'No Other Option But An Independent State...'

Velupillai Pirapaharan's annual Heroes’ Day speech

We are at a cross roads in our freedom struggle. Our journey has been long andarduous, and crowded with difficult phases. We are facing challenges andunexpected turns that no other freedom movement had to face. Unprecedented inhistory, we are dealing with war and peace talks at the same time.

Six years have passed since we dedicated ourselves to find a solution to theethnic conflict through peace talks. In this long time span, has a solution beenfound to the burning Tamil national question? Was there any visible change inthe mindset of the Sinhala leadership that continues to inflict unrelentingcruelty on the Tamil people? Were any of the justifiable requests of the Tamilsbeen fulfilled? Were our people able to find relief from the daily harassmentand misery at the hands of the occupying military? Were the daily basic problemsof our people resolved? None of these has happened. Instead, death anddestruction were heaped on the Tamils who hoped that they would receive justice.

While the countries that preached peace maintain silence without conscience, agreat tragedy is unfolding in the Tamil homeland. The Sinhala government hasimprisoned the Tamils in their own land after closing its main supply routes.Having removed their freedom by restricting their movement and constrained theirlives, it is inflicting great suffering on them. It has split the Tamilhomeland, set up military camps, bound it with barbed wire, and has converted itinto a site of collective torture.

The Sinhala government has unleashed a two pronged war, military and economic,on our people. Our people are subjected to unprecedented assaults. Arrests,imprisonment, and torture, rape and sexual harassment, murders, disappearance,shelling, aerial bombing, and military offensives are continuing unchecked. Atthe same time our people are subjected to an inhuman economic embargo onessential items including food and medicine.

Even after the ceasefire, negotiations and the five years of patiently keepingpeace, the dividends of peace have not reached our people. Instead our peopleare faced with unbearable burdens in their daily lives. Thousands of our peoplehave been forced out of their homes and are languishing with disease and hungerin refugee camps. No one should expect that this Sinhala government which isdenying food and medicine to our people to the extent of starving them wouldshow compassion and give them their political rights.

The monumental growth in knowledge and the resulting global outlook is takinghumanity into a new era. Ideas, views and philosophies are changing in tandemwith this growth in knowledge and this is resulting in changes in society. Yet,within the Sinhala nation, there is little change in its ideas and philosophies.The Sinhala nation is refusing to broaden its thinking and take a new approach.The Sinhala nation remains misled by the mythical ideology of the Mahavamsa andremains trapped in the chauvinistic sentiments thus created. Unable to freeitself from this mindset, it has adopted Sinhala Buddhist chauvinistic notionsas its dominant national philosophy. This notion is spread in its schools,universities and even its media. The domination of this Sinhala Buddhistchauvinism is preventing its students, intellectuals, and writers from steppingout of and thinking free from its domination. This, unfortunately, is preventingthe Sinhala nation from undertaking a genuine attempt at resolving the Tamilnational question in a civilized manner.

Both our liberation movement and our people never preferred war to a peacefulresolution. We have always preferred a peaceful approach to win the politicalrights of our people. We have never hesitated to follow the peaceful path to winour political rights. That is why we have tried to hold peace talks beginning inThimpu right through to Geneva on several occasions, at various times, and inmany countries. The current peace efforts, with Norwegian facilitation and withthe blessings of the international community, taking place in the capitals ofvarious countries are unique.

This peace journey began on 31st October 2000, when the then Norwegian specialenvoy Eric Solheim visited Vanni and met us. This peace journey is taking placein a unique period, under unique historical conditions, in a unique format andon a unique path. It is moving on two fronts, peace talks, on one hand, and awar of occupation by the Sinhala government, on the other.

During the six years when we kept peace, we were sincere in our efforts. Indeed,we initiated the peace efforts. We created a strong foundation for peace effortsby unilaterally declaring a ceasefire. We refrained from putting conditions ortime limits for peace talks. We did not undertake these efforts from a positionof weakness. We had recaptured the Vanni mainland and the Iyakkachchi-ElephantPass military complex. We had beaten back the ‘Operation Fire’ of theSinhala military. We carried out great military feats in the history of ourstruggle. It was from this position of strength that we undertook this peaceeffort.

