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Sri Lankan Tamils issue comes to the fore

	April 27, 2009

With the Sri Lankan forces poised to over-run the small area in which the LTTE rebels have been ensnared, the issue of an Eelam for Tamilian people in that country has become the most significant election issue in Tamil Nadu.



DMK president and State Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi even earlier has been saying that his party is in favour of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka. Now, his main political opponent in the state, Jayalalithaa’s All India Anna DMK has also come out in support of Tamil Eelam. In a major shift from her party’s earlier stand, Jayalalithaa said in Salem on April 25 : “We have been asking for a ceasefire. It is not enough. Sri Lankan Tamils should get justice and lead a normal life. They should get all rights that are available to the Sinhalese. For this, a separate Eelam is the only way.”



Jayalalithaa said that if her party and the alliance she leads in the state win the elections, she would work for creation of a Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka. Observers say that with the Sri Lankan forces closing in on the Tamil Tigers, political parties in Tamil Nadu are raising the pitch apparently worried about the electoral fallout of the humanitarian crisis in the war zone.



Jayalalithaa described as a drama and eyewash the visit of Indian special envoys, National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon to Sri Lanka. She said they had pressed for stopping of hostilities, but nothing has happened since their return.



Earlier in the week, Jayalalithaa urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram to reply to Chief Minister Karunanidhi’s observations that LTTE chief Prabhakaran was not a terrorist and was a friend.



She said: ‘‘Why is Sonia Gandhi silent? Is she not the Congress president? Is she not the widow of Rajiv Gandhi? Is she not the chairperson of UPA?”



Jayalalithaa termed Karunanidhi’s statement as “irresponsible, coming from a man who is the Chief Minister of a state.’’



Karunanidhi backtracks



Within a few hours of Jayalalithaa’s statement, Karunanidhi clarified that his remark on a television channel claiming that Prabhakaran was his good friend and that the LTTE was not a terrorist outfit, had been quoted out of context. He said: ‘‘No one can forget the gruesome killing of Rajiv Gandhi. My views were not telecast in their totality by the television channel. That may have caused misunderstanding in some quarters.’’



Karunanidhi said: ‘‘All I said was that when the LTTE began it was not a terrorist organization. It started as a liberation struggle on behalf of Sri Lanka’s Tamils. I had added that later some people in the LTTE had indeed become terrorists.’’



Karunanidhi’s remarks had created a furore since the LTTE is a banned organization in India and Prabhakaran is wanted for Rajiv Gandhi’s killing.



Congress pushes for ceasefire



Taking note of the anger in Tamil Nadu over the Sri Lankan Government offensive against the LTTE, the Congress has called for a ceasefire by Colombo. Party spokesperson Jayanti Natrajan said : ‘‘We are demanding cessation of hostilities.’’



A Congress statement issued on April 22 said: ‘‘The Congress calls upon the Sri Lankan government to declare a ceasefire so that the humanitarian crisis can be resolved in a demonstrable way.’’



There was a general strike called by the DMK in Tamil Nadu on April 23 in protest against the killing of innocent Tamils in Sri Lanka.



CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat has called on the Union Government to impress upon the Sri Lankan Government to immediately stop military operations in a situation where the lives of thousands of civilians were at stake.



Refugees start trickling into India



Refugees from the Sri Lankan war zone have started landing on the Tamil Nadu coast. According to officials in Chennai, three to four refugees from Sri Lanka are reaching Tamil Nadu shores daily. Most of them are from the war zone.