Selected Writings by Sachi Sri Kantha

4 July 2000

Today is 4th of July. American citizens, irrespective of their ethnic heritage, celebrate the vision of their Founding Fathers who struggled to create a nation which has now become so influential in the contemporary history. Quite a number of Eelam Tamils who left their ancestral land of birth  have also become law-abiding, tax-paying citizens of the USA. Electorally, their number may appear as just a blip in the current political radar, but their influence will definitely be seen in the coming decades.

It is an irony that the current Bill Clinton administration has designated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam led by Veluppillai Prabhakaran as a 'terrorist group'. It is also pathetic that the politicians who were instrumental in making this decision and the pundits in the US State Department who guided these politicians have conveniently forgotten how their nation was founded.

If they study the revolutionary history of their own nation in depth and in deep sincerity, there is no doubt that what Prabhakaran has been doing in the land of Sri Lanka do not differ in any degree from what George Washington and his gang carried out in the Eastern territory of the contemporary USA.

In this context, the historical document entitled, "Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms" made on July 6, 1775 by the Founding Fathers is a gem to treasure. The portion of this document, which is believed as penned by Thomas Jefferson provided below is a guiding light to Eelam Tamils as well. Jefferson had written:

"We are reduced to the alternative of choosing an unconditional submission to the tyranny of irritated ministers, or resistance by force. The latter is our choice. We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery. Honour, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them, if we basely entail hereditary bondage upon them.

"Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. Our internal resources are great, and, if necessary, foreign assistance is undoubtedly attainable. We gratefully acknowledge, as signal instances of the Divine favour towards us, that his Providence would not permit us to be called into this severe controversy, until we were grown up to our present strength, had been previously exercised in warlike operation, and possessed of the means of defending ourselves. With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficient Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverence, employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves...."

I only wish that those who criticise Prabhakaran (in Sri Lanka, India, USA, Canada and elsewhere) read this wonderful document from American Revolutionary History and come to their own judgement on what is wrong with Prabhakaran asking for the samething which the America's Founding Fathers fought for 225 years ago.