Political Parties
The Tamil National Alliance or Tamil Government Party (Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi or இலங்கைத் தமிழரசுக் கட்சி in Tamil) is a minority Sri Lankan Tamil political party in Sri Lanka.
LTTE proxy
2004 Election results
Assassination of MPs
It was formed in 2001, just before the 2001 elections, and consists of the
All Ceylon Tamil Congress Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (A faction known as Suresh wing) Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization Tamil United Liberation Front (formerly the Federal Party)
Acting as the political wing of the Tamil poosi the creation of an autonomous Tamil homeland in North-Eastern Sri Lanka.[1]
LTTE proxy
It is considered by many as a proxy of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE),[1] a Sri Lankan separatist group which is banned as a terrorist organization in a number of countries including the United States, the European Union, Canada and India.[2]
2004 Election results
In the April 2004 election in which the SLFP and JVP alliance led by President Kumaratunga came to power, the TNA led by R. Sampanthan won 6.9% of the popular vote and 22 out of 225 seats in the Sri Lankan parliament.
After the 2004 elections, the parliament is led by a closely divided minority government that has had to work with the TNA in order to pass measures to improve the situation with the LTTE.[citation needed] Since late October 2004, the government and the LTTE have made attempts to restart Norwegian brokered peace talks. The TNA has remained the LTTE’s political ally in the peace negotiations.[citation needed]
Assassination of MPs
Main articles: Human Rights in Sri Lanka and State terrorism in Sri Lanka
In 2005 and 2006, two of its members of parliament Joseph Pararajasingham and Nadarajah Raviraj were killed by unknown gunmen.
Origins of the Sri Lankan civil war Sri Lankan civil war Tamil militant groupsThe Tamil United Liberation Front (in Tamil: தமிழர் ஐக்கிய விடுதலை முன்னணி, in Sinhala: ද්රවිඩ එක්සත් විමුක්තිපෙරමුණ) is a political party in Sri Lanka, which seeks autonomy for the Tamil-populated areas of Sri Lanka.
On May 4, 1972 several Tamil political groups, including the All Ceylon Tamil Congress and the Federal Party, formed the Tamil United Front (TUF). With the group's adoption in 1976 of a demand for an independent state, a "secular, socialist state of Tamil Eelam," it changed its name to the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF). In the general election of July 1977, TULF won eighteen seats in the legislature, including all fourteen seats contested in the Jaffna Peninsula.
Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, the TULF was frequently blamed by nationalist Sinhalese politicians for acts of violence committed by militant groups such as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). In fact, the TULF represented an older, more conservative generation of Tamils that felt independence could be achieved without violence, more rival than ally to youth groups like the LTTE who believed in armed conflict.
In October 1983, all the TULF legislators, numbering sixteen at the time, forfeited their seats in Parliament for refusing to swear an oath unconditionally renouncing support for a separate state in accordance with the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka.
During the 1980s, the LTTE began to see the TULF as a rival in its desire to be considered the sole representatives of the Tamils of the north and east. Over the next two decades, the LTTE has assassinated several TULF leaders, including Appapillai Amirthalingam and Neelan Thiruchelvam.
The current Tamil United Liberation Front president is V. Anandasangaree. He is the only TULF MP who refused to join the LTTE-allied Tamil National Alliance coalition for the 2004 elections.
