Thursday 3 December 2009

ஜனாதிபதித் தேர்தல் 2010

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At least five candidates in the fray, Tamils weigh options
By Franklin R. Satyapalan
At least five candidates including NSSP leader Dr. Wickremabahu Karunaratne and United Socialist Party leader Siritunga Jayasuriya plan to run at the January 26 Presidential Election, political sources said yesterday.
Mr. Mano Ganesan, leader of the Democratic Peoples Front (DPF), said that the Tamil political parties were considering two options – either run a Tamil candidate to create awareness among the international community that the Tamils were opposed to President Rajapaksa or back the common opposition candidate. They were due to meet other Tamil political parties on டிசம்பர்
Analysts expect both major contenders, President Rajapaksa and General Fonseka to also field `dummy’ candidates to use their entitlements – polling and counting agents, television time etc. With nominations due on December 17, a Buddhist monk, Ven. Battaramulle Seelaratana Thero and Mr. Wije Dias are also mentioned as possible contenders along with the two main runners. Fonseka will address a news conference in Colombo this morning when he is expected to declare his candidature and field questions. Analysts pointed out that although various opposition personalities are on record saying Fonseka is their candidate, he had himself not publicly spoken for himself. The TNA said yesterday that it was maintaining an open mind on its attitude to the election with Mr. N. Sri Kanthan, MP, saying that the party will soon take a decision on three options that are open to them. He rejected the theory that the TNA would call for a boycott of the election saying "we want the Tamil people to participate and there is no question of ignoring or boycotting the election".
Sri Kanthan identified the options before them – fielding a Tamil candidate with the backing of other Tamil parties, back somebody like Dr. Wickremabahu Karunaratne who had consistently stood up for the cause of the Tamil people or support one of the main candidates.
Mr. Dharmalingam Siddharthan, leader of PLOTE, speaking for his party and the EPRLF (Naba Wing) indicated support for President Rajapaksa.
"There is a lot of infrastructure development taking place in the North and East and we place our faith in the President who has given us a firm assurance that he would implement what the Tamil people look forward to in his second term," Siddharthan said expressing the view that the majority of the Tamils would support the Rajapaksa ticket.

SLMC leader Rauf Hakeem was in Nintavur yesterday celebrating the Eid Ul Mubarak along with his party’s General Secretary M.T. Hassen Ali, MP, and Basheer Cegu Dawood, opposition leader of the Eastern Provincial Council.
Hassen Ali said that there would be no problem about a symbol for Fonseka whom they would meet when they return to Colombo and confirmed that they would sign a MOU with the General. He said their main task was to defeat President Rajapakse and the SLMC was willing to take a risk about Fonseka not stepping down within 180 days should he be elected.

Hassan Ali complained that the UPFA government had prevented the people from occupying 500 houses built for tsunami affected Muslims by the Saudi government and also what he called the grabbing of Muslim land in the Eastern Province. "The President is silent on the APRC proposals and believes that speaking a few words in Tamil would gain him the support of the Tamil people," he said. Their party hierarchy was in the Eastern Province to obtain the views of the people with regard to the common candidate and this process will continue for three days before they return to Colombo and meet Fonseka to explain the ground situation in the Eastern Province to him, he added.

"We are not worried abut a two-third majority to abolish the executive presidency or that Fonseka will not step down. What we want to do is to defeat Rajapaksa," he said.

The NSSP leader said that he was entering the race because democracy is not taken seriously by either of the two major parties. The right to self determination, equality and autonomy for all communities were the only base on which the executive presidency can be abolished.

"What I am setting out to do is to attack both camps and ensure that they will not get the required 50% plus one in the first round. This is only my target," Karunaratne said.
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Colombo, November 28, 2009
Fonseka announces candidature
B. Muralidhar Reddy
Within hours of the announcement of the date for the Sri Lankan presidential polls, the former Army chief, General (retired) Sarath Fonseka threw his hat into the political ring.
In an appearance at a lawyers’ forum here on Friday night along with United National Party (UNP) leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, General (retired) Sarath Fonseka declared he would be contesting in the January 26 presidential polls against the incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa as a common candidate of the ultra-nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), the UNP and other parties that have backed his candidature.
The UNP, main opposition party led by the former Prime Minister, Mr. Wickremesinghe, made the formal announcement on the presidential nominee of his party on the 55th birth anniversary of the late LTTE chief, Velupillai Prabakaran.

