Sources
Tiger leader Prabhakaran killed: Sri Lanka army sources, Reuters, 18 May 2009; Sri Lankan rebel leader ‘killed’, BBC, 18 May 2009; Rebels routed in Sri Lanka after 25 years of war, New York Times, 17 May 2009.

Quotations

“Today we finished the work handed to us by the president to liberate the country from the LTTE,” General Sarath Fonseka, state television broadcast, 18 May 2009.

“This battle has reached its bitter end. We have decided to silence our guns,”  Selvarasa Pathmanathan, LTTE spokesman, 17 May, 2009.

“We announce today, with inexpressible sadness and heavy hearts that our incomparable leader and supreme commander … attained martyrdom fighting the military oppression. For over three decades, our leader was the heart and soul and the symbol of hope, pride and determination for the whole nation of people of Tamil Eelam. Since the failure of the peace process and the escalation of the war forced upon the Tamil people, the LTTE was faced [sic] to confront the Sri Lankan military that was supported by the world powers. This deliberate bias and position taken by the international community severely weakened the military position of the LTTE. Our leader confronted this threat without any hesitation. He would not waver in his desire to be with his people and fight for his people till the end. His final request was for the struggle to continue until we achieved the freedom for his people. His legend and the historical status as the Greatest Tamil Leader ever are indestructible,” Selvarasa Pathmanathan, the LTTE’s head of international relations, Tamil Tigers confirm leader’s death, Al Jazeera, 24 May 2009.

Related events
Tamil Tigers are formed
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LTTE aircraft and ground troops attack Sri Lankan air force base
Prabhakaran’s last significant ‘Heroes Day’ speech, 2007
LTTE suicide bomb kills 27 civilians and former military commander
Sri Lankan military forces recapture LTTE controlled territories

Related features
Feature: Assassination of an activist
Feature: 18th anniversary of expulsion of northern Muslims by LTTE
Feature: 25th anniversary of “Black July”, 1983

Extracts from the official translation

“We are intimately familiar with the Sinhala State and its deceptive politics. Our people have a long history of bitter experiences. That is why we explained to India on many occasions, at many locations and at many levels about the implacability of Sinhala chauvinism.

“Today, the international community is making the same mistake that India made many years ago. Even the countries that are the guardians of the peace efforts succumbed to the deception of the Sinhala State and listed our freedom movement as a terrorist organization.

“The Sinhala nation is unable to stomach the support of our Diaspora for the Tamil freedom struggle; it is unable to accept the humanitarian help and the political lobbying by the Diaspora to end the misery heaped on our people. That is why the Sinhala nation is trying hard to shatter the bond between our people in our homeland and our Diaspora. Some countries are also assisting this amoral effort of Sinhala chauvinism. These countries are denouncing, as illegal activities, the humanitarian actions and political protests of our people abroad – actions that are carried out according to the laws of those countries. These countries have imprisoned and humiliated Tamil campaigners and representatives. These countries have ridiculed their protests and their efforts to seek justice.

“The Rajapakse regime assembled its military might and let loose a massive war on the eastern region of our homeland. This part of our homeland became a wasteland after incessant bombing and shelling. Trincomalee, the famous Tamil capital, was destroyed. Batticaloa, an ancient cultural city of the Tamils, became a land of refugees. Jaffna, the cultural centre of the Tamils, was cut off from the rest of the world and turned into an open prison.

“Operation ‘Ellalan’, the very first combined Black Tiger and Tamil Eelam Air Force attack was a massive blow to the Sinhala military. It has disrupted the daydreams of the Sinhala nation. The Sinhala nation has not emerged from this massive shock delivered by our beloved fighters.

“The All Party Representative Committee was appointed by the Rajapakse regime to spread a smokescreen over the misery that its military adventures are creating in the Tamil homeland an to deceive other governments to get their aid and support. We clearly predicted this would happen one year ago. We have been proved right. After dragging on without putting forward any solution, the committee has gone on holiday.

