P 280635Z JAN 09
FM AMEMBASSY COLOMBO
TO SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 9265

UNCLAS COLOMBO 000097 
 
 
STATE FOR S/ES-CR 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OPDC PREL PGOV CE
SUBJECT: Letter to President Obama from Member of Pariament R. 
SAMPANTHAN 
 
¶1. Embassy Colombo received the following letter from Member of 
Parliament R. SAMPANTHAN concerning the Tamil National question in 
Sri Lanka [BEGIN TEXT]: 
 
21 January 2009 
 
His Excellency Barack Obama 
The President of the United States of America 
The White House 
Washington D.C. 
U.S.A. 
 
Dear Mr. President, 
 
THE TAMIL NATIONAL QUESTION IN SRI LANKA 
 
We write to you as the representatives in the Parliament of Sri 
Lanka of the Tamil people of the Northeast region comprising the 
Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka - the areas of 
historical habitation of the Tamil speaking people. Of the 23 Tamil 
representatives elected to Parliament from the Northeast, 22 belong 
to our Party. 
 
May we extend to you our warmest congratulations and very best 
wishes on your assumption of office as President of the United 
States of America. 
 
Your election to office of President of the USA is a source of hope, 
encouragement and inspiration to all peoples who seek to be freed 
from injustice. 
 
We write to fervently appeal that your administration should address 
the Tamil National Question which has plagued Sri Lanka ever since 
the country attained independence over six decades ago in 1948. 
During this period the Tamil people have suffered much injustice. 
 
May we briefly outline the causes for this conflict and its 
continuance. [note internal numbering] 
 
¶1. Sri Lanka is inhabited by two distinct Nations of People, the 
larger Sinhala speaking people and the smaller Tamil speaking 
people. The Tamil speaking people have been an overwhelming majority 
in the Northeastern region just as much as the Sinhala speaking 
people have been in the rest of Sri Lanka. Instead of recognizing 
this reality, the Sri Lankan State whilst trying to portray an 
inclusive Sri Lankan civic identity, in fact is entrenched with a 
Sinhala Buddhist supremacist nationalism that wants exclusive 
control over the entirety of Sri Lanka. Consequently the Sri Lankan 
State has failed to enact constitutional provisions that give the 
Tamil speaking people the right to internal self-determination in 
the area of their historical habitation - the Northeastern region. 
This supremacist form of nationalism has resulted in the Sri Lankan 
State altering the demographic composition of the areas of 
historical habitation of the Tamil speaking people through State 
aided Sinhala colonization. Despite this, the Tamil speaking people 
remain a significant majority in the Northeast. 
 
¶2.  Flowing from 1 above, the denial to the Tamil people of physical 
security and the denial of the security of their homeland; the Tamil 
people have been subjected continuously to racial pogroms first in 
1956, and thereafter in 1958, 1961, 1977, 1981, 1983 and such 
violence continues against the Tamil people up to the present. 
Following such continuous racial pogroms large numbers of Tamil 
people have left the country and continue to do so. 
 
¶3.  Flowing from 1 above, discrimination in the fields of education, 
public sector employment, health care and social services, economic 
empowerment and development, and in the utilization of the natural 
resources in the Northeastern region, to the detriment of the 
historical inhabitants - the Tamil speaking people. 
 
¶4.  The prosecution of the war in the Northeastern region, 
purportedly to militarily defeat the Liberation Tigers of Tamil 
Eelam (LTTE), with total unconcern for the immense harm inflicted on 
the non-combatant Tamil civilians resident therein by aerial 
bombardment of, and the firing of multi barrel rocket launchers and 
heavy artillery into Tamil civilian populated areas resulting in 
death and injury to substantial numbers of Tamil civilians including 
women, children and infants, the destruction of valuable civilian 
assets both residential and occupational and the inexorable 
reduction of a people who have led respectable and contented lives 
in their historical habitations to a state of destitution and 
penury. It is our submission that the Sri Lankan State prosecutes 
the current war in the manner outlined above in the pursuit of a 
given ideological position - the assertion of a Sinhala Buddhist 
supremacy throughout the whole of Sri Lanka, and that in order to 
achieve that objective a process of Genocide of the Tamil people is 
in progress. The media does not have the freedom to cover the war 
zone. The United Nations agencies and International Non-Governmental 
organizations have been directed by the government to leave the war 
zone. Consequently no independent information is available to the 
outside world, thereby facilitating the implementation of the 
government's objectives. 
 
