A senior Sri Lankan minister considered close to President Mahinda Rajapaksa has threatened the Tamils they would face annihilation if they continued to harbour homeland ambition.

The threat by power and energy minister Champika Ranawaka that there would 'one hundred more Mullivaikkals' has caused deep consternation among the Tamil leaders here, with DMK president M Karunanidhi writing to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to tell Colombo 'to adopt a course of restraint and humanitarianism'.

Mullivaikkal in northeastern coast of Sri Lanka was the final ‘killing field’ in the Eelam war that saw the death of thousands of Tamils—including civilians and LTTE cadres led by Velupillai Prabhakaran—in May 2009. International communities, including the UNHRC, have been demanding investigation of army excesses during that last brutal phase of the war.

By threatening that there could be a hundred Mullivaikkals, Ranawaka, was trying to resurrect Sinhala racist hatred against the minority Tamils, said PMK founder Dr S Ramadoss and VCK chief Thol. Thirumavalan.

His remarks “are highly provocative and therefore condemnable”, said Karunanidhi in his letter to the PM, adding, “The Tamils all over the world are very much perturbed over the reprehensible remarks of the Sri Lankan Minister”.

Ranawaka, who is the leader of the Sinhala rightwing Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), a constituent of the ruling coalition, had made his incendiary statement at a news conference in Colombo on June 8 while reacting to the speech of Tamil National Alliance leader R. Sampanthan at the national convention of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK), which is part of the TNA.

Expressing anguish at the failure of the Rajapaksa government to come up with a solution to the Tamil issue, Sampanthan had said that the position that the north and the east of Sri Lanka are the areas of historical habitation of the Tamil-speaking people “cannot be compromised”.

“We must have unrestricted authority to govern our own land, protect our own people, and develop our own economy, culture and tradition. A meaningful devolution should go beyond the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. If the Sri Lankan state continuously deny this right, we will claim our right under international law to external self-determination”.

Angered by Sampanthan’s speech, minister Ranawaka said, “Does Sampanthan want to create 100 more Mullivaikkals? We are ready to forgive and forget the past and think about the future. But if Sampanthan is calling us to fight, our nation would proudly accept the challenge”.

This is not the first time that Ranawaka has provoked anger from the Tamils and even the rights activists among the majority Sinhala population in Sri Lanka.

The ‘National Movement Against Terrorism’ (NMAT), a hardline Sinhala outfit campaigning against pro-Tamil activists and media persons during the peak of Eelam war early 2007, had put up posters calling for ‘annihilation’ of ‘white Tigers, media Tigers, leftist Tigers’ and Ranawaka said though he was not a member of NMAT, he backed that poster.

He had then called pro-Tamil protesters 'scum feeding on foreign money' and even advocated extra-judicial methods to eliminate the 'treacherous bastards'.