“The past sixty years have proven beyond any doubt that…none of the Southern parties are read to accept the core principles for a lasting peace: the Tamil homeland, the Tamil nation and the Tamil Right to self determination. The ruling party is adamant on unitary rule; the red and yellow parties are calling for no solution at all; and the main opposition party, somersaulting from its earlier position, is, on the one hand, saying nothing concrete and using evasive language to support the military actions of the government and, on the other hand, saying it supports peace efforts. All this clearly clarifies our point and proves beyond doubt that all the Sinhala political parties are essentially chauvinistic and anti Tamil. To expect a political solution from any of these southern parties is political naivety.

“The Rajapakse regime, after unilaterally abrogating the ceasefire agreement, is ruthlessly implementing its military plan to remove the contiguity of the Tamil homeland. It has killed and disappeared thousands of our people. It reprimands and controls the Norwegian facilitators. It vehemently criticizes the SLMM. It even dares to brand senior UN officials as terrorists in order t hide its own terrorism. It is obscuring the ground reality in the Tamil homeland by striking fear among journalists and NGO workers.

“Thousands of our fighters are standing ready to fight with determination for our just goal of freedom and we will overcome the hurdles before us and liberate our motherland. On this day when we remember our Heroes who sacrificed themselves for this sacred goal, let each one of us carry their dream in our hearts and struggle until it is achieved”. Source: TamilNet

Related article
Reporters without Borders condemn the air strike as a “war crime”, 28 November 2007.

Sources
Brain behind the Tigers’ brawn, BBC, 14 December 2006; Rebels’ Peace Negotiator Dies of Cancer, The New York Times, 15 December 2006.
Quotations

“[Anton Stanislaus Balasingham] was a blend of many strands. His father was from the East and Mother from the North. His mother was a Christian and father a Hindu. His parents were also of different castes.Though raised as a Catholic Balasingham soon became a rationalist and agnostic. Yet he was deeply moved and inspired by the teachings of Lord Buddha. Balasingham’s first wife was a Jaffna Tamil protestant. His second wife was an Australian woman of anglo – saxon extraction. He was a British citizen but yearned for his homeland – Tamil Eelam – which he believed was a state in formation.” D.B.S. Jeyaraj, Anton Balasingham: The Early Years of Life, 15 December 2006

“We respected him as a guru. All of us read his books. He motivated us for our struggle.” Rasaiah Illantherian, Tiger’s military spokesman, December 2006.
“He wanted to make peace. He saw the formula in Oslo in 2002 exploring a federal solution, as the only way out in Sri Lanka. He was very dedicated to the Tamil struggle [although] he was very much looking forward to a negotiated settlement. … One of the persons in the peace process who never lied to me. He always spoke the truth as he saw it. I had great amount of respect for him. … He was a very tall figure. His wish would be that we should keep on where he left. I am clear about that. We need to remember this.” Erik Solheim, Norwegian Minister, IANS, 15 December 2006.

Extracts from obituary: Anton Balasingham, published in The Times, 16 December 2006

“Journalist who became the chief strategist and negotiator of the Tamil Tigers in their struggle for autonomy.

Anton Balasingham provided the intellectual framework for the violence of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. He was the brains behind the brawn, someone the leadership could turn to for ideological guidance, philosophical justification and political explanation while the killing went on.

A forlorn-faced man, ill with a transplanted kidney, he travelled to devastated northern Sri Lanka in 2002 to act as the rebels’ negotiator in peace talks brokered by Norway. The Tigers vainly asked India to host the encounter so that Balasingham could be near a hospital in case of an emergency. Everybody feared that he would die before the best chance of peace in more than two decades could be seized.

