By Shahaen Vishak

After the repeated postponement of a meeting scheduled to be held between President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) since June 2021, the President finally committed to meet all 10 MPs under the TNA, including TNA Leader R. Sampanthan, TNA Spokesperson M.A. Sumanthiran PC, and Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) MP Shanakiyan Rasamanickam, at the Presidential Secretariat last Tuesday (15).

However, this meeting was once again postponed to this Friday (25), with the protest staged by the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) outside the Presidential Secretariat being the ostensible reason for this. The Morning spoke to MP Shanakiyan Rasamanickam for some insight into the issues the TNA aims to bring up at this meeting, and how the TNA perceives, and plans to respond to, its repeated postponement.

Below are excerpts from the interview:

Q:
What are the issues you are trying to bring up at this meeting?

A;

The biggest issue we face in the North and East is regarding land-related matters. For example, there are people in the Batticaloa District who are young entrepreneurs or farmers that don’t even have a plot of land. However, people from other districts are being given land in the Batticaloa District with no due process being followed.

The Mahaweli scheme stipulates that the land should be distributed according to the national ethnic ratio. Under this, Tamils and Muslims should get 25% of land under the Mahaweli scheme, but up to date, only 4% of land has been allocated to them. Even if all the remaining land under the Mahaweli scheme is given to Tamils and Muslims, it still may not account for this 25% allocation. But while this is not happening, the governors of the Eastern Province have brought in people from other districts – friends or loyal supporters, possibly – and given them land without the consent of even the Mahaweli Authority. So these people are just encroaching on land and clearing forests in the Batticaloa District. This is one form of land-grabbing by the Government.

Then there are various plots of land on which people have cultivated crops for many years but don’t have permits or deeds. The Forest Department has now taken control of these lands, and has stopped these people from cultivating on them. It’s understandable that there should be an expansion of forest lands, but these are lands where cultivation has been happening for hundreds of years, over generations.

On the other hand, the State Minister in charge of Forest Affairs at the time, Wimalaweera Dissanayake, had cleared forest land and settled 500 people from various other districts in the Batticaloa District. He was the Chief Guest at an event held to mark the clearing of shrub forest and allocate nearly two to three acres each to 500-600 people for cashew cultivation. But when we checked, the officials told us they had no records of such land allocation, so we realised this had not been legally granted. Thus, people are basically just encroaching these lands and the Government is overlooking the issue.

Q;
Why are you approaching the President directly in this regard, as opposed to dealing with the situations that arise with the relevant officials at the local government level?

A;

We have tried approaching officials from the level of grama sevaka up to the President, including talking to Cabinet Ministers, and bringing up the issue at Consultative Committee meetings and District Committee meetings, but to no avail. All these matters come up because land issues should be a devolved subject, decided by the provincial councils or the relevant regional administration, but because there are no provincial councils now, the Government is not dealing with the matter.

My argument is that if you take 500 people from Hambantota or Monaragala and give them land in Batticaloa, then why don’t you take 500 people from Batticaloa and give them land in those places? I’m not being a racist and saying that outside people shouldn’t be given land in Batticaloa, but there are people in Batticaloa District that have applied for land and are waiting for many years. These people’s legal requests have not been considered, while people are illegally being granted land instead by the state administration.

If it was just people encroaching the land, it would be a matter that could be handled by the Police, but this is a larger matter. To handle all of these issues, the only solution is a political one. This is what we’ve been wanting to talk to the President about, instead of protesting on the road or screaming in Parliament. If he had given us the time, we could have discussed these matters, but he is yet to do so.

Q;
Do you feel the President is sincere in calling for this meeting with the TNA, considering it has been postponed several times?

A;

Since the President was elected, we have written letters to him telling him the concerns of the Tamil people. The TNA represents the entire North and East, because we comprise MPs in every district in the North and East. Naturally, people’s representation is made through Parliament, so what we say reflects the sentiment of all our people.