Mr. Wickremesinghe is also the leader of the newly-floated 18-party United National Front (UNF). Ironically, exactly a year ago Mr. Samaraweera had accused General Fonseka of being a racist and manipulating statistics on the causalities of the rank and file of the Tigers in a bid to bolster the sagging morale of the military and leading the people of the island nation up the garden path. Meanwhile, Mr. Rajapaksa declared that he would never hesitate to front up to challenges or take any decisions which would ultimately benefit the people and the country.

He was speaking at the inauguration of the construction of Sri Lanka’s second international airport, a Chinese-aided project, in Mattala in his home district Hambantota.

Chinese Ambassador to Sri Lanka Yang Xiuping was present on the occasion. Ms. Xiuping said that as a long-standing friend of Sri Lanka, her country was prepared to back such mega development projects. “A friend in need is a friend indeed,” she added.

In his address, General (retired) Fonseka also said he had agreed to the UNP’s and JVP’s demand to work towards the abolition of the executive presidency, one of the conditions for their support to his candidature.
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"Common Presidential Candidate" Dr. Vickramabau Karunarathne
Statement by Nava Sama Samaja Party
We are suffering because we have failed to resolve basic problems in our country. We cannot claim to be a free and democratic country unless we resolve the national problem and also stop international global capitalist interference.

Mahinda regime used military forces backed by India and global powers to crush the Tamil uprising caused by continuous discrimination and repression. They claim it is a great victory. However our ---- devastated. The Tamil homeland is in ruins and people are made paupers drifting here and there.
Dr. Vickramabahu Karunarathne, at a rally protesting the burning of Sunday Leader offices, Nov 23, 2007
Thousands were killed; thousands disappeared; thousands are disabled, and thousands are made political prisoners. Large numbers living abroad curse the rulers who brought this misery to them. In Sinhala areas too a large number is killed while a larger number are made invalids. The people in general are made poorer. Many young people are unemployed. Cost of living is simply unbearable and the working masses are forced to bear the cost of the war.

Continuation of 300,000 armed forces means that they are unable to find suitable jobs for them. On the other hand the war is not over. If this situation continues, and there is no other way out, inevitably youth will take up arms against oppression and discrimination. In the mean time unbelievable corruption exists from top to bottom. Corruption and misappropriation has become the common practice in society. Indian and global companies are gobbling up the economy. We have become vassals of Indian rulers.

Estate worker's powerful strike started a wave of strikes that came to Colombo shaking the regime. The inability of Mahinda to use the military power accumulated during the war, against the workers, created a big hole in the system. The repercussion of this strike wave was a split in the monolithic chauvinis structure. The inability of Mahinda Regime to crush worker's strikes, student's actions and mass protests, made the capitalists to seek an alternative leadership from a military hard liner, General Sarath.

Mahinda followed the agenda given by the Indian rulers backed by Global powers. He is still prompted by these masters to continue their agenda. On the other hand the terrible bankruptcy in Lankan society is used by far-right militaristic section of the global powers to put forward General Sarath. Sarath hails bloody devastation created by the war and stands for strengthening the military, and also for centralization.

JVP four points proposal designed to eliminate devolution and crush aspirations of Tamil speaking people is accepted as the common programme of General Sarath. It is no way an answer to the tragedy created by Mahinda Chinthanaya.

It is necessary to condemn what Mahinda regime has done and sharply take up the issue of national unity based on Equality, Autonomy, and the Rights of Self Determination. Democracy and freedom can prevail only if there is state based on national unity. Without this fundamental task achieved, no development could take place, and we will be eternally trampled by Global powers. Therefore on behalf of workers, peasants, fishers and other suffering masses, Left Front with the support of other left and democratic parties, organizations and intellectuals decided to put forward Comrade Vickramabahu as its Presidential Candidate.

