Resolution of US Massachusetts House of
Representatives
Calling for the Restoration of the Separate Sovereign State of
Tamil Eelam
18 June 1981
[see also
Proclamation of
Eelam Day by Edward J.King, Governor of Commonwealth of
Massachusetts, 16 May 1979
Human Rights for
Tamils in Sri Lanka - US Congress Resolution - Hon. Mario
Baggio of New York in the US House of Representatives, 8 May
1980
Proclamation by
Mayor of Somerville, Sister City of Trincomalee,
Eelam (Naval Base), 22 June 1981]
Comment
by tamilnation.org,
20 March 2007 -
The Resolution passed by
the Massachusetts House of Representatives
on 18 June 1981 (more than twenty five years ago) makes it
abundantly clear that the United States is not without an
understanding of the
justice of the Tamil Eelam struggle for freedom. What then
has changed in the ensuing 25 years? Not much, if we recognise
that countries do not have permanent friends but have permanent
interests. Not much, if we recognise that the interests of a
state are a function of the interests of groups which wield
power within that state and 'foreign policy is the
external manifestation of domestic institutions, ideologies and
other attributes of the polity'.
In 1981 at the time that the
Massachusetts Resolution was passed, Indira
Gandhi was building her influence within the Tamil militant
movement. In 1998 at a Seminar in Switzerland,
Jyotindra Nath Dixit Indian High Commissioner in Sri Lanka
1985 /89, Foreign Secretary in 1991/94 and National Security
Adviser to the Prime Minister of India 2004/05 explained
Indira Gandhi and India's Motivations in 1981-83 -
"...It would be relevant to
analyse India's motivations and actions in the larger
perspective of the international and regional strategic
environment, obtaining between 1950 and 1981 President
Reagan was in power and the Soviet Union was going through
the post Brezhnev uncertainties preceding Gorbachev�s
arrival on the scene....The rise of Tamil militancy in Sri
Lanka and the Jayawardene government's serious apprehensions
about this development were utilised by the US and
Pakistan to create a politico-strategic pressure point
against India, in the island's strategically sensitive coast
off the Peninsula of India. Jayawardene established
substantive defensive and intelligence contacts with US,
Pakistan and Israel. The Government of India was subject to
internal centrifugal pressures in Punjab and Kashmir and
portions of the north east during this time. Tamil militancy
received support both from Tamil Nadu and from the Central
Government not only as a response to the Sri
Lankan Government's military assertiveness against Sri
Lankan Tamils, but also as a response to
Jayawardene's concrete and expanded military and
intelligence cooperation with the United States, Israel and
Pakistan."
The Massachusetts Resolution of
1981 served to enhance US influence in the Tamil struggle (and
build links with Tamil Eelam activists) in the same way as
Indira Gandhi sought to enhance New Delhi's influence on the
Tamil struggle by encouraging Tamil Nadu rhetoric (and build
links with Tamil Eelam activists). We will not be too far wrong
if we conclude that at that time, Massachusetts was to
Washington what Tamil Nadu was to New Delhi. It was also during
this time period that in the US, Tamil rhetoric was allowed to
flow freely at
International Tamil Conferences.
At the same time US General
Walters, a senior figure in the US strategic and
intelligence establishment,
was advising Sri Lanka and the
US
State Department proclaimed not long after the
1983 Genocide
that "Sri Lanka is an open, working, multiparty democracy."
It is understandable therefore
that today the same strategic US interests in the
Indian Ocean region
lead to statements such as those made by U.S. Ambassador Robert
Blake on 1 March 2007 that "Sri
Lanka has in President Rajapakse a strong leader " and by US
Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns on 21 November 2006 that
"we hold the Tamil Tigers responsible
for much of what
has gone wrong in the country. We are not neutral in this
respect."
It is correct that the US has
never been neutral. Unfortunately, the US (unlike
Jyotindra Nath Dixit) has failed to be transparent about its
own strategic interests and the motivations for its actions in
relation to the conflict in the island of Sri Lanka.
Unfortunate, because transparency is a first step towards an
open evaluation of that which US may 'perceive' to
be its strategic interests - after all,
as we have said elsewhere, GNP is not necessarily a measure
of wisdom. Sacked Sri Lanka Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera
has ofcourse helped the Tamil people to further their
understanding of
international relations in this age of empire, when
he said on 14 February 2007 -
".... two days after the vote
(on Israel), US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns
telephoned me. The decision taken by us regarding the vote
went a long way in building trust and strengthening US-Sri
Lanka ties. Few days afterwards,
at the Co-Chairs Meeting in Washington DC, Nicholas
Burns expressed America's fullest support to the Government
of Sri Lanka in defeating the menace of LTTE terrorism.
