I commend Sampanthan and the TNA leadership for taking this stand and calling the bluff of the ruling junta. At this time of great humanitarian catastrophe for the Tamil people, courageous and necessary stands like this must be commended and supported.

The President and the Sri Lankan people are not going to be EMOTIONALLY BLACKMAILED by these TNA. This meeting was held to give these LTTE Proxy Mouthpieces a chance to Reconcile and plan future after the INEVITABLE DESTRUCTION of the LTTE. If they chose to Ignore the opportunity fine.... They will not be given a second chance and no one will shed a tear for their ouster from Sri Lankan politics for their lack of willingness to talk compromise and Real Solutions.

I COMMEND THE COURAGEOUS STAND TAKEN BY THE LEADER OF THE TNA. OVER 100,000 TAMILS BEEN KILLED BY THE SRI LANKAN ARMY DURING THE PAST 6 DECADES.

A courageous and principled stand by the TNA.

And for very good reasons, for example:
"We observe that you vaguely state that you desire to discuss the prevailing political situation in the country without any specific reference to the political issues that need to be discussed. There is also no reference to the grave humanitarian crisis"

It is most telling that Devinda Fernando (and no doubt many more Rajapakse & co supporters) regard this as emotional blackmail.
If one cannot be emotional about the horrors going on now, what is there left to be emotional about??

Mahinda & bros brutally slaughtered TNA parliamentarians Joseph Pararajasingam,Raviraj and
Sivanesan,now cordial invitation to tamil national
alliance to play an another fake political game
to deceive international community. What a wonderful
laughing stock. HA HA HA

I appreciate TNAs stand on the Presidents invitation for a meeting with out agenda or the meeting with the para military group leaders and armed ministers of So called Srilankan goverment.As a representative of the North and East they should have high lighten the situation in the so called cleared areas in north and east as well in their letter and the press meet. The pass system in jaffna never allow the fredom of movement to the comman man.

IDPs in in Jaffna not allowed to settled in their own lands and still living in refugee camps from 1991. Glass vailed Buddha statues are mushrooming in the hardcore muslim towns in the east in the name of freeing the muslims from the Tamils.There are high way in Batticaloa in Sinhala names, The costel areas of mannar alredy colonized by the Sinhala fishing folks, But the tamils and muslims from the east and mannar still in the anticipation of settling in their home

.......Tamils in Colombo are forced to line up in front of the police stations as criminals to register them self in every alternative months....This what going to happen to the wanni man after they have freed from the hands of LTTE

Mr .Devinda Fernado or any Sinhalese like him never understand the problems of an ordinary Tamil in any part of Sri Lanka unlese and other wise they live as a Tamil.

I am sorry to say this, Srilankan State is criminalzing and terrorizing the Tamil civilians in the name of state security. This security for whome i am sure it is not for minorities.....But I wander why TNA did not bring this to the table to enlarge picture of the ordinary Tamils.

These five parlimentarians who signed this letter know very well the consquence of this letter and their refusal to meet the president. They must have bargained hard with tamil extremists to include the last few sentences in the letter to moderate the content and to keep the door open. This will go down as one of the monumental blunders in the history of tamil political struggle. Extremists forces in the tamil community from LTTE to below can hail this as a brave move as they have done in the past, but as history shows this will only weaken the tamil struggle. This action of TNA will please political extremists like JVP, JHU & LTTE.

This would confirm the stand of the government that tamil community currently don't posses a credible political representation that could negotiate a political package and prove the proclamation of government that TNA is puppets of LTTE. This will ease the pressure on government by international community to a greater extent and add credibility to government in international forums. Unfortunately this will be the nail on the coffin of all those innocent tamils trapped in the conflict zone.

Protests in Geneva, Toronto or London; filing symbolic suits in courts in USA; lobbying representatives that hails from electorates that has a tamil vote or self immoluation will not gain anything substantial that will help to further the tamil cause if national politics is not handled intelligently. Section of tamil community believe that their manovers in international politics and propaganda alone is sufficient to achieve their objectives and local politics is not of importance to them.

Its this myth that led them to do this unfortunate situation that they are faced with today. It is your active participation in national politics that will affirm your status in international arena. In early 1980s tamil cause had a far superior status among international community, which relegated government to a pariah status. However with the dawn of 21st century standing of the government has some what elevated among the international community where as tamil cause has attained pariah status.

