Tamil Eelam: A Struggle For Justice
Introduction
For the last two decades Sri Lanka has been a cauldron of
political violence. The racial antagonism that surfaced between
the Tamil and Sinhala nations since the independence of the
island has evolved into a fully-fledged armed conflict. The
parties in the conflict are the Sri Lankan state and the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Both the parties command
standing armies and are embroiled in a bloody war.
The consequences of the war are devastating. The Tamil
civilians face the brunt of the conflict because the war is waged
in the Tamil homeland. Already 50,000 Tamils have perished and
hundreds of thousands have either fled the country or are
internally displaced. Yet the war continues with unabating
ferocity, destroying life and property with every passing day.
The Sri Lanka government attempts to present the complexity
of the problem with simplistic logic. The magnitude of the
conflict is reduced to a simple phenomenon of terrorism. In the
perspective of the Sinhala Government, the LTTE is a small band
of bloodthirsty terrorists bent on anarchism. The answer to the
problem on the government's side is also simplistic. The
elimination of the LTTE by sustained war, it is argued, will
automatically resolve the Tamil conflict.
A well orchestrated international propaganda campaign has
been launched by Sri Lanka to convince the world community that
the Tamil struggle is nothing other than a spectre of terrorism.
Playing on the sensibilities and anxieties of Western nations
about global terrorism, Sri Lanka has been propagating a view
that she is also a victim of a similar phenomenon. Under the
guidance of a Machiavellian Tamil minister, Sri Lankan diplomatic
missions abroad have been working overtime in transposing an
internal interracial conflict into a global terror. This
disinformation campaign is intended to discredit the Tamil armed
struggle and to seek sympathy and support for a massive war
effort in the Tamil homeland. In the diplomatic language of Sri
Lanka, this war is an exercise for peace and has noble intentions
of 'liberating Tamils from the scourge of terrorism'. Such false
propaganda has created a great deal of confusion and
misconception in the international political and diplomatic arena
about the Tamil struggle in general and the armed struggle in
particular. Furthermore, the ongoing violence and
counter-violence that characterize the Tamil conflict have given
rise to various misrepresentations about the aims and objectives
of the Tamil armed freedom movement.
This political document attempts to clarify some of the
misconceptions surrounding the armed struggle of the Tamils.
While examining the historical conditions that gave rise to the
armed resistance movement, we argue that the Tamils reserve the
right to armed defence against the military repression and
genocide. Countering Sri Lanka's false propaganda that the Tamil
struggle is a mode of terrorism, we explain that the armed
campaign is a form of legitimate political struggle for
self-determination. In brief, the document sets out the position
of the Tamils based on their quest for political independence and
self-government.
Why Did The Tamils Take Up Arms?
The birth and growth of the armed resistance movement should
be analysed within the historical development of the Tamil
struggle for self-determination. The Tamil struggle for
self-determination has an evolutionary history of nearly half a
century. It is a history characterized by state repression and
resistance by the Tamils. The political struggles in the early
periods were peaceful, democratic and non-violent but later
assumed the form of armed resistance as the military repression
of the state intensified into genocidal proportions.
Sinhala state repression against the Tamils began to
manifest in concrete forms following the independence of the
island in 1948, when the British colonial masters transferred the
state's power to the Sinhala dominated parliamentary system. By
discriminatory legislation and by other measures, successive
Sinhala majority governments unleashed a systematic form of
oppression that deprived the Tamils of their linguistic,
educational and employment rights. Gradually and systematically,
the thrust of state oppression affected the sphere of economic
and social life of the Tamils. In the meantime, the state-aided
aggressive colonization in the Tamil areas not only deprived them
of their rights over their historical lands but also altered the
ethnic composition of the population rendering the Tamils a
minority in certain traditional Tamil regions. The features of
Sinhala state oppression clearly indicated a devious plan
calculated to destroy the national identity of the Tamil people.
