign in the Batticaloa and Amapara districts, as the voters in those two electoral districts were so hostile with the TNA Parliamentarians as they had simply ignored them when LTTE was driven out of the East.

Sri Lanka President invites TNA for talks

Earlier when the humanitarian operation was undertaken by the Sri Lanka Armed forces, when the operation reached its peak and the LTTE cadres were herding the innocent Tamil people towards Mullivaikkal and holding them by force as human shield, except for S. Kanagaratnam, none of the TNA parliamentarians took any interest on the plight of those innocent people.

Almost all the TNA parliamentarians had their families in Tamil Nadu, Australia, Europe, and Canada. What they did was under the pretext of traveling to take up the cases of the innocent Tamil civilians with the international leaders; they spent their time with their wives, children and girlfriends in the foreign countries and enjoyed life.

In February 2009, Asian Tribune in an exclusive interview with President Mahinda Rajapaksha, urged the Sri Lankan President to invite the TNA MPs for a talk on the plight of the Tamil civilians who were held as hostages, as well as human shield by the LTTE.

Sri Lanka President agreed to invite the TNA Parliamentarians and also other Tamil political party leaders for talks. President to call Tamil political parties on road map for political process in Vanni

The Secretary to the President sent out invitation letters to all the 22 MPs of the TNA. Unfortunately none of them turned out for the meeting to speak about the plight of the innocent Tamil civilians, about whom now they have entered into an agreement with the opposition candidate Sarath Fonseka.

Tamil leadership and Sampanthan

Earlier we had able leaders like A. Amirthalingham and internationally recognized academics like Neelan Thiruchelvam as Tamil leaders after 1983.

India and international community respected A. Amirthalingham’s leadership and always invited him for talks.

Unfortunately, at present we have people like Sampanthan, a very arrogant and rude person who is a megalomaniac but was never respected by the international community as well as by India. He used to put up a show (boru show) , but it is a well established fact that he is nothing but a spent force.

All the others, a few of them are just lawyers and others are not worth even mentioning their names.

These are the people who have come forward to exploit the Tamil national sentiments to remain in politics and remain as Members of Parliament.

The TNA leadership by deciding to support the opposition candidate they have clearly proved they are still being staged-managed by the LTTE rump leadership in the West.

This LTTE rump leadership in the West has strictly told the TNA leaders expecially Sampanthan, Mavai Senathirajah and Susil Premachandran to tow in line with Sarath Fonseka to lay the foundation for the stage 2 of the LTTE conflict similar to the JVP’s insurrection. In 1971 JVPs were routed and again they came up second time in 1988 – 1989.

Again Sampanthan unknowingly has fallen into the quicksand and leading the Tamils also for the same – for a second round of a bloody conflict as Sarath Fonseka has agreed to render the maximum support to bring about another war like situation in the country, it is believed.

- Asian Tribune -