Statement addressed to the UNGA

Tigers' call for recognition
of sovereignty

Even as President Mahinda Rajapakse was addressing the 62 sessions of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York last week, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had in a pre emptive move made a call to the UNGA to rein in the Government of Sri Lanka by calling for a halt in military operations. The LTTE had stressed that the "recognition of Tamil sovereignty was the basis for any dialogue." The Tigers in their statement had said "The Government of Sri Lanka must end its deceptions; halt its military oppression, ethnic cleansing, and serious human rights violations; accept the aspirations of the Tamil people; and come forward to find a resolution that is based on the right to self-determination of the Tamil people." While as widely speculated President Rajapakse in his speech was to bank on the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) as the panacea for the ethnic issue, the Tigers had dismissed the APRC exercise as one meant to fool the international community. "This tactic of appointing 'APRCs' and 'Round Tables' to resolve the national conflict is an established deceptive habit of successive governments of Sri Lanka," the LTTE had said. While emphasising that they were still 'restraining themselves in the face of government military operations' the Tigers had further said that "it is always the LTTE that keeps the doors wide open for peace talks." The LTTE statement is significant in that it marks a significant shift in Tiger strategy. Following is the full statement.

The delegation led by Sri Lanka's President, Mahinda Rajapakse is gathered in New York, USA, to take part in the 62nd session of the UN General Assembly. This delegation, as in the past, will use this opportunity at the UNGA to discredit the Tamil struggle for self-determination as terrorism and mislead the international community to cover up Sri Lanka's failed records on human rights, humanitarian issues, and peace process.

At the time when world leaders are assembling at the 62nd session of the UNSG to discuss international issues, the Political Wing of the LTTE wants to focus attention on issues related with the current conflict situation and the peace process. As the LTTE and Tamil people are denied a fair chance to interact directly with the International Community (IC), we choose to submit this statement.

(a) Sri Lanka and the peace process

 Since elected to office, President Mahinda Rajapakse has been systematically weakening the IC-backed Cease-Fire Agreement (CFA) between the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the LTTE.

It has blatantly ignored all the promises that were made at the Geneva talks.

Further, the GoSL has tried to isolate the LTTE, a party to the cease-fire and peace talks, from the IC and thus obstructed the Tamil people from directly interacting with the IC on their legitimate aspirations in a fair conflict resolution process.

GoSL has made schizophrenic public statements that ranged from, the intention to "wipe out the LTTE" and give a political solution to the Tamils, and to "weakening the LTTE" in order to "force" it to come to the negotiating table.

The appointment of the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) to come up with a constitutional framework for a resolution to the conflict is another classic example of its duplicity.

This tactic of appointing 'APRCs' and 'Round Tables' to resolve the national conflict are an established deceptive habit of successive governments of Sri Lanka. But some members of the international community had shown confidence in this latest APRC and have been assuring everyone that it would come up with a framework for the resolution of the conflict. This misplaced confidence has not brought any constructive outcome to date.

On the other hand, the leaders of the GoSL make regular toxic comments and victory parades on the execution of the military campaign. Cynically exploiting the international discourse on "terrorism," the GoSL locally justifies a war against the Tamil nation.

The latest and most categorical evidence came at the speech given by the Defence Secretary, Gotabaya Rajapakse, in the presence of his brother, President Mahinda Rajapakse, in Trincomalee on  September 14, which was nationally televised. He said,

"We cannot establish permanent peace in the country by winning only half or two third of the war against terrorism..... President Rajapakse cannot implement the desired political solution to the north and east conflict unless LTTE terrorism is defeated 100 percent."

Two important facts can be gleaned from this statement that was clearly endorsed by the President himself. Firstly, that the GoSL intends to intensify the war in the north and secondly that the APRC was a fa‡ade to fool the international community.

Indeed less than a week after making this televised statement in Sinhala, the GoSL on the eve of its representation at the UN General Assembly has again paid lip service to the peace talks.

Genocidal war against Tamil people

The growing statistics of civilian casualties amply prove beyond doubt that this war conducted by the Sri Lankan armed forces is indeed a genocidal war against the Tamil people. Oppressive laws sanctioned by a majoritarian Sinhala Government are legitimising its brutality. The Emergency Regulations give cover and impunity for unlawful arrest, torture, killing, and disposal of bodies without investigations.

