President Rajapakse will give nothing to Tamils – Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 August 2009, 06:49 GMT]
“Tamils should be vigilant of Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse’s intentions. He says that there is no minority race in the country but only a majority race. It is clear that his intention is to assimilate the Tamil race into the Majority Sinhala race in Sri Lanka,” Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Jaffna district parliamentarian, told TamilNet Saturday in an interview in Jaffna.

“Mr. Rajapakse spoke of 13th Amendment before he waged the war on Vanni and during the later stage of the war he spoke of 13 ‘double plus’. Now he says that he is going to offer a political solution to the ethnic issue,” Gajendrakumar said.

“But in a recent interview to an Indian website he said that power devolution is a long term issue and the proposal now would create tumult in the country. We are certain that Mahinda thinks that the Tamils need not be given any solution,” he said.

“India openly assured us that the Vanni people will be resettled within 180 days but we knew that Sri Lanka will not keep its promises. Now it is forced to speak of resettlement due to International pressure. But some persons here say that action is being taken to resettle the Vanni displaced people because they had urged the President to do so,” Gajendrakumar said.

“The real intention of Mr Rajapakse is to crush the Tamil struggle, Tamil Nationalism and leave the Tamils with nothing. The government tries to present a picture of Tamils wishing to live along with the Sinhalese, and the UPFA uses this now as a deplorable election gimmick, he further said.

“Mahinda had made Karuna the SLFP organizer for the East and now he will make Minister Douglas Devananda its organizer for the North. He thinks that there will be no minority issue in the country after that,” he told TamilNet.

“Lifting the existing restrictions has been made election propaganda. The restrictions were imposed saying that they were necessary to destroy the Liberation Tigers. Why should they continue even after destroying the Tigers as the government claims?” Gajendrakumar asked.

“Buddhist monks support the government. Wimal Weerawanse’s JVP party supports it. Besides, around 30 UNP parliamentarians support the government. In this context why can’t the government bring about a political solution?” he further questioned.

“It is obvious that Mr. Rajapakse does not wish to give anything to the Tamils,” Gajendrakumar said.

On being asked whether TNA would consider if Mahinda Rajapakse proposes a political solution, Gajendrakumar said that they would explore the possibilities of considering the proposal if and when put forward by the ruling party.