COLOMBO: Sri Lankan Tamil political circles expect LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran to highlight the role of Tamil Nadu and India in shaping the future of his struggle in his much awaited Hero’s Day speech on November 27.
The mystery surrounding his annual speech over radio and TV is heightened by the exceptionally grim circumstances under which he will be delivering it this year.
Militarily, he has lost 85 per cent of Western Wanni, besides the entire Jaffna peninsula and the Eastern Province.
Losses in the Eastern Wanni are also on the cards, if the present trend continues.
The political situation offers little or no succour. The opposition United National Party (UNP) is somewhat soft on the LTTE, in contrast to the ruling coalition, but it is too weak and demoralised to advocate a peace line.
The international community is of the view that there is no military solution to the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict, but is reluctant to force the Rajapaksa government to stop the war. However, Prabhakaran may be hoping that the US would change its policy after Barack Obama takes over as President.
At present, Prabhakaran gets concrete support only from the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora and Tamil Nadu.
New Delhi is neither here not there. As to what it will actually do in the coming months dependents on the mood in Tamil Nadu.
THANKING TN : In this overall scenario, Tamil sources expect Prabhakaran to thank Tamil Nadu profusely for resolutely calling for a ceasefire.
The all-party nature of the support, despite schisms, will be welcomed as a throw-back to the 1983 situation when support for the Sri Lankan Tamils cut across party lines and elicited demonstrative support from the state’s civil society.
Though the pro-LTTE Tamil media has taken a strong anti-New Delhi line, criticising it for covertly supporting Colombo, Tamil political commentators expect Prabhakaran himself to be soft on New Delhi, in the hope that it would stop military aid to Sri Lanka and put diplomatic pressure on it to go slow on the offensive.