Human rights and humanitarian law violations: In the 21 months since President Rajapakse came to power in November 2005, 1974 Tamil civilians were killed by the Sri Lankan armed forces and its allied paramilitaries and 842 Tamil civilians were either arrested or abducted and then disappeared by the same forces. Among those killed were four popular Tamil Parliamentarians, Joseph Pararajasingham, Nadaraja Raviraj (both of whom were sitting MPs), A Chandra Nehru (a former MP) and V. Vigneswaran (an MP designate elected to replace the assassinated Pararajasingham).

Over 69 of those killed during this period were children under the age of 16. In addition to these killing of children, more than 150 civilians, among them many children, have sought safety in the Jaffna Human Rights Commission in fear of their life. Indeed the vast majority of the civilians who have been killed and disappeared in this period are the Tamils.

More than 500,000 people in the Jaffna peninsula are cut off from land access to the outside and are denied delivery of essential items by land and are kept in an open prison for its own military purpose by the GoSL. Despite repeated requests by the people of Jaffna and at the last Geneva talks by our side, the GoSL has not heeded to this request and has kept the A9 route closed.

Land grab: The occupation war started by the GoSL last year has forced hundreds of thousands of Tamil people from their land thus depriving them of livelihood. Many civilians were killed and disappeared in the process. The displaced were then forcefully resettled against their wishes in certain locations. Indeed the UN High Commission for Refugees announced that it was withdrawing from the resettlement involvement due to this flawed process. In Sampur and Muttur East, the GoSL confiscated lands belonging to the people by declaring them as High Security Zones and is implementing programmes to create new Sinhala settlements in these regions.

Media suppression: In order to obstruct information about its war on the civilians that is causing unimaginable hardship for the people, the GoSL is suppressing media freedom in many aspects. Those who operate despite such threats are murdered. Eleven journalists have been murdered since 2005 by the GoSL operated forces. The Uthayan daily from Jaffna, the voice of the most threatened people, is continuously operating under threat. Another journalist from the south who exposed corruption in weapon procurements of the GoSL has also come under death threat.

Labelling 'terrorist': Representatives of the international community, who have raised their voices on these horrendous violations of humanitarian norms, have been repeatedly targeted by the GoSL with the most vicious attacks. It is typical of the leaders of the GoSL to use the brush of "terrorist" and "LTTE sympathiser" on anyone who raises their voice for justice and decency in this island. Among those who have been painted thus are, UN Under Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes, UN Representative for Children Affected by Armed Conflict, Ambassador Allan Rock, and Australia's Former Foreign Minister and current President of International Crisis Group, Gareth Evans. They have all been called by senior members of the GoSL as "White Tigers."

(b) LTTE and the peace process

We strongly believe that the international community understands that the Tamil liberation struggle against oppression has been taken up according to international norms. And it cannot be compared to aimless, intolerant causes of violence: terrorism

Further, we expect the international community recognise that it is always the LTTE that keeps the doors wide open for peace talks. LTTE unilaterally declared a ceasefire in 2000, after recapturing many towns in Wanni and the major Sri Lankan military camp in Elephant Pass, thus paving the way for the ensuing peace efforts. Yet the then regime of President Kumaratunga did not come to the peace table until after testing its military strength in yet another military operation and facing further losses.

We again gave time and counsel to the new regime of President Rajapakse to take forward the peace process. But his regime ignored all the agreements reached at the table, and even refused to heed the humanitarian needs of the people.

Whereas the LTTE continued to respect and urge for a full implementation of the cease-fire agreement, the Rajapakse regime eventually embarked on its war of occupation. It started the Mawilaru attack on the pretext of humanitarian need despite the patience exercised by the LTTE.

This military campaign of Sri Lanka has continued ever since in the east and the north, under variously codenamed operations, while the LTTE has continued to restrain itself, confining only to defensive operations.

(c) Expectations of the Tamil people from the international community

In the context described above, we urge the international community:

1.         To recognise the concept of the sovereignty of the Tamil people, and support the peace process in accordance with this principle.

2.         To provide appropriate opportunities to the Tamil people to express their aspirations, as have been given to the people of East Timor and Kosovo.

The Government of Sri Lanka must end its deceptions; halt its military oppression, ethnic cleansing, and serious human rights violations; accept the aspirations of the Tamil people; and come forward to find a resolution that is based on the right to self-determination of the Tamil people. The IC must rein in the GoSL to bring it in line.  .