As the Sinhala state oppression and discrimination unfolded
in its ugly forms threatening the national identity, the Tamil
parliamentary political leadership responded with mass political
agitations. Adopting Gandhi's concept of 'ahimsa', the Tamil
leadership organized non-violent campaigns demanding justice and
fair play from Sinhala rulers. In the early sixties, the
'satyagraha' (peaceful picketing) campaigns attracted huge masses
of people in massive demonstrations symbolizing a national
uprising against the state. The Sinhala Government reacted with
military violence and terror, brutally crushing the non-violent
peaceful campaigns of the Tamils. Instead of looking into the
genuine grievances of an aggrieved people, Colombo Governments
adopted a harsh policy of military repression. Such high-handed
tactics of terror made the people realise the futility of the
non-violent campaigns. They realized that a repressive racist
state adopting the methods of brutal violence attached no respect
to the moral and spiritual values underlying non violent
struggles. The Tamil people became frustrated and lost hope in
both the parliamentary system which functioned under the tyranny
of the majority and the non-violent struggles which were
systematically crushed by the tyranny of the military. In
desperation, the Tamil leadership sought political negotiations
to resolve the conflict. Sinhala leaders entered into agreements
but soon abrogated the pacts when Sinhala chauvinistic forces
opposed reconciliation with the Tamils. The event that climaxed
the state oppression against the Tamils was the new Republican
constitution of 1972 which was a blatant attempt to legalize and
institutionalize Sinhala chauvinism at the cost of alienating the
Tamil nation from unitary constitutional politics. This event
brought about radical transformation in the nature and structure
of the Tamil political struggle.
It was during this specific historical juncture, that the
armed resistance movement was born on Tamil soil with the
determination to fight for political independence from alien
domination. The armed struggle emerged as a historical
development of the Tamil struggle in response to the determined
efforts of the Sinhala Government to subjugate the Tamils. The
Tamils took up arms when they were presented with no alternative
other than to defend themselves against a savage form of
genocidal oppression, when peaceful forms of democratic political
agitations were violently repressed, when constitutional paths
and parliamentary doors were effectively closed, when Sinhala
ruling elites callously rejected the demands for justice and
equality. Therefore, the Tamil armed struggle for political
independence and self-government is the historical product of
decades of racist oppression and injustice.
Armed Struggle For Self-Determination
With the formation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE) in 1972 by its present leader, Mr. Velupillai Pirabakaran,
the mode of the Tamil political struggle underwent a radical
change. For the first time in the political history of the Tamils
an armed guerrilla movement emerged to fight for the political
rights of the Tamil nation and to confront the state's violence
with armed resistance. With the birth and growth of the Tamil
Tigers, the armed struggle became effectively institutionalized
as the political struggle of the Tamil people.
The LTTE's armed struggle is based on a clearly defined
political programme. This political project aims at securing the
right to self-determination of the Tamil people. The right to
self-determination is the cardinal principle upon which the Tamil
struggle for political independence is based. The LTTE is
committed to the position that the Tamils constitute themselves
as a people or a nation and have a homeland, the historically
constituted habitation of the Tamils, a well defined contiguous
territory embracing the Northern and Eastern Provinces. Since the
Tamils have a homeland, a distinct language and culture, a unique
economic life and a lengthy history extending to over three
thousand years, they possess all the characteristics of a nation
or a people. As a people they have the inalienable right to self-
determination. This right entailed the freedom of a people to
determine their own political status. The LTTE holds the view
that the Tamil people had invoked the right to self-determination
at the 1977 general elections and opted to fight for political
independence and statehood. The national liberation project of
the LTTE is based on the people's mandate for self-determination.
The LTTE's objective in fighting for political independence
of the Tamil nation is not an arbitrary decision on the part of
the organization but rather the expression and articulation of
the collective will and aspiration of the Tamil people. Decades
of alien domination and oppression prompted the Tamil people to
exercise their right to self-determination through a democratic
process. This right to self-determination is a basic universal
human right, recognized by the international community. The
International Covenants of the UN Charter enunciates the
principle of self-determination in the following term; 'All
people have the right to self-determination. By the virtue of
that right they freely determine their political status and
freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development'.
In the general elections of 1977 which assumed the character of a
referendum on the question of self-determination, the Tamil
nation chose to determine their political status by seceding and
establishing its sovereignty in its homeland. The Tamil
parliamentary political party, the T.U.L.F., which obtained a
clear mandate from the people and pledged to fight for the
creation of an independent state 'either by peaceful means or by
direct action or struggle' betrayed the cause of the Tamils. But
the LTTE, endorsing the national aspiration and the will of the
Tamil people, is determined to carry on the struggle for
self-determination.
