Tamil Parties to reach common policy

The Tamil political parties, both within the fold of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and outside, have decided to agree to a common policy on the political solution to the national question, informed sources said yesterday.

This decision was arrived at a meeting convened by northern civil society movements with TNA National List MP M.A. Sumanthiran, Tamil People’s Liberation Front leader Gajendra Kumar Ponnambalam and civil society activist K. Gurubaran appointed to work out the new policy.  

At the Mannar meeting last week, civil society activists mooted the idea to form a Tamil National Council (TNC). However, Daily Mirror learns that TNA leader R. Sampanthan flatly rejected the idea.

Almost all the Tamil parties in the North have sought a power sharing arrangement based on a federal structure from successive governments.  With the Northern Provincial Council elections as a focal point, northern civil society groups have attempted to bring about unity among the constituent parties of the TNA. Among them, Ilankai Tamil Arachu Kachchi (ITAK) led by Mr. Sampanthan had talks with Tamil Elam Liberation Organization (TELO) recently and reached a preliminary understanding on the composition of the proposed high command when registering the TNA as a separate political party at the Elections Department .

The proposed high command will consist of 11 members from ITAK, four each from TELO and Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) and two each from People’s Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) and Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF). (Kelum Bandara)