Vickramabahu was born in March 08, 1943 at Lunugala in Badulla in a traditional teacher's family. His father was late Mudiyanse Karunarathne. Mother was late Vimala Kothalawale; both retired as principals. He received primary education at Ananda Shasthralaya, Mathugama. Joined Ananda College Colombo in 1953.

Passed university entrance from Ananda College, Colombo in mathematics stream and entered the Engineering faculty of the University of Ceylon. He graduated as a first class electrical engineer and qualified for a commonwealth scholarship to read for a doctorate at the Cambridge University. With a doctorate from Cambridge he returned to Lanka in 1970. As an under graduate he joined the LSSP in 1962. He was elected to the Central Committee in 1972. But in the same year he was sacked from the party for opposing opportunist politics of the leadership.

While being brilliant in education, he excelled as a sportsman and a sculpture artist as well. While teaching at Peradeniya University, he was thoroughly engaged in politics. In 1978, he was sacked from university and jailed for hoisting black flags against the draconian constitution of J. R. Jayawardhane.

Since then, he dedicated his life for left politics. He always actively participated in struggles of workers and for the rights of the communities that were marginalized gender wise, racial wise and economic wise.

He was in remand for long periods and in 88 he was shot by the JVP for defending the rights of the Tamil speaking people Dr. Vickramabahu Karunarathne is contesting Presidential elections as the candidate of the Left Front.
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Locking Tamil nationalism through presidential candidature
[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 November 2009, 12:27 GMT]
A Tamil candidature in the presidential elections, proposing a political solution deviating from the goals of Tamil nationalism, is a tactic to bind and nullify the aspirations of Eezham Tamils, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo. In the current circumstances, Tamils naturally boiling with anger about both the main candidates are most likely to cast their votes en masse to any respectable Tamil candidate. But it is an artful move to get a mandate by stealth from the surviving people of the North and East for dropping the fundamentals of Tamil nationalism set earlier in 1977 and for locking them with political subjugation within a single state in the island. Therefore the election proposal of any potential Tamil candidate should be the removal of the 6th Amendment to the constitution and not any half-backed formula, the commentator further said.
The commentator in Colombo further writes:
The 6th Amendment enacted in 1983 that prevents expressions on secession has disenfranchised the Eezham Tamils from democratically telling what they want.
Therefore any Tamil political party that contests the elections to register Tamil rights or opinion has to first fight for the removal of this Amendment.
This is the foremost politically fundamental right that has to be achieved by any nation of self-respect in the island.
A Tamil candidate is not going to win a presidential election in the island, but the point has to be made to the people of the island and to the international community.
There is no need to politically deviate the cause of Tamil nationalism beyond retrieval, by proposals of external or internal compulsions.
Self respect of Eezham Tamil nation subjected to such a long subjugation comes only when unity is proposed with the right to secession.
Removal of the Sixth Amendment and the release of interned people as well as their liberation fighters are the issues of practical value for any meaningful reconciliation.
But it seems a leading Tamil political alliance and some diaspora groups have taken the bait of conceiving political solution only through the deviating phrase of ‘self-determination’ and then interpreting it as ‘internal self-determination.’

The deviating term ‘internal self-determination,’ its real meaning and the ‘international connections’ behind the concept are well known to those who closely watch the Eezham question. The insertion of the phrase in Oslo meet was later revised by the LTTE in what was implied in the process of the ISGA proposal and the P-TOMS agreement.
Eezham Tamils today are not in a position to undertake such experiments, which the LTTE was able to do because of its confidence in the de facto state it created. But any such experiment at present will put Tamils into irredeemable political subjugation.