 
¶5.  Sri Lanka's record on human rights is one of the worst in the 
Comity of Nations. It consequently failed recently to succeed in its 
attempt to be re-elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council. 
The repeated requests of the UN High Commissioner for human rights 
to set up a UN human rights monitoring mechanism in Sri Lanka, to 
monitor the grave human rights situation particularly in view of the 
prevalent state of impunity, has been consistently rejected by the 
Sri Lankan State. An International Independent Group of Eminent 
Persons (IIGEP) was appointed consequent to international pressure, 
by the government of Sri Lanka to ensure that a local Commission of 
Inquiry appointed to investigate certain identified violations of 
human rights, functioned in keeping with international norms and 
standards. Consequent to unwarranted government interference the 
IIGEP have withdrawn stating publicly the reasons for their 
conclusion that the Sri Lankan State does not have the political or 
institutional will to inquire into human rights violations in 
keeping with international norms and standards. Recording of 
evidence through teleconferencing was being done in two cases. (i) 
The assassination of 5 students in Trincomalee. (ii) The 
assassination of 17 aid workers of the INGO "Action Contra la Faime" 
in Muthur, Trincomalee. In both these cases witnesses had left the 
country consequent to intimidation. The recording of evidence by 
teleconferencing has been stopped due to government interference. 
Four members of the Commission of Inquiry too have subsequently 
resigned presumably also due to such unwarranted government 
interference. A Bill entitled "Protection of Victims of Crime and 
Witnesses Bill" was tabled in Parliament to afford a measure of 
protection to victims and witnesses. The Bill has now been 
abandoned. The Commission of Inquiry which was the Sri Lankan 
State's only visible exercise on human rights has thereby lost 
credibility. Extra judicial executions, enforced disappearances and 
other grave human rights violations continue to be a regular feature 
in Sri Lanka. 
 
¶6.  Sri Lanka's purported steps to evolve an acceptable political 
solution to the Tamil National Question are no more than a mere 
charade to mislead the international community into the belief that 
the State is committed to an acceptable political solution. On the 
contrary the Sri Lankan State has reneged on commitments already 
made such as the purported de-merger of the merged Northern and 
Eastern provinces, which were constituted as a single 
politico-administrative unit under the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement of 
1987, on the incontrovertible basis that the said two provinces 
constituted the areas of historical habitation of the Tamil speaking 
people. Sri Lanka seeks thereby to unilaterally abrogate an 
international treaty which it cannot do under International Law. The 
merger of the Northern and Eastern provinces was accepted by the 
international community as the corner stone of the peace process, 
and the purported de-merger is despite the strongest advice by the 
international community that the merger should not be disturbed. 
 
The Sri Lankan State we submit is committed to perpetuate the 
ideology of a Sinhala Buddhist supremacy with all its consequences 
throughout the whole country. This we submit is the prime cause of 
the conflict. 
 
The Sri Lankan State today pursues its policies clearly on the basis 
that it is answerable to no one for whatever it does. This we submit 
is a very dangerous trend and will inevitably cause immense harm to 
the Tamil speaking people living in Sri Lanka, instability in the 
region, and promote majoritarian ethno religious nationalism, 
authoritarianism and hegemony. 
 
Consequently, we would like to urge that the policy of the United 
States of America towards the resolution of the Tamil National 
Question reflects the existence of two distinct Nations of People 
inhabiting Sri Lanka and where these two nations are encouraged to 
associate with one another by pooling their sovereignties to form 
the State. 
 
We would earnestly urge you to utilize your good offices to ensure 
that the Sri Lankan State in the words of President Abraham Lincoln 
"thinks anew and acts anew" to ensure justice to all its peoples. 
 
Whilst we sincerely appreciate the very onerous nature of the duties 
that you have assumed, we seek your indulgence to state that the 
Tamils in Sri Lanka face extinction as a People. In the 
circumstances, may we most earnestly urge that our appeal receives 
your earliest possible attention and that as a first step to a final 
acceptable resolution of the Tamil National Question, the current 
war be brought to an end. 
 
Thanking you and with our warm regards. 
 
Yours sincerely, 
//s// 
¶R. SAMPANTHAN M.P. 
Parliamentary Group Leader 
Tamil National Alliance 
 
[END TEXT] 
 
 
BLAKE