Eelam - Armed struggle for self-determination

With the formation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 1972 by its present leader, Mr.Velupillai Pirabakaran, the mode of the Tamil political struggle underwent a radical change. For the first time in the political history of the Tamils an armed guerrilla movement emerged to fight for the political rights of the Tamil nation and to confront the state's violence with armed resistance. With the birth and growth of the Tamil Tigers, the armed struggle became effectively institutionalized as the political struggle of the Tamil people. The LTTE's armed struggle is based on a clearly defined political programme. This political project aims at securing the right to self-determination of the Tamil people. The right to self determination is the cardinal principle upon which the Tamil struggle for political independence is based. The LTTE is committed to the position that the Tamils constitute themselves as a people or a nation and have a homeland, the historically constituted habitation of the Tamils, a well defined contiguous territory embracing the Northern and Eastern Provinces. Since the Tamils have a homeland, a distinct language and culture, a unique economic life and a lengthy history extending to over three thousand years, they possess all the characteristics of a nation or a people. As a people they have the inalienable right to self determination. This right entailed the freedom of a people to determine their own political status. The LTTE holds the view that the Tamil people had invoked the right to selfdetermination at the 1977 general elections and opted to fight for political independence and statehood. The national liberation project of the LTTE is based on the people's mandate for selfdetermination. The LTTE's objective in fighting for political independence of the Tamil nation is not an arbitrary decision on the part of the organization but rather the expression and articulation of the collective will and aspiration of the Tamil people. Decades of alien domination and oppression prompted the Tamil people to exercise their right to self-determination through a democratic process. This right to selfdetermination is a basic universal human right, recognized by the international community. The International Covenants of the UN Charter enunciates the principle of self determination in the following term; 'All people have the right to self-determination. By the virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development'. In the general elections of 1977 which assumed the character of a referendum on the question of selfdetermination, the Tamil nation chose to determine their political status by seceding and establishing its sovereignty in its homeland. The Tamil parliamentary political party, the T.U.L.F, which obtained a clear mandate from the people and pledged to fight for the creation of an independent state 'either by

peaceful means or by direct action or struggle' betrayed the cause of the Tamils. But the LTTE, endorsing the national aspiration and the will of the Tamil people, is determined to carry on the struggle for self-determination . Sri Lanka has consistently denied the right to self determination of the Tamils and refused to recognize the Tamils as a people. Reducing the Tamils to the category of a minority group and promoting the concepts of multi-ethnicity and pluralism, it has out rightly rejected the Tamil claim of nationhood and homeland. By constitutional amendment, Sri Lanka has prohibited the Tamil demand for selfdetermination as unlawful. Furthermore, it has unleashed a fully-fledged war against the Tamils to suppress their struggle for political independence. It has condemned and accused the LTTE of communalism, separatism and terrorism for engaging in an armed struggle to assert the right of the Tamils to freely choose their political destiny.