Dr Sudath Gunasekara President Senior Citizens Movement Mahanuwara I5.4.20I5

This is the best Sinhala proverb that came to my mind when I read the following two news items.

I want all my readers to ‘read between lines’ when you read them so that you could visualize the imminent dangers that are emerging in the political map of this country under the present hotch-potch political environment.

First I reproduce here a joint request handed over to Ranil Wickramasinha by TNA and SLMC asking him to refrain from carrying out the delimitation of electoral boundaries in the Northern Province for the next 10 years, until displaced people are resettled.

Sunday Times

TNA, SLMC want delimitation put off for ten years

By Chris Kamalendran

View(s): 453

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) want the Government to refrain from carrying out the delimitation of electoral boundaries in the Northern Province for the next 10 years, until displaced people are resettled.

The proposal was put forward by a TNA delegation led by R. Sampanthan and SLMC leader Rauf Hakeem when they met Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Friday at the Parliament Complex. The proposal was made on the

grounds that the displaced people need to be given time to return to their original lands. They include people who had fled the country due to the conflict.

TNA Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran who was in the delegation said that, if the delimitation process was carried out in the North now, the representation of Tamil members in Parliament would be reduced. The TNA urged the Government to expedite the release of lands demarcated as ‘High Security Zones’ enabling the speedy return of the displaced people.

An SLMC spokesman said resettlement of the displaced Muslims in the north and east should be completed before any delimitation work was carried out.

Resettlement and Rehabilitation Minister D.M. Swaminathan said the TNA had made the request as the resettlement process was still continuing. He said the Government was expediting the release of the lands in the north, without compromising national security. The minister said that on Friday about 500 more acres of lands were released to the original owners in the Walikamam North area. Earlier another 500 acres of lands from the previous high security zones were released to the owners.

The minister said the Government would release to the original land owners more than 750 acres in Sampur soon after the New Year

I have no doubts Sirisena-Ranil-Chandrika troika will definitely agree if they remain in power, which of course is very unlikely.

Next I give a  memorandum handed over to the Com Elections by IOTs asking for multimember constitutions almost for all Districts and Municipal Council areas.

Indian express

Indian Origin Tamils Seek Multi-Member Constituencies

By P.K.Balachandran

Published: 11th April 2015 06:58 PM

Last Updated: 11th April 2015 06:58 PM

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COLOMBO:  Since Sri Lanka is seriously thinking of going in for major electoral reforms to replace the present District-wise Proportional Representation System (DPRS) with a mix of the DPRS and the First Past the Post System (FPPS), Indian Origin Tamils  (IOTs) have submitted proposals to safeguard their interest.

The problems of the IOTs, who number 1.2 million in Lanka’s total population of 20.7 million, are different from those of the Sri Lankan Tamils. While the Sri Lankan Tamils live in virtually exclusive areas in the North and East, the IOTs live in Sinhalese majority areas. Given the fact that voting in Lanka is on ethnic lines, the IOTs will find it difficult to get elected under the FPPS system. Under the FPPS, the MP will always be a Sinhalese.

Therefore, the IOTs are asking for Multi-Member Constituencies (MMC) to get a fair representation under the FPPS.

Multi-Member Constituencies are most essential to ease the fears of the most vulnerable ethnic minorities,” a memorandum presented to the Commissioner of Elections by the Democratic Peoples’ Front (DPF), a party representing the  IOTs, said.

The memorandum said that many urban constituencies will have to be turned into MMCs since urban areas are typically multi-ethnic. A good section of the IOTs are urbanized. As regards Sinhalese-majority rural constituencies, those divisions in which Tamil is allowed to be used as an additional official language, should have MMCs, the memorandum said.

The DPF wants constituency delimitation to be done on the basis of population figures as per the last census in 2011, and not on the voter list.

