Jayalalitha had said Saturday that a separate Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka was the only solution to decades old ethnic strife, “To form a separate Eelam, vote for the AIADMK-led alliance,” she had said at an election meeting in Salem, prompting union minister Sibal to label her demand as “anti-national and irresponsible”.
On Monday (April 27), the former Tamil Nadu chief minister said, “The legal luminary (Sibal) has got his facts mixed up. I have opposed terrorism (regardless of their belonging to) militant outfits in the guise of a freedom struggle or repressive, multi-polar violence or genocide unleashed by a government.”More than 300,000 Tamils in this senseless war, she said, had been living in Sri Lanka as refugees in their own land without proper housing, food or medication.
“I had demanded cessation of hostilities in Sri Lanka and (its going) beyond a mere ceasefire and address the genuine problems of the Tamil people (that included) demarcation of the Tamil-dominated territory and devolution of power within the constitutional framework of Sri Lanka,” Jayalalitha pointed out.
“(Since) the Sri Lankan government is not prepared to implement any of these processes (and as it has) chosen to dismiss similar calls from the UN, the US, Britain and most countries barring China, the only way out is to carve out a separate state of Tamil Eelam,” she added.
Ms. Jayalalitha at a election rally in Salem city Saturday gave a powerful, moving speech, she resolved to fight to attain independent Eelam.
“I met Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravishankar who has just returned from the war-zone in the Vanni. He gave me CDs and photographs of the atrocities. My heart boils when I looked at it,” Ms. Jayalalitha said. If this pathetic situation of the Tamil people has to be removed, if the problems of the Lankan Tamils has to come to an end, an independent Eelam is the only solution, she added.
“We will fight to attain that independent, separate Eelam. Till today, I have never said that separate Eelam is the only solution. I have spoken about political solution, this and that. But, now I emphatically say, a separate Eelam is the only permanent solution to the Lankan conflict, ” she said.
