History to abet 'structural genocide'

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 November 2008, 12:39 GMT]
The Colombo government at the height of its agenda for 'structural genocide' of Tamils, considered removing a chapter on the Kingdom of Jaffna in the history textbooks of the school children in Sri Lanka. However, to an opposing question by a JVP member in the Sri Lankan Parliament, the Minister of Education replied on Friday that they had dropped that plan. "The Colombo government has every justification to remove the Tamil Kingdom of Jaffna from the history of Sri Lanka if it wants to concede that Sri Lanka doesn't include the Tamil regions," commented Selvam Adaikkalanathan, the Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian of Vanni.

Sri Lankan Education Minister Susil Permajayantha admitted in the Sri Lankan parliament Friday that there was a move to remove the chapter on the Kingdom of Jaffna from the history text book for grade eight, when JVP parliamentarian Bimal Ratanaike registered his opposition for the proposed removal by saying that the chapter would not be a block to the 'Pooneryn victory' and a 'forward march by the Sri Lanka Army to reach Ki'linochchi.'

The JVP parliamentarian said that Jaffna Kingdom has been accepted by historians as true fact and that the JVP was opposed to the removal of the chapter.

"If the Kingdom of Jaffna had not been recorded by the Portuguese who conquered it in 1618, the Sinhala chauvinism wouldn't have hesitated to completely wipe out the memory of it," Mr. Adaikkalanathan further said.

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