R. Sampanthan ‘tirelessly demanded equal rights for Tamils’

Rajavarothiam Sampanthan, one of Sri Lanka’s most prominent politicians and a veteran campaigner for the country’s Tamil minority, has died at the age of 91.

Mr. Sampanthan of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) was a sitting MP from the eastern Trincomalee district and led the Tamil National Alliance, the main grouping representing Tamils of Sri Lanka’s war-hit north and east. He was Leader of the Opposition between 2015 and 2018.

His death has seen tributes pour in from across Sri Lanka’s political divide.

Among those to pay tribute to him was former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who oversaw the bloody end to Sri Lanka’s civil war in 2009.

Sampanthan “was a bold and relentless voice…he tirelessly demanded equal rights for Tamils, within a ‘united, undivided, indivisible’ country… He based his arguments for a political solution on … the many promises that the Sinhalese establishment made in the past but failed to keep,” said Jaffna MP M. A. Sumanthiran.