|
 TAMIL
EELAM:
RIGHT TO SELF DETERMINATION
A Struggle for Justice
Political Committee, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
17 March 1997
INTRODUCTION
For the last two decades Sri Lanka has been a cauldron of political violence.
The racial antagonism that surfaced between the Tamil and Sinhala nations since
the independence of the island has evolved into a full-fledged armed conflict.
The parties in the conflict are the Sri Lankan state and the Liberation Tigers
of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Both the parties command standing armies and are
embroiled in a bloody war.
The consequences of the war are devastating. The Tamil civilians face the
brunt of the conflict because the war is waged in the Tamil homeland. Already
50,000 Tamils have perished and hundreds of thousands have either fled the
country or internally displaced. Yet the war continues with unabating ferocity
destroying life and property with every passing day.
The Sri Lanka government attempts to present the complexity of the problem
with simplistic logic. The magnitude of the conflict is reduced to a simple
phenomenon of terrorism. In the perspective of the Sinhala Government, the LTTE
is a small band of bloodthirsty terrorists bent on anarchism. The answer to the
problem on the government's side is also simplistic. The elimination of the LTTE
by sustained war, it is argued, will automatically resolve the Tamil conflict.
A well orchestrated international propaganda campaign has been launched by
Sri Lanka to convince the world community that the Tamil struggle is nothing
other than a spectre of terrorism. Playing on the sensibilities and anxieties of
Western nations about global terrorism, Sri Lanka has been propagating a view
that she is also victim of a similar phenomenon. Under the guidance of a
machiavellian Tamil minister, Sri Lankan diplomatic missions abroad have been
working overtime in transposing an internal inter-racial conflict into a global
terror.
This disinformation campaign is intended to discredit the Tamil armed
struggle and to seek sympathy and support for a massive war effort in the Tamil
homeland. In the diplomatic language of Sri Lanka, this war is an exercise for
peace and has noble intentions of "liberating Tamils from the scourge of
terrorism". Such false propaganda has created a great deal of confusion
and misconception in the international political and diplomatic arena about the
Tamil struggle in general and the armed struggle in particular. Further more,
the ongoing violence and counter-violence that characterise the Tamil conflict
have given rise to various misrepresentations about the aims and objectives of
the Tamil armed freedom movement.
This political document attempts to clarify some of the
misconceptions surrounding the armed struggle of the Tamils. While examining
the historical conditions that gave rise to the armed resistance movement, we
argue that the Tamils reserve the right to armed defence against the military
repression and genocide. Countering Sri Lanka's false propaganda that the Tamil
struggle is a mode of terrorism, we explain that armed campaign is a form of
legitimate political struggle for self-determination. In brief the document sets
out the position of the Tamils based on their quest for political independence
and self-government.
WHY DID THE TAMILS TAKE UP ARMS?
The birth and growth of the armed resistance movement should be analysed
within the historical development of the Tamil struggle for self-determination.
The Tamil struggle for self-determination has an evolutionary history of nearly
a half of century. It is a history characterised by state repression and
resistance by the Tamils. The political struggles in the early periods were
peaceful, democratic and non-violent but later assumed the form of armed
resistance as the military repression of the state intensified into
genocidal proportions.
Sinhala state repression against the Tamils began to manifest in concrete
forms following the independence of the island in 1948 when the British colonial
masters transferred the state's power to the Sinhala dominated parliamentary
system. By discriminatory legislation and by other measures, successive Sinhala
majority governments unleashed a systematic form of oppression that deprived the
Tamils of their linguistic, educational and employment rights. Gradually
and systematically the thrust of state oppression affected the sphere
of economic and social life of the Tamils. In the meantime, the state aided
aggressive colonisation in the Tamil areas not only deprived them of their
rights over their historical lands but also altered the ethnic composition of
the population rendering the Tamils a minority in certain traditional Tamil
regions. The features of Sinhala state oppression clearly indicated a devious
plan calculated to destroy the national identity of the Tamil people.
As the Sinhala state oppression and discrimination unfolded in its ugly forms
threatening the national identity, the Tamil parliamentary political leadership
responded with mass political agitations. Adopting Gandhi's concept of "ahimsa"
the Tamil leadership organised non-violent campaigns demanding justice and fair
play from Sinhala rulers. In the early sixties, the "satyagraha" (peaceful
picketing) campaigns attracted huge masses of people in massive
demonstrations symbolising a national uprising against the state.
