{"id":135247,"date":"2014-12-20T11:27:48","date_gmt":"2014-12-20T05:57:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=135247"},"modified":"2014-12-26T11:20:57","modified_gmt":"2014-12-26T05:50:57","slug":"why-should-the-tamil-speaking-minorities-vote-for-maithripala-the-progressive-forum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/why-should-the-tamil-speaking-minorities-vote-for-maithripala-the-progressive-forum\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Should The Tamil Speaking Minorities Vote For Maithripala? \u2013 The Progressive Forum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Progressive Forum in Colombo has highlighted the importance of Tamil speaking minorities recognizing the crucial nature of the upcoming Presidential elections and on why they should vote for the common Opposition candidate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Maithripala+Sirisena&amp;x=7&amp;y=4\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Maithripala Sirisena<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_135248\" style=\"width: 319px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Selvy-Thiruchandran.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-135248\" class=\"size-full wp-image-135248\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Selvy-Thiruchandran.jpg\" alt=\"Dr. Selvy Thiruchandran\" width=\"309\" height=\"163\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Selvy-Thiruchandran.jpg 309w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Selvy-Thiruchandran-300x158.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 309px) 100vw, 309px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-135248\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Selvy Thiruchandran<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Issuing a statement in light of the upcoming elections, the Joint Convener of the PF, Dr. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Selvy+Thiruchandran&amp;x=11&amp;y=0\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Selvy Thiruchandran<\/span><\/a> has noted that in working towards a political solution for the Tamil speaking minorities through a devolution-based solution within a united Sri Lanka, it is important to refrain from isolating and focusing on a single race based issue.<\/p>\n<p>It has listed the following points as some of the reasons that should be considered by the Tamil speaking minorities, to vote in favour of the common candidate:<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It would help gain allies in the push to achieve main political goals of the Present Tamil leadership to gain a maximum possible devolution within a united Sri Lanka<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Proposals of the common Opposition movement to promote a more democratic parliament, independent judiciary and a less corrupt administration are of considerable significance to Tamil speaking minorities as well<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The incumbent President\u2019s failure to limit the loss of life at the war<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Abuse of captured combatants and non-armed civilian employees of the LTTE who surrendered to the Army<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Government condoning anti-Muslim behavior<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Need for the Tamil speaking people to gain the support and appreciation of leaders within the majority community to pursue a single-country political solution and permanent reconciliation<\/p>\n<p>The PF in Colombo has therefore stated that all Tamil speaking minorities should actively engage in all crucial national issues common to all people of Sri Lanka and consider the upcoming presidential polls as one such challenge.<\/p>\n<p>We publish below the statement in full:<\/p>\n<p>The progressive forum, Colombo, has issued the following statement on the Presidential Election. Date: December 17, 2014<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Why Tamil speaking people should vote for the Common Opposition\u00a0Candidate Mr.M.Srisena?1) The main political goals of the present Tamil leadership (i.e.TNA) are broadly to seek\u00a0 maximum possible devolution within a\u00a0\u00a0 united Sri Lanka, using soft power that includes lobbying, discussions and persuasion, legal challenges both within and outside Sri Lanka, etc; and to bring about relief to those seriously affected by the War. To achieve these goals needs allies most importantly\u00a0 \u00a0within the South of the country and our Parliament. By standing with the opposition in this election,\u00a0\u00a0 it is possible to gain new allies who may offer conditional support to the Tamils in their struggle.\n<p>2) The proposals of the opposition to promote a more democratic parliament, an independent judiciary and a less\u00a0corrupt\u00a0administration\u00a0are not without considerable significance to Tamils. Consider the judiciary. Key decisions of the Judiciary in the past have gone against the aspirations of the Tamils. The verdicts to separate\u00a0the North and East under provincial administration, and to concentrate regional land management powers in the Colombo administration are two important issues in this context. The Judiciary\u2019s failure to lend a hand to defend the Tamils against needless mass killings especially in the final phase of the war, disappearances, illegal and undocumented \u00a0 imprisonment, torture , rape and killing of detainees etc have seriously hurt the Tamils. It is reasonable to expect a fully independent judiciary\u00a0not to succumb to political and chauvinist pressures.<\/p>\n<p>3) Consider corruption. Large scale state sector corruption in the nation affects all people including ordinary people in the North and East. Nearly a third of all funds allocated for projects to the North are being lost due to wastage and\/or corruption. In the recent period,\u00a0\u00a0 losses due to corruption in the North amount to billions of rupees that represent several times the annual development budget of the Northern Provincial Council. Even with the\u00a0\u00a0 limited self governance and greatly restricted political freedom, Jaffna would receive greater economic benefits from comparable funds allocated under a clean administration in Colombo.