Conference Conclusion

This London Seminar organised by the International Federation of Tamils in association with the Bolton Tamil Association, The Essex and London Eelam Tamil Association, the Federation of Tamil Associations of the United Kingdom, the International Tamil Foundation, the London Tamil Forum, the Tamil Refugee Action Group, the Tamil Refugee Housing Association and the Walthamstow Tamil Sangam

1. Recognising that a people have the right to be free of domination by another people;
   
2. Recognising that the right of self determination of a people is a peremptory norm of the law of nations;
   
3. Recognising that the subjective political consciousness of the Tamils taken together with their objective conditions of existence in Tamil Eelam, including in particular their relationship to a defined historical territory, constitutes them a 'people';
   
4. Recognising that the people of Tamil Eelam have the right to self determination and the right to freely choose their political status, including the right to freely associate with or disassociate from, other people;
   
5. Recognising that a people are entitled, in law and in justice, to resort to an armed struggle to free themselves from a continuing and oppressive domination by another people and recognising that the armed struggle of the people of Tamil Eelam led by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam is lawful and just;
   
6. Recognising the desire of the people of Tamil Eelam for peace and believing that justice and peace are inseparable;
   
7. Recognising the emergence, today, of many long subjugated peoples into a new world order of free and equal nations; and
   
8. Being determined to respond to the challenge of history in forging a peaceful future for the Tamil and Sinhala peoples in the island of Sri Lanka

Calls upon the two parties to the conflict, the Sri Lankan Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

1. to express their willingness to accept mediation in the conflict between them and to agree upon a mutually acceptable neutral mediator

2. to express their willingness to commence negotiations with a view to entering into an internationally guaranteed accord to establish an associative structure within which the Sinhala people and the Tamil people may live in peace and in freedom.