This is the message that the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is said to have conveyed to the Sri Lankan President who was on his first state visit to India in two years. He is understood to have reiterated that Colombo must finalise a road map with the TNA. The sooner it does the better it would be for all sides.
Agreed Colombo has engaged in serious dialogue with the TNA but the time has come to convert it into a programme of action. Any how, the key for a breakthrough is not with TNA but with President Rajapalse, and he should move quickly to achieve progress. More over, today President Rajapakse and his party are in a position from where they can initiate bold moves that would change the political discourse. One bold step will be giving more teeth to the provincial governments, which will benefit not only the Tamil majority Northern Province but also the UPFA ruled provinces. Fact of the matter is that though Sri Lanka is a unitary state, it cannot afford to have weak provinces. The governor as the agent of the Centre can always guide and advise the Provinces and even goad them to follow the line decreed from Colombo.
Rajapakse government has held elections in three provinces. In the Northern Province it has not ordered the election, saying electoral rolls need revision. Voters list should not be such a formidable problem. Summary revision can be taken up pending a thorough revision. More over if old rolls were good enough for the Presidential election the same rolls topped up by summary revision could have met the requirement. The point is that if there is a will there is always a way.
Media reports said India’s vote at the UNHRC against Sri Lanka did not come up in the delegation-level talks. Whether the issue figured when Rajapakse met Manmohan Singh is not germane to the Lankan Tamil story. Rajapakse has already gone to the town telling that he had felt let down in Geneva. His interviews to Indian papers show he doesn’t accept the factors that India says had prompted its vote.
On its part, India is not hiding any longer its unhappiness with the slow progress on the ethnic Tamil issue, and the obfuscation aimed at pushing the issue to back burner as long as possible. India is also not hiding the fact that its patience has worn thin over. The ethnic war was won three years ago. And three years is a long period in politics to do some thing.
The TNA made this very point on September 20 when its leaders met UNHRC officials who visited Colombo at the invitation of Sri Lanka government. R. Sampanthan led the delegation that included Mavai Senathirajah, Suresh Premachandran, Selvam Adaikalanathan, P Selvarajah and M. A. Sumanthiran. The question they raised was: is the government unequivocally committed to the implementation of the recommendations of Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) and the UNHRC resolution adopted in March, 2012.
Their discussions also covered matters related to land issues involving high security zones, particularly Valikamam and Sampur. Also raised were the problem of displaced people who have not able to resettle because their land has been taken over for military purposes, Sumanthiran told the Daily Mirror.
TNA is worried that there is a deliberate attempt to change the demography of the Tamil North. Lands being taken over ostensibly for development purposes are being used to settle persons of the majority community while cultural and religious places being denied to the Tamil people.
Sumanthiran punctured the official claim that the northern economy has increased by 22 percent. “For this calculation, the government has included the salaries paid to around 100,000 soldiers stationed in the north and the east”.
