Lakmal Deegalla
LL. B (Hons.) (University of Jaffna)
On the 17th of January 2001, the Liberation of Tigers of Tamil Eelam released the Pongu Tamil Declaration consisting of the aspirations of the Tamils namely rights of self-determination, Traditional Homeland, and recognition of their distinct nationality. Apart from the said aspirations, it demanded that the Sri Lankan Government recognize the declared aspirations of Tamils in pragmatic constitutional norms. Though the Tamil Tigers made the said declaration on that day as the only guardians of Tamilians, the aspirations that constituted Pongu Tamil were not new. Since the political constitution of Sri Lanka was based on Sinhala-Buddhist ethnic-majoritarianism, the aspirations of Tamils have always been used by Sinhala political parties to come to power in the post-independence era.
Based on several other historical events and due to heavy ethnic bi-polarization, Sri Lankan society became deeply divided and experienced a Civil War for over thirty years. On the 18th of May 2009, the war came to an end, but it remains a question whether the defeat of the LTTE ended the Pongu Tamil aspirations. In fact, after the war, the Mahinda Rajapaksha regime missed a golden opportunity to reunite a deeply divided society. Even though there are hundreds of research papers on truth and reconciliation, they fail to recognize the political constitution with its distinctive Sri Lankan characteristics. Thus, the author of this paper will use qualitative and quantitative methods to take another step to identify the Pongu Tamil aspirations in-depth and find a political solution harmonising the political constitution with the theoretical constitution of Sri Lanka.
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