Sri Lanka

his is the type of pig-headed mentality that drove Prabhakaran to take up arms.

It should be remembered that Prabhakaran lost the war, but the reasons for the war still persists. The statement "The claim of traditional/historical homelands is a load of balderdash, unsupported by any kind of evidence" is simply hogwash. It is part of the country’s constitution. 

Tamils were tricked by D.S.Senanayake to vote for the Soulbury constitution after giving a pledge that “‘no harm need they fear at our hands in a free Lanka’. Appealing specifically to the Tamils, he asked, ‘do you want to be governed from London or do you want, as Ceylonese, to help govern Ceylon?’ (State Council Debate on the Soulbury Constitution 1945). Tamil leaders thought the Sinhalese would treat their people as equals. However, once power went into the hands of the majority Sinhalese, Senanayake passed legislative acts that discriminated against Tamils. Under the provisions of the Ceylon Citizenship Act 1948, almost all the Tamils in the Central Hill Country were denied citizenship, leaving them stateless. They were then disenfranchised by a simple amendment to the Ceylon (Parliamentary Elections) Amendment Act stating only citizens can vote at elections.

As for history suffice to say that Northeast is the traditional habitat of the Tamils and Tamil speaking peoples. Anyway, many independent states like Kosovo, East Timor, Montenegro, and Herzegovina etc. became independent states not based on history but on the principle of people’s right to self-determination. Montenegro has only a population of 633,000 people and an area of 13,318 sq.kms (5,333 sq miles). It became emerged as a sovereign state after just over 55% of the population opted for independence in a May 2006 referendum.

We are not living in the forties and fifties. We are living in the 21st century where self-determination of people is recognized in the UNO's conventions and protocols.

If the Sinhalese people continue to deny the basic rights of Tamils, Ceylon will continue to be a third world basket case.