"...The Tamil Eelam
struggle for freedom is just because it arose in
response to decades
of ever widening and deepening oppressive alien
Sinhala rule. It is lawful because every people
have the
right to freely choose their political status -
and no people may seek to rule another. It is lawful
also because Eelam Tamil sovereignty which had lain
dormant during the period of successive British and
Sinhala rule, was resuscitated
with the break in legal continuity in 1972 when
the representatives of the Sinhala people met outside
the Sri Lanka Parliament, in Navarangahala and gave
themselves an autochthonous constitution. The Tamil
Eelam struggle for freedom is principled because the
Tamil people do not deny the existence of the Sinhala
nation but
seek to associate with it freely and on equal
terms. ...But, we have learnt (and continue to
learn) on the hard anvil of experience that whilst
power without principle is unprincipled, equally
principle without power is powerless. We are not a
people of servile pleaders for fair play and abject
supplicants for justice...The success of our struggle
will depend on our own efforts, on our own strength,
and, above all else, on our own determination to live
in freedom and with dignity - and every Tamil
wherever he or she
may live, has a lawful contribution to make,
however small or large and in whatever form or shape
that may be. "
The battle of Waterloo may have been won on the
playing fields of Eton. But it will be idle to pretend
that the struggle for Tamil Eelam will be won on the
playing fields of the UN Human Rights Commission
in Geneva.
Nevertheless, the Joint Statement by 17 non
governmental organisations at the UN Commission on
Human Rights on 4 February 1994 represents a welcome
step forward in the long march to secure international
recognition of the Tamil struggle for freedom. The
17 NGO Joint
Statement succinctly spelt out the legitimacy of
the Tamil struggle :
''A social group, which shares objective elements
such as a common language and which has acquired a
subjective political consciousness of oneness, by its
life within a relatively well defined territory, and
by its struggle against alien domination, clearly
constitutes a 'people' with the right to self
determination and in our view, the Tamil
population of the north-east of the island are such a
'people'.''
Of particular significance was the Joint Statement's
reference to the 1879 Cleghorn Minute which
recognised the existence of two states in the
island prior to the imposition of British rule.
In 1972, when the representatives of the Sinhala
people met outside the Sri Lanka Parliament, in
Navarangahala and gave themselves an autochthonous
constitution they broke the legal continuity with the
past. The result in law was that sovereignty
reverted to the Tamil people in their homeland.
It was on this issue that the Tamil leader Mr.S.J.V.
Chelvanayagam resigned his seat in the Sri Lanka
Parliament and thereafter won
a mandate from the Tamil people for the
establishment of an independent Tamil Eelam state - a
mandate
later reiterated at the 1977 General Elections.
In 1983, Mr. Timothy J.Moore from the Australian
Section of the International Commission of Jurists
commented:
"The proponents of Tamil Eelam argue that the
northern and eastern of the nine provinces of Sri
Lanka coincide with the historic boundaries of the
kingdom of Jaffna and argue a case that seeks to
establish that sovereignty over these territories was
never ceded to any conqueror and that, even if such
concession had been made at any time in the past, the
unilateral renunciation of links with the United
Kingdom which took place at the assumption of Mrs.
Srimavo Bandaranaikes's government in 1972,
resuscitated the Tamil sovereignty which had merely
lain dormant until then... ...In the abstract theory
of international law, it would appear that the Tamils
have, at the very least, an arguable case, and
possibly, a sustainable one..."
Mr.Moore was ofcourse right to emphasise the
'abstract' and 'theoretical' nature of making a case in
international law.
The leader of Tamil Eelam, Velupillai Pirabaharan,
speaking on Maha Veerar Naal, in November 1993
addressed the concrete and practical political reality.
He said:
''We are fighting for
a just cause... Our people are entitled to the
right to self determination... Under international
law this right cannot be denied... (But) we are fully
aware that the world is not rotating on the axis of
human justice. ...International relations and
diplomacy between countries are determined by the
self interest of each country. Therefore we cannot
expect an immediate recognition of the legitimacy of
our cause by the international community. But at the
same time we must agitate for that recognition... In
reality, the success of our struggle...depends on our
own efforts, on our own strength, on our own
determination...''
The Tamil Eelam struggle for freedom is just because
it arose in response to decades of ever widening and
deepening oppressive alien Sinhala rule. It is
lawful because every people have the right to freely
choose their political status - and no people may
seek to rule another. It is lawful because Eelam Tamil
sovereignty which had lain dormant during the period of
successive British and Sinhala rule, was resuscitated
with the break in legal continuity in 1972. The
Tamil Eelam struggle for freedom is principled because
the Tamil people do not deny the existence of the
Sinhala nation but seek to associate with it
freely and on equal terms.
But, we have learnt (and continue to learn) on the
hard anvil of experience that whilst power without
principle is unprincipled equally principle without
power is powerless. We are not a people of servile
pleaders for fair play and abject supplicants for
justice.
"Petitioning which we have so long followed, we
reject as impossible - the dream of timid experience,
the teaching of false friends who hope to keep us in
perpetual subjection, foolish to reason, false to
experience." Sri
Aurobindo in Bande Mataram, 1907
The armed
resistance of the Tamil people led by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam reflects the marriage of principle with power
and lights the way forward, difficult though the path
ahead may be. But, history does not record that freedom
was ever served to a people on a silver platter. Again
to seek change without a willingness to suffer to bring
about that change, is but to issue airy ultimatums
without sanctions. The success of our struggle will
depend on our own efforts, on our own strength, and,
above all else, on our own determination to live in
freedom and with dignity - and every Tamil, wherever he or she may
live, has a lawful contribution to make, however
small or large and in whatever form or shape that may
be.
