The leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) R. Sampanthan called for power to be shared to the North-East in order to reach a solution to the island’s enduring ethnic conflict.

Speaking to the Sinhala language daily newspaper Divaina, in a piece headlined ‘We ask for the Tamil kingdom that the British handed over to the Sinhalese’ , Mr Sampanthan detailed the history of the Tamils in the North-East. “There was a separate kingdom in the North,” said the TNA leader. “The Sinhala people should know the truth. Sinhala leaders should tell the Sinhala people the truth.”

Calling for the devolution of power, Mr Sampanthan said:

“We all have to come together and share power... It is good for the country and also its people. The Tamil people mostly lived in the North and East. We ask power to be shared to that region.”

He also spoke about his recent trip to Scotland, where he and other TNA members attended a constitutional workshop. “A lot of things have happened in Scotland,” he said. “A referendum was held in 2014. It [the referendum] was to decide if Scotland was to be part of the United Kingdom or not.”

“We gained awareness about it,” added the TNA leader. “It [having awareness] is good.”

Mr Sampanthan also emphasised his support to implement a UN Human Rights Council resolution on an accountability mechanism in full, which included the participation of international judges. The topic filled “most” of his discussion with UN human rights chief Zeid Al Hussein recently, he said, adding “we discussed the need to fulfil completely the matters agreed to in that resolution”.

Tamils in the North-East reiterated calls for self-determination, as the Sri Lankan government’s Public Representations Committee on Constitutional Reforms launched its first meeting in Jaffna this week.

The unitary character of the Sri Lankan state hence “permits Sinhala Buddhist nationalism to impose a deep hegemony on the island”, said the Tamil Civil Society Forum (TCSF) in a submission to the Sri Lankan government’s Public Representations Committee on Constitutional Reforms on Tuesday, calling for a “self-determination inspired approach to federalism”.

Stating that the idea of a “unitary state… has nothing or very little to do with the idea of a united country”, the TCSF said in Sri Lanka “it has everything to do with centralising power in the majority Sinhala Buddhist nation.”

“The unitary character of the state hence permits Sinhala Buddhist nationalism to impose a deep hegemony through a composition of bounded unity of territory, state and nation of the island revolving around a majoritarian axis of Sinhala Buddhist religion, language, culture and people,” it added, saying such a solution was “unacceptable”.

Instead the TCSF called for “a self-determination inspired approach to federalism” and a new constitution that would “institutionally recognise the self-determination of its distinct nations”.

Northern Provincial Councillor M. K. Shivajilingam called for Sri Lanka’s constitutional reform process to have “involvement, assistance, and assurance” from the international community, in a submission made to the Sri Lankan government’s Public Representations Committee on Constitutional Reforms.

As the committee held their first meeting on Monday, Mr Shivajilingam noted that “the Tamil people in the island of Sri Lanka have been struggling for their political rights for about 70 years without any solution to their grievances”.

Bearing that in mind the councillor called for India, the United States, the European Union and the United Nations to function as “witnesses and guarantors” during the process of constitutional reform, in order to achieve a “credible, trustworthy, and honourable process”.

The government has asked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bail out facility to resolve the current balance of payments crisis. A loan facility is urgently needed owing to the critical state of the balance of payments. This crisis in the external finances has been brought about by the mismanagement of the economy over several years.

Previous requests

In similar situations in the past, governments resorted to a rescue package from the IMF. In 1977 the government obtained a Structural Adjustment Facility (SAF) to undertake trade liberalisation and economic reforms. In July 2009 the IMF approved a 20-month Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) of approximately US$ 2.6 billion, as a Balance of Payments (BOP) support.

Macroeconomic weaknesses

Once again the severe difficulties in external finances have made the government request the IMF for a loan facility to resolve the critical balance of payments situation. This situation arose owing to fundamental macroeconomic weaknesses: high fiscal deficits, large foreign debt, and widening of the trade and balance of payments deficits. Recent capital outflows that accentuated the balance of payments problem were due to these weaknesses as well as international factors.