The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Bangalore Tamil Sangam wants ceasefire declared in Sri Lanka

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Monday, Dec 01, 2008
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Bangalore Tamil Sangam wants ceasefire declared in Sri Lanka

Special Correspondent

‘Military action will not provide a permanent solution to the problem’

— Photo: K. Murali Kumar

Expressing solidarity: (From left) Shivaraji Lingam, MP from Sri Lanka, former Deputy Speaker of Tamil Nadu Assembly Pulamaipithan, and M. Meenakshi Sundaram, Bangalore Tamil Sangam vice-president, at a meeting in Bangalore on Sunday.

BANGALORE: Expressing concern over the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka following the military action in the Tamil-dominated areas, the Bangalore Tamil Sangam has urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to exert pressure on the Sri Lankan Government to immediately declare a ceasefire.

To express its moral support to the Sri Lankan Tamils, the Bangalore Tamil Sangam on Sunday held a special meeting in which nearly 500 members, including Sri Lankan MP Shivaraji Lingam and former Deputy Speaker of Tamil Nadu Assembly Pulamaipithan, took part.

Sangam vice-president M. Meenakshi Sundaram told presspersons that it would write to Dr. Manmohan Singh, the President, the External Affairs Minister and the National Security Adviser seeking their immediate intervention.

Appeal

In the letter, the sangam would appeal to the Indian Government to convince the Sri Lankan Government to immediately start negotiations with the Tamils in Sri Lanka to find a political solution to the ethnic problem. “The military action would not provide a permanent solution,” he observed. “Negotiations should be through a neutral agency, preferably India,” he said.

Human rights violation

“Our support to the Tamils in Sri Lanka is not because they also speak Tamil, but out of humanitarian consideration as they are suffering untold miseries,” he said. He alleged that human rights of Tamils in Sri Lanka were being violated by the Government there through military action which had resulted in closing of roads in the Tamil settlements and stopping supply of food, medicines and hospital services. The problem was intense in the north and eastern parts of Sri Lanka which had a large number of Tamils.

‘Not migrants’

He said Tamils in Sri Lanka were not migrants, but the original inhabitants who had lived there for generations. The Tamil population in Sri Lanka comprised Hindus, Muslims and Christians.

Representatives from 15 Tamil sangams in Karnataka, including those in Hubli, Mysore and KGF, participated in the meeting.

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