Tamils for Obama's Proposed Road Map to a Safe and Secure Tamil Eelam
New York, New York (PRWEB) April 29, 2015 -- Tamils for Obama, a group of politically active American Tamils, have proposed the following thought experiment. The group suggests two paths by which their goal of a separate and independent Tamil homeland (Tamil Eelam) in Sri Lanka might be reached. The first is to use the ICC (International Criminal Court) and the forthcoming (in September 2015) report of the UN Human Rights Commission, which Tamils for Obama is confident will be persuasive enough to compel action by the UN and perhaps other world bodies and the second involves an intervention by the great local power, India.
Tamils for Obama's first potential road to Tamil Eelam, the ICC path, has been traveled successfully before. The precedent is the recent (2011) creation of the new nation of South Sudan.
The ethnic civil war in Sri Lanka has many similarities to the second (1983 - 2011) Sudanese civil war. Both involved a harsh repression of an ethnic and religious minority by a government of the dominant ethnic and religious group. In Sudan, the government is run by the Arabic-speaking majority population (they are predominantly Muslim) who disapprove of the Christian and traditional beliefs of the black Africans in the southern portion of the country. In Sri Lanka, the governing people are Singhalese Buddhists and they want a Buddhist state without the Tamil Hindus of the northeast.
The Sudanese civil war produced atrocities that shocked and horrified the rest of the world. Tamils for Obama expects that the report of the UN Human Rights Commission in September will remind the world of the outrages committed by the Sri Lankan government during and since the Sri Lankan civil war.
The atrocities in Sudan were persistent and disturbing enough that even the placid and reluctant United Nations felt compelled to act. Tamils for Obama expects that the UNHRC's report will have a similar effect. In Sudan's case, the UN conducted a referendum which showed that the people of southern Sudan did not want to remain in the multi-ethnic Sudan, and so the new nation of South Sudan was created. Tamils for Obama is confident that any measure of sentiment among the Sri Lankan Tamils would show a similar wish for separation and they hope that a new nation to be called Tamil Eelam will emerge.
The second road to Tamil Eelam requires action by Sri Lanka's giant neighbor to the north, India. India in the past has sometimes treated Ceylon as a badly-behaved one of its own states. King Chola of India invaded Ceylon in the third century AD, and India last invaded Sri Lanka in 1987. Colombo is rightfully worried that India will do so again. India also has a long-time and sometimes heated rivalry with China; Sri Lanka has taken advantage of this rivalry by welcoming Chinese interests into its island. Tamils for Obama believes that friendship with China makes the Sri Lankan government feel more secure and the Indian government less so.
Also, India regards the Indian Ocean as its own property, and feels threatened whenever some hostile nation becomes active there. Chinese activity in the Indian Ocean and a possible Chinese naval base in Sri Lanka creates another insecure border for New Delhi to worry about. Tamils for Obama foresees an Indian intervention resulting in the creation of a friendly nation of Tamil Eelam which would at least balance the positions of China and India in the Indian Ocean.
To read press release in Tamil go to: http://tamilsforobama.com/Letters/Road%20Map.html
India will benefit from a Tamil Eelam : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/7/prweb9711196.htm
Tamils for Obama offers these thought experiments for consideration by Tamils everywhere, and they welcome input and criticism by their fellow Tamils by email to info(at)tamilsforobama.com.
Tamils for Obama is a politically active group of Tamil Americans. They believe that over 70,000 Tamil civilians were massacred during the last weeks of the Sri Lankan ethnic war. They have also watched the behavior of the Sri Lankan Singhalese victors after the war, and strongly conclude that Tamils in Sri Lanka will only be safe when this unfortunate island is divided into two states.
To contact the group, call at (516) 308-2645 and speak to, or leave a message for, the Communication Director, Tamils for Obama.
http://www.TamilsForObama.com
Email: info(at)TamilsforObama(dot)com
Communication Director, Tamils for Obama, http://www.tamilsforobama.com, +1 (516) 308-2645, [email protected]
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