CONTENTS
OF THIS SECTION
Last updated
06/11/07

ஒன்றுபட்டால் உண்டு விடுதலை

Selected Writers

Books related to the Struggle
at Tamil Nation Library

TAMIL EELAM STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM

"வாழ்க ஈழத் தமிழகம்,  தலை நிமிர்ந்து வாழ்கவே..."
also Video at Youtube

Short History Of Sri Lanka And Tamils - Video Presentation in English   Overviews Chronologies List of Selected Texts - Laws, Agreements, Manifestos...

Sinhala Buddhist Ethno Nationalism Democracy, Sri Lanka Style Indictment Against Sri Lanka Genocide'83 Sri Lanka's Genocidal War '95  Sri Lanka Accused at UN  

Human Rights & the Struggle for Tamil Eelam  Tamil Refugees & Asylum Seekers  Health Support Services Tamil Eelam Right to Self Determination  

Boundaries of  Tamil Eelam Tamil Eelam - A De Facto State Tamil Armed Resistance & the Law What is Terrorism?

Thangathurai & Kuttimuni Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Maaveerarkal Mamanithar Naatup Patralar  Pongu Thamil in Tamil Eelam & Around the World

Women & the Struggle for Tamil Eelam Plantation Tamils of Eelam Muslims & Tamil Eelam

International Frame of Tamil Eelam Struggle for Freedom India & the Tamil Struggle   United States & the Tamil Struggle Foreign Aid & Sri Lanka's Military Budget 

The Intelligence War Media & the Tamil Struggle

Conflict Resolution: Broken Pacts & Evasive Proposals  Norwegian Conflict Resolution Initiative - 2001 to 2007 Sri Lanka - Tamil Eelam: Getting to Yes

Sri Lanka's Continuing War in the Shadow of a Ceasefire -2003 todate...

Tamil Eelam Struggle for Freedom & tamilnation.org

1. Overview - Nadesan Satyendra "...The struggle for Tamil Eelam is about giving effect to the will of the Tamil people expressed by their leader S.J.V.Chelvanayagam in 1975 and reinforced by the mandate that they gave the Tamil United Liberation Front in 1977, and reiterated in the Manifesto of the Tamil National Alliance in 2001.  It is also about reversion of sovereignty - a sovereignty that the Tamil people enjoyed before the British unified the administration of the island of Sri Lanka in 1833...The struggle for Tamil Eelam is about the democratic right of the people of Tamil Eelam to govern themselves in their homeland - nothing less and nothing more. It is about freedom from alien Sinhala rule. It  is not about securing benevolent Sinhala rule. It is about securing  a legal framework where two free peoples may associate with one another in equality, in freedom and in peace.  more

2. Short History Of Sri Lanka And Tamils - Video Presentation in English

3. Struggle for Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka, Kristian Stokke, 2000

4. The Tamil struggle for National Liberation: A Marxist Perspective - Sérgio Rodrigues  in Socialism and Liberation, 6 February 2007

5. Questions & Answers - Castis,  1998

6. Sri Lanka's Unwinnable War -  BBC, 1999

1.Chronology of the Conflict, 1505 to 2000 - Alex Bilodeau
2.Chronology of Events in Eelam, 1505 to 1948 -Dagmar Hellmann-Rajanayagam BBC Timeline of Sri Lankan Conflict
3.Timeline of Ethnic Conflict - Sinhala Controlled Sri Lanka International Centre for Ethnic Studies

"...the aspiration towards liberty cannot be estimated in the terms of concrete power, in so many fighting men, so many armed police, so many guns, so many prisons, such and such laws, ukases, and executive powers. But such feelings and thoughts are more powerful than fighting men and guns and prisons and laws and ukases.." more

" இலட்சியத்தால் ஒன்றுபட்ட எழுச்சிகொண்ட மக்களை எந்த ஒரு சக்தியாலும் ஒடுக்கிவிடமுடியாது..." தமிழ் ஈழத் தேசியத் தலைவர் வேலுப்பிள்ளை பிரபாகரன் more

"...In the Sinhala language, the words for nation, race and people are practically synonymous, and a multiethnic or multicommunal nation or state is incomprehensible to the popular mind. The emphasis on Sri Lanka as the land of the Sinhala Buddhists carried an emotional popular appeal, compared with which the concept of a multiethnic polity was a meaningless abstraction..." more

