UNHRC AND THE TAMIL PARTIES' DESPERATION

Tamil nationalistic politics which have been overshadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic and related politics seems to be gaining momentum with the next session of the United Nations Huma Rights Council (UNHRC) early next year.

- M.S.M. Ayub

Tamil political parties are now contemplating to develop a new joint strategy to hold the government accountable, at the UNHRC session in March, to the human rights violations and war crimes allegedly committed by the armed forces during the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). All major Tamil parties representing the Northern Province have already expressed their willingness to fight the Sri Lankan government in unison in this regard, but rivalry among them and their reluctance to be outshined by other parties seems to be a major hurdle.

Until recently, since the decimation of the LTTE leadership by the armed forces, it was only the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) that represented the northern Tamil nationalistic politics in the South and at international fora. However, former Supreme Court Judge and former Chief Minister of the Northern Provincial Council, C.V. Wigneswaran has emerged as being able to provide an alternative leadership in the North while various other Tamil political parties in the region are also now challenging the TNA.

Against this backdrop TNA spokesman and parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran had written a few days ago to the Thamil Makkal Theshiya Kootani (TMTK) led by Wigneswaran and to Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam’s Thamil Thesiya Makkal Munnani ((TTMM), the two other Tamil nationalistic parties elected to Parliament at the August general election suggesting a united action at the world’s human rights body at its forthcoming session.