The Sinhala Government reacted with military violence and terror brutally
crushing the non -violent peaceful campaigns of the Tamils. Instead of
looking into the genuine grievances of an aggrieved people, Colombo Governments
adopted a harsh policy of military repression. Such high-handed tactics of
terror made the people realise the futility of the non-violent campaigns. They
realised that a repressive racist state adopting the methods of brutal violence
attached no respect to the moral and spiritual values underlying non-violent
struggles.
The Tamil people became frustrated and lost hope in both the
parliamentary system which functioned under the tyranny of the majority and the
non- violent struggles which were systematically crushed by the tyranny of the
military. In desperation, the Tamil leadership sought political negotiations to
resolve the conflict. Sinhala leaders entered into agreements but soon abrogated
the pacts when Sinhala chauvinistic forces opposed reconciliation with the
Tamils.
The event climaxed the state oppression against the Tamils was the new
Republican constitution of 1972 which was a blatant attempt to legalise
and institutionalise Sinhala chauvinism at the cost of alienating the Tamil
nation from unitary constitutional politics. This event brought about radical
transformation in the nature and structure of the Tamil political struggle. It
was during this specific historical juncture the armed resistance movement gave
birth on the Tamil soil with the determination to fight for political
independence from alien domination.
The armed struggle emerged as a historical development of the Tamil struggle
in response to the determined efforts of the Sinhala Government to subjugate the
Tamils. The Tamils took up arms when they were presented with no alternative
other than to defend themselves against a savage form of genocidal oppression,
when peaceful forms of democratic political agitations were violently repressed,
when constitutional paths and parliamentary doors were effectively closed, when
Sinhala ruling elites callously rejected the demands for justice and equality.
Therefore, the Tamil armed struggle for political independence and
self-government is the historical product of decades of racist oppression and
injustice.
ARMED STRUGGLE FOR SELF-DETERMINATION
With the formation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 1972 by
its present leader Mr.Velupillai Pirabaharan, the mode of the Tamil political
struggle underwent a radical change. For the first time in the political history
of the Tamils an armed guerrilla movement emerged to fight for the political
rights of the Tamil nation and to confront the state's violence with armed
resistance. With the birth and growth of the Tamil Tigers, the armed struggle
became effectively institutionalised as the political struggle of the
Tamil people.
LTTE's armed struggle is based on a clearly defined political programme. This
political project aims at securing the right to self-determination of the Tamil
people. The right to self-determination is the cardinal principle upon which the
Tamil struggle for political independence is based. The LTTE is committed to the
position that the Tamils constitute themselves as a people or a nation and have
a homeland, the historically constituted habitation of the Tamils, a well
defined contiguous territory embracing the Northern and Eastern Provinces.
Since the Tamils have a homeland, a distinct language and culture, a unique
economic life and a lengthy history extending to over three thousand years, they
possess all the characteristics of a nation or a people. As a people they have
the inalienable right to self-determination. This right entailed the freedom of
a people to determine their own political status. The LTTE holds the view that
the Tamil people had invoked the right to self-determination at the 1977 general
elections and opted to fight for political independence and statehood. The
national liberation project of the LTTE is based on the people's mandate
for self-determination.
The LTTE's objective in fighting for political independence of the Tamil
nation is not an arbitrary decision on the part of the organisation but rather
the expression and articulation of the collective will and aspiration of the
Tamil people. Decades of alien domination and oppression prompted the Tamil
people to exercise their right to self-determination through a democratic
process. This right to self-determination is a basic universal human right
recognised by the international community.
The International Covenants of the UN charter enunciates the principle of
self-determination in the following term -
"All people have the right to self- determination. By the virtue of that
right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their
economic, social and cultural development".
In the general elections of 1977 which assumed the character of a referendum
on the question of self-determination, the Tamil nation chose to determine their
political status by seceding and establishing its sovereignty in its homeland.
The Tamil parliamentary political party, the TULF, which obtained a clear
mandate from the people and pledged to fight for the creation of an independent
state "either by peaceful means or by direct action or struggle" betrayed the
cause of the Tamils. But the LTTE, endorsing the national aspiration and
the will of the Tamil people determined to carry on the struggle
for self-determination.