Sri Lanka has consistently denied the right to self-
determination of the Tamils and refused to recognize the Tamils
as a people. Reducing the Tamils to the category of a minority
group and promoting the concepts of multi-ethnicity and
pluralism, it has out rightly rejected the Tamil claim of
nationhood and homeland. By constitutional amendment, Sri Lanka
has prohibited the Tamil demand for self-determination as
unlawful. Furthermore, it has unleashed a fully-fledged war
against the Tamils to suppress their struggle for political
independence. It has condemned and accused the LTTE of
communalism, separatism and terrorism for engaging in an armed
struggle to assert the right of the Tamils to freely choose their
political destiny.
International Recognition
Against the background of a powerful Sri Lankan diplomatic
lobby, reinforced by misrepresentation of facts and falsehood,
the Tamils have been making every effort in the international
arena to seek legitimacy for the claim of self-determination and
the right to armed defence against genocidal oppression. The
international campaign for the recognition and realization of the
Tamil right to self-determination was raised at the United
Nations Human Rights Commission. International NGOs sympathetic
to the Tamil cause have been pleading with the UN Commission to
recognize the legitimate claim of the Tamil people for
self-determination. A joint statement by several international
NGOs at the 49th session of the UN Human Right Commission held on
February 1993 under the theme 'The right of peoples to
self-determination and its application to peoples under colonial
or alien domination or foreign occupation' called for the
recognition of Tamils as a people with the right to
self-determination. The joint statement observed that:
"The Tamil population in the North and East, who have lived
for many centuries within relatively well defined geographical
boundaries, share an ancient heritage, a vibrant culture, and a
living language which traces its origins to more than 2500 years
ago. A social group, which shares objective elements such as a
common language and which has acquired a subjective consciousness
of togetherness by its life within a relatively well defined
territory, and its struggle against alien domination, clearly
constitutes a "people" with the right to self-determination.
Today, there is an urgent need for the international community to
recognize that the Tamil population in the North and East of the
Island of Sri Lanka are such a "people" with the right to freely
choose their political status".
This joint statement, by the international NGO's with U.N
consultative status, calling for the recognition of the
north-eastern region of Sri Lanka as the Tamil homeland and the
Tamils as a people with the right to self-determination, was a
significant development in the campaign to win international
support for the Tamil liberation struggle.
Though, so far, the U.N Commission on Human Rights has not
taken any serious action with regard to the Tamil national
question, it has been under constant pressure over the last
decade to initiate steps to satisfy the legitimate aspirations of
the Tamils within the framework of human rights and the right to
self-determination. Every year, as the situation in the Tamil
homeland becomes more grave and dangerous with the aggravation of
the war of aggression and occupation unleashed against the Tamils
by Sri Lanka, the Tamil claim is gaining momentum in this UN
forum.
Originally, the principle of self-determination was applied
specifically to people under colonial domination fighting a
liberation struggle for political independence and statehood. In
contemporary historical times the principle has broader
application that includes people facing various modes of
oppression. Particularly it applies to people oppressed by racist
regimes or subjected to alien domination or foreign occupation.
Alien domination entails subjugation of one nation by another
nation.
The Tamil people are oppressed by the Sinhala racist state.
They are subjected to military domination and occupation by the
alien Sinhala nation. It is a well documented fact that Sinhala
Governments have been making determined effort by the use of
military force to subjugate and assimilate the Tamil people
within the Sinhala dominated state. This is a clear case of alien
domination and subjugation. Therefore, the Tamils satisfy the
necessary conditions in international law to exercise their right
to self-determination. On the basis of their entitlement to
exercise self-determination, they have the right to armed
struggle. In other words, the armed struggle of the Tamils is a
legitimate political struggle in international law.
LTTE As A Freedom Movement
In defence of the inalienable rights of the Tamil people,
the LTTE has been fighting an armed struggle against the alien
domination of the Sinhala state. As an organization committed to
the principle of self-determination and engaged in a
politico-military struggle over a lengthy period, the LTTE has
earned the status of a national liberation movement. Having
emerged in the early seventies and having struggled for over two
decades to win the political rights of the Tamil people, the LTTE
enjoys widespread popular support in Tamil Eelam and among the
international Tamil community. It is an undeniable fact that the
LTTE's liberation struggle to assert the right to
self-determination of the Tamil people has been instrumental for
the internationalization of the Tamil problem.