"...The progressive destruction of the political process in Sri Lanka has led to both domestic and international tolerance of an enormous amount of violence by the government (regardless of party affiliation) against its citizens. Increasingly, it seems that the government of Sri Lanka is accountable to no one - not its citizens, and not its foreign counterparts who rubber-stamped the recent parliamentary elections. In Sri Lanka's current political climate, power seems to be determined by the number of thugs a given politician has at his/her disposal..." more

The gross, consistent,and continuing violations of the rights of the Tamil people, by the Sri Lankan government and its agencies during the past several decades, include grave breaches of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Genocide Convention, and the Geneva Conventions relating to the humanitarian law of armed conflict. These violations by Sri Lanka have been well documented by several human rights organisations and independent observers as well as by eye witnesses... more

Torture	Murder	Rape
Impunity	War Crimes	Censorship
ஓ....எங்கள் குரல் கேட்கிறதா?

"..It was a series of deliberate acts, executed in accordance with a concerted plan, conceived and organised well in advance. But who were the planners..."

more

 "The genocidal intent of the Sri Lanka government is proved by -

• the 'broad front steamrollering' attack launched on the Jaffna peninsula;
• the deliberation with which the Sri Lanka security forces have killed Tamil non combatants, shelled densely populated Tamil villages, destroyed Tamil homes and cultivable land, bombed Tamil schools and places of worship, and blocked the supply of essential food and medicine to the Tamil homeland;
• the persistent and frequent breaches by Sri Lanka authorities of the laws and regulations relating to arrest and detention and the unprecedented number of "disappearances";
• the systematic use of torture and rape as instruments of state terrorism;
• the mass graves;
• the use of Tamil civilians as human mine detectors and as forced labour;
• the murder of Tamil prisoners whilst in the custody of Sri Lanka authorities;
• the imposition of a press censorship which went beyond any needs of 'national security';
• by calculated resort to disinformation and war mongering;
• the public pronouncements of President Kumaratunga and her ministers, together with the 'victory' ceremony on establishing 'Sinhala rule' of Jaffna; and
• the failure of President Chandrika Kumaratunga and her government to condemn the gross and systematic violations of humanitarian law by the forces under their command and the impunity afforded to the offenders." more

"Since August 1983, hundreds of statements and interventions and several resolutions have been considered by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations Sub Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, on matters relating to the conflict in the island of Sri Lanka. Around 100 non governmental organisations have expressed their grave concern at the situation in the island of Sri Lanka." more

"Human rights and humanitarian law have acquired a special significance for the Tamil people. The Tamils are a Fourth World nation - a nation without a state. Existing states do not readily surrender control of territory which they claim as their own - in addition, they often find common cause in securing each other's territorial boundaries. Unsurprisingly, the Tamil people, like many other peoples of the Fourth World, have often turned to the growing body of international human rights law and humanitarian law, and to non governmental organisations for support for their struggle against alien rule and for recognition as a people with the right to freely determine their political status." more

Tamil Refugees & Asylum Seekers 

"Exile is not primarily a geographical location, it is a state of mind through which one becomes what one has left behind. In the Tamil case many actually become what they have fled from. Between the extremes of the warrior and the victim the refugee must carry out his 'bricolage', assemble the pieces and carry on. For many this life project takes the form of internalised martyrdom, the fight for Eelam being replaced by a longing   for Eelam which grows into a constant part of the personality and becomes a counterweight, the counterweight, to the vicissitudes of exile..."

