Here's an article on Velupillai Prabhakaran the leader of the LTTE (Tamil
Tigers), just for FYI updates etc..
A good friend of mine lived in Sri Lanka for 2 years and has some understanding
of the conflict, and actually
was across the street when a large bomb went off in Colombo.. Also an ice-cream
man was killed
near his house from stray gun-fire.
Date : 2005-11-27
V. Pirapaharan: "President Rajapakse is considered a
realist committed to pragmatic politics, we
wish to find out, and first of all, how he is going to handle the peace process
and whether he will offer justice to our
people."
Colombo, 27 November, (Asiantribune.com): Despite the
threatening fire and thunder that preceded his
annual Heroes' Day speech, Velupillai Prabhakaran has toned down his rhetoric and
"decided to wait and observe, for
sometime" Mahinda Rajapakse's moves before "intensifying (the) struggle for
self-determination."
This is in stark contrast to Mahinda Rajapakse's firm and
clear cut policy statement which he
presented to parliament. In his speech he rejected, among other things, four
key elements of the LTTE agenda: 1) the
homeland concept ; 2) LTTE as the sole representative at the negotiating table;
3) Ceasefire Agreement and 4) Norway.
Side-stepping these issues Prabhakaran states, in rather subdued tones: "Having
carefully examined his policy statement
in depth, we have come to a conclusion that President Rajapkse has not grasped
the fundamentals, the basic concepts
underlying the Tamil national question. In terms of policy, the distance
between him and us is vast. However, President
Rajapakse is considered a realist committed to pragmatic politics, we wish to
find out, first of all, how he is going to
handle the peace process and whether he will offer justice to our people. We
have, therefore, decided to wait and
observe, for sometime, his political manoeuvres and actions."
But his sting is in the tail. He states in the concluding
paragraphs: "Our people have lost patience,
hope and reached the brink of utter frustration. They are not prepared to be
tolerant any longer. The new government
should come forward soon with a reasonable political framework that will
satisfy the political aspirations of the Tamil
people. This is our urgent and final appeal. If the new government rejects our
urgent appeal, we will, next year, in
solidarity with our people, intensify our struggle for self-determination, our
struggle for national liberation to
establish self-government in our homeland.'
Above all, he has avoided answering the critical question as
to whether he would accept the hand of
friendship offered to them. He states: "This new government is extending its
hand of friendship towards us and is
calling our organization for peace talks. It claims that it is going to adopt a new
approach towards the peace process."
Without answering whether he would accept the hand of friendship or not Prabhakaran
trails off at this point into the "wait
and see" policy. When Mahinda Rajapakse has stated that the national question
has to be re-started on a new agenda
outlined by him Prabhakaran is insisting that the new president should "offer a
reasonable political solution to the
ethnic conflict without further delay", keeping the distance between each other
"vast" as ever.
Here is the full text of his speech, which in the main is a
repetition of the usual complaints against
the Sinhala "enemies":
'The Sinhala nation continues to be entrapped in the Mahavamsa
mindset, in that mythical ideology. The
Sinhalese people are still caught up in the legendary fiction that the island
of Sri Lanka is a divine gift to Theravada
Buddhism, a holy land entitled to the Sinhala race. The Sinhala nation has not
redeemed itself from this mythological
idea that is buried deep and has become fossilized in their collective
unconscious. It is because of this ideological
blindness the Sinhalese people and their political and religious leaders are
unable to grasp the authentic history of
the island and the social realities prevailing here. They are unable to
comprehend and accept the very existence of a
historically constituted nation of Tamil people living in their traditional
homeland in north-eastern Sri Lanka,
entitled to fundamental political rights and freedoms.
It is because of the refusal by the Sinhala nation to perceive
the existential reality of the Tamils
and their political aspirations the Tamil national question persists as an
unresolved complex issue. We do not expect a
radical transformation in the social consciousness, in the political ideology,
in the Mahavamsa mental structure of the
Sinhalese people. The scope and power of Sinhala-Buddhist hegemony has not
receded, rather, it has revived and taken new
forms, exerting a powerful dominance on the southern political arena.
