Secession demand, Tamils right until aspirations constitutionalized- NSSP

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 November 2004, 11:33 GMT]
"Tamils have the right to demand a separate State until their aspirations are adequately met, constitutionally entrenched and implemented. If this were done the demand would cease to be valid. It is well known that the Provincial Council system failed, as did all previous attempts at a solution to the Tamil national question since the l950s," said Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP), a pro-peace marxist party, in a media release issued Friday in Colombo.

Dr. Wickramabahu Karunaratna, the leader of the Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP), a pro-peace marxist group

"Marxists recognize the right to self-determination as a most desirable device for unifying different nationalities as a mechanism to provide adequate regional autonomy. The right to secede is acceptable as a last option," said media release articulating NSSP's position on right to self-determination.

NSSP said that what is needed, first and foremost, in the current context is a resumption of talks between the Govt. of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the LTTE.

NSSP media release said that although "the overwhelming expectation of the North East Tamils who looked forward for rehabilitation and reconstruction, was for an Interim administration to deliver their immediate needs," the LTTE did not push for it in the early round of talks because of "reservations expressed on behalf of the GoSL and of the Muslims."

But the alternative instrument devised at the talks, "the Sub-committee for Immediate Humanitarian and Rehabilitation Needs (SIHRN), woefully failed to deliver the goods, and there was widespread disillusionment among the war devastated North East Tamils that the peace dividend did not reach them. The North East remained, and in fact still largely remains, the "blasted landscape," NSSP said of the LTTE's approach, and subsequent failure of joint mechanisms, to deliver humanitarian assistance to the war affected NorthEast.

"Sri Lanka's President Chandrika Kumaratunga stated recently that she is prepared to start talks with the LTTE, based on the ISGA proposals, provided LTTE leader Pirapaharan officially declares that he is prepared for a solution within the parameters of what came to be known as the Oslo Declaration which in fact is the Statement dated 5.12.02 by the Norwegian Govt, signifying agreement by parties concerned to "explore a political solution founded on internal self-determination in the areas of historical habitation of Tamil speaking people, based on a federal structure within a united Sri Lanka acceptable to all communities.

"Obviously then both the Govt. of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the LTTE have subscribed to this position, which has been supplemented by the Tokyo Declaration as clarified by the then Govt’s Chief Negotiator, Prof.G.L. Peiris, M.P," NSSP's media release said.