"Exile, it is often said, is the nursery of nationalism. If so, then the yearning for a homeland has a long history.." Anthony D.Smith in*Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity, 2004

Tsunami  Disaster & Tamil Eelam, 2005 - 2006

".. Self determination is not a de stabilising concept. Self determination and democracy go hand in hand. If democracy means the rule of the people, by the people, for the people, then the principle of self determination secures that no one people may rule another - and herein lies its enduring appeal..." Nadesan Satyendra in Why Division, 1998

"...Let us accept the fact that states have lifecycles similar to those of human beings who created them. ..hardly any Member State of the United Nations has existed within its present borders for longer than five generations... Restrictions on self-determination threaten not only democracy itself but the state which seeks its legitimation in democracy..."  Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein on Self Determination & the Future of Democracy, January 2001

"...Is secession wrong, and if not, who may legitimately secede?.. The issue arises in relation to democracy, nationalism, interventionism ...  Ethical systems often assume a static society: ethical principles are supposed to be valid for thousands of years. In the ethics of secession, I fear the reverse is also true: if you apply the standard principles, then the world will stay the same for thousands of years. That is plainly wrong..." Paul Treanor on the Ethics of Secession

 ''I was once asked by an Englishman connected with the British Refugee Council: 'You say Tamil Eelam, but where are the boundaries of this Tamil Eelam that you talk about? Show me.' I was taken aback by the directness of the question. I thought for a while, searching for an appropriate response. Then I replied: 'Take a map of the island. Take a paint brush and paint all the areas where Sri Lanka has bombed and launched artillery attacks during these past several years. When you have finished, the painted area that you see - that is Tamil Eelam.''  more

"...I observed that in a remarkable three year period the Tamils developed a virtual state within the north and north-east of Sri Lanka. I visited their judiciary and court, school of law, police station, police academy, medical and technical colleges and small industries, a community bank plus a children's home housing 278 children left orphaned by the war and the recent tsunami. The Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) runs a variety of development, relief and reconstruction projects as well as assisting several non-government organisations with their projects. All this is a tribute to the spirit and resilience of the Tamil people..."

"....An armed resistance movement takes shape in the womb of oppression. Its seeds are to be found in the eternal quest for equality and freedom. But, though born of natural parents it is at birth illegitimate - because it breaches the existing legal frame, and seeks to supplant it. And that simple fact has much to do with its subsequent development and growth. An armed resistance movement acquires legitimacy and becomes 'lawful' through its growth and success - not simply because the ends it seeks to achieve are just... The metamorphosis from 'unlawful' to 'lawful' is gradual (and many layered) and is related not only to the justice of the ends it seeks to achieve and the legality of the means it employs but also to the extent to which a guerrilla movement is able to secure and maintain permanent control of territory. It is not a case of one or the other, but a case of all three..."

" 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 organisation is also facing a similar plight..." more

 

"We are not lovers of violence nor victims of mental disorders. We are honest fighters belonging to an organization that is struggling to liberate a people. To those noble souls who keep on prating "terrorism, terrorism" we have something to say. Did you not get frightened of terrorism when hundreds of Tamils were massacred in cold blood, when racist hate spread like fire in this country of yours? Did terrorism mean nothing to you when Tamil women were raped? When cultural treasures were set on fire? When hundreds and hundreds of Tamil homes were looted? Why in 1977 alone 400 Tamils lost their lives reddening the sky above with their splattered blood - did you not see any terrorism then? Did your thoughts and feelings become deadened when it concerned Tamil lives and Tamil property or are your minds unable to conceive the very idea of Tamil suffering?... There is nothing that prevents two neighbouring nations living in co-operation. Even nations with differing policies get together for common economic good and for the purpose of common security. Does that mean that those nations give up their distinctive characteristics or sovereignty?.. " Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation Leader, Nadarajah Thangathurai's Dock Statement, 1983

"We launched our struggle for self determination and political independence because of the systematic oppression of our people by the Sri Lankan state... It is the Sri Lanka government which has failed to learn the lessons from the emergence of the struggles for self determination in several parts of the globe and the innovative structural changes that have taken place... We are not warmongers who love violence. We want a permanent, stable and honourable peace.... One day, when our enemy knocks at our doors for peace, we will extend the hand of friendship." (Velupillai Pirabaharan, leader of Tamil Eelam, 1992)

All peoples remember, honour and mourn their war dead. The 11th of November is Remembrance Day for the countries of the British Commonwealth such as Great Britain, Canada, Australia and South Africa as well as for some European countries such as France and Belgium. The Cenotaph (meaning Empty Tomb) in London carries the simple inscription "The Glorious Dead" and it is here that a Remembrance service is held each year at 11 am on the Sunday nearest 11 November. For the people of Tamil Eelam and for Tamils living in many lands and across distant seas, the 27th of November is the day on which they remember, honour and mourn those who have given their lives in the struggle for Tamil Eelam. more

