Chennai, Nov 12 (IANS) The Tamil Nadu assembly Tuesday again urged the central government to totally boycott the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) being held in Colombo.
The assembly asked New Delhi not to send any representatives for the foreign ministers meeting Nov 13 or CHOGM Nov 15-17 to be held at Colombo, respecting the sentiments of Tamils.
According to the resolution passed unanimously, India’s participation in CHOGM would mean that the country accepts the inhuman acts of the Sri Lankan regime vis-a-vis the Tamils.
Not only that, India would be blamed for enabling the Sri Lankan president to head CHOGM for the next two years which it said Tamils would not tolerate.
The assembly referred to the earlier resolution passed in the assembly urging the Indian government to take steps to suspend Sri Lanka from the Commonwealth till the island nation takes steps to grant Tamils all the political rights that Sinhalese there enjoy.
The assembly expressed its deep regret at the Indian government’s decision to depute a delegation led by External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid to attend CHOGM despite the Tamil Nadu assembly’s request that India must boycott the summit.
The central government’s decision to keep away Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from the summit does not comfort Tamils or respect the sentiments of the Tamils and is “very saddening”, it said.
Earlier, moving the resolution, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J.Jayalalithaa said the assembly unanimously resolved that India should take steps to impose economic sanctions on the island nation.
She said that a July 2011 assembly resolution had also called upon the central government to impress upon the UN to declare those who carried out “war crimes” in Sri Lanka as war criminals.
The reference was to the killing of a large number of Tamil civilians during the final stages of Sri Lanka’s war that crushed the Tamil Tigers in May 2009. Colombo has denied charges of “war crimes”.
In March this year, another resolution was passed in the Tamil Nadu assembly urging the Indian government to stop declaring Sri Lanka as a friendly nation.
She said the internally displaced Tamils in Sri Lanka have not been rehabilitated and the presence of the military in Tamil areas continued.
The Sri Lankan government had not taken steps to devolve equal powers to Tamils and the newly elected Tamil National Alliance government in the Northern Province did not have sufficient powers, she said.
The resolution was then passed unanimously by the assembly of Tamil Nadu, a state separated from Sri Lanka by a narrow strip of sea.