We doubt very much whether a spontaneous outburst of joy, fury, ecstasy and delirium bordering near hysteria would have been witnessed in recent times or would be seen in the near future as what happened in the Wanderers Stadium at Johannesburg when India beat Pakistan by a mere four runs with four balls remaining in their Twenty- 20 World Cup Final.

As the Pakistan batsman Misbah-ul-Haq staged a near miracle with his 43 runs off 38 balls with strokes rarely witnessed in cricket - even hooking a ball over his head - but only to be caught deep in the outfield, this frenzy of Indian joy burst out on to the field with adult Indians, some of them officials, running to the field to hug, embrace, go into weird forms of dancing, and some of them rolling on the green.

Old boys turn into boys

I have witnessed such scenes at Royal-Thomian cricket encounters when a side won after long years but those running onto the field were schoolboys - not bald, greying old men with bandy legs. Yes, old men became boys and the sheer patriotism of Indian expatriates in Johannesburg flowed to the brim in the stands and on to the field. Even the usually coy Indian girls could not be restrained. TV cameras showed one such lass with a placard saying: 'Yuvraj, I want to marry you!'

The poor South Africans who hosted the tournament wanted to stage something different to the staid old game of cricket. They had a stage with black, brown, and white girls and boys with generous expositions of their mid riffs gyrating and going through pelvic thrusts with a disc jockey playing funky African beats. But all that was eclipsed as the Indian volcano of joy erupted.

Cricket they say is religion to Indians. Now, we believe it.  We recall the day when Sri Lanka won the World Cup at the Lahore Stadium in Pakistan under the captaincy of Arjuna Ranatunga, beating the world conquering Aussies. We did not have an expatriate community in Lahore to cheer us on but even our players were markedly restrained in their expression of joy. Compared to what Dhoni and his boys did, Arjuna and company were like old ladies at a tea party.

Red carpet reception

How the celebrations ended at the Wanderers Stadium the live telecast did not show but days later the world conquering heroes landed in Mumbai, three hours behind schedule and hundreds and thousands of Indians waited for them.

The Indian media had already laid out the red carpet. The press had screamed 'victory' for days on their front pages. The most impressive we are told was the Hindustan Times which had the banner headline across the front page: "Paki-stunned!"

It took three hours for the victory parade to pass through the streets of Mumbai into the stadium where presentations were made. They were taken in an uncovered double decker bus all the way. It's hard to imagine whether even the conquering Roman emperors were welcomed in the manner the Indian wielders of the willow were received.

Occasions like this call for hyperboles of the highest order in the presentation ceremony and they did come their way. So did the presents, in crores (one crore = 10 million) of Indian rupees. This is besides the winner's purse of US $ 490,000. The poor Pakistanis missed it by four runs and got nothing.

Presents galore

But beyond that, the entire Indian team got houses. Remember what a fuss we of the Sri Lankan media made when our World Cup winners were given small blocks of land by President Kumaratunga?

Yuvraj Singh who scored six sixes in six balls was presented with a brand new Porsche!  Almost all states made massive contributions to their own sons and to others who are not from their states as well.

Dhoni the captain should be a millionaire by now. It was not many moons ago that the modest home he was building in his hometown was wrecked by angry cricket fans when India had to quit the World Cup unceremoniously. Besides all this the Indian media expects undeclared contributions to be made by Indian millionaire businessmen. The opinion of Indian commentators appears to be that their cricketers deserved all this.

Riots too

But no Indian celebration is complete without a political demonstration and a riot. In Kashmir's capital Jammu, fighting broke out between Hindus and Muslims after the Indian victory. It was reported that Hindus who had gone in a victory procession had claimed that they were attacked by Muslims. Some said Muslims provoked Hindus with pro Pakistani slogans. An AFP report said that 35 people including policemen were hurt in the fighting which broke out overnight in Indian Kashmir and continued on Tuesday.

In Jammu some 1000 Indian fans outnumbered Muslims 10 to one as they stormed a college, officials had said. Heavily armed military troops had come under attack forcing authorities to ban public gatherings the report added.

In Sri Lanka too

Cricket does generate some communal tensions not only in India but in other countries of South Asia as well. For example minor clashes were reported around Maligawatte when a visiting Pakistan team played Sri Lanka some years ago. Nonetheless cricket is a lovely game and it is the only thing that brings together South Asians in such large numbers.

Boggles the mind, don't you think?