"ஒற்றும் உரைசான்ற நூலும், இவையிரண்டும் தெற்றென்க மன்னவன் கண்". - Thirukural

'Constant vigilance, constant mistrust, constant mobility are the three golden rules. All three are concerned with security. Various considerations of common sense necessitate wariness towards the civilian population and the maintenance of a certain aloofness. By their very situation civilians are exposed to repression and the constant presence and pressure of the enemy, who will attempt to buy them, corrupt them, or to extort from them by violence what cannot be bought. Not having undergone a process of selection or technical training, as have the guerrilla fighters, the civilians in a given zone of operations are more vulnerable to infiltration or moral corruption by the enemy. .." Revolution in the Revolution? - Regis Debray, 1967 more

Going where the mainstream media can't or won't go

"..YouTube and its ilk mean that today anyone can tell human rights stories. And.. if the stories are told with enough brio and skill, the public will pay attention, and the government may be more likely to respond. ...YouTube goes where the mainstream media can't or won't go. It's visceral. It's story first, message second. And it gives advocates instant access to an audience in a way that press releases and op-eds never can...."

Alage Alage Thamil Alage...
அழகே, அழகே, தமிழ் அழகே...

 

Censorship, Disinformation & Murder of Journalists by Sri Lanka

'..States that want to oppress a people do so by breaking their political will to resist injustice. To do this, oppressing states kill a societies intellectuals and journalists who speak for the rights of their people. They want the Tamils to be intellectually rudderless. It is easier to enslave a people who have lost their ability to understand the nature of their oppression..'

"இலட்சியத்தால் ஒன்றுபட்ட எழுச்சி கொண்ட மக்களை எந்த ஒரு சக்தியாலும் ஒடுக்கிவிட முடியாது"

"Our women are seeking liberation from the structures of oppression deeply embedded in our society. This oppressive cultural system and practices have emanated from age old ideologies and superstitions. Tamil women are subjected to intolerable suffering as a consequence of male chauvinistic oppression, violence and from the social evils of casteism and dowry." more

"In 1948, at independence, the Tamils had 33% of the voting power in the legislature. Upon the disenfranchisement of the estate Tamils (in 1950), however, this proportion dropped to 20%. The Sinhalese obtained more than a 2/3 majority in the Parliament, making it impossible for the Tamils to exercise an effective opposition to Sinhalese policies affecting them..."  more

"...any meaningful consideration of the Muslim question cannot be separated from a consideration of the strategy adopted by the Sri Lankan Government to deny the Tamils a separate homeland in the north and east of Sri Lanka. Over the past several decades, the Sinhala dominated Sri Lankan Government has adopted three main strategies to counter the Tamil demand for recognition of the Tamil homeland.

Firstly, planned state aided colonization and settlement of Sinhala peasants.

Secondly, the establishment of a permanent military divide at Manal Aru to drive a wedge between the North and East.

Thirdly, securing a permanent rift between Tamils and Muslims in the East by making land as the bone of contention."

"..The Struggle for Tamil Eelam is a National Question - and it is therefore an International Question..Despite protestations from time to time that the conflict in the island is an internal matter for the Sri Lanka government (a view assiduously cultivated by Sri Lanka as well), both India (as the major regional power and an aspiring world power) and the United States (as the world's super power) have taken a direct interest in the conflict with a view to securing their own strategic political concerns. Often, human rights has served as a convenient point of entry to engage in real politick."

"The fundamental premise of India's strategic policies can be simply stated - and that is to deny any intermediary role to extra regional powers in the affairs of South Asia"

"Inter-state relations are not governed by the logic of  morality. They were and they remain an amoral phenomenon.." Jyotindra Nath Dixit Indian High Commissioner in Sri Lanka 1985 /89, Foreign Secretary in 1991/94 and National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister of India 2004/05, speaking in Switzerland, February 1998

