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Velupillai
Prabhakaran
Maha Veerar Naal Address
மாவீரர் நாள் -
National Heroes Day
November 27, 2001
1.English
Translation of Address
[also in PDF]
2.Text
of Address in Tamil
3.In
Real Audio at EelamWeb
English
Translation of Address
My
beloved people of Tamil Eelam,
....The Tamil national question, which has assumed
the character of a civil war, is essentially a political issue. We
still hold a firm belief that this issue can be resolved by peaceful
means. If there is genuine will and determination on the part of the
Sinhalese leadership there is a possibility for peace and
settlement. Though fifty-three years have passed since the
independence of this island, the Sinhalese political leadership is
still buried in the swamp of racist ideology. That is why they have
not developed the wisdom and understanding to deal with the Tamil
question objectively and realistically. The belief that the Tamil
ethnic conflict could be resolved by repressive military means still
predominates the Sinhala political system.
It is precisely for this reason that none of the
major Sinhala political parties have any concrete projects or
frameworks for the permanent resolution of the conflict. The
international community is fully aware of this fact. These world
governments, while insisting that the ethnic conflict should be
resolved by peaceful means, have always supported Sri Lanka's
political and military efforts to weaken the political struggle of
the Tamils. This strange, ambiguous attitude of the world
governments has also contributed to the prolongation of the
conflict.
We are constantly knocking on the doors of peace but
the Kumaratunga government has refused to open the doors. Following
the meeting with the Norwegian peace envoys in Vanni in November
last year, we declared a unilateral cease-fire for four months to
help to facilitate the peace process. The Sri Lanka government
responded by ridiculing and rejecting our peace initiative and
launched provocative military assaults on our positions. Finally,
the government undertook a major offensive operation within hours of
the termination of our cease-fire. Our fierce counter-attack
repulsed the army's operation and made the government realise the
fact that the LTTE is strong and invincible.
Though we are strong with considerable manpower and
firepower we abstained from launching any major land based offensive
operations this year to facilitate the peace process. We co-operated
with Norway's peace efforts. It was under these circumstances that
Kumaratunga's government downgraded and marginalised the accredited
Norwegian peace envoy, Mr Erik Solheim, accusing him of being biased
towards the LTTE. We registered a strong protest against this
action. Following this incident the Norwegian peace effort reached a
stalemate. Chandrika Kumaratunga is responsible for this issue.
A parliamentary general election is taking place in
Sri Lankan at this critical historical turning point. Since we
advance our political struggle as an extra-parliamentary liberation
organisation we do not attach any significance to parliamentary
elections. Yet the LTTE has become the central theme in the current
election campaign in Tamil Eelam and in the Sinhala south.
Having assumed itself as the most crucial and
cardinal issue in Sri Lankan politics, the Tamil national conflict
has effectively polarised the political forces towards two
contradictory positions: between war and peace. The elections have
become a competitive arena between the forces that seek peace and
the extremist forces that are opposed to peace. The general public
is given the responsibility of choosing as to whether there will be
peace in the future or if the war will continue. The Sinhala people
should realise that there can be no peace, ethnic harmony and
economic prosperity in the island as long as the Tamil people are
denied justice and their political aspirations are not fulfilled.
We are not enemies of the Sinhala people, nor is our
struggle against them. It is because of the oppressive policy of the
racist Sinhala politicians that contradictions arose between the
Sinhala and Tamil nations, resulting in a war. We are fighting this
war against a state and its armed forces determined to subjugate our
people through the force of arms. We are well aware that this war
has not only affected the Tamils but also affects the Sinhala people
deeply. Thousands of innocent Sinhala youth have perished as a
consequence of the repressive policies of the war mongering ruling
elites. We are also aware that it is the Sinhala masses who are
bearing the economic burden of the war. Therefore, we call upon the
Sinhala people to identify and renounce the racist forces committed
to militarism and war and to offer justice to the Tamils in order to
put an end to this bloody war and to bring about permanent peace.
The Tamil people want to maintain their national
identity and to live in their own lands, in their historically given
homeland with peace and dignity. They want to determine their own
political and economic life; they want to be on their own. These are
the basic political aspirations of the Tamil people. It is neither
separatism nor terrorism. These demands do not constitute a threat
to the Sinhala people. They do not in any way affect or undermine
the political liberties or the social, economic and cultural life of
the Sinhala people. The Tamil people favour a political solution
that would enable them to live in their own lands with the right to
rule themselves. This is what the Tamils mean when they emphasise
that a political solution should be based on the right to
self-determination.
Our organisation is prepared to negotiate with the
Sri Lanka government on a political framework that would satisfy the
basic political aspirations of the Tamil people. But for us to
participate in political negotiations freely as equal partners, as
the authentic political force with the status of legitimate
representatives of our people, the ban imposed on our movement
should be lifted. This is the collective aspiration of the Tamil
people.
We want the peace talks to be held in cordial
situation of mutual trust and understanding. For a long time we have
been emphasising that the peace talks should take place in a
conducive atmosphere of peace and normalcy in the absence of war and
economic embargoes. We wish to reiterate the same position now.
The use of violence in all modes of struggles to
attain specific political goals is defined as terrorism by
international governments. This narrow definition has erased the
distinctions between genuine struggles for political independence
and terrorist violence. This conception of terrorism has posed a
challenge to the moral foundation of armed struggles waged by
liberation movements for basic political rights and for the right to
self-determination. This development is regrettable. As a
consequence our liberation organisation is also being discredited in
the international arena.
The world governments waging a war against terror
should, first of all, explore the root causes of political violence.
It is only through a deep insight into the origins of political
violence that one can discern the differences between authentic
liberation struggles and blind acts of terror.
