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Is Sri Lanka's extensive military spending directed at India? TGTE Prime Minister V. Rudrakumaran

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"India, which is providing humanitarian assistance to Sri Lanka should raise the question of why Sri Lanka is incurring these unbridled military spendings"

Since the end of the war, Sri Lanka has maintained its Security forces allocating 11 % of its national spending to defence in 2009-17 & spent $1716 million more during this period than during the war”
— V. Rudrakumaran
NEW YORK, UNITED STATES, April 8, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ --

V. Rudrakumaran, the Prime Minister of the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) has said that Sri Lanka’s continued spending indiscriminately on its military long after its war on Tamils ended and while Tamils were engaged in peaceful protests has relevance to India.

He said in a statement on the current economic crisis in Sri Lanka and on Sri Lankan military's continued statements that there were no domestic threats and that its military was capable of facing any foreign threat, as expressions of the Sinhala nation's majestic attitude towards any likely invasion of Sri Lanka.

He referred to the comments made by Sri Lankan Defense Secretary, General Kamal Gunaratne, on recent reports that Indian troops had entered Sri Lanka, saying "the Sri Lankan military has the capability to deal with any situation to ensure national security."

India, which has been providing humanitarian assistance to Sri Lanka in a friendly manner to alleviate the livelihood crisis faced by the people in the economic crisis, should raise the question of why Sri Lanka is incurring these unbridled military spendings. India must press for the complete withdrawal of the Sri Lankan army from the occupied Tamil nation.

Since the end of the war in 2009, Sri Lanka has largely maintained its military, and its Special Task Force as well as the Police, allocating 11 % of its national spending to defence in 2009-17, having spent $ 1716 million more during this period than during the war.

Sri Lanka has become the world's largest country with 99 percent of its troops in operation, and spends $ 170 million a year on military pensions alone

Prime Minister Rudrakumaran has noted that the Sri Lankan government, which has increased the salaries of security forces by 45 % since the end of the war, has stationed most of its military in the occupied Tamil homeland.


* ABOUT THE TRANSNATIONAL GOVERNMENT OF TAMIL EELAM (TGTE):

The Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) is a democratically elected Government of over a million strong Tamils (from the island of Sri Lanka) living in several countries around the world.

TGTE was formed after the mass killing of Tamils by the Sri Lankan Government in 2009.

TGTE thrice held internationally supervised elections among Tamils around the world to elect 135 Members of Parliament. It has two chambers of Parliament: The House of Representatives and the Senate and also a Cabinet.

TGTE is leading a campaign to realize the political aspirations of Tamils through peaceful, democratic, and diplomatic means and its Constitution mandates that it should realize its political objectives only through peaceful means. It’s based on the principles of nationhood, homeland and self-determination.

TGTE seeks that the international community hold the perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against the Tamil people to account. TGTE calls for a referendum to decide the political future of Tamils.

The Prime Minister of TGTE is Mr. Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran, a New York based lawyer.

Email: pmo@tgte.org
Web: www.tgte-us.org
Twitter: @TGTE_PMO


BACKGROUND

Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka faced repeated mass killings in 1958, 1977, and 1983 and the mass killings in 2009 prompted UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to appoint a Panel of Experts to report on the scale of the killings.

According to UN internal review report on Sri Lanka, over 70 thousand Tamils were killed in six months in early 2009 and Tamil women were sexually assaulted and raped by the Sri Lankan Security forces.

International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) in February 2017 handed over details to UN of Sri Lankan Military run "Rape Camps", where Tamil women are being held as “sex slaves”. Also, according to UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office report on April 2013, there are over 90 thousand Tamil war widows in Sri Lanka.

Thousands of Tamils disappeared, including babies and children. UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances stated in 2020 that the second highest number of enforced disappearance cases in the world is from Sri Lanka.

According to this UN report, the killings and other abuses that took place amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Independent experts believe that there are elements of these abuses that constitute an act of genocide.

Members of the Sri Lankan security forces are almost exclusively from the Sinhalese community and the victims are all from the Tamil community.

Tamils overwhelmingly voted in a Parliamentary election in 1977 to establish an independent and sovereign country called Tamil Eelam. This Parliamentary election was conducted by the Sri Lankan Government.

Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran
Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE)
+1 614-202-3377
r.thave@tgte.org
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