"What are the US government’s strategic interests in Sri Lanka? If the US has specific strategic interests in the island, then what are the means and modes by which it was and is securing them? .. Stabilizing the Sri Lanka state was considered critical for the US at this juncture to consolidate and cement its strategic interests here. The LTTE was a stubborn impediment to achieving this end – particularly the constant threat to Trincomalee and Palaly. Containing the Liberation Tigers and making them more malleable were also identified as priorities. A CIA regional analyst in Washington said in July 2001: “containing the LTTE while stepping up pressure on the civilian population under its control by stepping up ‘terror’ bombing might create conditions for unseating Prabhararan”. " more

"During the past twenty years and more, foreign aid to Sri Lanka has kept pace with Sri Lanka's increasing military expenditure. It is not simply  that  Sri Lanka's economy is structurally dependent on foreign aid - it is also that that dependency shows a clear in built increasing trend. Without foreign aid, Sri Lanka will not be able to continue its genocidal war against the Tamil people - and it may well find the need to talk with the people of Tamil Eelam on an equal basis and structure a polity where the two peoples, the Sinhala people and the Tamil people, may associate with each other  in equality and in freedom."

Conflict Resolution: Broken Pacts & Evasive Proposals

 "...One of the essential elements that must be kept in mind in understanding the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict is that, since 1958 at least, every time Tamil politicians negotiated some sort of power-sharing deal with a Sinhalese government - regardless of which party was in power - the opposition Sinhalese party always claimed that the party in power had negotiated away too much. In almost every case - sometimes within days - the party in power backed down on the agreement..."

"...many peace agreements are fragile and the 'peace' that they create is usually the extension of war by more civilised means... A peace agreement is often an imperfect compromise based on the state of play when the parties have reached a 'hurting stalemate' or when the international community can no longer stomach a continuation of the crisis. A peace process, on the other hand, is not so much what happens before an agreement is reached, rather what happens after it... the post conflict phase crucially defines the relationship between former antagonists..."

'போராட்டத்தின் வடிவங்கள் மாறலாம், ஆனால் போராட்ட இலட்சியம் மாறாது’ Velupilllai Pirabaharan

" ... strange as it may seem to some, the struggle for an independent Tamil Eelam, is not in opposition to many of the underlying interests of the parties concerned with the conflict in the island - and that includes Sri Lanka, India and the United States....Whilst the demand for an independent Tamil Eelam may not be negotiable, there may be a need to explore fresh pathways concerning the terms on which an independent Tamil Eelam may associate with an independent Sri Lanka... The question is whether two peoples sitting together as equals cannot agree upon political structures which protects each of their interests. There may be a need to telescope two processes - one the creation of an independent Tamil Eelam and the other the terms in which an independent Tamil Eelam may  associate with an independent Sri Lanka, so that the national security of each may be protected and guaranteed.. "

"...The plan is to destabilize the Tigers, bait the group into confrontation and ultimately launch an offensive aimed at destroying the fractured Tamil movement once and for all..."

Tamil Eelam Struggle for Freedom & tamil nation. org

"...I was going through (your website) and am impressed with its layout and all. What disappointed me was your call to arms along racial lines which is contrary to what most mainland Tamils favour..."

Our Response: tamilnation.org has made no call for arms and makes no call for arms - whether on 'racial' lines or any other line. We do take the view that the armed resistance of the people of Tamil Eelam to alien Sinhala rule is not unlawful - and the double negative is deliberate...

We, together with many Tamils, will continue to grapple with (and agonise over) the question of moral laws and ethical ideals in the context of an armed struggle for freedom. The question  troubled Arujna in the battlefield of Kurushetra.

What then should be our response to armed resistance? There is no mechanical rule which will provide us with an easy answer. Each of us have our dharma - our way of harmony. We seek a coincidence of our own words and deeds.

tamilnation.org believes that means and ends are inseparable. We are mindful that the resort to violence to secure political ends brings in its train consequences which offend the conscience of humanity...

 We take the view that the Sri Lankan government and its agencies have during the past several decades, committed systematic violations of the rights of the Tamil people, including grave breaches of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Genocide Convention.

We judge that the struggle for Tamil Eelam has justice on its side and that... by so judging, and by placing in the public domain the facts on which that judgment is founded,  we are more likely to bring a just peace in the island of Sri Lanka, than by remaining a passive spectator.

And here, we find the words of Martin Luther King persuasive:  '..The hottest place in hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.'"  Nadesan Satyendra in Violence and Integrity, February 2001