Editorial: Uthayan Daily – 20 January 2006

All of the Tamil Members of Parliament have joined together to demonstrate their strength in the parliament. They have brought to a halt the functioning of the parliament for the whole month and have clearly expressed their unity in doing so.

The United States’ singling out of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for the spiral of violence in Sri Lanka has undermined the neutrality of the Co-Chairs of the peace process and will fuel the military repression from which thousands of Tamils are fleeing, the Tamil Guardian newspaper said this week. In an editorial titled ‘Interests, not values’ the expatriate newspaper also criticised the US for not supporting efforts to get investment and reconstruction assistance to the war-devastated northeast, whilst blaming the LTTE for the continuing dearth of funding for the region.

Recent events, in Northeast, especially in the north, are distressing and worrying Tamils. The north is currently witnessing an important turning point in the history of the Tamil people’s struggle for freedom. What sprouted as a tiny guerilla force to resist oppression has today matured into full-fledged people’s freedom struggle and we are witnessing this on the ground now.

The nature of Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict is changing and the armed forces stationed in the north of the country are the first to recognise it. Gone are the days when militant groups were battling out against the Sri Lanka armed forces for control of the nine districts that make up the Tamil Homeland. The conflict is increasingly turning into a clash between the oppressed and the occupiers. Tamil civilians from school children to senior citizens are falling victims to the atrocities of the armed forces. In return soldiers are being hit with sticks; stones; knives; swords; mines and grenades by various people’s forces.

From the oppressed Tamil perspective the US Ambassador’s admonitions this week were as intimidating and threatening as the warning issued in August 1995 by a visiting UNDP representative in Jaffna to the Tamil civilians that the US will support the Sinhala military’s assault to conquer Jaffna.