The Chinese embassy delegation’s recent visit to the North caused many concerns in various quarters, particularly in New Delhi. The Chinese made it clear they are interested in collaboration and infrastructure development in the Northern and Eastern provinces as a development partner along with India.
When Colombo based Sunday times asked what stand the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) was taking on the matter, the party spokesperson M. A. Sumanthiran put it bluntly: “We do not want any Chinese presence in both provinces.”
Last November, the US State Department invited a delegation from the pro-US Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in Sri Lanka for talks with senior officials in Washington.
A delegation from the Global Tamil Forum (GTF), another pro-western outfit, mainly operating from the US, Canada and the UK, was also invited for these discussions.
During their stay in Washington, TNA and GTF representatives also met with senior members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In New York, they talked to the UN representatives of the US, Norway and Irish Republic, among others.
Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan government should present a solution to the issues faced by the Tamil people in the North and the East and the US should be the mediator that studies and approves those solutions, TNA MP M.A. Sumanthiran said on last August addressing the media in Jaffna, before Washington’s invitation.
The TNA leader R. Sampanthan also told US Ambassador Alaina B. Teplitz that the provincial council system was not enough to resolve the issues faced by the Tamils in the North and East and that both provinces should be merged and administered by the Tamil people.
According to the spokesperson, the TNA demands accountability and justice which are alien subjects to the Chinese one-party rule and of course India’s security concerns since it is a regional power, is also a matter to be taken into account.
“What we have to understand is that Sri Lanka is an island located in the Indian Ocean, not in the South China sea,” Mr Sumanthiran said, in a recent public meeting in Jaffna. He was referring to China’s aggressive behaviour of establishing its dominance over the disputed sea territories in that part of the world.
Meanwhile, the TNA informed New Delhi through its channels that China can be kept out of the two provinces only if India intervened or exerted pressure on the Government to ensure an adequate power-sharing mechanism in place with land and Police powers to both provinces in the future. Indeed, the country has become the playground for geopolitical games while ordinary citizens have little say or are mere spectators.
The TNA is now using the Chinese visit to get India to get Sri Lanka to implement Constitutional Amendment 13 plus. What a merry-go-round.
The funniest thing is, Sumanthiran is trying to save the world from China not the Tamils from Sri Lankan government’s structural genocide, who are losing their lands, economy and culture, day by day due to the Sri Lankan government’s diplomatic move with other countries. His statement indicates the TNA’s diplomatic bankruptcy which will severely affect Tamils home land aspiration in the Indian Ocean region, a political analyst told to the QUEST.
