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Vijay pledges to help resolve Sri Lankan national issue
Colombo, Sep.22 (Daily Mirror) - In a move likely to spark controversy, Tamizhaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) chief Vijay on Saturday pledged to intervene in resolving the Sri Lankan Tamil issue. He also praised the late Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, according to Indian media reports.
Many Sri Lankan Tamils, including refugees who fled to India during the civil war, remain a sensitive political issue in Tamil Nadu. The LTTE, banned in India since the 1990s, controlled large parts of Sri Lanka’s north and east for decades in its bid to establish an independent Tamil state, until it was militarily defeated in 2009. Prabhakaran was killed by the Sri Lankan army in the same year.
Addressing a rally in Nagapattinam as part of his campaign in election-bound Tamil Nadu, Vijay reached out to the Sri Lankan Tamil community and described Prabhakaran as “like a mother” to them.
“At the same time, our umbilical-cord kin, the Eelam Tamils—whether in Sri Lanka or anywhere else in the world—are suffering after losing a leader who showed them motherly affection,” Vijay said in a clear reference to Prabhakaran. “It is our duty to raise our voice for them.”
This is not Vijay’s first show of solidarity with Sri Lankan Tamils. In 2008, he joined a hunger strike in Chennai to protest the killing of Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka. However, he stressed that support for the Tamil people should not be mistaken for endorsement of the LTTE, which remains a proscribed organization in India.
Prabhakaran and his intelligence chief, Pottu Amman, were accused of plotting the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, a year after the withdrawal of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) from Sri Lanka. Gandhi was killed by a Sri Lankan Tamil suicide bomber at an election rally near Chennai. Although the LTTE never officially claimed responsibility, India subsequently outlawed the group, which had earlier operated from Tamil Nadu with New Delhi’s tacit support during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Prabhakaran and Pottu Amman were later declared proclaimed offenders.
Alongside his remarks on Prabhakaran, Vijay also pledged to prioritize resolving the longstanding fishermen’s issue between Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. “We are not like the DMK government that writes long letters about the fishermen’s issue and then remains silent. Finding a solution to this problem is one of our key agendas,” he said, criticizing the MK Stalin-led administration.
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