After the meeting
he also held a press conference that was very encouraging
to the Government and the people of Sri Lanka..."
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
In The Year Of One Thousand Nine Hundred
Eighty One
Resolution Memorialising the President and
the Congress to Recognize the Right of Self Determination by the
Tamil people of Tamil Eelam
Whereas, the Tamils of Eelam, who number three million
Hindus, Christians and Moslems occupy eight thousand square
miles live as an
oppressed
minority in Sri Lanka where the majority is composed of ten
million Sinhalese, most of whom are Buddhists, and
Whereas, from ancient times two nations the Sinhalese and the
Tamils possessed distinct languages, religions, cultures and
clearly demarcated geographic territories until the British who
were characteristically oblivious to the differences between
these two separate nations, imposed one rule for the purpose of
colonial administrative unification, and
Whereas, as was to be expected in 1948 when the British left
the island and two unwilling nations were consequently left
under a unitary governmental structure, the majority Sinhalese
faction subverted democratic principles to become the new
masters of the Tamil - speaking people, and
Whereas, one million Tamils on the tea and rubber
plantations, who prior to independence and enjoyed rights
similar to those possessed by other ceylonese, were
disenfranchised and made stateless, and
Whereas, although the plantation Tamils were the descendants
of Indians who were brought to ceylon more than one hundred
years ago by the seemingly ubiquitous British planters,
and as such were mostly native sri lankans who possessed
no relationship with the india from which their ancestors
sailed, in 1964 the government inhumanely and callously
determined to repatriate compulsorily these Tamils, ordering
them to depart the land of their birth, and
Whereas, successive Sinhala governments have been guilty of
racism and acts of racial discrimination against the Tamils in
the fields of education, employment, religion, politics,
economic development and trade, and
Whereas, from time to time violence is used it the
Sinhala governments, army and the police against the Tamils
without provocation as a political weapon in order to obtain
subservience and
Whereas, in 1972 the representatives of the Sinhala and
Tamil nation met together and peacefully overthrew British
sovereignty and thereby each nation resuscitated, and reverted
to, its own sovereignty, and
Whereas,
a new constitution, which reiterated that foremost place
should be accorded to the buddhist religion and the Sinhalese
language. was unilaterally adopted without the cooperation or
consultation with the majority of the Tamil representatives in
parliament, and
Whereas, the Tamil nation of Eelam at the general election of
may 1977 gave a
clear mandate for the restoration and reconstitution of the
separate sovereign state of Tamil Eelam by winning 18 out of 19
Tamil seats in Tamil Eelam, and
Whereas, the Tamil people were again not a party to the
constitution of 1978 which replaced
its predecessor of 1972, and
Whereas, the Tamil nation of Eelam opposed the two
constitutions as illegal impositions on them and their territory
and asserted their right of self determination and sovereignty
by non violent agitations, and
Whereas, the Sinhala government of Sri Lanka has occupied the
territory of Tamil Eelam with its armed forces and security
services and are denying the
right of self-determination
and
sovereignty of the Tamil nation by the use of force on Tamil
people, and
Whereas, the Tamil United Liberation Front which received the
mandate of the Tamil people at the may 1977 general
election
for the separate sovereign Tamil state is continuing the
struggle for freedom by non-violent ways preached and practised
by mahatma
gandhi and by the late leader of Tamil nation,
S.J.V.
Chelvanayagam,
Therefore
Resolved, that the Massachusetts House of Representatives
hereby urges the President and the Congress of the United States
to support the
struggle for freedom
by the Tamil nation for the
restoration and reconstitution the separate sovereign
state of Tamil Eelam and to recognize publicly the
right of self determination by the Tamil people of Tamil
Eelam, and be it further resolved,
that copies of these resolutions be forwarded to the
President of the United States, to the Presiding Officer
of each branch of Congress, to the members thereof from this
Commonwealth, to the Secretary of State, to the Director of the
World Bank and to the Secretary General of the United Nations.
House of Representatives, adopted June 18, 1981
Speaker of the House
Clerk of the House
Representative Mary Elizabeth Howe
