The Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO) has declared its readiness to bring Tamil parties together to press for a political solution.
TELO spokesman Suren Kurusamy has alleged that the NPP government has not delivered anything it promised the Tamils, at the 2024 national elections. He said so addressing the media following a central committee meeting at the party’s head office at Vairavapuliyankulam in Vavuniya last weekend.
Tamil Guardian quoted the TELO Spokesman as having said that the government was arresting those accused of corruption and bribery to satisfy people in the South and while that was welcome, not one of the promises the Sri Lankan President and his party made to Tamils in the North-East at election time had been carried out. The government had pledged a permanent political solution through a new Constitution and had made no progress on it, Kurusamy said.
TELO has decided to close ranks with six Tamil-speaking parties operating locally, the five parties in the Democratic Tamil National Alliance and other forces in the Tamil nationalist sphere, in order to apply pressure towards a permanent political solution, Kurusamy said. It will also work with overseas Tamil organisations to secure international support.
The party resolved to unite Tamil political forces to press for the long-delayed provincial council election to be held immediately, and to oppose outright the new anti-terrorism legislation replacing the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which Kurusamy said was designed to protect the state and shut down action against it. The UN human rights office has warned that the Bill repeats the failings of the PTA, and Tamils across the North-East have protested against it. TELO would bring all sides together to campaign against it.
More than 60 percent of Tamils had been pushed below the poverty line by the economic crisis, he said, with rises in the price of milk powder, rice and sugar and a heavy tax burden leaving people unable to meet daily costs. The party decided to mount mass protests demanding the government address this.
Tamil nationalist parties should work together on the common problems facing Tamils beyond elections, Kurusamy said, pointing to TELO joining the Illankai Tamil Arasu Katchi at a recent relay hunger strike in Jaffna as a model for future campaigns on rights and livelihoods.