As at now its the government that holds the strategic advantage at both spheres of conflict, and even with a humanitarian catastropy that is occuring in Vanni tamil daispora has not been able to put pressure on the government at a substantial scale. LTTE has virtually hijacked the cause of tamils and has tarnished the validty of the tamil struggle.

One cannot entirely fault the TNA for this rejection. The President's invitation at this juncture was to fool the international community and to show the IMF/World Bank he is doing what is required to gain peace. He is far from that. By inviting the TNA this time he tells the world he made a mess of himself in keeping them away so long - including for the APRC talks.

The concerned world knows Devananda, Thondaman, Anandasangaree, Karuna/Pillaiayan are a buch of opportunities and mercenaries. It is the TNA that counts, as India throughout indicates by word and indeed. Note
he (RS) says much of the fighting between the two sides is "elsewhere" and not in this "one km" (Rambukwella's words) This cannot go for long. The only way out is to allow international and local neutral bodies to visit the scene under the full blare of electronic publicity. Why is he, the army and the forces afraid of that?

ISS

This is another stupid mistake by the Tamil polity and will add to the list of such mistakes starting with ( i) going to war with India (ii) killing Rajiv Gandhi (iii) tactically backing Mahinda during last presedential election. If the Tamil cause to have any resolution it will be through the participation of the Sri Lankan political process. No amounts of demonstrations in western countries and artciles in web sites are not going to help their cause unless they come to terms with the reality that Sri Lanka is not going to be divided as Sinhalease people will never ever allow it and Sri Lanka is going to be ruled by Sinhala nationalise leaders. If they want some dignity and equality they need to realize this and accept their minority status. If they continue to fight for utophian dream of Tamil Eelam, they will be a community of refugees scattered all over the world without any poltical power while destroying the future of those powerless and poor Tamils chosen to stay in Sri Lanka.

I think that the TNA members of Parliament took the right move at this point. I commend their courageous stand and exposing the bluff of MR. MR’s state terrorism has to be exposed every corner of the Globe. Now his advisers are Sinhala extremist Tamil paramilitaries and brothers of war mongers including Sarath Fonseka.
These Sri Lankan patriots are not Sri Lankan patriots majority of them are Sinhala Buddhist Nationalist. They are Sinhala Buddhist ‘Patriots’.
These people are the genocidal killers of Tamils. If we look back the past participation and agreements with Sinhala leaders, all were broken promises and broken agreements. Some of the agreement s were never implemented.
There is no genuine Sinhala ‘Sri Lanka national leader to change the governing system of Sri Lanka. All of them were Sinhala Buddhist racist leaders.
North and East of Sri Lanka is Tamils’ Traditional Homeland and Sinhalese have no right to fight for that part of Sri Lanka.
These ‘Sri Lankan patriots’ have to read the real history of Sri Lanka or Ceylon and not the ‘Mahavamsa’.

Ajaya, Sri Lankan Patriot,

What else do you want the TNA to do? To accept the charade of 'talking' by the Rajapaksas while they plot to kill TNA MP's?

Sampanthan has said that if the LTTE holds civilians as shields he cannot condone that. So you guys can no longer say they are taking orders from the LTTE. Given the blood-stained hands of the Rajapaksas, for anyone to even shake hands with them is outrageous.

Any self-respecting Tamil would have to take the position that Israel took in relation to the Hamas--being elected by a people does not make your president a worthy interlocutor. For pragmatic reasons, TNA leaders may still be forced to talk to Mahinda Rajapaksa at some point; after all they had to accept the LTTE's dominant position so far despite all the negatives of the LTTE. But currently the sole focus should be on the humanitarian tragedy in the Vanni and the TNA is right to stipulate conditions under which they may engage. That is simply the right decision.

If the GOSL wanted a genuine solution TNA should have been included in the APC meetings. Now, TNA is invited due to international presure, to get money from IMF, to hoodwink the international community or worse out of arrogance. In any case, correct response is given by TNA. Thank you courageous TNA.

