By Jay Tharan
Recently the Falklands become one of the hot topic around the world as
history returned between Argentina and Britain. The claim over the
island sparked a war between Britain and Argentina during 1982 over
sovereignty of the island and still a unresolved case. The island
falls under British Overseas territory with enjoys a large degree of
internal self-government. British interest on the island has been huge
and nobody would be surprised over the dispute since once again it is
a fight over the oil rich land. At the same time what is the
resemblance of this story with Sri Lanka ?
Falklands , the islands in South Atlantic , is located at East of
South America , has been French, British, Spanish, and Argentine
settlements during various times in the history. Similarly Ceylon
(Later renamed to Sri Lanka ) is been colonised by Portuguese , Dutch
and English in various part of History. Before the westerners came to
the island Ceylon was ruled by Tamil kingdoms in north and midlands
while Sinhala kingdoms rules the coastal areas of south. As there were
no understanding of borders between the kingdoms , and western people
could not find any difference between two nations , they unified the
island and names as Ceylon ( by British).
Falklands has a huge potential of oil reserves, which mainly made the
dispute between Britain and Argentina. Ceylon was famous for gems ,
tea and spices which made interest for colonial rulers in the history
but other than that there were no motivations for any other countries
in the island. The population of Falklands is just below 5000, while
Ceylon had 21 million where Tamil speaking nation is 8%.
Even though Tamils have been fighting for their right to self govern
their traditional Northern and Eastern called “Tamil Eelam” which had
37 years of armed struggle by Tamil Tigers , which ended in 2009 , the
struggle for self determination is still an ongoing issue. Tamils
leaders have come up with various political organisations , as
Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam , which claims it represents
Tamils who fled the genocide around the world , and various country
wise Tamil orgnisations is Diaspora while the major Tamil poltical
party TNA, who is been a selection of majority Tamils living in the
island . The comment factor on all these organisations are that they
determined to achieve the self determination rights of Tamils.
Recent claim by British Prime Minister David Cameron, that Falklands
fall under UN charter of self determination is a valid reason against
Argentina , as islanders wished to be British Nationals than of
Argentineans is the past. The question raised now is how honestly
British PM claims such ‘protecting democracy around the world’ while
he himself knew Tamils have been fighting for this for long time. The
last known voting in 1976 claimed that 96.4% of Tamils in the island
backed the self governing ideology while British , who have the moral
responsibility to resolve the issue , have never taken action for such
rights in the name of ‘protecting democracy around the world’.
It is time for British leaders and world leaders to talk genuinely on
world democracy and avoid following different rule for oil rich
countries and turn silent on poor countries like Tamil Eelam. The self
determination rights is a key to resolve a 62 years old long conflict
which was created by British rulers in 18thcentury. Time for British
Prime minister to show consistency on Falklands and Ceylon and show
the world British does not have double standard.
Will current British Politicians make a history by correcting their
historical mistake in Ceylon which has caused 62 years civil war, with
300,000 Tamil lives killed including 40,000 massacred only in 2009.
Tamils are looking upon the faces of British Nation and Government who
were the first friends in outside world for them due to historical
links. It is a perfect time in the history to make such change.
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