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Chandrasekeran wants all Tamils under Prabhakaran
Community Development Minister Periyasamy Chandrasekeran has appealed to the Tamils to unite under LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, fearing that the Tamil language and the Tamils as a distinct people will cease to exist in 50 years time because they do not have a country and a government of their own.

The remarks were made in a speech he made to the Tamil Sangam in the Norwegian capital of Oslo on August 30. As reported in The Sunday Times last week, Mr. Chandrasekeran also took part in an election rally for the Oslo municipality in favour of Rajan Balasingham, alias Baskeran, a staunch LTTEer who was contesting on the Labour Party ticket.

Mr. Balasingham was elected after the Labour Party won 15 seats in the 59-member Oslo commune. He was 48th on the list of 59 and received 2,470 votes as against three candidates of Pakistani origin and another of Indian origin who polled more than 16,000 votes each.

Mr. Chandrasekeran was afforded all the courtesies extended to a Government Minister. He used the VIP lunge at the Bandaranaike International Airport during his departure. Upon arrival in Oslo, he had been extended an official welcome at the VIP lounge of the Gardmoen airport in Oslo.

According to the Colombo based pro-LTTE "Sudar Oli" Tamil language newspaper, Mr. Chandrasekeran told the Tamil Sangam meeting that the "only" aim of Mr.Prabhakaran was to unite the world's Tamils. He attributed his theory of the global extinction of the Tamils and their language to an unidentified study that had listed people and languages which were in danger of extinction in half a century.

Other reports from Oslo said Mr. Chandrasekeran had called upon Norwegian leaders facilitating the peace process in Sri Lanka to canvass for the merger of the Nuwara Eliya and Badulla districts which have the largest concentration of plantation workers. Thereafter, he had called for the two joint districts to be brought under the North-East Provincial Council. But Mr. Chandrasekeran, who is currently touring the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu denied the reports. He told The Sunday Times on the telephone "I have not said anything like that."

Sudar Oli newspaper quoted Mr. Chandrasekeran as saying that the Sinhala language and the Sinhala people were not in the list of the endangered. This was because the Sinhalese had a country and a language of their own.

He had told Sudar Oli he was often asked why he, a Tamil of Indian origin, should take up the cause of the Sri Lankan Tamils and support the LTTE. His answer was that the Indian origin Tamils living in the hill country would be able to live in dignity and secure their rights only if the Sri Lankan Tamils living in the north and east were strong.

Soon after the Ceasefire Agreement was signed between the Government and the LTTE, Mr. Chandrasekeran said he had travelled to Kilinochchi to meet guerrilla leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. He had asked him to take up the cause of the plantation Tamils too. However, the LTTE leader had politely declined saying the leadership should come from that community itself, according to Sudar Oli.

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