Rudrakumaran ‘PM of Transnational Tamil Government’

BBC: The Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) has elected its prime minister, speaker and deputy speaker after ratifying its constitution at a meeting in New York, the TGTE said.

It said the former legal advisor to the Tamil Tigers, Visvanathan Rudrakumaran, was unanimously appointed as the first ever PM while two leading expatriates from Canada and Switzerland were elected as the speaker and his deputy.

The meeting at the United Nations Plaza Hotel on 1 October was also addressed by international dignitaries including former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, the statement said.

Delegates in New York were joined via teleconference with London and Paris and the delegations have agreed to form a parliament and to create the post of a prime minister and three deputy posts.

There will also be an advisory body —Senate.

The TGTE earlier admitted that there have been accusations of many elections irregularities, including the stuffing of ballot boxes, during the election of 112 delegates in Western countries and Australia.

TGTE, a group formed by a section of the pro-Tamil Tiger Diaspora, is working on establishing “an independent, sovereign State of Tamil Eelam,” and developing “a pragmatic approach” in relation to the relief and development work in the north and east of Sri Lanka, it said.

The TGTE programme was set in motion in a meeting convened by Selvarasa Pathmanathan (KP) in Kuala Lumpur in June 2009, according to Tamilnet website.

KP arrested in Bangkok in September 2009 is held by Sri Lankan security forces in Colombo with relative freedom of movement.

Meanwhile, thousands of suspected former rebels are held in detention centres in the North since the Sri Lankan government claimed victory over Tamil Tigers in May 2009.

“Pathmanathan named V Rudrakumaran as the coordinator of the formation process. Assisting him was a task group consisting of formation and advisory committees,” it says.

However, TamilNet quoted TGTE members saying, “the question of one-person dominated leadership or collective leadership was not at all taken for voting in the TGTE Constitutional Assembly meeting held in New York Thursday and Friday”.