MP Sampanthan first wrote to the President, urging him to take this opportunity to listen to the grievances of the Tamils in this country, especially those in the North and East. However, although MP Sampanthan is one of the most senior politicians in South Asia, the President did not have the courtesy to reply to his letter to even acknowledge that he had received it.
Afterwards, other TNA MPs also wrote to the President many times, but only received the standard response that everyone gets – that the matter would be followed up on soon. As an MP, one would expect that writing to the President about issues, such as specific instances of environmental pollution or land matters, would result in the President allocating time to individually meet the MP, or at least asking a co-ordinating secretary to be briefed on the issue, as opposed to receiving just a standard response. In my case, I walked up to the President at a Defence Consultative Committee meeting and personally handed over a letter regarding some serious environmental issues, but I did not get an acknowledgement for that either.

After the meeting was finally agreed upon, it kept being postponed. In February, we staged a protest outside the Presidential Secretariat, but on that day the President refused to meet us, as he had gone to inspect a railway yard in Ratmalana. However, before we went to the Presidential Secretariat, we confirmed with our sources that he would be present that day, so we could hand over a letter with our concerns and call for a meeting; there would be no point in us being there if he was unavailable. But instead of meeting us, for whatever reason, he had left for the inspection. It was afterwards that we protested outside, as it was clear that he did not want to listen to our concerns.

This is a serious issue, where the President is ignoring the entire Tamil population of the North and East. We are elected representatives of the public, and we are here to speak on their behalf; so if the President doesn’t want to meet us, then it means he doesn’t want to listen to the Tamil people.
We were finally informed that the President would meet us on 15 March. Even on that morning, at 7.30 a.m., we were assured that the meeting would be held at 3 p.m., despite the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) protest planned for the same day, as the necessary arrangements had been made. I even asked a co-ordinating official whether the meeting would be possible in light of the protest, and I was told that it would not be an issue.

It was with this assurance that several of us MPs came to Colombo from as far away as Batticaloa, Kilinochchi, Ampara, Mannar, Jaffna, and Mullaitivu, only to be told that the meeting was not to be held that day. So we had already known the protest would be happening when the meeting was scheduled, and assumed that since the President was keen on meeting us, some alternative arrangements would be made accordingly.

Thus, we now have a sense that the President is not very interested in listening to the issues of the Tamil people. He said it himself, that he is the President of the Sinhala-Buddhist majority of this country. If that’s the case, he should tell us if he doesn’t want the Tamil people to be part of this country, and we will decide what to do afterwards. If he is going to be the President, then he should treat all citizens equally, and address our concerns; at the least, we should hold this meeting.

But these actions just go to show the lack of political will to resolve these issues with the Tamil politicians. They would rather go ahead with destroying this country and economy to ensure their own survival. But without resolving the Tamil issue, there is no way forward for Sri Lanka. If a certain group of people are left marginalised, there is no way that the country will prosper.
He should understand that these 10 MPs trying to meet him represent nearly two million people, so by not letting them air their concerns, he is denying nearly two million people a voice.

Q;
Supposing the President again postpones the meeting scheduled for 25 March, will the TNA approach Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin seeking his intervention in the matter?

;A;

No, we can’t go to Tamil Nadu, because we are Sri Lankans at the end of the day. Even if he cancels the meeting, we will keep trying to meet him. Our party has been genuinely trying to solve these issues through dialogue with several successive governments, and we have seen them fall back on their word repeatedly, but we will keep pushing. Of course, if the President postpones the meeting again, we will come out and openly say that he is ignoring us and denying us this opportunity, but as Sri Lankan citizens, we have no need to involve India in this situation. This issue is something we should resolve domestically.

Q;
The SJB had informed the TNA that it is opposed to the Prevention of Terrorism Act’s (PTA) latest amendments. Has the SJB, as the main Opposition, been sensitive to the needs of the Tamil people, and has it supported the TNA’s efforts?

A;

Our position is that the PTA should be repealed, and the SJB was of a similar view, asking for legislation based on human rights and justice. We welcome their position; it’s a good thing. The TNA backed the Opposition leader at the Presidential Election, so we have a healthy relationship with them. We will keep holding discussions towards pushing our issues with them, but since there is no election coming up right now, we are not working as closely together currently.

Courtesy:The Morning