Big mistake corrected: Wimal

JVP Parliamentary group leader Wimal Weerawansa made a special statement in Parliament on Friday regarding the Supreme Court decision to de-merge the Northern and Eastern provinces.

Here are excerpts of that speech:

The Supreme Court on October 16 put right one of the biggest mistakes that were made in support of Tamil separatist politics. The five member Supreme Court unanimously gave this historical decision and the two provinces which were merged after the Indo-Lanka Accord are now two separate provinces. The Accord recognized the north and east as the area of historical habitation of the Tamil speaking people in the country. Hence it is clear that this merger was not done for administrative purposes or for any such similar reasons but to give legitimacy to the basic demand of Tamil racist separatist politics and further strengthen that claim.

Under no circumstances can the north and east be the historical area of habitation of the Tamils. The two provinces were merged to give credence to these so-called historical areas of habitation concept and were subject to certain conditions.

One of them was to hold a referendum in the Eastern Province within a year of the merger for the people there to decide whether they want to separate from the north or want to stay merged. Another was the disarming of all armed militant groups.

But what happened in reality? Was the referendum held? Did the militants disarm? No. And from President J.R.Jayewardene up to President Chandrika Kumaratunga, each President continued to extend the temporary merger by gazette each year.

The Supreme Court ruled that President J.R.Jayaewardene had no power to merge the north and east with a gazette notification and by denying the people of the Eastern Province to elect their provincial council, their fundamental rights have been violated. After 19 years, a grave mistake was corrected. This decision should not be reversed under any circumstances and the Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims must be vigilant against such moves.