It was no easy task to compile this. Only a handful ordinary citizens would have the expertise to search for this information online, or elsewhere. There is no easy record retrieval of the President’s attendance in Parliament on its official website. But what is immediately obvious when the scattered media reports are taken as a whole is that the 18th Amendment has in no way at all contributed to a more accountable Executive. ”

Excerpt from ‘Months after the 18th Amendment: Is the Executive really more accountable to Parliament?’, http://groundviews.org/2011/06/11/months-after-the-18th-amendment-is-the-executive-really-more-accountable-to-parliament/

Just a statement won’t do.

Now we know he refused to take part in the constitution making process when Ranil appointed him! A sure sign of inability to take leadership.

May be the government is using this short-sighted racially motivated conduct of some MPs (and its natural opposition) to scuttle the political solution process. At the end of it whose fault is that there is no political solution? The people who refused to work for it when given the chance.

Remember the ruling party, its supporters and the majority don’t need a political solution. They are happy the way things are. They are dragging their feet and pretend to do something just to show India and the international community that they are doing something and the others are obstructing it.

I do not believe in a Tamil state, province or nation in the island of Sri Lanka. Coexistence is the ONLY solution in my view. You may disagree but this is what most Sri Lankans (irrespective of race) want. I support the US, UK, Australian, Norwegian, French, German, Swiss solution to their Tamil people’s problems not the Indian model of racial demarcations.

It’s all very well not to have ethnic-based parties in a nation where the Constitution promises equal rights and opportunities even to minorities. In a situation of political, economic and socio-cultural domination by the majority community, it is nothing short of imperialism to ask minority parties to dismantle. That Sumanthiran can, given all that has happened post-war in neglect of the Tamil community, still imagine himself as acting for wider national rather than communal interests is to me an amazing accomplishment. Think of the abyss of distrust he had to cross.

The TNA is trying to save democracy–its ethnic-based ideology is pro-democracy. You can’t have a democratic nation by asking minorities to shelf their demand for equal rights when democracy is precisely about giving rights to all, including the minorities (and not just of race or ethnicity), and checking majority power. That is how democracy is different from all other political systems.

It’s a pipe dream to think that a non-ethnic opposition alliance in Sri Lanka involving the surrender of minority interests will open avenues for the Tamil national question. From where would the compulsion to do so arise? A certain culture needs to be in place first, one where minority rights are accepted as a national ethical obligation by politicians. If that culture had been in place in Sri Lanka, the Tamil national question would have been resolved ages ago. As you yourself note, the Tamils can never get the Sinhalese to agree on the Tamil national question. At some level, you probably realise that you are in effect asking minorities to give up their interests for the sake, not of the country but for the majority community.

1. (This might be just a problem only on my end, maybe a browser issue like a cache issue on my side). FYI, right now, the video does not show up in your post, not in my browsers today. (No urgency for ME, since I have accessed and can access the video file itself directly now, anyhow…)

2. Suggestion: on the GV main page, where summaries of all recent posts are to be seen, i wonder if it would attract more attention to these videos, if the video was at the TOP of the post (above the explanatory text), so that then the “preview image” of the video also shows on that main page. Just like part of the PDF document does show up in the “For the record: Full text of Supreme Court judgement on 18th Amendment” post.

Look at the pro-18 camp. It is MULTIETHNIC whereas the anti-18 camp is made up of Tamil-only TNA and Sinhala-only JVP working alone. UNP that is marginally multiethnic avoided it all. This is the best Rajapaksha can hope for. As long as TNA follows its Tamil National ideology and JVP its own communist or whatever ideology and UNP its very own ideology, there will never be a potent opposition to the ruling multiethnic colaition.

TNA’s argument is accept the Tamil national ideology, then we can form a broad multiethnic alliance to counter the erosion of democracy. I tell you it will NEVER happen. Only 4% of voters accept the Tamil National ideology and even Tamils in Colombo, Kandy, Nuwara Eliya, etc. have not accepted it. Muslims didn’t accept it and Sinhalese didn’t. What should happen is these racial ideologies must be dropped to save democracy. Once democracy is safe, we can have any ideology.

If Obama contested from say, African American Party he could NEVER become president no matter how good he is and how true his statements are. In that case he cannot blame the voters and others for not supporting his African American Party (for argument sake) instead of relying fully on his factual and sensible views.

This campaign against the 18th Amendment must not die it should continue to become a mass people’s force that can topple this dictotarial madness. For that to happen, racial demarcations cannot stand in the way. If they do, there will not be any serious mass alliance.

We saw clearly that Tamil-only TNA and Sinhala-only JVP are no match to Rajapaksha’s highly MULTIETHNIC coalition. The score stands at 17 to 161. We can argue over this till cows come home but in the meantime they will pass the 19th, 20th, 21st, etc. amendments. At the end of it Tamil political aspirations will become permanantly unattainable democractically. And JVP and UNP will also find it very difficult.

So this is why Sumanthiran should come out of his Tamil National Alliance ideology and form a broad alliance to save democracy. Their only aim should be to save democracy and NO conditions and NO racial names. If that is the case no one will be against it. There is no sense in being the best player in a team that always loses.

Similarly JVP should also drop its extreme ideology and come forward to save democracy with NO conditions. Same goes for the UNP and civil organisations.

But I don’t see this happening. TNA will say they will work tirelessly to restore democracy and form a broad alliance if they can agree on the Tamil National question. This will NEVEr happen. If we wait for it we lose both democracy and the avenues available to solve the Tamil National question.

If you only look at individual performance of Sumanthiran during the debate for the 18th Amendment, that was brilliant although he and his team was routed. But that brilliance is going to die then and there unless they can overcome self imposed racial demarcations. Unfortunately for him and the rest of the TNA it is not likely to happen.