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CABINET MINISTER CHANDRASEKARAN’S PROPOSAL TO BUILD A LTTE LED GRAND ALLIANCE HEADING TO A PREMATURE DEATH

By Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles

Ranil Wickremesinghe government’s Community Development Minister Periyasamy Chandrasekaran’s proposal to build a grand alliance of Tamil political parties including those of the Indian origin Tamils of the central hills working and living in the tea plantations was heading to a premature death and strong resistance by upcountry Tamil groups including their strongest political organization, the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC).

T. V. Sennan, a veteran trade unionist of the tea plantation Tamils, not attached to the CWC, has accused Chandrasekaran of attempting to link the North Eastern problems of the country which had no relevance to the Tamils of the Indian origin and trying to artificially create a military situation to destroy the precious lives of the tea plantation youth.

Sennan’s accusation came amidst the charges of the Tamil political party Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) that the maverick cabinet minister of the ruling UNF government was sending hundreds of upcountry Tamil youth for guerilla training by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) inside the jungles of Wanni.

Arumugam Thondaman, the leader of the CWC scoffed at Chandrasekaran’s brainchild of a grand alliance more diplomatically by telling a meeting of his trade union members at the Saraswathi Maha Vidyalayam in Badulla in the central hills by telling that there was no need of such an alliance now. He reportedly said,

“Supporting the Tamil people in the North and East was a separate issue and there was no need to form a political alliance to do that.”

Chandrasekaran, following a meeting with the political chief of the LTTE, S. P. Thamilchelvan said he was sending invitations to Tamil political parties to initiate discussions on the proposal. Political observers said Chandrasekaran was putting forward a proposal of the LTTE that is managing many political groups in the North and East under the Tamil National Alliance. An important sector of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), the largest group of the alliance, is rebelling against the LTTE dominance and management over the other groups in the alliance and questioning the concept that LTTE is the sole representative of the Tamils.

But Thondaman was less diplomatic when he was attacking Chandrasekaran, competing against him to win all the people, organized under the CWC., over to his Upcountry People’s Front, with the help of the LTTE.

A local paper quoted Thondaman of having said, “Chandrasekaran is trying to win votes of youths in the plantation areas by going to the North-East and gaining cheap publicity. He stages a similar performance whenever an election is about to take place. But he forgets the people after going to parliament. We in the CWC had never led down or forgotten our people in the upcountry. We have a separate identity, we should fight separately to win our rights.”

Ceylon Workers United Front leader , V. Sennan in a separate statement said that their union would start a series of public meetings among the Indian origin Tamils to explain how Chandrasekaran was attempting to betray the Indian origin Tamils in Sri Lanka to the Tamil Tigers for his own ends. He said that the LTTE has no relevance to the rights of the upcountry Tamil people of Sri Lanka and he was discussing with other trade unions in the tea plantations to demonstrate against Chandrasekaran whenever he would visit the central hills on the issue.

Sennan said the statements Chandrasekaran made at LTTE Pongu Thamil rallies certainly created tension between the upcountry Sinhalese and Indian origin Tamils who have been living in peace for over a century.

Sennan’s trade union Secretary S. Sadasivam, is a Nuwara Eliya District Member of Parliament

Meanwhile, the Patriotic National Movement (PNM) has demanded Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to remove Chandrasekaran, under section 157 A of the Sri Lanka Constitution, from the cabinet for aiding and abetting the separation of the country.

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