The situation was just the opposite in the south. The south had faced defeatafter defeat and was losing its will to face war. Its military had lost itsbackbone. The economy was very shaky. It was only under such conditions that theSinhala nation agreed for peace talks. In this five years since the peaceefforts began, three governments have come to power, that of Wickremasinghe,Bandaranayake and Rajapakse. Each time the government changed, the dove of peacemoved from one cage to another but it was never able to fly freely. Stabbed manytimes, the dove is now struggling for its life.

We held talks with the Wickremasinghe government for six months after signingthe Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) with him. Like all previous Sinhala regimes, theWickremasinghe regime dragged time without implementing the clauses in the CFAand the agreements reached at the talks. Its military failed to move out ofpeople’s homes, schools and hospitals and instead declared these vast areas ofland as military security zones and permanently prevented the people fromreturning to their land. The sub-committee for De-escalation and Normalizationbecame dysfunctional. The sub-committee created to solve immediate humanitarianneeds of the people also become defunct due to planned sabotage by thegovernment.

The Wickremasinghe government that refused to solve the humanitarian problemsfacing our people, secretly worked to marginalize our movement on the worldstage. Even before setting up a working administrative structure in the Tamilhomeland, it conducted donor conferences to obtain aid for the south. By failingto facilitate our participation in the donor conference held in Washington, itmarginalized and humiliated our movement. As a result we were forced to stayaway from the Tokyo conference. The Wickremasinghe regime did not stop withthis. It plotted to trap our freedom movement in an ‘international safetynet’ and destroy us.

When we put forward the proposal for an Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA),startling changes occurred in the southern politics. The Kumaratunge governmenttook over the reins of power. While refusing to hold talks on the basis of ourproposal, her government, using the paramilitary phenomenon, intensified theshadow war against us. The paramilitary factor turned the Tamil homeland into aviolent blood stained theatre. Intellectuals, political leaders, journalists,LTTE members, supporters and civilians were all murdered. We were forced to haltthe political work, carried out according to the CFA clauses by our members inSri Lankan military occupied areas of the Tamil homeland. As a result, ourpeople were left alone in the cruel grip of the occupying military. Finally theKumaratunge regime failed to implement even the Joint Mechanism (PTOMS)agreement signed by her regime for tsunami rehabilitation. The Supreme Court,unable to step outside the Sinhala chauvinistic notions, rejected this purelyhumanitarian focused agreement citing the unitary constitution.

It was at this time that the Sinhala nation elected Rajapakse as its newPresident. Like the Sinhala leaders of the past, he too is putting his hopes ina military solution. He rejected our final call in our last year’s Heroes’Day statement, to find a resolution to the Tamil National question with urgency.Instead, he intensified the war, on the one hand, with the view to destroy ourmovement and, on the other hand, he is talking about finding a peacefulresolution. This dual war and peace approach is fundamentally flawed. It is notpossible to find a resolution by marginalizing and destroying the freedommovement with which talks must be held to find the resolution. This is politicalabsurdity on the part of the Sinhala leaders.

The Rajapakse regime hopes to decide the fate of the Tamil nation using itsmilitary power. It wants to occupy the Tamil land and then force an unacceptablesolution on the Tamils. Due to this strategy of the Rajapakse regime, the CFAhas become defunct. The Rajapakse regime, by openly advocating attacks on ourpositions, has effectively buried the CFA. The Rajapakse regime’s attacks haveexpanded from land to sea and air. It has given a free hand to the paramilitarygroups to kill at will. It has occupied Mavilaru and Sampur blatantly breakingthe terms of the CFA. The Sinhala military misjudged our strategic withdrawalfrom Mavilaru and Sampur. It used heavy firepower and launched large scaleoffensives to bring Tamil lands under its control. Tamil land was soaked inblood. It is at this time we decided to give a shock to the Sinhala regime. Ourforces conducted a massive counter-offensive on the Sinhala forces thatattempted to move from Kilali and Muhamalai. The military sustained heavy lossesand was forced to abandon its offensive temporarily. This, however, did notpersuade the Sinhala regime to give up its military plans. It continues on itsmilitary path.

The Rajapakse regime, while conducting genocide of the Tamils, is portraying ourmovement which is waging a struggle to save the Tamils from this genocide as aterrorist organization. It has launched a malicious propaganda campaign todefame our movement. Ignoring the unanimous opposition of our people and theobjection of the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM), the European Union andCanada have yielded to diplomatic pressure from the Sri Lankan government andlisted our movement as a terrorist organization. They isolated us asundesirables.

