TNA wants self-determination

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) said in Parliament yesterday that time is ripe for the international community to boldly tell Sri Lanka to accept the internal self-determination rights of the Tamil people if it cannot deliver a political solution.

Tamil leader MP R. Sampanthan who moved an adjournment motion on the North-East situation, said that the Government was committing gradual genocide.

“You are destroying our society, culture and economy,” he said.

“If the Government cannot deliver a political solution, the time has come for Tamil speaking people to go their own way,” he said.

However, Senior Minister and Leader of the House Nimal Siripala de Silva shot back at Mr. Sampanthan saying the latter was making this appeal to the international community at a time when the LTTE was being crushed militarily.

The minister said that the problem should be resolved through democratic institutions and not through bombs and claymore mines.

Today, Mr. Sampanthan talked about self-determination rights for Tamils based on their right to the lands of their historic habitation.

In this manner, people in Akurana will also claim their area as their historic homeland. Our Veddahs in Dambana will make the same claim.

 If we accept this concept Sri Lanka will be divided into at least 25 parts,” he said.

He said that it was the LTTE that had committed ethnic cleansing, by evicting the Muslims from the Jaffna Peninsula.

“The so-called human rights groups did not raise their voices about the massacre of people in Kebitigollewa.

 These organizations compile biased reports to demean Sri Lanka in the eyes of the international community,” he said.