The SOFA Agreement

I always maintained that the main danger to Sri Lanka’s Sovereignty lay in the North East situation. There is a section of the general public which has voiced its views against this SOFA Agreement on the basis of its assault on the Sovereignty of Sri Lanka as a whole. My concern here is to focus the attention of those interested to the impact the Sofa will have on the North East frontiers.  

1. The election manifesto of the Tamil National Alliance for 2015 focuses mainly on the creation of a federal system of government which will give the North East a practical as well as a virtual autonomy in the management of its affairs quite independently of the Central Government, which is second step towards the establishment of a separate State. The first step was Prabhakaran’s terrorism which created the platform for the TNA to get about the matter constitutionally.  

2. Sumanthiran’s claim that the term “Ourumittanadu” which he insists on being inserted into the proposed new Constitution in its description of the State, means unitary, is not correct. “Urumittanadu” in terms of any Tamil Dictionary means ‘united’ as opposed to unitary. “United” means Federal as in the United States.

3. The new proposed Constitution, contains the following Article:  

• The election manifesto of the TNA for 2015 focuses mainly on the creation of a federal system of government
• “Undivided” and “indivisible” are matters of geography

“Article 1: The State -  

Sri Lanka (Ceylon) is a free sovereign and independent Republic which is an ‘aekiya rajaya/orumiththa nadu,’ consisting of the institutions of the Centre and the Provinces which shall exercise the power as laid down in the Constitution.  

In this Article ‘aekiya rajaya/orumiththa nadu’ means a State which is undivided and indivisible, and in which the power to amend the Constitution, or to repeal and replace the Constitution, shall remain with the Legislature and the People of Sri Lanka as provided in this Constitution”  

“Undivided” and “indivisible” are matters of geography. The “State” is a matter of law and concerns the devolution of power. The Federal State comes into being with the extent of the devolution of power and has nothing to do with the indivisibility of the land.   

SOFA  

It appears that the SOFA agreement gives the US military unrestricted access to Sri Lankan soil with impunity. I do not wish to bore the readers with the worn out rhetoric on the impact this will have on the sovereignty of Sri Lanka as a whole. My intention here is to draw attention of those interested to the impact that the intrusion of American warships into Sri Lanka’s North East territorial waters will have on the sovereignty of Sri Lanka in the north and the east.   

The US, the UN Human Rights Commission, Britain, and other Western countries along with some of our own lower forms of pond life are openly supporting the Federal Constitution,criticizing the so called abuse of the rights of Tamils, and genocides, and war crimes and what not. So, the appearance of American warships on the Eastern horizon under these conditions will tend to facilitate the Sumanthiran obsession for a separate State of Tamil Eelam in the North and East.  

So also, there is a Tamil Eelam Government in Exile in Toronto, Canada, established by the Tamil Diaspora, with its own Parliament and Prime Minister and Cabinet, which is supervising the activities of the North and East from there. The main object of their Constitution is to merge the North and the East in Sri Lanka and create a separate State of Tamil Eelam.  

The Federal Constitution

If the Federal Constitution is passed, with the West and the Tamil Diaspora pouring in their dollars, it is just a matter of time before the Central Government loses control of the North and the East. Within a very short time, the North East will have its own financial system, education, technology, security, economical structure including imports and exports, factories, trade zones and all that is necessary for it to function independently of the central Government. If, the Central Government retaliates in civil terms, they will just thumb their nose at the Centre and manage much better with the Diaspora and Western funding, and that will surely create the separate identity necessary to-  

1. Make a unilateral declaration in terms of the United Nations Charter, of a Sovereign State of Tamil Eelam in the North West from Puttalam to Ampare - along with a portion of the North Central, which is what is depicted in the map of Eelam. It is doubtful whether the Central can interfere in war terms with the Americans frowning at it over the North Eastern shores, and  

2. Once that is done it will be just a matter of time, when, with the support of the West, the Sovereign State of Tamil Eelam will petition the United Nations for membership. If this petition is passed by the UN Security Council, then the matter will be taken up by the General Assembly, and with a simple majority the State of Tamil Eelam will be a member of the United Nations and   

3. we can kiss the North and east good bye……  
Yo! Ho! and a bottle of rum!