The difficulty was how to get him to Sri Lanka without his being assassinated. So, accompanied by his Australian wife, Adele, he flew in from London to the Maldives and transferred to a privately chartered De Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter seaplane, which landed on a reservoir in a rebel-controlled area south of Kilinochchi. The Colombo Government had ordered the airspace above northeast Sri Lanka to be kept clear of all aircraft, and the seaplane maintained radio silence throughout its journey lest hostile forces picked up the signal, revealing its whereabouts and mission.

The First Secretary of the Norwegian Embassy in Colombo was aboard. Immediately after it landed a Sea Tiger craft moved in to provide security. On the shore, the plump figure of Velupillai Prabhakaran, leader of the Tigers, could be made out standing with his wife Mathivathany, and other Tigers leaders. They were awaiting “Bala Annai” and “Auntie”, as young Tigers cadres called the Balasinghams. A house had been constructed for their stay.

This elaborate journey was a measure of the importance the Tigers placed in the one man they could trust with their destiny in what looked like being a breakthrough in talks with the Sri Lankan Government of Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Everybody underestimated, however, the determination of hardcore Sinhalese organisations like the JVP and hardline Buddhist clergy to scuttle any deal that gave the Tamils even a hint of autonomy. The peace deal failed, and Balasingham had made a life-threatening journey with no more to show for it than the continuation of a shaky ceasefire.

Under his guidance the Tigers had entered several rounds of successful talks with the Government, all brokered by Norway, watched suspiciously from the sidelines by President Chandrika Kumaratunga. In the end she used her presidential powers to scupper the deal.

Her successor, President Mahinda Rajapakse, also rejected the concepts of a Tamil homeland and Tamil nationhood. The JVP, in a previous incarnation a fanatically violent organisation but by now the third biggest political party in the country, had threatened “undiplomatic” consequences if the peace deal went through. All of this, Balasingham said with uncharacteristic understatement, represented an obstacle.

In taking the Tigers to the brink of peace, Balasingham had steered the rebels away from their earlier demand for a fully fledged independent state called Eelam. What the Tamils wanted, he said, was “a homeland and self-determination”. If that demand were rejected and the “oppression” continued, there would be no option but to fight for full statehood. Those words signalled the collapse of peace hopes.

Balasingham, who gained a PhD from South Bank Polytechnic in London (his dissertation was on the psychology of Marxism), had been the Tigers’ theoretician since the early 1990s and clearly had the full confidence of Prabhakaran. He had a British passport and in 1999, much to the Sri Lanka Government’s anger, was allowed to settle in London with his wife, Adele Wilby, an Australian citizen and former nurse he had married in 1978. She lived with him for years in Jaffna, the Tamils’ heartland, and became a leader of the Tigers’ women’s section. Australia sought her arrest for violating a law that prohibits participation in foreign wars.

By the time he moved to London, Balasingham, known among activist Tamils simply as “Bala”, was seriously ill with kidney trouble. The Tigers released a large number of Sri Lankan Army prisoners as a goodwill gesture in return for the Colombo Government ensuring his safe passage abroad. The gesture failed, and so the Tigers took Balasingham aboard one of their ships to Thailand, and from there he travelled to Singapore and on to London. No one expected to see him back in Sri Lanka.

When he did return for the 2002 peace talks the reunion with Prabhakaran was emotional. His influence over Prabhakaran was embarrassingly obvious at a packed press conference in Sri Lanka during the 2002 peace process. Balasingham knew about journalists, having been one himself for a Colombo newspaper before working as a translator at the British High Commission.

He was doubtless responsible for the image makeover of the Tigers leader. Eschewing his customary military fatigues and sidearm Prabhakaran attended the press conference in a safari suit and had even shaved off his moustache. After almost every question he would lean towards Balasingham to be primed with the reply, and for the most part Balasingham would do the replying for him. Which led one commentator to ask: “So who is the real leader of the Tamil Tigers?” Balasingham died of cancer. He is survived by his wife.”

