{"id":99019,"date":"2013-08-06T19:41:01","date_gmt":"2013-08-06T14:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=99019"},"modified":"2013-08-11T00:07:59","modified_gmt":"2013-08-10T18:37:59","slug":"sri-lanka-and-tamil-eelam-vis-a-vis-timor-leste-liberation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/sri-lanka-and-tamil-eelam-vis-a-vis-timor-leste-liberation\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka And Tamil Eelam Vis-\u00e0-vis Timor Leste Liberation"},"content":{"rendered":"

By G K Nathan<\/a><\/span> –<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Dr. G K Nathan<\/p><\/div>\n

Tamil Eelam (North East Sri Lanka) is the homeland of Tamils of Sri Lanka<\/a><\/span> from time immemorial with definable sovereign identity, which was acknowledged even during the colonial rule, first by the Portuguese followed by the Dutch and finally by the British.\u00a0 All three Colonial powers who occupied the Island in part or as a whole respected the differences of Sinhala and Tamil sovereignties and administered the areas separately for over three centuries. Only in 1833, the British for administrative convenience brought the peoples together and unified the whole Island and divided the Island into five provinces. But, recognized the differences between the two Nations; the North and the East were combined as one of the five provinces and named as \u201cTamil speaking\u201d areas and the other four provinces as \u201cSinhala speaking\u201d areas which were demarcated and shown in the first official survey map issued by the British. The five provinces were later divided into nine provinces, two of which Northern and Eastern formed majority Tamil speaking provinces, while the other seven became majority Sinhala speaking provinces. Ignoring the historical facts that two Nations existed, prior to and during the colonial era, a unitary constitution was promulgated at the time of Independence in 1948, which failed to meet the need of multilingual, multiethnic and multireligious country. This act sowed the seed of Sinhala-Tamil conflict and Britain has moral responsibility for the sorry saga and political uncertainties in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

Successive Sinhala political leaders, instead of finding unity in diversity by sharing power with all peoples, advocated and promoted Sinhala Buddhist<\/a><\/span> parochialism in Sri Lanka at the expense of rights of minority groups, using the power of a majority in a unitary constitution. Religious propitiation led to the rise of Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism and rise of extreme groups with tacit approval of politicians who exploited this development to come to power, which is occurring even today.\u00a0 Now Muslims have become victims of the same forces attacking Mosques and their business establishments. \u00a0Deprivation of rights of minority groups started with passing of \u201cSinhala only bill\u201d and giving Buddhism the foremost place at the expense of equality enjoyed by all other religions: Hinduism, Islam and Christianity in the 1948 constitution, which led to Buddhist Monks (Sangha) influencing the political process at the cost of harmony in the country and Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike<\/a><\/span> was murdered in 1958 by a Buddhist Monk for declaring to recognize the rights of Tamil speaking people. \u00a0Eelam Tamils demand for recognition of their rights with peaceful protest evolved into military confrontation that led to the first Internationally initiated peace process and the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord<\/a><\/span> of 1987, which was signed between President of Sri Lanka J R Jayawardene<\/a><\/span> and Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi, in which North East Sri Lanka was recognized as the homeland of Eelam Tamils. Unfortunately, predisposition of President J R Jayawardene with respect to Tamils and what he said, at the time of Island wide pogrom against Tamils in \u201cBlack July 1983\u201d:\u00a0 \u201cI am not worried about the opinion of the Jaffna people… now we cannot think of them, not about their lives or their opinion… the more you put pressure in the north, the happier the Sinhala people will be here… Really, if I starve the Tamils out, the Sinhala people will be happy\u201d<\/em> \u2013 \u2018Daily Telegraph\u2019, the July 1983; did not augur well for the implementation of the accord and it remains unfulfilled, to date.<\/em> \u2018The Economist\u2019 in August 1983 in an article titled \u2018Sri Lanka Puts a Torch to its Future\u2019 said \u00a0that \u201cThese two weeks of terror will cripple Sri Lanka materially for years, but the damage to the national psyche may be even longer-lasting. \u00a0A separatist movement can sometimes be stamped out by determined repression. Two alienated communities cannot be welded back together by similar means.\u201d<\/em> True to the words of \u2018The Economist\u2019, for more than two and a half decades, the successive Sinhala leaders failed to implement the accord and to devolve power to Eelam Tamils<\/a><\/span>. The willingness to share power was thwarted by the message spread by Sinhala Buddhist Chauvinists that Sri Lanka is a \u201cSinhala Buddhist country\u201d and the seed of dissension between the Nations continued to grow, while the Sinhala Buddhist moderates remained silent.<\/p>\n

The final outcome in Sri Lanka will be determined by the forces of moderation rising against the forces of extremism to find an equitable outcome, which constitutionally recognizes everyone\u2019s rights. It is up to Sinhala and Tamil Nations in the Sri Lanka to emulate, Australia or Canada with about the same size of population as in Sri Lanka, where the states\/provinces have the right to self-determination which has strengthened and united the people of Australia and Canada. Canadian French speaking Quebec Province held \u201csovereignty referendum\u201d twice, in 1980 and 1995 both times it was rejected by the people, which demonstrates that the fear about \u201cright to self-determination\u201d is unfounded, in the contrary it strengthen a country\u2019s democratic credentials. As members of Commonwealth of Nations gather in Sri Lanka for CHOGM2013<\/a><\/span>, later this year, giving considerations to constitutional structure of Canada or Australia will disprove the conclusion drawn by \u2018The Economist\u2019.\u00a0 The past experience is a warning to all moderate people of Sri Lanka, that the time is running out and unless new steps are taken to reverse the current trend of polarization, the future looks bleak with inevitable International intervention leading to division of the country, which has happened in the past and may happen in the future too.<\/p>\n

De-facto Tamil Eelam and International Intervention<\/strong><\/p>\n

Contrary to facts that Sri Lanka is a multilingual, multiethnic and multireligious and adverse actions against minority groups by first and successive regimes of Sinhala Buddhist majority, led to start of Eelam Tamils\u2019 non violent struggles for defending their rights soon after the Independence of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) in 1948. Actions which affected the unity of the country are:<\/p>\n