I thought their recent election victory was, as the SL regime had declared, after the LTTE was no more. No??

Then let the two sides sit down and see if they can agree to a way of co-existence.

If the two sides cannot agree the UN should be aasked to resolve it.

Though I agree with Justitia, an anti cross over law cannot prevent a MP voting with the govt or opposition and providing a two third majority by staying on as an independent and voting against the party from which he/she got elected (thereby subverting the mandate given by the electors).

However an MP should not be free to go against the will of the electors who elected him/her.

Perhaps the Manifesto that was publicised before an election could be given legal standing by making it a contractual obligation given to the electors and the flouting of the manifesto could be made a ground to unseating an MP by any aggrieved elector through the courts.

This will not hinder a conscience vote but the MP may have to stand a by election if unseated by courts by going against the declared manifesto.

The publishing of a manifesto could be made mandatory to stand for election either from a party or as an independent.

The pace and path towards almost everything Sinhala by the virulent Sinhala polity was only checkmated, at least to a certain extent, because the Tamils decided to take up arms. Whatever handshakes achieved through the B-C and D-C pacts came to nothing and it reaffirmed the general thinking of the Tamils that only the road to sensible and drastic posturing could extract anything at all from the Sinhalese and whatever substantial had been offered to the Tamils was largely during the “war” period. May be Prabhakaran was not as astute politically and he blew his chances, while he commanded military strength, to move the pawns in a way to squeeze the Sinhala polity like chanakya but his single-minded track of deploying his vastly over-estimated military strength dissipated as a myth. Even as his commanders like Karuna had suggested to take the battle to Colombo and the Sinhala heartland as a strategically defensive mechanism rather than the intermittent bombing had to be called because of the CFA. Such a move was precipitated to justify the indiscriminate aerial bombing by the SL regime.

Even today, the Rajapaksa regime is sieving through the 13A and dishing out duplicitous LLRC like report is not because of any pressure from the local Tamils. Rather the diaspora, Tamilnadu, India and the international pressure is keeping the aspirations of the Tamils alive. There is no such thing as sincerity among the general Sinhala polity. I gave up this belief when thousands were herded into internment camps and treated like “animals” within barbed wires with guns pointed at them. I was more than hopeful that the country can really move ahead/forward but that’s not what the regime had in mind. It was as early as that I knew that unless there is pressure beyond the borders, the Sinhala polity will always be what they are – deceitful and repressive. You play your game and we will play ours. Do you honestly believe Dayan that Tamils will get a fair deal ever without external pressure? Guys like GL Peiris are nothing but fools who still want us to believe in home-grown solutions. If history is anything, surely I am not buying into any of the Sinhalas’ “overtures”. We are very, very determined that as long as the regime persists with denying the Tamils a fair deal, Sri Lanka is not going to be a peaceful country.

Chelvanayagam came to the conclusion that there is no future for Tamil autonomy via the majority Sinhalese consent. Ranil wants to share power with Rajapaksas like some of those who defected UNP until the next election. If he fails there will be more defection or split of the UNP. Rajapaksa will determine UNP’s future. Rajapasas are very good at dividing and control. The Tamils have no future with either the SLFP and/or UNP through a Unitary State. The 2/3rd Majority Sinhalese will never abandon their Unitary stand on their own accord.

From what I can assess of the Tamils desire to preserve their rights is summed up by the statements of four great men.

“One man with courage is a majority”
– Thomas Jefferson

“The cost of freedom is always high, but our people always paid it. One
path we shall never choose, is the path of surrender, or submission.”
– John F Kennedy (35th US President)

“You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

To achieve Self-government the Tamils may have to wait for a long time. But then they have waited for more than 300 years living and making the best use of the years under the Portuguese, Dutch and the British without loosing their language and identity.