Tamil chief minister C V Wigneswaran: 'We're not terrorists'

20 February 2014 Last updated at 20:05 GMT

The first ever chief minister for Sri Lanka's Tamil-dominated Northern Province has told the BBC that the central government should stop viewing the north as a "terrorist area", and must give the province meaningful political powers.

C V Wigneswaran's Tamil National Alliance swept to power in September.

Last month, the Northern Provincial Council passed a motion calling for an international probe into alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka.

The BBC's Charles Haviland asked Mr Wigneswaran - who is himself Tamil - for his view of the controversial resolution.

Tamils cannot forget the past – Wigneswaran

Tamil Guardian 21 February 2014

The Chief Minister of the Northern Provincial Council, CV Wigneswaran has told the BBC in an interview that the Tamil people feel very strongly about accountability and that’s why the NPC passed a motion calling for an international probe into war crimes.

Asked by Charles Haviland on his views about the president, the Chief Minister was reluctant to answer, but said that the perception the Tamil people have is that the"majority community" does not want the NPC to work due to “a far more deep-seated attitude”.

See below for response given by Wigneswaran when asked for his view on the NPC resolution passed last month, and the rest of the interview.

CVW:  You see that is the feeling of the people. Every person who has lost somebody in that war feels very strongly about it. There must be some sort of a judicial inquiry into this and those who have done wrong must be brought to book. So it is easy to say, "well, it is all in the past why are you worried about the past". No. everything that has been done, if it has been done deliberately, you can’t say, a person can’t be heard to say, "well I murdered somebody, but then now that is of the past let’s forget about it", no you can’t. So it’s in that spirit that the people, people’s representatives, wanted a resolution to be passed.

CH:  Obviously you meet the president regularly, how is your relationship with the president and to what extent do you see him as a man that wants you to have appropriate powers or do you feel he is really representative of a government that just wants to keep all the powers for itself and mistrusts the idea of devolving power to the north?

CVW:  You are trying to put me against the president..

CH:  No I’m asking…

CVW:  Well I would only say the president has his own problems in trying to look into the interests of various groups, but there is a perception among the Tamil people that there is a far more deep-seated attitude which comes not from the president as such but from the majority community as such, so therefore it is felt that they do not want the Northern Provincial Council to work.

We are for the first time completely different from the government in power, from the people in power, from the community in power, from the language in power, so we have everything completely different. Our language is different, our people are different, our religions are different, our terrain is different and our party is different, so this needs to be understood by the government.

CH:  There is a lot of land in northern Sri Lanka including Jaffna that is still occupied by the military, which means the owners cannot return home. What's your view of that?

CVW:  The truth is army is in control of the Northern Province in every way, it's almost like an occupational army. Only thing is they would not show it out in that fashion. Now Mr Udaya Perera, who is the commander-in-chief, he was here, very nice man, very professional person, he said I have been able to get rid of 230-40 checkpoints and I have withdrawn them which is a very great thing and a good thing. But at the same time we found in those areas the soldiers go by [bicycle] doing their intelligence work, so they are still in command. So this is because of the mindset that this is a terrorist area and you must keep your intelligence working in a terrorist area and so on and so forth. See, we are not terrorists.