Sri Lanka's often repeated thesis that the Tamil Tigers are
a small band of armed rebels engaging in terrorism and are
alienated from the people is baseless propaganda. The very fact
that the LTTE has a military and political history extending over
a period of 25 years provides ample evidence that the
organization enjoys mass support. History has noted that
guerrilla movements committed to armed liberation struggles could
not have survived without the support and sustenance of the
people. The longevity of its existence, its ability to conduct a
consistent and sustained armed struggle against formidable
military forces (including the Indian army), its capacity to
mobilize and organize popular masses for political action,
demonstrate the fact that the LTTE enjoys the status of a
national freedom movement, with massive popular backing. The LTTE
has a standing army, a national liberation force consisting of
several thousands of freedom fighters, a capable and responsible
command structure, military training facilities, modern weapon
systems, vast territories under its administrative control and
has the potential and efficiency to engage the Sri Lanka armed
forces in conventional mode of warfare. The LTTE has a political
section with social, economic, educational and cultural
organizations and civil administrative units and a law and order
system. The structure of the LTTE is complex and multi-faceted
and orientated towards conducting an effective armed resistance
and political struggle and at the sametime, maintaining a well
organized administrative system. Furthermore, the LTTE has a
massive international networks operating in several world
capitals.
Sri Lanka has consistently refused to recognize the fact
that the LTTE is a liberation movement involved in the freedom
struggle of the Tamils. Such a recognition would entail the
acceptance of the Tamil struggle as a national liberation
struggle. One cannot expect an admission of truth from a racist
state which has for decades continued to violate, abuse, and
prevent the course of justice to the Tamils; a repressive state
that has always used its powerful propaganda machinery to
distort, misrepresent and belittle the Tamil freedom movement. In
the racist perception of Sri Lanka, the LTTE has always been a
terrorist organization and the liberation war of the Tamils a
terrorist war.
Though Sri Lanka has taken such an extremist stand and
condemned the LTTE in unholy terms, there have been several
occasions when the Sinhala leadership had no choice but to enter
into a negotiations process with the Tamil Tigers recognizing the
fact that the LTTE is the dominant politico-military force of the
Tamils. Sri Lanka entered into negotiations with the LTTE in
Thimphu, Delhi, Bangalore, Colombo and more recently in Jaffna.
Entering into negotiations with the LTTE entails implicit
recognition that the Tamil Tigers constituted a representative
organization of the Tamils. Though this status was accorded to
the LTTE during political dialogues, it was abruptly negated when
the talks broke down and the LTTE was branded as a terrorist
organization. The international community should take note of
this rather strange and bizarre attitude of Sri Lanka which can
shift its policy to conflicting positions in considering the LTTE
as a people's organization during the times of peace and a
terrorist organization during the times of war.
Hidden Motives Behind Sri Lanka's Approach
Ever since the violent racial holocaust of 1983, in which
thousands of Tamils perished as a consequence of communal
massacres, the Tamil struggle assumed international importance.
The international community showed deep concern over the
gross violations of human rights by Sri Lanka. Furthermore, the
massive influx of Tamil refugees into Western Europe, North
America and Australia following the riots compelled the
industrialized countries to take serious note about the political
developments in the Island. Some of the concerned European
nations attempted to relate developmental aid with improvements
in the human rights situation in Sri Lanka. But such aid-related
'pressures' failed to produce any radical change in the system of
state repression. The present Sri Lankan Government has made a
few cosmetic reforms by appointing a human rights task force and
commissions of inquiry to hoodwink the international community.
But the country continues to be governed by Emergency laws,
anti-terrorism acts and military and police tyranny. In the
South, the Political opposition faces police harassment,
intimidation, arrest, detention and assault and other forms of
state repression with the aim to stifle the freedom of expression
and opinion. In the Northeast, a series of war crimes of grave
nature are committed against the Tamils under the camouflage of
offensive military operations. The military occupied areas in the
Northeast have turned into massive concentration camps where
Tamils are being subjected to arbitrary arrests, detention
without trial, rape, torture and murder. There is documentary
evidence to substantiate over 500 cases of disappearances in
Jaffna.
