|
 Velupillai
Pirapaharan, Leader of Tamil Eelam, to the People and leaders of Tamil
Nadu, 15 December 1995
On behalf of our people, I
wish to express my affection and gratitude to
the people and leaders of Tamil Nadu for voicing
passionately their support for the Tamils of
Eelam who are struggling for their liberation
against the
genocidal oppression of the Sinhala regime.
The waves of sympathy that sweeps across Tamil Nadu
whenever Eelam Tamils are repressed has always been a deterrent to
our ruthless enemy and a great source of hope and relief to our
aggrieved people. It also impresses upon the world that the Eelam Tamils
are not alone and not without support.
Even though several forces have been making deliberate
efforts to pollute the minds of the Tamils of Tamil Nadu with
ill-conceived notions about our national struggle and about the
Liberation Tigers who lead that struggle, we are encouraged and
emboldened to note that there is growing upsurgence in Tamil Nadu
demanding justice for our people on the basis of ethnic affinity and
humanism.
For a long time, even before the birth of the LTTE,
the
Tamil Nation has
been bleeding. For a long time, our nation has been facing genocide.
In this lengthy history, extending over four decades, our language, our
culture, our education, our economic existence - all the essential
elements that form the very basis of our national life - have been
subjected to systematic destruction. The monster of Sinhala racism has
been usurping our motherland. The Sinhala armed forces have occupied our
historical cities and towns.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to vacate their own
lands and reduced to destitution. In this tragic history tainted
with blood, forty thousand Tamils have been exterminated. The current
war is a continuation and monstrous expansion of this cruel genocidal
history.
Historically the Eelam Tamils are faced with genocide.
This well planned racial extermination is aimed at the genocidal
destruction of the Tamil Nation. For more than quarter of a century our
past generation fought non-violent struggles based on the principles of
Ahimsa enunciated by Mahatma Gandhi. But the Sinhala racist state did
not understand or appreciate the spiritual or moral values of
non-violent struggles.
Ahimsa agitations were brutally crushed by armed violence.
With the repression of democratic non-violent struggles racial
extermination assumed a dangerous proportion. It was when the Tamil
people had no choice other than to take arms to defend themselves, the
Tamil Tiger movement and the armed struggle gave birth.
The Sinhala state has been making desperate efforts to
characterise the mode of armed resistance based on the struggle of
self-determination as a form of 'Terrorism and Separatism'. These
ill conceived notions are being propagated among the Indian people and
among the international community. This malicious propaganda is aimed at
distorting the truth and discrediting the mode of our struggle.
We are neither 'Terrorists' nor 'Separatists', nor
propagators of 'Armed Culture'. We are fighting for a noble cause We are
fighting to protect our people from racial annihilation.
We
are compelled to take up arms against the armed violence which has taken
a genocidal form. We are faced with a complex conflictual historical
situation in which we have to struggle with our lives for the right to
live. We fervently hope that the people of Tamil Nadu and India will
understand our critical situation.
The successive Sinhala-Buddhist racist governments,
since independence,
have attempted to subjugate and dominate our people instead of
integrating them. This has compelled our people to decide to determine
their own political destiny. As a people constituting themselves with
the cultural elements of a national formation, they are entitled to the
right to self-determination. It is only when state repression assumed
the dangerous dimension of genocide our people chose to invoke their
inherent right to self-determination. The
mandate to fight for self determination was given by our people to
the old leadership, before the growth of the armed resistance movement.
The political objective and the struggle of our
movement is based on this political will of our people. It is those who
lack a dear vision of the history and legitimacy of the
struggle for self-determination in Tamil Eelam, who attempt to
characterise us as 'separatists'. This attempt to portray the legitimate
struggle of our people, who aspire to live as free beings with dignity
and security, liberated from the peril of national destruction as
'separatism' and to compare and confuse it with the internal problems of
the Indian states is misleading and wrong.
The hope and expectation of our people that the
Sinhala nation might offer an alternative to the demand of an
Independent state are now shattered. The Sinhala nation is not prepared
to recognise the historically constituted traditional lands in which the
Tamils lived for centuries as the homeland of the Tamils. It is for the
resolution of this crucial issue that the Tamils have been cheated for a
long time. Tamil political history is full of incidents of
abrogation of pacts and agreements on this basic issue.