In the last ever International negotiations between the GoSL and the LTTE in Geneva in October 2006, the most crucial act of symbolic value of the Tamil delegation was that it challenged the GoSL to ரேபிள் the Sixth Amendment as a token of its commitment to democracy and pluralism. The concluding paragraph of the introduction to the proposed solution by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) that has been leaked to influential sections in India is reproduced here for Tamils to know what is cooking. This proposal may surface before the elections and a Tamil candidature may be used to get a no-other-option mandate from Tamils in the island: "The Tamil people in Sri Lanka have been subjected to discrimination within the model of a unitary state where majoritarianism reigns. They have been denied the right to express their right to self-determination within an internal arrangement, such as a federal government. In such a situation the denial of the existence of the right to self-determination itself will give rise to the right to unilateral secession as an expression of that right. Therefore the recognition of the right to self-determination of the Tamil people will in no way erode state sovereignty. In point of fact, if the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka is to be preserved from claims to the right of secession, it is a sine qua non that the right to self-determination of the Tamils is recognized and the nature of the state is restructured to enable meaningful exercise of internal self- determination."
Eezham Tamils in the island and in the diaspora may now understand in better light why certain sections are vehemently opposed to re-mandating the main principle of Vaddukkoaddai Resolution, opposed to the country councils in the diaspora and opposed to base the proposed transnational government on clear principles of Eezham Tamil nationalism.
But why should they be so uneasy about free expression of Tamil aspirations in the diaspora, unless some external forces are disturbed about such democratic expressions, is a question.
The argument that such expressions will affect peace prospects in the island is not acceptable. On the contrary they will strengthen and safeguard Tamil interests in the island and in the diaspora now, as well as in the long run. Tamil circles did not fail to notice that the Left front of Dr. Vickramabahu Karunaratne contesting elections in the island had not fallen into this trap of interpreting self-determination through the deviation of Indo-Western concept of 'internal self-determination', designed to nullify national questions in the world.
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TNA looking at five options
By Kelum Bandara
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is currently looking at five options to be taken at the upcoming Presidential election, but the final stand is to be decided at the Parliamentary group meeting scheduled for next week, party sources said. Party sources said that one section of the TNA has highlighted that they should talk to the two main candidates and support one of them while some others are pressing to field a Tamil candidate representing the party with the possible support of other likeminded Tamil parties.
A second source said some TNA MPs do not want to support of any of the two main candidates,
but leave it open for the Tamil people to decide. There are views within the TNA that they should campaign for Candidate Wickramabahu Karunaratne identified by them as a person who has espoused Tamil aspirations throughout history. The last option being considered by the TNA is to boycott the election as done in 2005. Sources said that the group meeting would be held prior to the next parliamentary session scheduled for December 8. “The TNA will take a decision bearing in mind the political realities in the country at the moment,” sources said.

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On the invitation of Sarath Fonseka, Gajendran returned to Sri Lanka – Media
[ Wednesday, 02 December 2009, 12:31.45 AM GMT +05:30 ]
A media has published a news item, Tamil National Alliance Parliament Member Selvaraj Gajendran has returned to the country after two years, on the invitation of Presidential Candidate Sarath Fonseka.
Sarath Fonseka while officially informed his entry to the politics, he requested the parents of Liberation tigers of leader V.Pirabakaran to join with him to defeat Mahinda. He said all the former tigers members and its supporters should join with him and function. On this context, Selvaraja Gajendran has returned to the country was published by the media. During the past war among the Tamil Eelam Liberation tigers and military, Gajendran had informed to prepare 40000 confines to obtain the bodies of military.

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Pillayan not concerned about constitutional “jargon”
TMVP Leader Eastern Provincial Council Chief Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan (Pillayan) said today that he is not concerned about constitutional jargon such as the 13th Amendment or the 17th Amendment when resolving the problems confronting his people.
Addressing the media, Mr. Chandrakanthan, who pledged his support to President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the upcoming election, said that what is relevant for him is the resolution of his people’s problems.
“We are not bothered about constitutional terms such as the 13th Amendment or the 17th Amendment. We want solutions to our problems,” he said. (KB)
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Mano Ganesan backs Fonseksa
[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 December 2009, 11:17 GMT]
Democratic People's Front leader Mano Ganesan Thursday announced that his party would support General (retd) Sarath Fonseka, the joint opposition candidate in the forthcoming presidential elections in Sri Lanka. The DPF leader also said that he was presently negotiating with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to win their support to General Fonseka.
"This decision was taken by our party as General Fonseka assures that if he is elected as the president he would abolish the Executive Presidency and implement the 17th amendment and go beyond the 13th amendment to find a permanent solution to the ethnic conflict," said Mr. Ganesan.
The announcement was made at a press conference in Colombo.

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