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<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\nAs well as offering a way to end austerity and improve the living standards of the 99% of people, paid for by the richest 1%,\u00a0Corbyn<\/strong><\/a>\u2019s election manifesto also includes an improved position on foreign affairs. This includes sanctions on military and defence aid to Sri Lanka. All the key demands to improve the rights of Tamils in Sri Lanka put forward by the\u00a0Tamil community<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0have been accepted by Corbyn and John McDonnell in a number of interviews, statements, and when they\u2019ve participated in meetings.<\/p>\n In effect, the 13 demands put forward by the five key Tamil parties in Sri Lanka during the 2019 presidential campaign are supported. These were rejected by all the right-wing parties. In fact in Sri Lanka, the only candidates to support these demands were Siritunga Jayasuriya of the United Socialist Party (USP) and the Tamil candidate Sivajilingam.<\/p>\n Therefore the many diaspora organisations who claim to support these demands face an easy choice in the British general election. Corbyn\u2019s policies have clear benefits for both the Tamils, Sinhala, Muslims in Sri Lanka and all workers and young people in Britain.<\/p>\n Of course, it\u2019s not so simple for those on the right. They always claim to be \u201csupporting people\u2019s interests\u201d while in reality defending only their own interests. Only a very small elite group among Tamils support the Tory party. They attempt to propose themselves as the Tamil \u2018community leaders\u2019. But they did not have anything in this election to \u201csell\u201d to the Tamils as the Tory party has failed to actually commit to anything in their non-manifesto. The only thing they have going for them is the past episode of\u00a0David Cameron<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0visiting Jaffna and refusing to shake hands with\u00a0Mahinda Rajapaksa<\/strong><\/a>. But that was just for show \u2013 none of the promises of that \u201cbackward\u201d prime minister came to pass. Now they are cornered. So they invented a stunt. Gambling on Tamils\u2019 inability to understand English, their offer to Tamils goes no further than a potential misinterpretation of the Tory manifesto.<\/p>\n On page 53 of the Tory manifesto there is one sentence saying they will support the reconciliation process in some countries and listing Sri Lanka and Cyprus as examples. They added that they will \u201cmaintain our support for a two-state solution\u201d in the Middle East. But why do they refuse then to mention Israel-Palestine?<\/p>\n How do the pro-Tory Tamils explain the party\u2019s close links with many right-wing dictatorial, human rights-abusing regimes across the world \u2013 which includes the Israeli government?\u00a0 The Tories are also promising in this election to take legal action against any council if they propose to boycott Israel.\u00a0Instead this term of \u201ctwo state solution\u201d is picked up by the Tamil Tories in their campaign to get votes for the Conservative Party in this election. They claimed the Conservative manifesto supports a two state solution for Sri Lanka in relation to Tamils.<\/p>\n The British Tamil Conservatives (BTC) are a small outfit that has no support among Tamils. When Tamil youth took to the social media ridiculing their false propaganda and lies, their tune changed. Now they claim that the \u201cConservative party supports the two-state theory by comparing Sri Lanka to divided countries\u201d. They further state that it \u2018implies\u2019 Tories support a two-state solution.<\/p>\n The British Tamils Forum (BTF), another group suffering declining support among Tamils, released a statement on this. Some of the key leaders of the BTF are Conservative Party members. Their statement is embarrassing \u2013 the BTF claims that they contacted the cabinet ministers and MPs to explain to them what was written in English in the paragraph on page 53. To their dismay they confirmed that what it meant was what it says. The BTF statement confirmed that Conservative Chairman Paul Scully personally wrote to clarify: \u201cThe commitments on Sri Lanka and Cyprus were simply about continuing existing efforts\u201d and that two-state line is not about Sri Lanka. But the BTC are still reading what they want and campaigning on lies.<\/p>\n This\u00a0<\/b>mess of lies and confusion\u00a0came to be known among Tamils as \u201cissue 53\u201d, but the BTF has nonetheless declared that they will remain neutral! By \u2018neutral\u2019 they mean they will not support Corbyn\u2019s policies officially while key leaders have continued to support the Tories. The rift between the BTC and BTF is not even political \u2013 but due to a personal clash between some individuals we have been told.<\/p>\n What is a \u2018neutral\u2019 position?\u00a0It was a disgraceful act when\u00a0some\u00a0decided to be \u2018neutral\u2019 during the genocidal war of 2009 in Sri Lanka. How can someone remain neutral while a massacre is taking place? Similarly, it is absolutely outrageous for any organisation that claims to be leading the struggle of oppressed Tamils to remain neutral in the British general election. The majority of Corbyn\u2019s policies (including the position on Tamils and Sri Lanka) give us a clear choice. It is not a coincidence that those who reject Corbyn\u2019s manifesto also chose to support the capitalist UNP candidate in Sri Lanka. The Tamil National Alliance campaigned for the UNP while claiming that they will work with any Sri Lankan government \u2013 a position supported by the BTF.<\/p>\n This position has nothing to do with defending the rights and interests of Tamils. It is a class position \u2013 a position to defend the capitalist class, the big business bosses\u2019, interests. They try to hide their true intentions behind the word \u2018neutral\u2019.<\/p>\n What has all the effort and money that has gone into lobbying and other shenanigans achieved? Money raised by workers and young people in the main. Getting the so-called \u201cinternational community\u201d to act is the result they peddle \u2013 but no results have been forthcoming. A major victory for them would be to get a country like Britain to at least put a sanction on military and defence support for Sri Lanka. A Corbyn victory is the only route on offer to this, but they still refuse to support it. Defending their own class is far more important to these fake defenders of Tamil interests than anything else. The Sri Lankan state, now led by the butcher of Tamils, has nothing to fear from this lot.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Tamils must reject the bogus politics, instead mobilise towards strengthening real fightback. This means standing firm on our principles \u2013 our key demands \u2013 and only seeking an alliance with those who are serious about delivering on rights for all and an end to all forms of oppression.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As well as offering a way to end austerity and improve the living standards of the 99% of people, paid for by the richest 1%,\u00a0Corbyn\u2019s election manifesto also includes an improved position on...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/senan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/senan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/senan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/senan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/senan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=102"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/senan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103,"href":"https:\/\/senan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions\/103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/senan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/senan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/senan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/senan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}