In these objective conditions we do not believe that we can
gain a reasonable solution from the
Sinhala nation. We have to fight and win our rights. We have never entertained
the idea that we could obtain justice
from the compassion of the Sinhala politicians. This has always been the view
of our liberation organization.
Even though we are deeply convinced that we cannot obtain
justice from the Sinhala political
leadership, but rather have to fight and win our rights, we were compelled by
unprecedented historical circumstances to
participate in peace talks with the Sinhala state. We were compelled to engage
in the negotiating process by the
intervention of the Indian regional superpower at a particular historical
period and by the pressure of the
international community at a later period. There were other reasons also that
encouraged us to engage in the peace
process. Constructive engagement in the peace process is a viable means to
secure legitimacy for our liberation
organization as the representative organ of our people. We also wanted to
internationalize our struggle and win the
support and sympathy of the international community.
Furthermore, there is a need to convince the world community
that we are not war-mongers addicted to
armed violence, but rather, firmly and sincerely committed to non-violent peace
process.
Finally and most importantly, we wanted to demonstrate beyond
doubt that the Sinhala racist ruling
elites would not accept the fundamental demands of the Tamils and offer a
reasonable political solution.
It was with these objectives we participated in the peace
process. Over the last three decades of our
national liberation struggle we have observed ceasefires and participated in
peace talks at different periods of time in
different historical circumstances. We knew that our enemy was dishonest and
devious. We knew that these peace talks
would not produce any positive results. We knew that there would be peace traps.
Yet we participated in the peace talks with sincere commitment
and dedication. In the course of our
engagement we encountered pressures and complex challenges. There were traps to
undermine our liberation struggle. We
acted prudently and avoided pitfalls. We vehemently opposed all subversive
strategies that were detrimental to the
interests of our people. The Tamil people are fully aware of the fact that
during the time of Indian intervention, when
we encountered a serious threat to our freedom struggle and to the interests of
our people, our liberation organization
was bold enough to oppose the Indian superpower and fight its military machine.
From the Thimpu talks, we have participated in several peace
negotiations, at different times, at
different places. Unprecedented in the history of our struggle, it is only now;
we have devoted a lengthy period of four
years for the peace effort. However, despite this protracted period of time our
sincere and persistent efforts to reach
a settlement to the problems of our people have become futile.
The recent peace talks have been significant and essentially
different. They have been held with the
facilitation of a third country, with the supervision of the international
community. There were sessions of
negotiations with Mr Ranil Wickremasinghe's administration and later with
Chandrika Kumaratunga's government. The
decisions, resolutions and Agreements reached during these negotiations were
never fulfilled. During this process of
negotiations we were extremely tolerant and even compromised on several issues.
Nevertheless, the Sinhala political
leadership refused to offer justice to our people.
On the 24 December 2001 we unilaterally declared cessation of
hostilities and opened the doors for
peace. At that time, when we extended our hand of friendship to the Sinhala
nation, we stood on a strong foundation.
Having liberated the Vanni region and over run the Elephant Pass military
complex, we had firmly established the balance
of military power in our favor. I need not go into the details of the peace
negotiations we had with Mr Ranil
Wickremasinghe's government in various world capitals under Norwegian
facilitation. It is suffice to say that Mr
Wickremasinghe's administration was unable to resolve even the basic
existential hardships and urgent humanitarian needs
of our people.
Adopting delaying tactics, Ranil's government was primarily
focusing on setting up an international
safety net aiming at decommissioning our weapons. An international aid
conference was organized in Tokyo in June 2003 as
an essential element of this subversive scheme. Having realized the
implications of the international safety net we
decided to boycott the Tokyo conference and eventually to suspend the peace
talks. Having failed to achieve anything,
Ranil's regime came to an end.