This hasty decision, arrived at without considering the prevailing context, hascreated serious repercussions. It has gravely disturbed the parity of status andbalance of power we held with the Sinhala regime. It encouraged the hard linestance of the Sinhala regime. It weakened the SLMM and facilitated the war plansof the Sinhala regime. Some countries that proclaim to be helping the peaceefforts, have not only failed to condemn the genocidal attacks on our people butare also giving military and financial aid to the Sinhala regime to support itswar plans. These are external factors that are encouraging the Rajapakse regimeto carry on with its brutal military offensives in the Tamil land with absoluteimpunity.

The Rajapakse regime is not giving due importance to the peace talks because ithas confidence in its military approach. The two Geneva talks were unproductivebecause of its lack of interest in the peace front. At the first Geneva talks,we placed evidence of military-paramilitary cooperation in the form ofdocuments, statistics and incident reports. Unable to reject the solid evidence,the Sri Lankan government agreed to implement the CFA clause by removing theparamilitary groups from the Tamil homeland. After this first Geneva talks,there was only one change. State and paramilitary terror in the Tamil homelandescalated.

The second Geneva talks were also a failure. At these talks, we gave priority tothe humanitarian issues facing our people and requested that the A9 road beopened and the SLMM be given freedom to function. The Sri Lankan government,putting military advantage ahead of humanitarian concerns, rejected bothrequests.

The Sinhala government that failed to show mercy to the people affected by anatural disaster is never going to budge on a humanitarian crisis that itplanned and created. How could the peace talks move forward when the peacedelegation is made up of people who proclaim that they will wage war and holdpeace talks at the same time? How can trust be built? How can peace be arrivedat like this?

To improve his posturing as a peace dove, President Rajapakse staged a deceptive‘All Party Conference’. The Sinhala leaders have practiced this infamouspolitical tradition of initiating commissions of inquiry, parliamentary selectcommittees, all party conferences, or round tables to procrastinate whenever itis unable to face up to a situation and wants to drag time until attention isdiverted. This is exactly what he is doing now. Rejecting our call to speedilyfind a resolution to the Tamil national question, he is hiding behind the AllParty Conference. For the last ten months, the all party committee is lookingfor the Tamil question, like searching for a black cat in a dark room.

Once the All Party Conference lost its deceptive power, President Rajapakse hastaken up his next card, the MoU between the two major parties. These two majorparties that effectively have hegemonic control over the south are bothessentially chauvinistic parties. Both these parties are born of SinhalaBuddhist chauvinism and compete with each other to carry out genocide of theTamils. This MoU is a temporary opportunistic move by Rajapakse regime to avoidthe multiple problems of international pressure to find a peaceful solution, thedeclining economic situation, and the opposition of his political partner,Janatha Vimukthi Perumuna (JVP). There is no sincere motive in this MoUagreement. These two parties will never put forward a just solution to the Tamilissue. Despite this, the Rajapakse regime continues to show interest in keepingthe all party conference alive simply to deceive the world.

My beloved people,

A long time has elapsed since we embarked on this journey for peace withNorway’s facilitation. We have tried our best to take forward this peaceeffort. We have practised patience. We gave innumerable opportunities forfinding peaceful resolution. We postponed our plan to advance our freedomstruggle twice to give even more chances to the peace efforts, once when thetsunami disaster struck and again when President Rajapakse was elected.

It is now crystal clear that the Sinhala leaders will never put forward a justresolution to the Tamil national question. Therefore, we are not prepared toplace our trust in the impossible and walk along the same old futile path.

The uncompromising stance of Sinhala chauvinism has left us with no other optionbut an independent state for the people of Tamil Eelam. We therefore ask theinternational community and the countries of the world that respect justice torecognize our freedom struggle. At this historic time when the Tamils arerecommencing their journey on the path of freedom, we seek the unwaveringsupport and assistance of the world Tamil community. We express our gratitude tothe Tamil Nadu people and leaders for voicing their support and ask them tocontinue their efforts to help us in our freedom struggle. We express ourgratitude to the Tamil Diaspora, our displaced brethren living all around theworld, for their contribution to our struggle and ask them to maintain theirunwavering participation and support.