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By Veergathy Thanabalasingham
Colombo, February 12: It seems that Jaffna District parliamentarian Mathiaparanam Abraham Sumanthiran has done an introspection as to why he was defeated in the election for the leadership of the Ilankai Thamizharasu Katchi (ITAK)
Recently, he appeared on a YouTube channel called ‘Neetrikkan’ anchored by the editor of the ‘Tamilan ‘ daily R.Sivarajah and expressed his views.
At the inception of the interview, Sumanthiran gave a detailed account of the controversy surrounding the process followed to select office bearers of the party including the General Secretary at a meeting of the General Council on 27 January at Trincomalee.
When asked what were the reasons for the fierce opposition within the party despite him having worked earnestly for the ITAK for more than a decade, Sumanthiran said that no one can have a different opinion on the work he has done for the party. He said that during negotiations with the government and the international community to find a political solution to the ethnic problem, he cannot express certain emotions openly.
“If there had been a way to find a solution to the problem, the position of the Tamil people would have certainly been different. But when there is no solution to the problem and there is no hope for a political settlement in the foreseeable future, our people may feel that they should at least be able to express their feelings. People may have had an anxiety that I am not the kind to express their emotions. That might be one of the reasons for my defeat,” Sumanthiran said.
“I think that the Tamil people feel the need to vent their feelings to the South and the outside world in the current situation where there is hope,” he added.
” On my return to Colombo from Trincomalee after the election, the leaders of many political parties in the South expressed surprise about the result of the election. I retorted to them that our people see me as a failed politician because there is no solution to our problem and there is no point negotiating. That is the real situation. I think our people are desperate for someone who at least expresses their feelings to the outside world even if the problem is not resolved. So they have chosen my fellow parliamentarian Shritharan,” Sumanthiran said.
” I am not the one who expresses those feelings. I will not do that in the future to capture positions. It is not my instinct. I have also been striving to achieve the same goal that Shritharan is trying to achieve. I will fully cooperate with him,” explained Sumanthiran.
Finally, he spoke about the ongoing controversy over the selection of the party’s office bearers including the General secretary, pointing out that the outgoing President Mavai Seathirajah said that they could not follow the party’s constitution entirely in handling all the issues. He accused them of showing an inclination to act in violation of the constitution which he claimed he had safeguarded in a court case against it few years back.
A case was filed in the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka in March 2014 by an individual belonging to the majority community from Kelaniya alleging that the ITAK was working to divide the country by calling for a federal system of government. Sumanthiran, a President’s Council himself appeared for the ITAK.
The verdict in the case was delivered on August 4, 2017. In the judgment given by the Supreme Court Bench headed by the then Chief Justice Priyasad Dep, and comprising Justices Upali Abeyratne and Anil Gunaratne, it was stated that calling for a federal system of government did not violate the Sri Lankan constitution or could not be considered as advocating secession.
There is no doubt that it was a landmark judgment in the recent history of Tamil nationalist politics. Sumanthiran’s argument in justifying the ITAK’s constitution was widely regarded as his most valuable contribution to Tamil politics.
In his short political life, Sumanthiran also had to face the bitter experience of all Tamil leaders who tried to find a political solution to the ethnic problem through constitutional making process by engaging in negotiations with governments.
We have a history before us of the deceptive policies and approaches adopted by the governments and the South Sri Lankan polity over the decades that had isolated the Tamil moderate political leaders from their people.
Tamil leaders had been unable to show at least minimal results in the interim period during their talks with governments to justify their engagement and win the trust of the Tamil people.
Therefore, the actions of the governments led to the emergence of political forces with extremist views among the Tamil people. Fifteen years after the end of the civil war, governments’ failure to solve the ethnic problem is the real reason for the re-emergence of hard line nationalists in Tamil politics. It is against this backdrop that Shritharan’s victory and Sumanthiran’s defeat in the election for the leadership of ITAK should be viewed.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who formally opened the new session of Parliament last week and delivered his government’s policy statement did not utter a word about the ethnic problem. The Tamil people and their politicians are very much disappointed by this.
Wickremesinghe had delivered policy statements in Parliament three times since taking office as President. In both previous statements, he had mentioned the need to find a political solution to the problem but this time he maintained a strange silence on it as the national elections are looming.
No one would have forgotten what Wickremasinghe said last year about the political solution. He declared that he would find a solution to this problem before Sri Lanka’s 75th Independence Day. But even after the 76th Independence Day, he hesitates to talk about the issue. There is no doubt that such a situation will certainly lead to the further strengthening of hard line political forces among the Tamils.
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