Sources
Sri Lankan government clashes with Tamil rebels, The Guardian, 15 August 2006; Ketheeswaran Loganathan and the Tamil Dissidents’ Dilemma, University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), 15 August 2006; Ketheesh: Champion of Tamil Rights in United Lanka, D.B.S. Jeyaraj, Transcurrents, 18 August 2006.

Quotations

“Sinhala and Tamil nationalism have reached their respective cross-roads. They, now have to decide whether to part company or to map out a common cause leading to meaningful co-existence – that of diverse identities, as opposed to the hegemony of one identity over the other,” Kethesh Loganathan (1996), Sri Lanka: Lost Opportunities: Past Attempts at Resolving Ethnic Conflict.

“One more person capable of rising above hatred and insanity in present day Sri Lanka is no more. With his departure one more Tamil who wanted his people to live with equal rights in a united Lanka and champion that cause in the face of danger has been done away with. Only a few of us are left now.  … At the time of his death Ketheesh was Deputy Secretary-General of the Secretariat for coordinating the peace process (SCOPP) and Secretary of the All Party Representative Committee (APRC). This makes him appear as a pro-government “establishment” man. The eulogies heaped on him by the “government guys” reinforce this impression. This is perhaps the unkindest cut of all,” D.B.S. Jeyaraj, 18 August 2006.

“Kethesh Loganathan was a valued colleague, a former Director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) and the first head of its Peace and Conflict Analysis Unit. He was a passionate advocate of human rights, an unflinching champion of the rights of the Tamil people and of an end to the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka with democracy, justice and dignity for all. … Whilst Kethesh was an ardent and proud nationalist, he brought the same fervour, passion and commitment to the cause of unity in diversity, multi-culturalism and a settlement of the ethnic conflict based on meaningful power sharing. He uncompromisingly believed that the liberation of a people could not be founded on fear, the celebration of death, the negation or even suspension of basic democratic values. This made him a stringent and fearless critic of the LTTE for their insistence on being the sole representatives of the Tamil people and for their reliance on terror, repression and violence,” Dr. Pakiasothy Saravanamuthu, Center for Policy Alternatives (CPA), August 2006.

“Ketheeswaran was consistent in his dedication to the welfare of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. In the early 1980s which saw growing communal violence directed at Tamils it was natural for a decent left oriented Tamil with an intellectual bent to join the EPRLF, which he did. The struggle he joined was destroyed by the LTTE in 1986. After very difficult times for his people, Ketheeswaran found openings for his interests in justice and a political settlement among Colombo-based NGOs. He strongly objected to the degradation of human rights in the 2002 ceasefire agreement and on occasions was almost alone in voicing his concern over the conscription of children in the Colombo NGO fora, which Norway, the NGOs and the government wanted to downplay. Erik Solheim was quick to mark him out as an adversary. Ketheeswaran never forgot that he had been a militant. He stayed on in the EPRLF and left it only in 1994 after differences with an individual who too later left. His background enabled him to easily make the transition to activism in civil society. He was constant in his concern that other militants too should be given the means and opportunity to come out into civil and political life. He pushed for the Norwegian initiated peace process to address this cause for all militants including from the LTTE. But after the Karuna split the Norwegians pinned the label ‘paramilitary’ on all non-LTTE groups, this effort came to a standstill,” Rajan Hoole, University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), 15 August 2006.

“Kethesh Loganathan’s decision to join the Rajapakse regime’s “peace” secretariat was bewildering at the time. It still is after his assassination, presumably at the hands of the LTTE. … Kethesh’s belief that he could somehow influence what is clearly a rabidly Sinhala nationalist government – work within the system – was, at best, a miserable mistake. But we all misstep, don’t we? Only, Kethesh’s – and make no mistake about it – was an error of judgment made in the interests of peace. For he wanted, as he had all his life, to make a difference. His decision to quit the Center for Policy Alternatives was spurred, in part, by his increasing isolation within the more influential sections of the peace lobby. They think hope is spelled R-a-n-i-l. They understand peace as the absence of war. To Kethesh – no mere nationalist, but a leftist, after all – things were not so simple. He argued consistently [that] peace wasn’t synonymous with appeasing the LTTE at any cost; that the process should be inclusive – of other Tamil, Muslim and Sinhala opinion; that human and democratic rights should not be exchanged merely for an LTTE promise to stop killing Sinhalese. This made him inconvenient to sections of the peace lobby, which has made a habit of excusing LTTE massacres of Sinhala and Muslim civilians, of not protesting its systematic stifling of oppositional Tamils. And, as the UTHR(J) noted, he got marked as an opponent by the Norwegians,” Qadri Ismail, Peace Without Appeasement: Honouring Kethesh.