For a fair representation in seats filled under the DPRS, the party wants the administrative districts of Colombo, Gampaha, Kalutara, Ratnapura, Kandy, Galle and Kurunegala to be divided into two for electoral purposes. The IOTs are significant minorities in these districts.

The DPF considers it fair if the IOTs are able to elect five MPs from Nuwara Eliya district; three from Colombo; two each from Badulla and Kandy; and one each from Ratnapura and Gampaha; making a total of 14 MPs in a House of .

The curse and the problem with these so-called IOT people for all intent and purposes is that they always think they are Indians and not Sri Lankans. This communal duplicity is the bane of this crisis. They should at least now accept that they are only slaves brought by the British from India to work on their tea estates and dump behind on some one else’s land when they left. Sri Lankan governments rightly or wrongly have allowed them to stay here on humanitarian grounds. But the fact remains that they are strangers in someone else’s country over which absolutely they have no claim. If they want to be here then they should get absorbed in to the main stream and behave like Sri Lankans and not like Indians, as they persistently continue to do.

Leaving their attitude apart I put the whole blame on our idiotic and unpatriotic politicians who have failed miserably to stand up on their feet for the rights of their country and people for 67 years where as Burma got sorted out this problem immediately after independence. At least had our Governments pursued with Nehru-Kotalawala Agreement of 1953 today we would not have had people who talk nonsense like this on our soil. Of all the post Independent Governments the present regime is the worst and weakest on this issue. That is why these so-called IOTs and the like put forward this kind of mad claims and why these ‘goats show their beards’ to our asinine political barbers.

What should the sons of the soil do to stop this trend and save their country? At least at the next general election all should get together and chase out the power hungry, self seeking unpatriotic politicians and elect a set of patriotic statesmen who could rescue this nation from the present quagmire. The crying need for a long term strategic plan to protect the motherland and the economy is crucial now than ever before.

Concurrently the Government must see that all minorities accept that this is the historical Homeland of the Sinhala Nation as it had been so at least from the 6^th Century BC and they constitute only minorities. Ask minorities to renounce double allegiance. Let the whole world be told that this is the only Sinhala Buddhist country in the whole world (Listen to Netaniyavu’t address to the US Congress last week). Also if Tamils living in any part of Sri Lanka needs a traditional Tamil Homeland and an EELAM let them go back to Tamilnadu, the Traditional and Historical Home land of the Tamils, without wasting their time to conquer this land of the Sinhalese by force. Also both Tamils and Muslims should be clearly told not to try to assert as separate Nations within Sri Lana. Let the Estate Tamils be told they have to accept Nehru-Kotalawala 1953 pact and they should be ready to integrate with the natives and cease to be Indians any longer, if they need to remain on this soil as citizens, like the Karave and Salagama people have done in the past.

Also ask India to mind its own business without meddling with Sri Lanka. She should renounce Kautilyan tactics and stop meddling with our internal matters. All Tamils who live in Sri Lanka are Sri Lankan citizens and if India does not want them to be here we will be only too happy to gift them so that she can take them and settle them in Tamilnadu by making it the Tamill EELAM so that they can always get their vote. The so called Tamil Diaspora who craves for an EELAM also can then go there.

Because the main factor behind the strength, arrogance and stubbornness in the claims for disproportional rights and separation, of all Tamils in Sri Lanka is India. If India could be convinced that what she has done and continues to do is wrong in all respects and they must stop treating Sri Lankan Tamils as their concern, then that will put an end to the Tamil problem in Sri Lanka. Once Indian interests are diffused, and then removing the second and third factors viz Diaspora and Western nations stalking behind the Sri Lankan problem will be much easier. Once the Sri Lankan Tamils know that they do not have these external supports then a natural tendency will emerge to reduce their stubbornness, arrogance and their claims for disproportional rights and separation as then they realize that they are on a weaker wicket. That will create a better environment and provide an entry point for us to get them convinced to accept the reality.  It is high time that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs works out a strategic programme on these lines.