The Chandrika government has scored historical
achievements in the task of
destroying the geographical unity and integrity of the Tamil homeland
and disrupting the national life of the Tamils. Having cheated the world
with slogans of 'War for Peace' and 'Liberating the Tamils' her regime
has occupied our historical homeland. The central theme of her proposed
package is aimed at redefining the geographical structure of the Tamil
homeland.
From the time of Bandaranaike to Chandrika's period,
successive Sinhala racist states have adopted repressive military
policies instead of peaceful approach to resolve the conflict.
Chandrika's approach is unique. Misguiding the world under the slogan of
peace she has ingeniously planned and executing a genocidal strategy
against the Tamils.
Our talks with Chandrika have ended in a fiasco.
Chandrika regime refused to create conditions of peace and normalcy by
relaxing military and economic pressure on the Tamils. Her government
was reluctant to enter into a permanent cease-fire with international
supervision. Instead under the guise of a fragile cessation of
hostilities the government has been strengthening its military machine.
It refused to open up a land route to the people by relaxing the siege
of Jaffna. It gave primacy to the hegemonic interests of the military
rather than to create an environment of peace.
The government did not give any importance to the
peace talks with the LTTE. It delegated ordinary bureaucrats to the
peace negotiations. High ranking political leaders did not participate.
The government did not reveal its package of proposals during the peace
talks with the LTTE.
Chandrika government failed to take seriously our
proposition that we were prepared to consider a political framework that
recognises the Tamil homeland with full form of autonomy to the Tamils.
We expressed our goodwill by releasing prisoners of war. Yet, Chandrika
government was not prepared to even settle the minor day to day problems
of our people.
We felt that the government was not sincerely
interested in resolving the ethnic conflict by negotiating with the
LTTE. We were also convinced that Chandrika regime was not prepared to
offer any substantial political framework that would satisfy the
political aspirations of the Tamils. Under these circumstances, when the
talks prolonged meaninglessly we issued deadlines. But the government
did not take our warnings seriously. The talks collapsed.
Having created conditions for the breakdown of talks
the government blamed the LTTE. It carried out a false propaganda
campaign internationally that the LTTE was against the peace approach.
In truth, it was Chandrika's government which was opposed to peace.
Claiming that the Tamil people are the citizens of the
country, Chandrika's regime
has
embarked on a massive military onslaught on the Tamils. Having
assembled a formidable force in a single battle front, it has occupied
the historic city of Jaffna and has the Sinhala national flag over our
soil.
The
Sinhala nation is celebrating this tragic event soaked by the tears of
five hundred thousand displaced Tamils. Celebrations are taking
place in Colombo as if the Tamil nation was defeated at war. We do not
believe that the Sinhalese chauvinists who have deeply hurt the national
sentiments of the Tamils in such a manner would offer justice to the
Tamils.
The Tamil nation, which has been conducting a heroic
freedom struggle for such a long time, will not be frustrated by a
setback in a single battle. Our people are fiercely determined though
they have faced the enormous suffering arising from death, destruction,
displacement and destitution. We are united and determined by the
passion for freedom. We are confidant that the setbacks of today will
turn out to be the victories of tomorrow. We are firmly convinced that
our land which bleeds today will become a free land one day.
Though our enemy has been adopting devious methods to
alienate us from the outside world,
from the world
Tamil community and from Tamil Nadu where our deep roots are
embedded, the support and sympathy generating from Tamil Nadu have given
us moral inspiration and determination.
We are deeply saddened to note a recent incident in
Trichi where a youth has taken his life by self-immolation as an extreme
form of expression of solidarity. While we pay our respects to his
passion for freedom and his sentiments of ethnic love we feel that such
acts of self sacrifice are unnecessary and therefore have to be avoided.
The Sinhala state is firmly determined to continue to
carry out the genocidal war in Tamil Eelam. In these circumstances,
Tamil Nadu should continue to give voice for our plight and express
support for our legitimate cause. This is what the people of Tamil Eelam
fervently expect from the people of Tamil Nadu.
இலட்சியததால் ஒன்றுபட்ட,
எழுச்சிகொண்ட மக்களை
எந்த ஒரு சக்தியாலும் ஒடுக்கிவிட முடியாது |
