Agreement with Maithiri but not written will be made public: Sumanthiran

On resolutions to problems, Tamil National Alliance has entered into an agreement that is not written with the new government. But we are in a situation of not able to reveal that. Before the general elections, we will make the details of the agreement public, TNA parliamentary member M.A. Sumanthiran said.

When participating in a public discussion few weeks ago with the concept of “Path to solutions for Tamil people” held at Jaffna Euroville Conference Hall, he said the above. In this public discussion, TNA MP M.A. Sumanthiran, Tamil National People Front leader Gajendirakumar Ponnambalam, NPC opposition leader Thavarajah, Jaffna civil society members, community leaders, religious leaders, business community, representatives of political parties and several others participated.

In this discussion, Sumanthiran said:

UNP and Sri Lanka Independence party both are not in a state that people can believe them. There is a danger that those two parties would bury us. However for resolutions, we have a necessity to talk to them.

We need to analyze about coming out of the problems that we got stuck for more than sixty years. Instead of that, just criticizing the path that we passed in the past years and finding out mistakes in our history waste time and it is not appropriate.

After the war with weapons was silenced in the year 2009, there was a big question mark of how to proceed forward with our political struggle. In other countries when the war with weapons happened, at the same time political war with diplomacy also happened in parallel. But in our arms based war, that was not the case. Even though political parties were there, none of them had did anything remarkable to proceed with actions.

When Sinhalese leaders have suppressed our arms based war, the objective was not to defeat us in the war, but to suppress Tamil people so that they should not ask about their rights again. That was their only objective. In that war, not only LTTE got defeated, but the rights of entire Tamil community in Sri Lanka were defeated.

Those won in the war had celebrated as they liked. They also captured lands of Tamil people while more than 3 lakhs of people were captured and put behind dangerous fences. However our people have been fighting continuously through political war.

Mahinda Rajapaksa who won in the war got defeated in successive elections held by our people saying that won’t let them to be ruled by him. Through this International community has accepted that Rajapaksa is not suitable to rule Tamil people.

First Rajapaksa attacked us, then Muslims and finally his own Sinhalese. In this situation only, he was defeated in the presidential election. We should make use of the opportunities and should not let that to slip. If Rajapaksa’s rule continued, can there be Tamil people living here? Would the political freedom been achieved? Military would have captured remaining lands of Tamils also they would have erased the Tamil nation living here. There was a situation existing to change this urgently.

Our people have voted in large numbers in Presidential election rather in the past election to Northern Province Council. We were voting in an urgent manner to escape from a crisis government. After escaped, we got a boat on 8th January to get a political resolution.

We have got into this boat and if that boat has to reach the other shore, we should not celebrate, play and make noise to drown the boat. I am not saying, not to criticize at all. When mistakes are not properly handled, it has to be pointed out. The same thing, we are following in our new government as well.

There is no political solution for Tamil people existing in Presidential election. But we have been acting only with an aim of getting something we had lost already. We have retrieved some our Tamil people lands back and freeing political prisoners have also become a reality. Further 1000 acres may be released after general election.

The speech of our President on this country’s Independence Day had given us some hope. However we don’t ask people to believe the new government completely. There is a danger of UNP and Sri Lanka Independence Party burying us. But because International community is awake, they may not be able to do that.

We need to use the doors of opportunity with us wisely. On solutions to ethnic problems, there is no difference between the policies of Tamil National People Front and TNA. Only there is a difference in approach. We should keep our spirit and should obtain permanent solution for the problems.