Rajapakse rejects Tamil homeland, warns Tigers
21 February 2006
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse last Monday ruled out accepting a Tamil homeland in the island’s north and east, sparking acrimony ahead of crucial talks this week to stabilise the fraying ceasefire.
The LTTE reacted angrily to the President’s comments, dismissing them as ‘childish’ and said that a Tamil homeland was one of the foundations of any solution to Sri Lanka’s protracted conflict.
The LTTE however did not insist on independence, but on self-determination. But the LTTE warned that if Rajapske persisted with his stance it would have “no alternative other than to endeavour hard to respond effectively to the Tamil call for self rule.”
“Mahinda Rajapaksa’s statement seems to us very childish and not with the ground reality,” the head of the LTTE’s Political Wing, Mr. S. P. Tamilselvan told Reuters on Thursday.
“Any solution to the Tamil national problem should involve the concept of a Tamil homeland, nationhood and the right of self determination and provide the people with a dignified solution,” he said.
He was adding his comments to a formal LTTE criticism of comments President Rajapakse had made Monday in an interview t Reuters ahead of upcoming talks with the Tigers in Switzerland to avoid a slide back to war.
“If all those elements are implemented, then we can address the question of whether it is a separate state or a devolved concept,” Tamilselvan said.
Rajapakse had been preoccupied by the idea of Tamil independence in his interview to Reuters.
“There’s only one country, we can share power. Not a separate state. That idea must be taken off ... it is completely out,” he insisted.
“This is a small country, where you can’t have two states. I won’t allow the country to be divided,” he added. “You have to give up the concept of having two nations, or two countries ... There is no Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka. There cannot be an Eelam.”
The LTTE did not respond, but the Tamil National Alliance, which swept the Northeast in the April 2004 elections slammed Rajapakse’s rejection of the Tamil homeland.
“We can’t accept any solution without a traditional homeland,” TNA parliamentarian M.K Shivajilingam, told Reuters.
“Without accepting a traditional homeland the talks will collapse and war will resume.”
That issue is a long way off anyway. The Tigers say the February 22-23 talks must focus on implementation of the cease-fire - in particular a clause that stipulates the state must disarm paramilitaries attacking them - which the government argues it has done.
The Geneva talks are seen as a last-ditch opportunity to halt a rash of escalating violence that killed around 200 people in two months and raised the spectre of renewed war.
Some diplomats say the best that can likely be hoped for is mutual trust-building and a commitment for more talks.
Analysts say Rajapakse, who came to power thanks to alliances with hardline nationalist Marxists and Buddhist monks and to a LTTE boycott that torpedoed the chances of his main rival, has shown great restraint in the face of a spate of attacks against the military by suspected Tigers.
“I am a peaceful man. I am not a warmonger,” the 60-year-old father of three said. “For two months I was keeping (the military) on a tight leash.”
“How long can I just keep my eyes closed?
You must never put a government, a leader, and corner him -- push him to the wall. If I am pushed to the wall ...,” he said, suddenly stopping himself. “Let us hope that we will achieve peace.”
The LTTE and the government are still poles apart on core issues such as what degree of power could be devolved to minority Tamils.
Rajapakse says he wants to solve the conflict within a unitary state rather than a federal one, and said he is looking at the United Kingdom’s model of government and devolution.
“Take England ... it is unitary ... That shows that under a unitary government, you can devolve power,” he added. “This will be a new Sri Lankan model ... Both sides will have to sit down and decide what they can give up and what we can give up.”
Rohan Edrisinha of the Centre for Policy Alternatives said the president may be misguided in studying the British model of devolution.
“The British experience is something very different and it might not work in the Sri Lankan context given the distrust and the history that we have,” he told Reuters.
“I feel he is ... groping for something within a unitary framework and at a certain point is going to realise that’s just not going to be feasible.”
https://www.tamilguardian.com/content/rajapakse-rejects-tamil-homeland-warns-tigers
3 years later...