Sri Lanka has consistently denied the right to self-determination of the
Tamils and refused to recognise the Tamils as a people. Reducing the Tamils to
the category of a minority group and promoting the concepts of multi-ethnicity
and pluralism, it has out rightly rejected the Tamil claim of nationhood and
homeland. By constitutional amendment Sri Lanka has prohibited the Tamil demand
for self-determination as unlawful. Furthermore, it has unleashed a full-fledged
war against the Tamils to suppress their struggle for political independence. It
has condemned and accused the LTTE of communalism, separatism and terrorism for
engaging in an armed struggle to assert the right of the Tamils to freely choose
their political destiny.
INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION
Against the background of a powerful Sri Lankan diplomatic lobby reinforced
by misrepresentation of facts and falsehood, the Tamils have been making every
effort in the international arena to seek legitimacy for the claim of
self-determination and the right to armed defence against genocidal oppression.
The international campaign for the recognition and realisation of the Tamil
right to self-determination was raised at the United Nations Human
Rights Commission. International NGO's sympathetic to the Tamil cause have been
pleading with the UN Commission to recognise the legitimate claim of the Tamil
people for self-determination.
A joint statement by several international NGO's at the 49th session of the
UN Human Right Commission held on February 1993 under the theme "The right of
peoples to self-determination and its application to peoples under colonial
or alien domination or foreign occupation" called for the recognition of Tamils
as a people with the right to self-determination. The joint statement observed
that,
"The Tamil population in the North and East, who have lived for many
centuries, share an ancient heritage, a vibrant culture, and a living
language which traces its origins to more than 2500 years ago. A social
group, which shares objective elements such as a common language and which
has acquired a subjective consciousness of togetherness by its life within a
relatively well defined territory, and its struggle against alien
domination, clearly constitutes a" people" with the right to
self-determination. Today, there is an urgent need for the international
community to recognise that the Tamil population in the North and East of
the Island of Sri Lanka are such a "people" with the right to freely choose
their political status".
This joint statement, by the international NGO's with UN consultative status,
calling for the recognition of the north-eastern region of Sri Lanka as the
Tamil homeland and the Tamils as a people with the right to self-determination,
was a significant development in the campaign to win international support for
the Tamil liberation struggle.
Though, so far, the UN Commission on Human Rights has not taken any serious
action with regard to the Tamil national question, it has been under constant
pressure over the last decade to initiate steps to satisfy the legitimate
aspirations of the Tamils within the framework of human rights and the right
to self-determination. Every year, as the situation in the Tamil
homeland becomes more grave and dangerous with the aggravation of the war
of aggression and occupation unleashed against the Tamils by Sri Lanka, the
Tamil claim is gaining momentum in this UN forum.
Originally the principal of self-determination was applied specifically to
people under colonial domination fighting a liberation struggle for
political independence and statehood. In contemporary historical times
the principle has broader application that includes people facing various modes
of oppression. Particularly it applies to people oppressed by racist regimes or
subjected to alien domination or foreign occupation. Alien domination entails
subjugation of one nation by another nation.
The Tamil people are oppressed by the Sinhala racist state. They
are subjected to military domination and occupation by the alien Sinhala nation.
It is a well documented fact that Sinhala Governments have been making
determined effort by the use of military force to subjugate and assimilate the
Tamil people within the Sinhala dominated state. This is a clear case of alien
domination and subjugation. Therefore, the Tamils satisfy the necessary
conditions in international law to exercise their right to self-determination.
On the basis of their entitlement to exercise self-determination, they have the
right to armed struggle. In other words, the armed struggle of the Tamils is a
legitimate political struggle in international law.
LTTE AS A FREEDOM MOVEMENT
In defence of the inalienable rights of the Tamil people, the LTTE has been
fighting an armed struggle against the alien domination of the Sinhala state. As
an organisation committed to the principle of self-determination and engaged in
a politico-military struggle over a lengthy period, the LTTE has earned the
status of a national liberation movement. Having emerged in the early seventies
and having struggled for over two decades to win the political rights of
the Tamil people, the LTTE enjoys widespread popular support in Tamil Eelam and
among the international Tamil community. It is an undeniable fact that the LTTE
's liberation struggle to assert the right to self-determination of the Tamil
people has been instrumental for the internationalisation of the Tamil national
problem.
