Tamil activists assert sovereignty, declare for plebiscite

திங்கள், 28 நவம்பர், 2011

Tamil activists assert sovereignty, declare for plebiscite

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 November 2011, 11:09 GMT]
Leading Tamil activists of the younger generation in Tamil Nadu, Canada, USA and Switzerland, came out with a declaration on Sunday for an international decision to conduct and monitor a plebiscite among the people of North and East descent in the island, in the diaspora and among the refugees in India and elsewhere, in order to decide on the creation of an independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam. The activists asserted sovereignty of Eezham Tamils on three counts: historical, earned and remedial. They also declared that international players should stop insisting on united Sri Lanka and drop pretensions of ‘domestic solutions’. Further declarations upheld symbols and expressions of the struggle, urged recognition of all those who laid down their lives for the liberation cause and called upon coordinated global action by democratic forces.

Poonkuzhali Nedumaran, Tamil Nadu, Krishna Saravanamuttu, Canada, Rajeev Sritharan, USA and Lathan Suntheralingam, Switzeraland, after discussions with a wide spectrum of activists of their genre, have come out with the following declaration:

Tamil Sovereignty Cognition

Declaration on universal justice to the national question of Eelam Tamils

Tamil Version of the Declaration (PDF)

The undersigned civil society activists living in Tamil Nadu, Canada, United States of America and Switzerland, after interactions and deliberations with a wide-spectrum of like-minded people, especially the younger generation, in the island of Ilangkai / Sri Lanka, Tamil Nadu and in the diaspora come out with the following declaration with an aim of upholding peace and universal justice by addressing the chronic national question of the Eelam Tamils in the island, where genocidal and structural genocidal approaches continuously deployed against the Tamil people in their homeland in the North and East of the island, by the Sri Lankan state with tacit approval of world powers, threaten peace and stability of peoples in South Asia and set a dangerous paradigm to the entire world:

We therefore declare that there should be an international decision to conduct and monitor a plebiscite among the people of North and East descent in the island of Sri Lanka, in the diaspora and among the refugees in India and elsewhere, to decide on the creation of an independent and sovereign state of Tamil Eelam.

The declaration is based on the Historical Sovereignty and Earned Sovereignty of Eelam Tamils as well as on the applicability of the principle of Remedial Sovereignty in their case.

Historical Sovereignty: The Eelam Tamils are a nation in the island since the times of the earliest known documentary evidences, culminating into having their historically and geographically defined homeland, distinct language, culture and collective consciousness. They have a history of losing sovereignty to Portuguese colonial conquest, followed by the Dutch and the British and not regaining it by the end of European colonialism. They have a continued history of democratically struggling to share sovereignty with the Sinhala nation for 30 years since the independence of Ceylon, the failure of which culminated into the historic declaration of independence in 1976, endorsed by mandate of the people of the North and East in the 1977 elections.

Earned Sovereignty: At the failure of democratic means, another 30 years of militant struggle impelled by state oppression, culminated into Eelam Tamils earning sovereignty in a de facto state that was tacitly recognized in an international-backed peace process in 2002. The Tamil political body identified by the de facto state winning the elections in 2004 shows the endorsement of Eelam Tamils to the de facto state that came into being by Earned Sovereignty.

Remedial Sovereignty: The tilt of balance against the de facto state ending in genocide is now indirectly acknowledged by the UN panel report and Norway’s evaluation report of the peace process, even though the word genocide is not used. An explicit, intense, intended and accelerated process of structural genocide in the North and East is now marked by occupation and rule of the Tamil homeland by ethnically Sinhala military of the Sri Lankan state; by military-backed Sinhala colonization for demographic changes and deliberate gerrymandering of Tamil constituencies and by total socio-economic-cultural subjugation of the Tamil homeland caried out by various state agencies. This impels evoking the Right to Protect the Eelam Tamil nation from annihilation. The principle of Remedial Sovereignty is therefore applicable to the Eelam Tamils claiming independence to protect them from genocide and structural genocide.

We the undersigned declare that all outside players should stop insisting on finding solutions only within a united Sri Lanka.

We declare that it is time for the international players to drop pretensions of ‘domestic’ solutions and vigorously engage in a transparent international mechanism to approach the Sri Lanka - Tamil Eelam conflict as question between nations and to bring in lasting peace and justice to the crisis in the island, in order to facilitate the two nations in conflict to co-exist peacefully with full control of their respective sovereignties.

We also declare that the symbols and expressions of the national struggle of Eelam Tamils should not be vilified but upheld, all those who have laid down their lives for the cause of the liberation of Eelam Tamils should be recognized and all democratic forces all over the world should contribute to a co-ordinated global action resulting in a political solution to the liberation struggle of Eelam Tamils.

Poongkuzhali Nedumaran
Tamil Nadu, India

Krisna Saravanamuttu
Toronto, Canada

Rajeev Sreetharan
Washington DC, USA

Lathan Suntheralingam
Luzern, Switzerland

27.11.2011