The Tamil People’s Council called for the recognition that “Tamils constitute a distinct people with the inalienable right to self-determination” in a draft set of proposals, calling for a political agreement prior to a constitutional enactment in Sri Lanka.The ‘Report of the Sub-Committee on Finding a Political Solution to the National Question’ was released at the Veerasingam Hall in Jaffna on Sunday.
In the draft set of proposals, calls were made for a pre-constitutional agreement, underwritten by a third party, to recognise “the Tamil Peoples’ right to self-determination, its sovereignty and constituent power and its traditional homeland in the areas of historical habitation of the Tamil people”.
“This agreement should also spell out inter alia measures to be taken for accountability and justice, address issues relating to disappearances, release of political prisoners, release of land occupied by the Armed forces in the North-East, demilitarization, state-sponsored colonization, security sector reforms and contain guarantees of non-recurrence,” said the report.
“It would be impossible to create a safe and open environment for the discussion of these political/constitutional issues without creating the above enabling conditions in the North-East.”
“For Sri Lanka to become a secular non-hierarchical State, the Sinhala Buddhist polity will have to recognize that there needs to be a new social contract drawn between the Tamil People and the Sinhala People in Sri Lanka through which would emerge a new State – a new pluri-national Sri Lanka,” the report added.
“It is from such a political vision that a new Constitution can be enacted. In the absence of such an understanding a constitutional process will, like in all previous instances be majoritarian and unilateral and bound to fail.”
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