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TAMIL EELAM:
RIGHT TO SELF DETERMINATION

  Vaddukodai Resolution

Letter to Sri Lanka Prime Minister, Mrs.Srimavo R.D.Bandaranaike,
 from M.Sivasithamparam, Joint Secretary General, Tamil United Liberation Front 
in reply to her statement about the civil disobedience campaign of the TULF.

20 May 1976

Dear Madame Prime Minister.

I write this letter to you as Secretary General of the Tamil United Liberation Front and also as the General Secretary of the All- Ceylon Tamil Congress.

It was reported in the Ceylon Daily News of 24th instant that you had said that the Federal Party has been campaigning for a separate state and that Federal Party has been been involved in the distribution of subversive literature Both these statements are factually incorrect.

The resolution for a separate, free secular sovereign socialist state of Tamil Eelam was adopted at the delegates conference of the Tamil United Liberation Front in the course of the first National Convention held at Vaddukoddai on 14th and 15th of May 1976. This resolution was endorsed at a public meeting attended by more than 50,000 people.  Therefore the demand for a separate Tamil State is not that of a single political party but that of the Tamil United Liberation Front which is as much - if not more - representative of the Tamil people of Ceylon as your Government is of the Sinhala people. The decision to defy the Emergency Regulations being the distribution of leaflets in derogation of the Constitution  was taken by the Action Committee of the TULF. Perhaps your reference only to the Federal Party was to give the impression that only a section of the Tamil people were involved in the demand for a separate state and defying undemocratic and unjust Emergency Regulations.

The complete and spontaneous Hartal in the Northern and Eastern provinces, both on the 21st and on the 24th is the clearest  indication that the entire Tamil Nation is - one with the TULF.  It is also reported that (you have said that) "the Tamil people of North and East are dead against a Separate State demand".  This is hardly a matter for argument.  Apparently the lesson from the Kankesanthurai by- election has not been learnt. We wish  to state further that we are prepared to face any known method of gauging public opinion on this matter and accept their verdict. If this test is to be any use you  must be prepared to accept the verdict.

It is also reported that you described the campaign launched by the TULF as
anti social and subversive. All colonial masters have described freedom movements in this way. But history's verdict has always been different.

Also it has bee reported that you  threatened to take stern action against those involved in this Campaign . Ours is a non violent, civil disobedience movement. According to the tenets of Gandhiji's teachings we shall act, whatever stern action you propose to take. History has again shown that such sacrifices triumph in this end.

M.Sivasithamparam
100, Norris Canal Road,
Colombo 10

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