Vaiko demands referendum for Tamils in Sri Lanka

Reuters: Leader of India’s regional Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), Vaiko demanded a referendum for the Sri Lankan Tamils in view of the alleged war crimes committed on them.

While addressing a function in India’s southern Bangalore city on 6 April, Vaiko called for an independent international investigation into the war crimes allegations and also demanded that the Tamils in Sri Lanka should have a referendum to decide their fates.

“There should be an independent international investigation about the crime of genocide committed by the Sri Lankan racist government of Mahinda Rajapaksa and the settlements of the army, and police who are deployed in the traditionally Tamil areas should be thrown out. They should be sent out.

“There should be a referendum that should be conducted under the supervision of United Nations and in that referendum, the modality should be worked out so that the Tamils living all over the world should be allowed to exercise their franchise in their respective countries where they are living,” he said.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa is under fire from the UN Human Rights Council, which adopted a United States-sponsored resolution last year, demanding that Sri Lanka ensure Government troops who committed war crimes during the final stages of its war against Tamil rebels are brought to justice.

The Sri Lankan army executed the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) Chief Prabhakaran’s young son Balachandran in cold blood in 2009.

Vaiko also accused India’s Congress party-led federal United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of being a co-accused in the war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan Government.

“I do accuse the UPA government of Dr. Manmohan Singh and directed by Sonia Gandhi as a co-accused in the crime of genocide because they provided all logistic support, military support and they supplied other military weapons enabling the Sri Lankan Government to commit the crime of genocide,” he said.

Tens of thousands of civilians were killed in 2009, in the final months of a war that began in 1983, a UN panel said, as government troops advanced on the last stronghold of the rebels fighting for an independent homeland.

The UN panel said it had “credible allegations” that both Sri Lankan troops and the Tamil Tigers carried out atrocities and war crimes, and singled out the government for most of the responsibility for the deaths. Sri Lanka has come under international pressure to bring to book those accused of war crimes and boost efforts to reconcile a polarised country.

A UN report last year cited an earlier estimate of 40,000 civilians killed in crossfire between Government and rebel forces after they were trapped on a sliver of coastline, and cited credible information that over 70,000 remained ‘unaccounted for’.

The UN report reinvigorated calls from human rights groups and expatriate ethnic Tamils for an international investigation into suspected war crimes towards the end of the conflict with the LTTE.