Saravanapavan makes case for 13 Amendment

Following are excerpts from the speech made by TNA MP E. Saravanapavan during the debate on 2013 Budget on Monday:

The bloodshed of the Tamils and their sustained struggles made the Indian government pressurise the Sri Lankan Government to bring about the 13th Amendment, in the hope that it would to some extent fulfil the legitimate aspiration of the Tamils whose struggle was and is for their fundamental rights to be restored to them.

The repudiation of the Banda Selva pact and the un-ceremonial repudiation of the Silva Dudley pact brought home to the Tamils a message that the Sinhala leaders were not and are not inclined to consider and implement the proposal of an actual devolution of powers.

 The 13th Amendment was brought with the support, the blessing and the instigation of the central Government of India. Now when the senior ministers of the Sri Lankan Government and the Defence Secretary speak about the repeal, nay the withdrawal of the 13th Amendment which doesn’t promise the Tamils, but offers only some solutions to the perpetuated problem for the solution of which an armed struggle was launched several thousands of lives and the properties of Tamils were wantonly destroyed.

Now the Tamil nation stands denuded of their rights while the reckless destructions of lives and properties bear no fruit save successive disappointments, despair and despondency of what the future of the Tamil nation would be.

History has it on record that it was India which was behind by the Tamil youths and that it is India which was behind the total destruction of the armed struggle now. When the ministers belonging to the Sri Lanka Government: Wimal Weerawansa, Champika Ranawaka, and others speak of the immediate withdrawal of the 13th Amendment, the Indian government has a discreet silence over this issue.

Such a silence makes the Tamils have the hunch that it is India which is behind this move also.

It is a suspicion which nobody can claim unfair or unreasonable because the Tamils have an excruciating experience of what India did and continues to do determined to thwart their struggle for their rights as we are the protagonists of our own cause, which is the restoration of our rights and cunningly denied to us.

 We do feel that we have the right to ask the central Government of India to disabuse our minds of the suspicion that we have. By doing things in an honest manner without playing the dual role of speaking of a solution to the ethnic issue, while patting on the shoulders of those in power in Sri Lanka to carry on what they have decided to do whether their moves militate against the legitimate aspiration of the Tamils or not.

We genuinely expect the central Government of India to play a decisive role in a bid to find an amicable and enduring solution to the most vexed ethnic issue without any further dilly-dallying in the process.

Today, Wimal Veerawansa and Champika Ranawaka resort to legal action to get the 13th Amendment annulled. In the same manner the amalgamation of the North and East was dismantled by the former Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva a few years back.