Tamil diaspora cannot make significant impact abroad - Muralitharan

by Shanika Sriyananda

The Tamil diaspora cannot make a significant impact internationally as it faces internal dissension and is now divided into three segments, Deputy Minister of Resettlement Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan said. He said that the Tamil diaspora had broken into three groups - US based Visvanathan Rudrakumar, Norway based Nediyavan and the London based group. They had conflicting ideas about the proposed 'Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE)'.

Minister Muralitharan told the Sunday Observer that their efforts to form a TGTE is another pipe dream like Vellupillai Prabhkaran's Eelam.

"How can they set up a separate State without the support of the Tamils living in Sri Lanka? They detest the LTTE for having destroyed them. No pro-LTTE element will get the support of the Tamils to set up a separate state in Sri Lanka now", he said.

Minister Muralitharan said that the Tamils in the North and the East were confident that the Mahinda Rajapaksa Government would address their grievances. "They were denied development for three decades as the previous regimes had neglected them due to the conflict.

However, the present Government had provided them an opportunity to settle their grievances", he said.

He said that the Tamil diaspora would not return to Sri Lanka and they create issues for their survival abroad.

Minister Muralitharan said that the Tamil diaspora did not suffer at the hands of LTTE terror and they had funded the LTTE, to make the outfit militarily strong so that the Tamil diaspora could continue to live abroad.

"But some of the Tamil diaspora have now realised the truth and they did not wish to join these segments", he said adding that he had discussed the efforts made by the Government to solve the post conflict issues such as resettlement, rehabilitation and development with the Tamil diaspora.