Though Sri Lanka is beset by the turbulence of war and civil
unrest and the human right situation has worsened, the
developmental aid from donor countries continues to pour into the
country in a big way and a substantial portion of it is drained
by the so-called 'war for peace'. The reluctance to exert
aid-related pressure by the affluent countries has encouraged the
Kumaratunga government to persist on a policy of repression and
tyranny. Impervious to humanitarian concerns and insensitive to
the monumental human tragedy caused by the war, some
international countries continue to supply lethal weapons to Sri
Lanka. The assured supply of unrestricted funds and unrestrained
supply of arms have encouraged Sri Lanka to close the doors for
peace and to embark on the ruthless policy of military domination
against the Tamil people. Nevertheless some foreign nations are
concerned over the escalation of the war and the intensification
of the Tamil conflict and have proposed negotiated political
settlement between the parties in conflict, i.e. Sri Lanka and
the LTTE. Because of the mutual distrust and hostility between
the combatants and the continuous failure of direct negotiations,
some of these countries have volunteered to offer mediation or
facilitation. Norway, Sweden, Canada, Switzerland, Australia and
Britain have expressed their willingness either to mediate or to
facilitate for peace talks between the LTTE and the Sri Lanka
government. Though the LTTE leadership has responded positively
to offers of international mediation, Sri Lanka has persistently
rejected such offers of third party mediation claiming that the
Tamil problem is an internal conflict.
Sri Lanka has spurned international mediation for specific
reasons. Firstly, the Kumaratunga Government does not want the
Tamil national question to be raised in the global arena as an
international conflict. Secondly, it does not want the LTTE to be
accorded the status of main player in the Tamil struggle or
rather the party in conflict. Thirdly, Sri Lanka fears that the
Tamil aspiration for autonomy and self-government may receive a
sympathetic hearing as a reasonable demand in the civilized
political world. Fourthly, Sri Lanka wants to continue with the
military option in favour of a peace process because the conquest
and domination of the Tamil homeland is a strategy that would
appease the passions of Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism.
It is true that the armed liberation struggle with the
history of more than two decades has created mutual animosity,
mistrust and a great deal of misunderstanding between the LTTE
and the Sinhala state. This mutual hostility and mistrust have
been the causal factors for the continuous break-down of peace
talks between both the parties. It is on this basis that the LTTE
has realized that future peace negotiations can only be
meaningful and constructive if they are held under international
mediation. But Sri Lanka is reluctant to seek international
assistance for the reasons we have already outlined. There are
other reasons too for Sri Lanka to refuse to negotiate with the
Tamil Tigers. For the Sri Lankan ruling elites, the LTTE
represents the militant stand of the Tamils; it symbolizes the
collective Tamil aspirations for identity, homeland and
nationhood. While the other Tamil groups have abandoned the basic
principles underlying the Tamil struggle and are prepared to
compromise on anything, the LTTE continues to articulate those
principles.
Sri Lanka is not prepared even to discuss these issues that
form the very basis of the Tamil national conflict. Contrary to
Tamil perceptions and aspirations, Sri Lanka has postulated the
problem in a different ideological universe, situating the Tamils
as a minor ethnic group in a multi-ethnic social formation and
denying their right to a homeland and national identity. It is
precisely because of this approach, that the Sinhala regime
refuses to enter into any meaningful dialogue with the LTTE,
either directly or with the facilitation or mediation of the
international community. The current military campaign is
primarily aimed at the political marginalisation to the LTTE. The
military occupation and subjugation of the historical homeland of
the Tamils, the Sinhala rulers assume, will bring an end to the
Tamil aspirations for autonomy and homeland and to the political
struggle of the LTTE based on those aspirations.
These are the real intentions behind the current political
and military approach of the Kumaratunga Government. But the Sri
Lankan propaganda machinery tells a different story to the world,
a concocted story that camouflages the hidden agenda; a story of
'terrorist threat' and 'war for peace'; a fabulous story of
'liberating' the Tamils from the 'dictatorship' of the LTTE. The
international community should not be misled by the
misrepresentations made by Sri Lankan propaganda but carefully
examine the real story behind the just cause of the Tamil people
and their struggle for freedom and dignity.
Published by:
International Secretariat, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
211 Katherine Road
London E6 IBU
United Kingdom
Phone/Fax: +44 181 470 8593
(Source: Tamil Eelam Homepage )
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