<\/p>\n<p>4) The Tamil\u00a0voters are obliged to examine the suitability of each candidate before deciding to vote or abstain. Several\u00a0\u00a0 issues reflect\u00a0adversely on the\u00a0incumbent. There was broad consensus especially among the majority Sinhala\u00a0community that the LTTE should be militarily crushed. The Government could have won the war with minimal\u00a0civilian casualties. The civilian President as\u00a0the Supreme Commander of the armed force was required to ensure unarmed civilians are protected from collateral damage as much as possible. He did not. Where collateral civilian deaths should have been limited to the thousands, actual loss of life ended up in tens of thousands due to the President\u2019s personal failure.<\/p>\n<p>5) The post war treatment of the captured \u00a0 combatants and non-armed civilian employees of the LTTE who surrendered to the Army after the end of the war,\u00a0 including murder and rape, detention beyond reasonable periods,\u00a0 refusal to release information on persons detained, and whether named persons were alive or dead\u00a0 , are all serious crimes; these were committed not\u00a0 to ensure security of the state but as dictated by a political agenda, ultimately focused on personal and family gains, and nothing less. The incumbent president should have given instructions to protect the dignity and rights of individuals who were under his sanctuary. He did not. Considering all the above, the Tamils are obliged to vote him out by supporting the main opposition candidate. They cannot abstain.<\/p>\n<p>6) It is important to recognise that a majority of Muslim leaders were with the Government in recent years, some holding cabinet positions, and others receiving various perks. Yet ordinary Muslim\u00a0people including women and children were subjected to abuse in various forms, physical threats and violence, and forced to live in fear and in indignity for short periods repeatedly. Probably there were some powerful people within the Government who condoned anti-Muslim behaviour. The Muslims should take whatever steps required to eliminate this threat from becoming permanent. As one of the necessary steps, they have to vote out the incumbent President.<\/p>\n<p>7) In order to pursue a single country political solution and permanent reconciliation with the majority using soft power approaches, the Tamil speaking people need to gain the appreciation\u00a0and support of leaders within the majority community. The incumbent President did have a period of over five years to negotiate with the minorities, work out a settlement\u00a0and mobilise\u00a0the support of the Sinhala people for such a settlement. Instead, his Government pursued\u00a0largely a racist agenda, ignoring the 13th Amendment, recommendations of the LLRC, the Tissa Vitharane Majority Report, and the stated wishes of the regional and international communities. However, many of his political associates\u00a0focused on making gains perpetuating and exploiting the racial divisions\u00a0in the country. The Common Opposition has one or two leaders, though they too fought the LTTE with heavy weapons and caused \u00a0 much civilian death and damage, yet, they had at some times in their past, e.g. in 1994 or 2002,\u00a0 argued\u00a0 forcefully and converted a majority of the Sinhala people to\u00a0 accommodate minority grievances. There is little evidence that the present incumbent will ever mobilise the majority community for genuine\u00a0 \u00a0 national reconciliation and to satisfy the minorities.<\/p>\n<p>8) The incumbent had an opportunity to work towards genuine reconciliation by accommodating at least some of the requests of the Chief Minister of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC). He promised some positive measures but none were implemented. Apparently these measures were blocked by the supporters of the President\u2019s in the North\u00a0who were totally rejected by the people at the last provincial elections. The present administration in Colombo is an obstacle to higher level functioning of the NPC. Th e present impasse inhibits \u00a0 large private capital\u00a0 \u00a0 inflow into the North\u00a0from other parts of Sri Lanka, foreign countries and the Sri Lankan Diaspora. The majority of the population in the North remain economically disadvantaged.<\/p>\n<p>9) The Tamil speaking minorities should recognise that working towards a devolution based solution within a united Sri Lanka is not best served by isolating and focusing on this single race based issue. The Tamil leadership should actively engage in all crucial national issues that are common to all our people. The current Presidential election is one such challenge. The Rajapakse administration can indeed claim credit on several fronts. Among these are their refusal to accept traditional IMF\u00a0 sponsored austerity measures,\u00a0 a minimum commitment to welfare measures, active\u00a0\u00a0 promotion of foreign employment and infrastructure development with foreign assistance Yet overall, corruption and systemic exploitation of race for political gains, ignoring the huge economic losses from continuing racial conflicts, have wiped out any net flow of benefits to ordinary people. Unprecedented corruption has damaged the economic foundation for stabilising prices and pushed up the cost of living beyond endurance levels. The prospects of sharp rises in per capita incomes would be held back by the punitive national debt linked in part to corruption. The minority communities should look beyond the immediate problems of their communities, and consider national issues as well. It will be very clear that they should vote out the incumbent by casting their ballot for the Common Opposition Candidate.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":135248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1,6969,2375],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-news","category-popular-stories","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why Should The Tamil Speaking Minorities Vote For Maithripala? \u2013 The Progressive Forum - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/why-should-the-tamil-speaking-minorities-vote-for-maithripala-the-progressive-forum\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Should The Tamil Speaking Minorities Vote For Maithripala? 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