Expatriate,

In my post my intention was not to justify the government or their invitation to TNA, but to highlight that rejection of the invitation in my view will be a blunder. As you have pointed out focus should be to save these people, but how? Its not so simple as you & I think. For us simply declare a cease fire & let these civilians reach safety is the solution. You would appreciate there are other dynamics that has made this simple solution very complicated. International community including UN has only called for a pause in fighting so that people could go out of conflict zone. Will LTTE allow that? will they be willing to fight without their biggest strategic wepon? My view is they wont & if they do they'll be in history. Then government has to intiate a long term cease fire. Is it possible under a regime whose political survival depends on war against LTTE? and specially when undianbly army holds the military advantage? My view is government wont unless there's intense international pressure. LTTE is a banned movement and no international actor will call for a long term truce in the next decade with out the pre condition that LTTE should lay down their arms. Do you think LTTE will do that? I dont think so.

So what was the only window of hope for those people. Tamil politcal groups should replace the militancy and engage the government to establish a broder political package. As I repeatedly say during CFA, LTTE has fulfilled its role in the struggle and now its the politicians who should take the lead. Failure to do this will weaken the struggle & lose its standing among sri lankans & among international actors. Which is what exatly happened. Discussion of a laydown of arms coupled with an agreement of long term political package is the only way forward I see in this deadlock. It is to this TNA has effectively refused to become a party, which would cost the tamils in the short & long run. Its the responsibility of daispora to carry this political mantal forward which I believe they are fully capable of. International actors will surely exert presuure on government if they renegade on their promises this time. If you listen to political statements emanating from various diplomatic channels carefully this solution is more in line with those statements as well.

If TNA had gone there, there would have been fighting between TNA and Sangari Douglas Company. Now It is a news taht Sangari shouted at Douglas to shut the mouth.

It remind me an incident between GG and Amir at a meeting(probably convened by Hardly College- I am not sure now) held in Saraswathy Hall in the Sixties. GG shouted "Pottadaa Vaayai"-Shut up your Mouth.
Amir said "nee Poottadaa vaayai"- You shut up your mouth.

This news was in the Front page of the Suthanthiran weekly paper,the following week.

Dear Ajaya,
I think the entire Tamil community in the world is now slowly coming together to handle the SL State terrorrism and the unfair stand took by the IC, effectively. - I believe by going for talks Tamils will not achieve anything. If the Tamils go for talks, the Terrorist state will tell them what they are planning to do and they will implement that solution over your heads whether the Tamils like it or not. Going for talks at this stage might be detrimental, as it may give legitimacy to MR's agenda, and kill the Tamil struggle.

The Tamils first need to show defiance. This is critical, to show it to the IC that by crushing the Tamil liberation fighters they cannot crush the Tamil struggle or Tamil's aspirations. The worlwide Tamils and now the SL Tamils (through TNA) has spoken defiance. - The Terrorist State and its friendly IC powers are expecting the Tamils to fall on their feet surrendering their right to freedom to avoid Genocide. But the learnt Tamils are defiant as they know in either case, second class treatment is the outcome. - Tamils neither trust the Terrorist state (Sorry, democractically elected terrorist state)nor the IC at this point.

As a second step, the world Tamils should form a body to give boast to the SL Tamil struggle. Recently, able Tamils from 22 countries met in London, and it is a very good sign. This body should be made up of world Tamils, and NOT just SL Tamils living outside SL. As I mentioned before, this body should have a VERY CLEAR OBJECTIVE of supporting the aspirations of the SL Tamils LIVING IN SL. At this point in time, TNA is the elected respresentatives of the Tamils. This objective is simply to avoid the births of Karuna/Pillaiyan/Sangaree/Deva and other hyenas international level. If this body is allowed to tell what the solution should be for SL Tamils, then this body will not remain in one piece, as we Tamils do not work very well as a Team unless there is a ruthless and abled leader like VP.

Also, unless there is another free and fair elections in the north and east, conducted and supervised by UN (Not by SL/Indian authorities), the last mandate given by Tamils back in 1977 should be upheld by this world Tamil body. - If the Terrorist state or IC, thinks otherwise they should allow the UN to hear the voice of SL Tamil people in a form of UN referendum.

This two step approach will be very effective as this world Tamil body members are outside the reach of the white vans and SL defense forces. If the SL Tamils continue to show defiance in SL, any halfbaked solution the SL govt implements to eye wash the IC, UN and IMF, will remain as an eye wash.

I am sure the world Tamils will not surrender their brethern in SL to State terrorism or IC intimidation.

I too commend R. Sampanthan and the TNA leadership for taking this stand and calling the bluff of the Rajapase thugs.