Sumanthiran comes forward to save Rajapaksa from international investigations

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 February 2012, 01:47 GMT]
A few days left to the UNHRC sessions in Geneva, the Colombo-based nominated parliamentarian of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Mr. M.A. Sumanthiran, has come out with a statement to BBC Sinhala Service on Tuesday, bailing out the regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa. “TNA backs a domestic process to implement the LLRC recommendations. We should ask for an international probe only after a failure of that,” Sumanthiran said. “It is a step-by-step process. It will take time. They took 30 years in Cambodia,” the BBC further cited the MP, who welcomed the ‘US pressure’ on the SL government. Meanwhile, the visiting US Under Secretary General of State, Maria Otero, told reporters in Colombo on Monday that the US will support a resolution at the UNHRC providing an opportunity for Sri Lanka to implement the LLRC recommendations.

The US position publicly declared now tally with what some US officials told the civil groups in Jaffna a few days ago.

The stands of a revisionist section in the TNA leadership and that of Selvarasa Pathmathan (KP) finally come to a meeting point in facilitating escape avenues to the genocidal regime of Rajapaksa, without any answers to the political fundamentals of the struggle of Eezham Tamils, thanks to the manoeuvrings of India and the USA that were in complicity with the regime in the conduct of the war, political observers in the island said.

Coming out with open deception on the plight of former members and cadres of the LTTE, the TNA leader R. Sampanthan on Wednesday praised Colombo’s ‘rehabilitation’ of them as excellent.

“We are glad that a large number of young men and women have been rehabilitated and reintegrated into society. The rehabilitation programme has gone on very well,” Mr. Sampanthan was cited as saying by the Daily Mirror.

The US Assistant Secretary of State, Robert Blake, long associated with the war and its aftermath, accompanied Maria Otero to Colombo.

The Press Trust of India (PTI) cited Blake saying that the USA will back a resolution ‘against’ Sri Lanka to implement the LLRC recommendations to advance reconciliation and to address the accountability, human rights and democracy concerns.

However, the proposal of the USA is not much different from the stand taken earlier by India, China and Russia in the international forums.

Media campaigns talking of Indo-US pressure and Rajapaksa government cracking down are a farce to deceive the Tamils, the political observers commented.

The proposed US move in the UNHRC in Geneva neither addresses due justice for the crimes of the genocidal war nor does justice to the post-war plight of Eezham Tamils. ‘Reconciliation’, step-by-step accountability, the deception of individual human rights and ‘democracy’ are not the issues of priority for Eezham Tamils compared to land-grab, colonisation, militarisation, denial of the right to self-determination and the denial of the right to develop themselves, faced by Eezham Tamils as a nation in the island. What international forum is going to address these issues is their question.

Pre-emption, hijack and precaution against Eezham Tamils coming out with any mass agitation to check the political hoodwink are being carried out in full swing in various ways from ministries to the activities of foundations in many countries in the West, diaspora Tamil circles pointed out.

Meanwhile, TNA parliamentarian Sumanthiran’s statement is an open rebuttal to the unanimous resolution of the Tamil Nadu State Assembly and to the struggling spirit of the people of Tamil Nadu supporting the cause of the Eezham Tamils, the political observers in the island further said.

Coming out with a detailed analysis, the TNA had earlier rejected the LLRC report.

Mahinda Rajapaksa and the forces that were in complicity with him have again achieved their ‘victory’ even before the commencement of the UNHRC sessions in Geneva.

Such victories become repeatedly possible for the unjust, due to a failure in the identification of the adversaries, lack of strategy and lack of coordinated political action on the part of the Tamils, was the feeling in the diaspora Tamil circles, who lament at not finding political leaders but only agents.