In our view, there are two dimensions in political
violence. Firstly, there is the violence of the oppressor. Secondly,
there is the violence of the oppressed. In most cases the oppressor
belongs to the ruling elites, yields state authority and command the
armed forces. The oppressed are always the ruled, the minority
nationalities, the exploited and the poor. The violence of the first
category can be designated as state violence. The second category
can be termed as the violence against state violence. Since state
violence is a form of repressive violence of the oppressor, it is
unjust. The reactive violence of the oppressed is just since it is
undertaken with the motive of obtaining justice. It is within the
context of this distinction that the violent modes of political
struggles of the oppressed find legitimacy.
Violent forms of struggles by people seeking
political rights emerge only as reactive violence against state
terror. This truth can be discerned if one can objectively analyse
the historical origins of the world liberation organisations. The
Tamil Eelam liberation struggle has similar historical origins. The
state oppression against the Tamil people originated two decades
before the birth of the Tamil Tigers. Fuelled by racist passion, the
state repression gradually intensified over time and assumed
genocidal proportions.
All forms of peaceful non-violent agitations
undertaken by the Tamil people against Sinhala state oppression were
brutally repressed by state terror. Since the non-violent political
struggle became futile and meaningless and at the same time the
state oppression intensified in the form of genocide the Tamil
people were left with no alternative other than to confront the
state violence with violence. In other words, the Tamil people were
compelled to take arms to defend themselves against genodical
destruction. It was under these objective historical conditions the
Liberation Tigers took birth and advanced the armed struggle against
state terror. With the history of a sustained campaign extending to
a period of twenty years our armed resistance has evolved and
developed as the political mode of struggle of the Tamil people.
We are a national liberation organisation. We are
fighting for the emancipation of our people against racist tyranny,
against military occupation, against state terror. Our struggle has
a concrete, legitimate political objective. Our struggle is based on
the right to self-determination, a principal endorsed by the United
Nations Charter. We are not terrorists. We are not mentally demented
as to commit blind acts of violence impelled by racist and religious
fanaticism. We are fighting and sacrificing our lives for the love
of a noble cause i.e. human freedom.
We are freedom fighters. The Sinhala state
terrorists, who have failed in their efforts to crush our freedom
movement for the last two decades, branded our liberation struggle
as terrorism. Misguided by the false and malicious propaganda of the
Sri Lanka state some of the world governments have included our
liberation movement in their list of international terrorist
organisations. This is regrettable and disappointing. These
decisions have a negative impact. They have been made in haste,
without deep insight into the historicity and legitimacy of our
struggle for self-determination. It sends a wrong message to the
Sinhala racist rulers. It will further harden their hard-line,
intransigent attitude. It will encourage their policy of military
repression. On the whole, the actions of some of the Western
governments will seriously impede a political solution through
peaceful means and further complicate the ethnic conflict in Sri
Lanka.
All the member countries of the United Nations have
joined the alliance in the war against terrorism spearheaded by the
Western powers. Some of the repressive states with a notorious
history of racist oppression and gross human rights violations have
joined this global alliance against terror. In this context we wish
to confine our remarks only to the Sri Lanka state. This government,
holding one of the highest records of human rights violations
amounting to genocide, has now joined the international alliance
against terrorism. This is a dangerous trend in the emerging new
world order. This new trend is also posing a threat to the
legitimate political struggles of the oppressed humanity subjected
to state terror.
We fully understand the anger, apprehensions, and
compulsions of the Western powers engaged in a war against
international terrorism. We welcome the counter-terrorist campaign
of the international community to identify and punish the real
terrorists. In this context it is crucial that the Western
democratic nations should provide a clear and comprehensive
definition of the concept of terrorism that would distinguish
between freedom struggles based on the right to self-determination
and blind terrorist acts based on fanaticism. The international
community cannot ignore the phenomenon of state terror practiced
internally by some repressive regimes. The world should seek to
identify such terrorist states and penalise them.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam is a people's
movement. We are inextricably integrated with the people into a
unified single force fighting collectively for the liberation of our
homeland. In a devious strategy to alienate and marginalise our
liberation organisation from our people and to destroy us the
government of Chandrika Kumaratunga proscribed us as a 'terrorist'
organisation. Following this decision, Chandrika's government,
particularly its Foreign Minister Mr Kadirgamar, launched a
sustained propaganda campaign in the international arena portraying
the LTTE and the Tamil freedom struggle as a diabolical phenomenon
of terrorism. As a consequence the United States, Britain and most
recently Canada, have included our liberation movement in their
lists of terrorist organisations.
These countries are fully aware that we are not a
terrorist organisation and that we are a freedom movement
functioning with the overwhelming support of our people,
representing their political aspirations. Furthermore, these
countries have continued to insist that the LTTE and the Sri Lanka
government should engage in peace talks to resolve the ethnic
conflict. This stand clearly entails the fact that these countries
do recognise the Liberation Tigers as the political representatives
of the Tamil people. If so, why did the governments brand us as a
terrorist organisation? We cannot understand the logic as to how
such action could facilitate the peaceful resolution of the ethnic
conflict.
We hold the position that unless the Sri Lanka
government lifts the ban on our organisation and accepts us as the
authentic, legitimate representatives of the Tamil people we will
not participate in the peace negotiations. We are firmly committed
to this position. We have also clearly stated our position to the
Norwegian government. There is a possibility of peace in the island
of Sri Lankan only when the LTTE is de-proscribed. Under these
circumstances, proscribing the LTTE by Western governments giving
into diplomatic pressures from Sri Lanka will not pave the way for
the peaceful negotiated settlement of the conflict. Rather, it will
further reinforce the collective demand of our people to lift the
ban on the LTTE for the resumption of peace talks...."
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Address in Tamil
