Message to the Conference from
Velupillai Pirabaharan, Leader of Tamil Eelam

Dear Delegates, Patriots and Friends,

I am very delighted to know that the World Federation of Tamils has organised an International Conference  in London to focus on the Tamil national liberation struggle and on the implications of the Indo-Sri Lanka accord. Such a convention, participated by  Tamil patriots from all over the world, is most timely and urgent in view of the critical and dangerous situation that has developed in Tamil Eelam since the signing of the Accord.

You are aware that within a short span of time after the so- called Peace Accord was signed, the Indian troops which landed on our soil with a peace mission to protect our people, entered into a ruthless war against our liberation movement, the consequences of which is catastrophic in terms of civil deaths and destruction of property. This war, which was started on the 10th of October last year is continuing, unabated, with ever growing fury, bleeding the Tamil nation profusely.

The continuation of this war with its violence and bloodshed clearly demonstrates that the accord has miserably failed in its acclaimed objectives of bringing peace and harmony to our people. It is no more a peace agreement. It can only be characterised as a war accord, as an accord of military alliance between India and Sri Lanka, the strategic aim of which is to destroy the Tamil freedom movement and its armed vanguard.

For the last seven months, we have been fighting to defend ourselves against a formidable military apparatus whose sophistication in war technology and in manpower is far superior than ours. It is sheer will power, courage and our fierce determination not to surrender in humiliation, and above all, the moral support provided by our people, that contributed to our survival as a fighting force against the military might of a super power. Our capacity to resist in this prolonged war should be a bitter lesson to India that the will of a nation, cannot be suppressed by military means, however formidable it may be.

It is with profound sorrow and pain we took to arms to resist since India offered to us not alternative other than to defend ourselves or perish. We consider India as our friend and ally and therefore we despise this war. I have made several appeals to the Indian Prime Minister for peace, for negotiations and reconciliation. But to our deep dismay India has turned down our genuine place for peace.

There seems to be a callous and calculated determination on the part of India to wipe out the Tiger movement and thereafter to induct an electoral process in Tamil Eelam at the point of a gun, to impose upon the Tamil people a deficient political framework which has, thus, chosen to betray the interests of the Eelam Tamils in order to strengthen and consolidate her relationship with Sri Lanka and to secure her geo-political objectives.

As a consequence of India's direct and violent intervention in the Tamil National problem through the medium of this Accord, the future of our people, their socio-political existence is suddenly thrown into the darkness of uncertainty confusion and gloom. Our political struggle of self determination which is a product of a lengthy evolutionary history extending over forty years, a product of national campaigns, of mass agitations, of revolutionary armed resistance, is faced with the danger of being stamped out. The ultimate consequence of the Indian intervention is the grave danger of the complete subjugation of our people to the dictatorial dominance of the Sinhala ruling class and the perpetuation of oppression, state terror and genocide.

In view of this grim situation facing the people of Tamil Eelam, it is the national duty and solemn responsibility of all the Tamil patriots living abroad to organise and mobilise themselves into a powerful international voice of reason to fight for the redemption of their motherland caught in a monumental historical tragedy. The patriotic Tamil intelligentsia, living abroad should lead an effective global campaign to stir the conscience of the civilised world about this tragic human conditions of betrayal and oppression. We fervently hope that the international Tamil community will understand and support wholeheartedly, the determined struggle of our liberation movement to fight for the cause of justice for our oppressed people.

Jaffna April 25,1988