DMK urges for plebiscite to resolve Lankan Tamils issue
COIMBATORE: The DMK on Sunday demanded that the Union government initiate efforts with other countries to bring the perpetrators of "war crimes" against ethnic Sri Lankan Tamils before theInternational Court of Justice. A resolution passed on the concluding day of the party's general council meet here also urged for a plebiscite among the Lankan Tamils to find a political solution to the vexed issue.
This marks a U-turn by the DMK which had invited wrath of Tamil diaspora during the final phase of Eelam War IV between Sri Lankan Army and the now decimated LTTE.
The party, which has hitherto been critical aboutLTTE and its slain leader V Prabhakaran, used the resolution to come down heavily on Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa who in her previous tenure passed a resolution against Prabhakaran in 2002. The resolution also condemned her reported statement during the last Eelam War that casualties were common in a conflict zone.
Recalling various efforts undertaken by Karunanidhi in the past to protect interests of Sri Lankan Tamils, the council said there was no iota of truth in allegations that the party sacrificed their interests. The meeting recalled how Karunanidhi collected one crore signatures and sent them to the UN in 1983.
On the issue of Katchatheevu, an islet ceded by India to Sri Lanka in 1974, the resolution said Karunanidhi had already expressed regret for being chief minister when Union government had taken that decision. The DMK had organised protests against it later, the resolution said.
The meeting termed Jayalalithaa's moving of a resolution in the Assembly stating that the state will implead itself in a private case filed by her in the Supreme Court on the issue, as opportunism. She had not made any effort for retrieval of the islet despite vowing to do so in 1999, the resolution charged.
This marks a U-turn by the DMK which had invited wrath of Tamil diaspora during the final phase of Eelam War IV between Sri Lankan Army and the now decimated LTTE.
The party, which has hitherto been critical aboutLTTE and its slain leader V Prabhakaran, used the resolution to come down heavily on Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa who in her previous tenure passed a resolution against Prabhakaran in 2002. The resolution also condemned her reported statement during the last Eelam War that casualties were common in a conflict zone.
Recalling various efforts undertaken by Karunanidhi in the past to protect interests of Sri Lankan Tamils, the council said there was no iota of truth in allegations that the party sacrificed their interests. The meeting recalled how Karunanidhi collected one crore signatures and sent them to the UN in 1983.
On the issue of Katchatheevu, an islet ceded by India to Sri Lanka in 1974, the resolution said Karunanidhi had already expressed regret for being chief minister when Union government had taken that decision. The DMK had organised protests against it later, the resolution said.
The meeting termed Jayalalithaa's moving of a resolution in the Assembly stating that the state will implead itself in a private case filed by her in the Supreme Court on the issue, as opportunism. She had not made any effort for retrieval of the islet despite vowing to do so in 1999, the resolution charged.
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