In the meantime President Kumaratunga formed a new government
with the alliance of racist forces
opposed to peace. Chandrika refused to initiate the peace talks even though our
organization was willing to negotiate on
the basis of our proposal for an interim self-government authority. Time began
to elapse in a political vacuum without
an interim settlement or a permanent solution.
We realized that the aim of the Sinhala chauvinistic political
leadership was to misdirect and
undermine our liberation struggle by entrapping us in the uncertainty of a
political vacuum. Faced with the meaningless
absurdity of living in the illusion of peace we decided to resume our national
liberation struggle. It was at that
conjuncture, during the latter part of last year, when we were charting our
action plan that the horrendous natural
disaster struck. Suddenly, unexpectedly the tsunami waves struck at the
villages and settlements along the eastern
coastal belt of our homeland causing an unprecedented catastrophe.
In this cataclysmic disaster unleashed by nature, twenty
thousand Tamil and Muslim people perished and
about three hundred thousand people lost their homes, properties and were
reduced to conditions of refugees. As nature
inflicted further calamity on the Tamil nation, which had already suffered
monumental destruction by war, our people
were burdened with unbearable suffering. In these circumstances, our liberation
movement was geared to confront the
crisis. Our fighting formations, as well as our cadres belonging to various
social and administrative services, were
immediately engaged in the tasks of relief and rehabilitation.
As the tsunami catastrophe shook the conscience of the world,
the international governments
volunteered to provide huge sums of money in aid for relief and rehabilitation
of the affected people. In the meantime
President Kumaratunga expressed her willingness to form a joint administrative
mechanism in cooperation with the LTTE to
implement the tasks of relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction for the
affected Tamil speaking people. We decided to
talk to the Kumaratunga government since we had to give primacy to the
extraordinary humanitarian tragedy faced by our
people. Talks were conducted at the level of peace secretariats. Since we
wanted to avoid delays in the negotiating
process we adopted a flexible attitude, even compromised on crucial matters,
and finally an agreement was reached to
establish a joint administrative mechanism. The Accord was also signed by both
parties.
The international community expressed full support for the
joint administrative structure worked out
by both the Sri Lanka government and the LTTE. The international governments
also expressed hope that a congenial
environment for joint effort by warring parties had been created. But the
Sinhala-Buddhist racist forces could not
tolerate the emergence of a congenial environment of goodwill. Having
registered their vehement protest to the joint
administrative mechanism, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and Jathika Hela
Urumaja withdrew their support to the
government. These parties also filed a case in the Supreme Court challenging
the constitutional validity of the joint
administrative mechanism. The determination of the Supreme Court made the joint
mechanism inoperative. With the demise
of the tsunami mechanism the Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinism killed the last hope
of the Tamil people.
Even the all-powerful President Kumaratunga could not provide
a simple humanitarian project for the
Tamils against the wishes of the Sinhala racist forces. The tsunami mechanism
was not devolved with any political power
nor was it to have any administrative authority. If there was so much
opposition in southern Sri Lanka to a simple
provisional arrangement then it is a daydream to expect to secure a regional
self-governing authority in the Tamil
homeland by negotiating with the Sinhala political leadership. This is the
political truth that we have been able to
learn from the four year period of the peace process. We hope that the
international community, which has been
intensively observing this political drama, similarly understands this truth. I
wish to explain here a matter of crucial
importance, which betrays the politics of duplicity of the Sinhala ruling
elites. You would have heard about a secret
shadow war being waged against our organisation behind the screen of peace.
