Tamils cannot be divided and ruled -TNA

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 July 2004, 08:31 GMT]
"The Sri Lankan state and military are using armed groups to divide and rule Tamil society in Batticaloa. They did it in the past. My people will never fall prey to the machinations of divisive forces because they have made immense sacrifices for the Tamil cause", said Mr. Senathirajah Jeyanandamoorthy, Tamil National Alliance MP for Batticaloa, speaking at a press conference by TNA regarding the current situation in the east.

"I spoke against the killings in Batticaloa, against the involvement of the military intelligence in backing the killers. Last night Police raided the house in which I was staying in Colombo. This is intimidation," the MP said.

The other TNA MPs from the Batticaloa and Amparai districts asserted that they will take forward the Tamil national mandate given by their people at the last general elections.

Ms. Thangeswari Kathiraman, TNA MP for Batticaloa, said she worked at the grass roots level to clarify the political situation and to address development issues affecting the backwaters of my district.

"There are reports in the press that the Tigers are occupying Trincomalee. There is nothing to occupy in Trincomalee because it is part of our homeland," said Mr. Eelaventhan, TNA national list MP.

"No one can divide and rule our people. Tamils will pay any price to defeat divisive forces. We strongly suspect that the Sri Lanka military intelligence was behind the recent killings in east. The bogey of regionalism has been raised from time to time to divide the Tamil people. But there is no history that it ever won," said Mr. Selvam Adaikalanathan, TNA MP for Vanni.

"I am a person from Batticaloa. But the people of the Vanni have elected me as their MP. This shows that our people are not swayed by regionalism," said Mr. Sivanathan Kishore, TNA MP for Vanni.

"All the post independence constitutions of Sri Lanka were made without our consent. There have been many attempts in the past to divide Tamil society. In the beginning it was said that Thanthai Selva (founder of the Federal Party) was christian. Then they tried to split our society on the caste issue. All these attempts failed. Regionalism too failed to divide Tamil society. We will win if the Sri Lankan state does not give us the Interim Self Governing Authority because then we would establish a separate state. We will win if we get the ISGA. Either way we would win", said Mr. M.K Sivajilingam, TNA MP for Jaffna.




Ms.K.Thangeswary, MP for Batticaloa, , Mr.Pathmanathan, MP for Ampara, and Mr.S.Jeyanandamoorthy, MP for Batticaloa.