Tamils must return a full TNA team to parliament!

Many Tamils in Sri Lanka understand the position of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leaders aiming to settle outstanding issues with the Government to enable their people to get on with life in a United Sri Lanka. Yet there are many Tamil Political parties differ with the TNA leaders as they want to go beyond what the rulers willing to agree by seeking the merger of north and east provinces.

But Muslims as the other minorities in the east do not want these two provinces merged, having lost trust of the politics of Tamils, with the onslaught of the civil-war in the ’80s. Therefore it is prudent to settle with two separate provinces, but resolve with the rulers land and police powers for all provinces. As these two subjects are still not devolved to the provinces as per the 13th amendment to the constitution.

Further, there are many issues on the concurrent list, which were not assigned yet since the hasty preparation of the accord in 1987. The half backed 13th Amendment needs to be reviewed well to exclude any concurrent subjects, as they only cause conflicts and confusion.

Most of all there needs to a mindset change from all stakeholders to get the 13th amendment right once and for all. Only then the two provinces will be able to function with Tamil as the official language. It would then automatically mean, that the other seven provinces will function with Sinhala as the official language.

That means in addition to every citizens learning in the mother tongue, all must get proficient in the other two languages if they are to live or work in any corner of this tiny island.

Last but not least are outstanding war related issues of the Tamils that are still waiting for resolutions.

This is what the leaders of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) are planning to get resolved with the rulers. It is a slow process, must not be made any more difficult by those with other views on either side of the divide harping at the TNA! It is clear the Tamils must return a full team of TNA representatives back to parliament.

There are few representatives in the 2020 General Election TNA List of Candidates, who are not worthy of a return to parliament due to their poor performance. But the inclusion was unavoidable as automatic inclusion is available for former representatives. In this scenario it is the Tamil people as voters, who must weed them out on Election Day and place instead new replacements, for there are many talented new comers to choose.

Most importantly, Tamils must not get misled by TNA’s opponents, who are throwing baseless allegations at Election campaigns on the senior members, who have been ethical and fully professional in addition to being very productive. As the saying goes the trees that bears fruits gets stoned most, for without them TNA will be at a loss.

The reality is to overcome their long standing issues with the rulers, the Tamils must think out of box to select a quality candidate from the ballot paper and cast their valuable vote at the polls; no matter which political party the chosen candidate represent in the TNA alliance!

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Northern Breeze on Jun 28, 2020 at 2:54 pm

Kumar wrote:
TNA is now exposed – they are concerned only about their power and positin. They did nothing for the last 11 years.
Can you mention one at least?

My response was as follows:

Will do, it is not proper to expect a non-armed civilian group like TNA or any other non-armed groups to fill the vacuum left behind by the Tamil youths. For it was the power of arms thatmade rulers to consider issues of the Tamil minorities, that resulted with the 13th amendment to the constitution. Yet, it was not drafted well and when made as law, was not implemented properly by the state.That was the position until the guns of the Tamil youths were silenced in 2009.

Would have accepted if this comment came from a non Tamil; for they believed TNA was formed by the Tamil armed youths; sad you made it. For we all know TNA was formed by civil minded groups to fill the vacuum to give a voice for Tamils in parliament. Of course, it was done with the full consent of the Tamil armed youths, otherwise it was total effort of many civil groups.

TNA had a slow start they went about their task and got where they are in the period you mentioned. Considering the negativity on Tamils prevailing from the ruling side, that was rejoicing the war victory, it would have been or even worse had other Tamil counterparts been in TNA’s seat. Also coming after 2009, the rulers were not in a receptive mood for TNA, or any other Tamil political parties. We saw how the Northern Province Council was manipulated only to end as a failure, in spite of TNA picking a well known legal personality as the CM.

We Tamils are always good at finding fault with anyone trying to lead the way; in fact this was a continuous battle for the Tamil youths facing, which I appreciated while living in Jaffna in the ’80’s.

Considering all these limitations, my view is TNA did perform well and would have done more had all TNA parlimentarians worked as a team. That is why stressed the need to weed out the bad eggs and replace them with new talents.

Good Day,

Thamby Ramar

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