By\u00a0 Dr. Shanthikumar Hettairachchi<\/h2>\n

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• Sunday, 28 September 2014 00:00<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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  \nSome political gurus argue that the Tamil National Alliance (tami t t\u0113ciyakk\u016b amaippu) was a result of yet another doctored diplomatic edifice. That it came into being as a desperate alternative to resuscitate the annulled political will and the deliberate annihilation of all political party leadership of the Tamil masses by the bygone terror outfit. TNA can work constructively not only for its own constituency but also involve in national politics because it can build further alliances without a futile allegiance to the terror outfit and their proxies in Europe and North America. Now is the time for them to accomplish what was denied on a permanent basis by the LTTE over a quarter of a century for the Tamil people. And they demand this commitment from this Alliance, and the TNA has to make it for their people without shuttling between global cities as if distant actors are able to find them solutions for their issues in Sri Lanka.<\/span>
  \nPolitical maturity needed<\/strong><\/span>
  \nSome argue that TNA was modeled as the Sinn Fein of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) because the so-called political wing with terror and violence. The (in)famous Oslo\u2019s diplomats and other political gurus were aware of the \u2018unholy alliance\u2019 with the outfit would dissipate the peace processes on schedule which later proved fruitless. Even the smiling face of Suppayya Thamilselvan who himself was once upon a time a personal bodyguard of the outlawed terror head could not reverse the diplomatic apathy and suspicion at large towards the outfit.<\/span>
  \nHence, Oslo\u2019s so-called third party machinery and others had to adopt a model just like the way the US senator Geroge Mitchell devised his strategy to \u2018name and tame\u2019 the already Balkanised IRA. Late senator Edward Kennedy while in office, together with Bill Clinton (1993-2001), then cross the Atlantic with Tony Blair (1997\u20132007), Bertie Ahern (1997\u20132002) and, in fact, the Conservative premier Sir John Major (1990- 1997) of the UK contributed to the historic Good Friday Agreement in April 1998. This agreement even though faulted several times, yet remains a masterpiece of careful diplomacy of institutions, individuals and civil servants of various caliber across the board.<\/span>
  \nNorthern Ireland diplomatic process created a consciousness that the enemies in the conflict could not be inimical when they came to the table. The equal partners in negotiation became paramount and an ethical norm for the Northern Ireland conflict. LTTE\u2019s obstinacy failed all astute diplomacy and the TNA suffers from this malady and it is their opportunity to perform their historical duty by their people.<\/span>
  \nTNA has no choice except to learn from global attempts of negotiations and leverages of power sharing and be genuinely people-centred and not Diaspora-manipulated. Delhi\u2019s recent message was also diplomatic and clear, \u201cgo home boys, not to Tamil Nadu, talk to your constituency, do your homework with other boys in Colombo\u201d. It is interesting to assess whether one could transpose Sinn Fein\u2019s character traits to TNA to work with a new beginning and not with where LTTE ended and without the residual hang ups of a terror ridden three decades.<\/span>
  \nConciliatory steps<\/strong><\/span>
  \nTNA is a collection of ideological mavericks and whose leaders were also assassinated (may be the reason for some members of the TULF and EPRLF not to join) by the LTTE for mere supremacy claims of megalomania. TNA\u2019s loss of three of its sitting Members of Parliament, Joseph Pararajasingham (2005), Nadarajah Raviraj (2006), and Kiddinan Sivanesan (2008), was most unfortunate, and their assassinations alleged to be politically motivated. Nobody seems to have taken responsibility for these murders so far which also sends unhealthy vibrations of the political situation of the period.<\/span>
  \nTNA\u2019s loss of the \u2018fullest support\u2019 of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress and Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) was understandable, but a part of latter\u2019s new manifestation as Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK), led by R. Sampanthan, now replaced by the former general Secretary of the TNA, Mavai Senathirajah (man who replaced both Appapillai Amirthalingam and Neelan Tiruchelvam both assassinated by the LTTE), who was unanimously elected early September this year, the EPRLF (Suresh faction) and TELO have all a complicated political history that requires internally conciliatory steps if they wish to stand by the cause of the people destroyed by the mindless LTTE.<\/span>
  \nThis is why TNA has a soul pricking, anally retentive and paralytic stupor when it comes to its own party\u2019s (or the alliance) identity. Whom do they represent? whose voice they air?, whose aspirations they resonate?, whose words they utter?, whose political campaign they sponsor? And finally whose freedom they wish to fight for. TNA probably can answer all of these questions with one stroke but what they cannot justify is their political behavior being twanged between a Diaspora that lives in the past, a Tamil Nadu lady JJ who seemed to have asked the TNA go to Delhi and then Delhi asking them to get back to Colombo for talks.<\/span>
  \nThis triangular behavior of political uncertainty of the TNA, in fact, someone compared to a behavior of a group of class students of eighth grade who goes from pillar to post looking for solutions for their group project when the direction they need to find material is being trampled by them, because they prefer to solve these with imported material. <\/span>
  \n(To be continued)<\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

  – See more at: http:\/\/www.nation.lk\/edition\/news-features\/item\/33716-tna%E2%80%99s-truncated-diplomacy?-part-l.html#sthash.8YT5HqfL.dpuf<\/span><\/p>\n

  Part – 2\u00a0https:\/\/hettiviththi.wordpress.com\/2014\/10\/10\/the-tnas-foreignness\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  By\u00a0 Dr. Shanthikumar Hettairachchi Sunday, 28 September 2014 00:00 Some political gurus argue that the Tamil National Alliance (tami t t\u0113ciyakk\u016b amaippu) was a result of yet another doctored diplomatic edifice. That it came into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-newspaper-articles","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}