[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 April 2012, 23:15 GMT]
Speaking at a meeting on “The Tamil Struggle for Self-Determination: A Leftist Sinhala Perspective” at University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute of Studies in Education, Sinhala academic Dr. Jude Lal Fernando highlighted the need to understand the role of powers in shaping and manipulating the forces among the Sri Lankan state and the Eezham Tamils, on Thursday. Talking extensively about how the western establishments tilted the parity of status against the Tigers during the CFA period, he expressed the view that the US-UK axis was to blame for the 2009 massacre. Dr. Fernando, who was one of the main co-ordinators of the Dublin Permanent People’s Tribunal on Sri Lanka, explained how with the implementation of neoliberal policies the Sri Lankan state expedited privatization and militarization of the Tamil homeland. 
Jude Fernando is a lecturer and a post-doctoral researcher in peace studies at Trinity College, University of Dublin.
Dr. Fernando told the packed audience that anyone who wanted to understand the Tamil national question and the conflict in the island had to first comprehend the international influences impacting the internal dynamics in the island. Based on his research interest in the Irish peace process, Dr. Fernando observed that the success of the peace process in Ireland was based on the parity of status between both warring parties. Dr. Fernando argued that in the Irish peace process the parity of status was the outcome of the struggle of the people, and the outcome of a particular geopolitical context in world politics conducive to the parity of status. However, parity of status between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan Government was not respected by the same international powers that backed the Irish peace process.