This subversive war has been unleashed with the aim of
weakening our liberation organization and to
undermine our struggle. A large number of people consisting of our senior
cadres, important members, supporters, Tamil
politicians, journalists and educationists who were sympathetic to our cause,
have been cowardly murdered. We know the
real masterminds behind this shadow war. Though these violent acts were
committed under the guidance and direction of
the Sri Lankan military intelligence, we are aware that mysterious hands of
some racist Sinhala politicians are behind
these nefarious activities. This subversive war is being conducted in the
government controlled territories, with the
backing of the armed forces, utilizing Tamil para-military elements as
instruments. We expressed vehement protest to the
Sri Lanka government when our unarmed political cadres were murdered and our
political offices were bombed in the
government controlled areas. Since the government ignored our protests we were
compelled to withdraw our cadres to our
controlled areas.
A strange low intensity war has been unleashed against us
taking advantage of the conditions of peace
affected by the ceasefire. Disarming the Tamil Para-military groups is an
obligation of the state under terms of the
Ceasefire Agreement. Having failed to fulfill this crucial obligation the Sri
Lanka state has been utilizing the Tamil
Para-militaries as instruments of this subversive war against our liberation
organization. This is a serious war
offence. This is similar to a treacherous act in which one stabs you in the
back with one hand while pretending to
embrace you with the other. This behavior clearly demonstrates that the Sinhala
ruling elites have no genuine interest
in peace and ethnic reconciliation.
The Sri Lanka state has not given up the military option but
rather transformed the war into a new
mode of state terror under conditions of peace. We hope that the international
community will discern the real mode of
this shadow war and perceive its ugly face and ulterior motives. As far as the
Tamil people are concerned, the concepts
of peace, ceasefire and negotiations have become meaningless; concepts that do
not correspond to or reflect reality.
A shadow war conducted under conditions of peace, military
occupation perpetrated in violation of the
terms of ceasefire, an international subversive network woven during political
negotiations, are the distorted ways the
peace process has been abused. Because of these factors our people have lost
faith in everything. Our people have lost
faith in a peace process that has failed to secure them a real, peaceful life;
they have lost faith in a ceasefire that
has failed to remove the occupation army from their homes; they have lost faith
in the talks that have failed to resolve
their long standing problems. Our people can no longer tolerate an unstable
life and an uncertain future.
The waves of popular upsurgence erupting in the Tamil homeland
are manifestations of the discontent
and despair of our people; they are fierce demonstrations of their political
aspirations. The multitude of Tamil masses,
who converged at recent Tamil resurgence conventions, have publicly proclaimed
their demands. The international
community cannot ignore these proclamations of a unified nation calling for the
recognition of their right to
self-determination, of their right to rule themselves. Our people aspire to
determine their own political status. Having
been subjected to decades of systematic state repression, they call upon the
international community to recognize their
political aspirations.
We have now reached a significant historic turning point in
our struggle for self-determination. The
ruling elites of southern Sri Lanka will never recognize our people's right to
self-determination. The Tamil right to
self-determination will never find space in the entrenched majoritarian
constitution and in the political system built
on that constitutional structure. Our people have, therefore, realized that
they have no alternative other than to fight
and win their right to self-determination. Self-determination entails the right
to freely choose, without external
interference, our political life. The Sinhala nation has been refusing to
embrace our people, to recognize their
national identity and to share political power. This political alienation has
continued since the independence of the
island 57 years ago.
Frustrated by years of alienation, oppression and
ill-treatment as an unwanted people, the Tamils have
finally decided to exclude and boycott the Sri Lankan polity and its power
system. The boycott of the presidential
elections by the vast majority of Tamil people was a concrete expression of
this perspective. Our people did not
participate in the election even though they had the voting power to determine
the election of a new president.
The non-participation of the Tamils should not be construed as
a judgment of the personalities or
policies of the presidential candidates. Rather, this political boycott was an
expression of deep distrust and
disillusionment of the Tamil people with the Sinhala political system. This
event symbolizes a serious turning point in
the political history of the Tamils. It signifies that the Tamil people may
choose their own path and freely determine
their own political destiny.
