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 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 |
