Why the London meeting is so important to Sri Lanka?
L. Vijayanathan
During the Presidential election at the beginning of last January, the current President did not utter a word regarding the ethnic problem of the Tamils or the solution to it, till elections were concluded and he was elected president. The Tamil parties which had supported him said that the reason for that is that, if he overtly say anything like that it would had been favourable to racist forces and they added that this is also the reason them declaring their support at the last moment.
When such a situation is prevailing in Sri Lanka, when it is in a precarious position of meeting an election at any time, if the new Sri Lankan regime, had come forward to have a secret meeting with the Tamil Diaspora ,knowing very well that could turn into a fatal wedge for their regime, then it shows that Sri Lanka had been trapped in a deadly problem and in trying come out of it.
It is reported that the Sri Lankan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mangala Samaraweera, a representative of former President of Sri Lanka, Chandrika Bandaranayake Kumaranathunge, the former Minister of Norway and the Norwegian Peace Envoy Eric Solheim, Martyn Desinger of the Foreign Ministry of Switzerland, representatives of the In Transformative Initiative ( ITI) of South Africa, the spokesman of the Global Tamil Forum, Suren Surendiran , and Dr. Ramanan , a senior member of Norwegian Council of Eelam Tamils and Global Tamil Forum with TNA parliamentarian Sumanthiran, participated in this meeting.
When elaborating about the meeting, Sumanthiran and Suren Surendran had told in an interview with a TV service that, this meeting was exclusively for discussing the solutions to the immediate problems confronting the Tamil people in North and East. Sumanthiran had said in this interview that, this meeting should had been an un-announced meeting and Suren Surendran for his part had said that , the previous meetings held in Singapore were to discuss about how the Constitution of Sri Lanka should be formulated.
What should be noted here is that will the Sri Lankan Government come forward at a time of impending elections, to discuss the day to day problems face by the Tamil People of North and East, with foreign diplomats and still worse, with the representatives of a Proscribed Diaspora Organization? How could have the government expected this meeting to be secret, especially when it is held in London where a large number of Diaspora Tamils are domiciled? This new Government had not solved even one of the day to day problems of the Tamil People within its 100-day program. Then why the hell, such a meeting was necessary for it, right at the end of its life span.
If the Government really wanted to discuss about the day to day problems, it should have discussed them with the people of North and East who face these problems directly, or the Provincial Councils elected by them. Or if it really wanted to join with Diaspora organizations in doing some help to North and Eastern people, it should have joined hands with Diaspora Organizations which are powerful and efficient. The why did the government had selected the Global Tamil Forum which is feckless to collect at least a few thousand pounds for the people of North and East from the Tamil Diaspora and which is run by a few individuals?
Or even if we accept it as a secret meeting not to discuss the building up of mutual trust between the societies but to be a meeting held with the interest of the Tamil people in view, as sumanthiran and surendiran had declared in the press release after the end of the meeting, Why they have undertook such a meeting in a situation of not knowing which party will come to power in the Sinhala country?
These questions have inherent replies. Election victory of the government will depend on how it will handle the UN investigations. The Government is moving its pawns with this in mind.
One of the strategies of the government in blunting out the war crimes investigation report and the subsequent actions that should be taken is teaming with some Tamil Diaspora organizations. Another strategy is to try to distract the Diaspora organization from their vigorous campaigns aimed at the Human Rights Commission. The Government had handled this London meeting with the help of some foreign diplomats as an activity of the above two strategies. In this, some of us had acted like “Viddyl Poochikal” (small insects getting drawn towards the lamp’s flame) or to be precise, “Karunas”.