The Sinhala nation has chosen a new national leader. A new
administration has assumed power under his
leadership. This new government has been elected by the Sinhala majority
specifically with their voting power. The
national minorities are not represented in this government. It is essentially a
Sinhala-Buddhist regime. Therefore
Mahinda Rajapakse does not represent all the social formations of this country.
He has assumed power as a president to
protect and promote the interests of the Sinhala-Buddhist community. We are all
aware of Mahinda Rajapaske's thoughts
and policies. We are also aware of the incompatible gaps and the irreconcilable
contradictions that exist between Mr
Rajapakse's political vision and the Tamils' struggle for self-determination. I
do not wish to engage myself in a
comparative analysis of this issue.
The recent presidential elections and the change in governance
effected by the Tamil boycott have
created a wide rift, politically, between the Tamil and Sinhala nations. While
Sinhala-Buddhist hegemony has assumed
predominance in the south, Tamil nationalism has emerged as a powerful force
and consolidating itself in the Tamil
homeland. While a new government under Mahinda Rajapkse has assumed power in
the Sinhala nation, LTTE's administration
is expanding and gaining strength as a concrete embodiment of Tamil
nationalism. The international community is fully
aware of the fact that we are running an efficient, self-governing
administrative structure in the majority areas of the
Tamil homeland, which were liberated from Sinhala military occupation by our
organization.
Our administrative structure is formidable, consisting of our
controlled territories with huge
civilian populations, protected by a powerful military force. We have a police
force and a judicial system to maintain
law and order. We have also developed a complex administrative infra-structure
of a shadow government. Though a large
number of Tamils are still living in the military occupied Tamil region, their
allegiance is with our liberation
movement.
The Sinhalese ruling class refuses to accept this ground
reality, this political truth and attempts to
belittle our liberation organization as a 'terrorist group'. We are
disappointed and sad to note that some international
governments, having been influenced by this false propaganda, continue to
retain our organization on their terrorist
list. Biased positions taken by powerful nations acting as guardians of the
peace process, in excluding and alienating
our liberation organization as a 'terrorist outfit' and supporting the
interests of the Sri Lankan state, severely
affected the balance of power relations between the parties in conflict at the
peace negotiations. This pro-state bias
constrained our liberty to choose our own political status. This partiality
finally became one of the causes for the
collapse of the peace talks. There is no clear, coherent, globally acceptable
definition of the concept of terrorism.
As such, just and reasonable political struggles fought for
righteous causes are also branded as
terrorism. Even authentic liberation movements struggling against racist
oppression are denounced as terrorist outfits.
In the current global campaign against terror, state terrorism always finds its
escape route and those who fight against
state terror are condemned as terrorists. Our liberation organization is also
facing a similar plight.
We have now reached the critical time to decide on our
approach to achieve the objective of our
struggle. At this crucial historical turning point a new government under a new
leader has assumed power in the Sinhala
nation. This new government is extending its hand of friendship towards us and
is calling our organization for peace
talks. It claims that it is going to adopt a new approach towards the peace
process.
Having carefully examined his policy statement in depth, we
have come to a conclusion that President
Rajapkse has not grasped the fundamentals, the basic concepts underlying the
Tamil national question. In terms of
policy, the distance between him and us is vast.
However, President Rajapakse is considered a realist committed
to pragmatic politics, we wish to find
out, and first of all, how he is going to handle the peace process and whether
he will offer justice to our people.
We have, therefore, decided to wait and observe, for sometime,
his political maneuvers and actions.
Our people have lost patience, hope and reached the brink of utter frustration.
They are not prepared to be tolerant any
longer.
The new government should come forward soon with a reasonable
political framework that will satisfy
the political aspirations of the Tamil people. This is our urgent and final
appeal. If the new government rejects our
urgent appeal, we will, next year, in solidarity with our people, intensify our
struggle for self-determination, our
struggle for national liberation to establish self-government in our homeland.'