Sri Lanka's often repeated thesis that the Tamil Tigers are a small band of
armed rebels engaging in terrorism and are alienated from the people is baseless
propaganda. The very fact that the LTTE has a military and political history
extending over a period of 25 years provides ample evidence that the
organisation enjoys mass support. History has noted that guerrilla movements
committed to armed liberation struggles could not have survived without the
support and sustenance of the people.
The longevity of its existence, its ability to conduct a consistent and
sustained armed struggle against formidable military forces (including the
Indian army), its capacity to mobilise and organise popular masses for political
action, demonstrate the fact that the LTTE enjoys the status of a
national freedom movement with massive popular backing .
The LTTE has a standing army, a national liberation force consisting of
several thousands of freedom fighters, a capable and responsible
command structure, military training facilities, modern weapon systems,
vast territories under its administrative control and has the potential
and efficiency to engage the Sri Lanka armed forces in conventional mode of
warfare. The LTTE has a political section with social, economic, educational and
cultural organisations and civil administrative units and a law and order
system.
The structure of the LTTE is complex and multi-faceted and orientated towards
conducting an effective armed resistance and political struggle and at the
sametime maintaining a well organised administrative system. Furthermore, the
LTTE has a massive international network operating in several world capitals.
Sri Lanka has consistently refused to recognise the fact that the LTTE is a
liberation movement involved in the freedom struggle of the Tamils. Such a
recognition would entail the acceptance of the Tamil struggle as a national
liberation struggle. One cannot expect an admission of truth from a racist state
which has for decades continued to violate, abuse, and prevent the course of
justice to the Tamils; a repressive state that has always used its powerful
propaganda machinery to distort, misrepresent and belittle the Tamil
freedom movement. In the racist perception of Sri Lanka, the LTTE has
always been a terrorist organisation and the liberation war of the Tamils
a terrorist war.
Though Sri Lanka has taken such an extremist stand and condemned the LTTE in
unholy terms, there has been several occasions when the Sinhala leadership had
no choice but enter into a negotiating process with the Tamil Tigers recognising
the fact that LTTE is the dominant politico-military force of the Tamils. Sri
Lanka entered into negotiations with the LTTE in Thimphu, Delhi, Bangalore,
Colombo and more recently in Jaffna . Entering into negotiations with the
LTTE entails implicit recognition that the Tamil Tigers constituted
a representative organisation of the Tamils. Though this status was accorded to
the LTTE during political dialogues it was abruptly negated when the talks broke
down and the LTTE was branded as a terrorist organisation. The international
community should take note of this rather strange and bizarre attitude of Sri
Lanka which can shift its policy to conflicting positions in considering the
LTTE as a people's organisation during the times of peace and a
terrorist organisation during the times of war.
HIDDEN MOTIVES BEHIND SRI LANKA'S APPROACH
Ever since the violent racial holocaust of 1983, in which thousands of Tamils
perished as a consequence of communal massacres, the Tamil struggle assumed
international importance.
The international community showed deep concern over the gross violations of
human rights by Sri Lanka. Furthermore, the massive influx of Tamil refugees
into Western Europe, North America and Australia following the riots compelled
the industrialised countries to take serious note about the political
developments in the Island. Some of the concerned European nations attempted to
relate developmental aid with improvements in the human rights situation in Sri
Lanka . But such aid related ' pressures' failed to produce any radical change
in the system of state repression .
The present Sri Lankan Government has made a few cosmetic reforms by
appointing human rights task force and commissions of inquiry to hoodwink
the international community. But the country continues to be governed
by Emergency laws, anti-terrorism acts and military and police tyranny. In the
South, the Political opposition faces police harassment, intimidation, arrest,
detention and assault and other forms of state repression with the aim to stifle
the freedom of expression and opinion. In the Northeast, a series of war crimes
of grave nature are committed against the Tamils under the camouflage of
offensive military operations.
The military occupied areas in the Northeast have turned into massive
concentration camps where Tamils are being subjected to arbitrary arrests,
detention without trial, rape , torture and murder. There is documentary
evidence to substantiate over 500 cases of disappearances in Jaffna.
