By Easwaran Rutnam Former Northern Province Chief Minister and one-time close associate of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) C.V. Wigneswaran announced that he is prepared to disband his new political party and go home if the Tamils are not prepared to fight for their rights. Speaking to The Sunday Morning, Wigneswaran said that he was interested in the future of the Tamils in this country since the plight of the Tamils was worsening day by day. “Unless there is a change of course in our national political journey, I see disaster ahead. I see no statesmen in the horizon, only politicians. They are interested in the next election and the benefits their offices would bring them,” he said. Wigneswaran also reiterated that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and former President Mahinda Rajapaksa must form an alliance facilitated by President Maithripala Sirisena to address the national issue. RW-MR alliance “If Sirisena and Ranil could form an alliance, why can’t Ranil and Mahinda forge an alliance with Sirisena facilitating the process as President? Ranil missed the chance of identifying culprits who squandered our resources and engaged in extra judicial killings and bringing them to book. Now things have deteriorated very much. I am of course interested in the future of the Tamils in this country since the plight of the Tamils is worsening day by day. Therefore, I have suggested elsewhere that an alliance be formed between the Ranil and Mahinda factions under the presidential leadership of Sirisena on an agreed programme of work,” he said. Wigneswaran said that to him the ethnic question comes first. He says the State has antagonised the Tamils enough, adding that erstwhile stupid majoritarian policies have brought Sri Lanka to the nadir in politics. “Next is our poor economic performance. Our currency has devalued to hitherto unheard of levels. We need to resuscitate our currency, payback our debts without trying to find fault with each other. There is hardly any difference between Ranil and Mahinda policy wise as it existed in the old days between the right and the left. So working together will not be difficult. Only personal differences lie. They should shed such differences for the sake of the people,” he said. Wigneswaran also noted that he finds that the reluctance to give the legitimate rights of the Tamils the major policy platform of both parties. TNA compromising Tamils’ future He also said that the need to start a new party was necessitated by the fact that present Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leadership had decided to compromise the future of the Tamils at the altar of self-interest and convenience. Wigneswaran was introduced to politics by the TNA in 2013, and he contested and won the then Northern Provincial Council elections and was appointed Chief Minister. However, over the last few years Wigneswaran has been critical of the TNA and this led to the eventual split between him and the TNA. Wigneswaran later formed his own political party and is preparing to contest the next elections. “I am not anti-Buddhist” Wigneswaran is of the opinion that to accept a unitary constitution and to consent to Buddhism being given the foremost position in the island does not augur well for the future. He says Buddhist priests have started building Buddhist places of worship in areas where no Buddhists live permanently, with the help of the armed forces. “There will be more and more such buildings coming up in the future. Already, Sinhala colonists from the South have been brought into colonise the traditional homelands of the Tamils. A Sinhalese buying land in the North for him to live, is different from state-sponsored colonisation. None of the Tamils in the South or in Colombo have been brought in as colonists by the Government. Normally, when the State colonises an area, the people of the area, village, district, and province must be given the first preference. If there are no applicants, Tamil-speaking people from elsewhere must be brought in as colonists. “From the time of Independence, the Sri Lankan State has brought in Sinhala colonists from the South to colonise traditionally Tamil-speaking areas. The Government’s motive is clear. The North and East has been occupied by Tamils since pre-Buddhist times – they have a separate language, religions, culture, and way of life. That shouldn’t be disturbed. The Tamils could ask for their identity to be recognised by the State,” he said. Wigneswaran said, firstly, it was the Tamils who were Buddhists, long before the Sinhala language came into being and the Tamils rejected Buddhism long ago and reverted to their original religion Shaivism – a branch of Hinduism. “By allowing Buddhism the foremost place in the entire island, we are forcing a rejected religion to be imposed upon the Tamils of the North and East. I am not anti-Buddhist. But I am explaining the political motives and their significance. Secondly, the Sinhala language came into being only in the 6th or 7th Century AD. There were no Sinhala-speaking persons before that. How could the Sinhalese, merely on the grounds of majority in numbers, claim Sri Lanka to be Sinhala Buddhist? The Tamils lived in the North and East prior to Buddhism and prior to the birth of the Sinhala language. In fact, the Tamil-speaking people continued to be the majority in the North and East until today,” he said. Wigneswaran said that by accepting a unitary constitution and giving Buddhism foremost place in the entire island, Tamils were aiding and abetting the “genocide” of the Tamils that had already begun. Hence, he says there was a need to rally around the Tamils to educate them of the folly of the TNA's present policies that necessitated the formation of his new party. Ready to retire Wigneswaran said that if the Tamils were of the opinion that they would take anything given by the Government politically and not fight further, but opt for economic sops, he would consider disbanding his party and going home. He said the need to agitate for a federal constitution today was more than ever before, adding that, after the war, successive governments had made many inroads into the integrity of the North and East. “Demerging the North and East was one such act. Sarath Silva said elsewhere that he deliberately saved Mahinda. He may therefore have had deliberate reasons for demerging the North and East,” Wigneswaran said. He added that the Sinhala people needed to be educated with regard to the false and distorted history placed before them hitherto by the Sinhala majoritarian governments. He said he hoped that with the help of understanding the Sinhalese, the Tamils could lay before the people of this country the need to recognise the individuality of the Tamil-speaking North and East.   .......................................................................................................................... Pro-LTTE Diaspora prepare to file case on Sri Lanka A pro-LTTE group is preparing to file legal action against Sri Lanka at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The self-proclaimed “Prime Minister” of the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) V. Rudrakumaran called on states to support the push to file action on Sri Lanka. Rudrakumaran, a former LTTE peace negotiator, said that to give meaning to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, all states party to the Genocide Convention must bring legal action against Sri Lanka in the ICJ. “In many instances, as is the case with Sri Lanka, it is not just individuals but the whole state apparatus that is used to commit this heinous crime. In other words, the states themselves commit this crime,” Rudrakumaran said. He called on States to amend their Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act by removing immunity for states and to bring legal action against states for genocide in their domestic tribunals.