"...it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law..." - Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted and proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 10, 1948
''The LTTE's armed struggle was in rebellion against a continuing Sinhala tyranny and oppression... (It) is lawful because the rule of law for the Tamil people had ceased to exist; because the Government of Sri Lanka had become a racist government; and because the oppressed people of that racist government were compelled to take arms to defend themselves against that oppression.'' - Letter from the International Secretariat, LTTE to President, European Parliament - Tamil Nation, 15 September 1991
"Imagine a habitual wife beater who has been at it for twenty years. Imagine the little woman protesting arguing, screaming, grappling, and having come to the end of her tether one day, snatching the nearest kitchen knife to defend herself against further attacks. And then she says:'You have tormented me enough. It is impossible to live with you any more.' With that she files papers for divorce. If you were the judge, what causes would you attribute to the break up of the marriage? The Sri Lankan Government (as probably the habitual wife beater) attributes the causes to the wife snatching the kitchen knife and asking for separation! To any oppressor resistance to oppression is naturally the beginning of the problem..." - S.Sivanayagam, Head Tamil Eelam Information Unit, 1984
''The term 'Tiger' is a misnomer. They are not running wild in the jungle, but moving about in Jaffna and its district, hiding among the people, clean cut young men... They do not need to camouflage themselves to pass undetected among the ordinary passers by of the city. No wonder the Tamils refer to them as 'our boys'. That is precisely what they are. Talking to them, in and around Jaffna, makes everything clear. The turning point for most was the 1977 anti Tamil riots; the discovery as one 'Tiger' put it to me, that ahimsa was not sufficient.... The Tigers seem better disciplined and less frightened than their police and military opponents. The trouble is that the police and the army are up against an enemy which is being shielded by the community.'' - David Selbourne: Sinhalese Lions and Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, Illustrated Weekly of India, Bombay, 17 October 1982
''It is the common habit of established governments and especially those which are themselves oppressors, to brand all violent methods in subject peoples and communities as criminal and wicked. When you have disarmed your slaves and legalised the infliction of bonds, stripes, and death on any one of them who may dare to speak or act against you, it is natural and convenient to try and lay a moral as well as a legal ban on any attempt to answer violence by violence...But no nation yet has listened to the cant of the oppressor when itself put to the test, and the general conscience of humanity approves the refusal..." - Sri Aurobindo, Bande Mataram 1907