Though Sri Lanka is beset by the turbulence of war and civil unrest and the
human right situation has worsened, the developmental aid from donor countries
continues to pour into the country in a big way and a substantial portion of it
is drained by the so-called 'war for peace''. The reluctance to exert aid
related pressure by the affluent countries has encouraged Kumaratunga Government
to persist on a policy of repression and tyranny.
Impervious to humanitarian concerns and insensitive to the monumental human
tragedy caused by the war, some international countries continue to supply
lethal weapons to Sri Lanka. The assured supply of unrestricted funds and
unrestrained supply of arms have encouraged Sri Lanka to close the doors for
peace and to embark on the ruthless policy of military domination against the
Tamil people. Nevertheless some foreign nations are concerned over the
escalation of the war and the intensification of the Tamil conflict and have
proposed negotiated political settlement between the parties in conflict, i.e.
Sri Lanka and the LTTE.
Because of the mutual distrust and hostility between the combatants and
the continuous failure of direct negotiations some of these countries
have volunteered to offer mediation or facilitation. Norway, Sweden, Canada,
Switzerland, Australia and Britain have expressed their willingness either to
mediate or to facilitate for peace talks between the LTTE and Sri Lanka
Government. Though the LTTE leadership has responded positively to offers of
international mediation , Sri Lanka has persistently rejected such offers of
third party mediation claiming that the Tamil problem is an internal conflict.
Sri Lanka has spurned international mediation for specific reasons. Firstly,
the Kumaratunga Government does not want the Tamil national question to be
raised in the global arena as an international conflict. Secondly, it does not
want the LTTE to be accorded the status of main player in the Tamil struggle or
rather the party in conflict. Thirdly, Sri Lanka fears that the Tamil aspiration
for autonomy and self-government may receive a sympathetic hearing as
a reasonable demand in the civilized political world. Fourthly, Sri Lanka wants
to continue with the military option in favour of a peace process because the
conquest and domination of the Tamil homeland is a strategy that would appease
the passions of Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism.
It is true that the armed liberation struggle with the history of more than
two decades has created mutual animosity, mistrust and a great deal of
misunderstanding between the LTTE and the Sinhala state. This mutual hostility
and mistrust have been the causal factors for the continuous break-down of peace
talks between both the parties. It is on this basis that the LTTE has realised
that future peace negotiations can only be meaningful and constructive if they
are held under international mediation.
But Sri Lanka is reluctant to seek international assistance for the reasons
we have already outlined. There are other reasons too for Sri Lanka to refuse to
negotiate with the Tamil Tigers. For the Sri Lankan ruling elites, the
LTTE represents the militant stand of the Tamils ; it symbolises the collective
Tamil aspirations for identity, homeland and nationhood. While the other Tamil
groups have abandoned the basic principles underlying the Tamil struggle and are
prepared to compromise on anything , the LTTE continues to articulate those
principles.
Sri Lanka is not prepared even to discuss these issues that form the very
basis of the Tamil national conflict. Contrary to Tamil perceptions and
aspirations, Sri Lanka has postulated the problem in a different ideological
universe situating the Tamils as a minor ethnic group in a multi-ethnic social
formation and denying their right to a homeland and national identity. It is
precisely because of this approach, the Sinhala regime refuses to enter into any
meaningful dialogue with the LTTE, either directly or with the facilitation
or mediation of the international community.
The current military campaign is primarily aimed at the political
marginalisation to the LTTE. The military occupation and subjugation of the
historical homeland of the Tamils, the Sinhala rulers assume, will bring an
end to the Tamil aspirations for autonomy and homeland and to the political
struggle of the LTTE based on those aspirations.
These are the real intentions behind the current political and military
approach of the Kumaratunga Government. But the Sri Lankan propaganda machinery
tells a different story to the world, a concocted story that camouflages the
hidden agenda; a story of "terrorist threat" and "war for peace"; a fabulous
story of "liberating" the Tamils from the "dictatorship" of the LTTE. The
international community should not be misled by the misrepresentations made by
Sri Lankan propaganda but carefully examine the real story behind the just cause
of the Tamil people and their struggle for freedom and dignity. |
