SLMC tells TNA:

No talks, no merger

by P. Krishnaswamy

General Secretary of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) and State Minister of Health M.T. Hasan Ali said plans by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to unilaterally propose a North-East unification would be rejected outright by the Muslims, unless there was consultation and consensus.

Responding to the TNA’ call for the merger of the North and the East – based on Tamil leaders’ persistent call for a federal system of governance within a unified North-Eastern Province – Hasan Ali said the Eastern Muslims will continue to agitate for the creation of a separate unit of devolution consisting of all non-contiguous geographical areas where Muslims are settled, modelled on India’s Pondicherry Union Territory.

“For this purpose, the SLMC intends holding discussions with the TNA and the right-thinking Sinhala leaders,” he said.

Under the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Agreement of July 1987, the Northern and Eastern Provinces were temporarily unified, as one single unit of devolution, with the requirement of a referendum for their permanent merger.

Ali said the temporary merge was opposed by the founder of the SLMC, M. H. M. Ashraff, on the ground that there was no consultation with the Muslims.

“There were other high-handed acts as well, including the holding of elections for the North-Eastern Provincial Council with the armed presence of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) while preventing the SLMC from filing nominations in Jaffna,” he added. 

Tamil members were elected unanimously due to absence of Muslim contenders in the North but in the East, 17 Muslims were elected including himself, Hasan Ali said. “When the Council decided to ‘unilaterally declare Tamil Eelam,’ only the seven members of the SLMC present lodged their strong opposition,” he added.