Three Sri Lankan Tamil politicians on Tuesday urged India to play an active role to help resolve the island's ethnic conflict.
NEW DELHI: Three Sri Lankan Tamil politicians on Tuesday urged India to play an active role to help resolve the island's ethnic conflict, with one of them saying that a solution to the crisis was very much in sight.
"Tamils hope and pray that India once again involves itself and brings about peace in Sri Lanka," D Sitharthan of the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOT) told a conference arranged by the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies in New Delhi.
"India must help in getting Tamils devolution of power and democratic space in the northeast (of Sri Lanka)," T Sritharan of the Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) added.
Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) president V Anandasangaree, who described India as his "motherland", said New Delhi had enough influence with both the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the United National Party (UNP), the island's two main parties, to goad them on the path of devolving power to the Tamil minority.
"Everyone I have spoken to in Sri Lanka will support an Indian model of governance," he said, adding that support for such an idea had come even from the president and opposition leader of his country.
Sritharan, Sitharthan and Anandasangaree - the latter two are former MPs - are bitter critics of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which is involved in an armed confrontation with the Sri Lankan state. The TULF was once Sri Lanka's leading Tamil party while PLOT and EPRLF were formerly militant outfits.
"The Indian constitution is neither unitary nor federal," Anandasangaree said. He added that accepting such a model would silence politicians in Tamil Nadu who tend to support the LTTE.
The TULF leader said it was the first time in 50 years that Sri Lanka's two dominant parties were willing to settle for a federal system of governance so as to share power with Tamils.
"Starting with the Indian model gives a lot of confidence to the Tamils," he said.
Anandasangaree asserted that peace would soon be realized in Sri Lanka. "Our dark days are almost over and we (will be) very soon heading towards peace," he said, without elaborating. He said ordinary Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims had lived together in Sri Lanka as brothers in the past.
Sitharthan described former Indian premier Rajiv Gandhi, who a LTTE suicide bomber assassinated in 1991, as a "very sincere" person who wanted to see Sri Lankan Tamils live with honour. "His vision has still not been fulfilled."
"The most acceptable solution in Sri Lanka is one based on Indian model," he too added.
Anandasangaree, Sitharathan and Sritharan arrived here overnight Monday to discuss the situation in Sri Lanka with Indian leaders and policy makers who are under pressure to play a more active role.
Their visit follows that of five MPs of the pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance.
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