Sri Lankans must first findout what injustices and wrongs were done to fellow citizens, the Tamils living in the north-east region of the country in the last 75 years, to understand why in the1970s the Tamils demanded for a division of the country. In reality, what the Tamil nation wanted at the time of independence in 1948 was to coexist as two nations in one country, with both nations enjoying own self rule.
It is exactly what they are now asking with ‘an aunotomus region’ of merged North and East provinces to form a federal unit, with the rest of the country of seven provinces merged to form a lager federal unit in the Island.
Sadly, selfish greedy rulers, did not accept this and the rest is now all history, filled with all the miseries of a cruel destructive civil-war that nobody won, where only millions perished.
As the Tamils in North East celebrate their hero’s day with enthusiasm, with the security forces created obstacles, the events are being carried out in the North-Eastern areas despite these obstacles.
Even during the civil-war years such commemorations of the heroes were carried out with much enthusiasm.
And what is needed to complete the commemorations, May 19 of each year should be made a National Day of Remembrance with a public holiday in the North-East as a day for the whole nation to pay respect to victims of this historical calamity, regardless of caste or creed.
The political party leaders representing the North-East Tamil speaking people must insist on this to the front line political leaders craving for power expected to get high in coming months for grabbing political power, with the occurrences of misdeeds, politics related violence and mass cheating. For it’s people’s experience that a political leader who craves for power will not bring the country out of the current mess even if elected to be the next president; if this assumption is true, the country only will become another police state.
When the ruled realize this fact; time will come for all the people in the country to accept the collective governance system of the Tamils to effectively take the region as their nation, with the rest becoming a nation of the Sinhalese forming a United Country!
Northern Breeze 