Related events
January 1984
April 1985
8 July 1985
17 August 1985
6 November 2006
6 March 2008

This event was the subject of a feature: Assassination of an activist.

Extracts from translation

"As the tsunami catastrophe shook the conscience of the world, the international governments volunteered to provide huge sums of money in aid for relief and rehabilitation of the affected people. In the meantime President Kumaratunga expressed her willingness to form a joint administrative mechanism in cooperation with the LTTE to implement the tasks of relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction for the affected Tamil speaking people.

"The international community expressed full support for the joint administrative structure worked out by both the Sri Lanka government and the LTTE. Having registered their vehement protest to the joint administrative mechanism, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and Jathika Hela Urumaja withdrew their support to the government. These parties also filed a case in the Supreme Court challenging the constitutional validity of the joint administrative mechanism. The determination of the Supreme Court made the joint mechanism inoperative.

"I wish to explain here a matter of crucial importance, which betrays the politics of duplicity of the Sinhala ruling elites. You would have heard about a secret shadow war being waged against our organisation behind the screen of peace. A large number of people consisting of our senior cadres, important members, supporters, Tamil politicians, journalists and educationists who were sympathetic to our cause, have been cowardly murdered.

"A strange low intensity war has been unleashed against us taking advantage of the conditions of peace effected by the ceasefire. Disarming the Tamil para-military groups is an obligation of the state under terms of the Ceasefire Agreement. Having failed to fulfil this crucial obligation the Sri Lanka state has been utilising the Tamil para-militaries as instruments of this subversive war against our liberation organisation. This is a serious war offence. This is similar to a treacherous act in which one stabs you in the back with one hand while pretending to embrace you with the other.

"The international community is fully aware of the fact that we are running an efficient, self-governing administrative structure in the majority areas of the Tamil homeland, which were liberated from Sinhala military occupation by our organisation. Our administrative structure is formidable, consisting of our controlled territories with huge civilian populations, protected by a powerful military force. We have a police force and a judicial system to maintain law and order. We have also developed a complex administrative infra-structure of a shadow government. We are disappointed and sad to note that some international governments, having been influenced by this false propaganda, continue to retain our organisation on their terrorist list. Biased positions taken by powerful nations acting as guardians of the peace process, in excluding and alienating our liberation organisation as a ‘terrorist outfit’ and supporting the interests of the Sri Lankan state, severely affected the balance of power relations between the parties in conflict at the peace negotiations.

"At this crucial historical turning point a new government under a new leader has assumed power in the Sinhala nation. This new government is extending its hand of friendship towards us and is calling our organisation for peace talks. It claims that it is going to adopt a new approach towards the peace process. Having carefully examined his policy statement in depth, we have come to a conclusion that President Rajapkse has not grasped the fundamentals, the basic concepts underlying the Tamil national question. In terms of policy, the distance between him and us is vast. However, President Rajapakse is considered a realist committed to pragmatic politics, we wish to find out, first of all, how he is going to handle the peace process and whether he will offer justice to our people. We have, therefore, decided to wait and observe, for sometime, his political manoeuvres and actions.

"The new government should come forward soon with a reasonable political framework that will satisfy the political aspirations of the Tamil people. This is our urgent and final appeal. If the new government rejects our urgent appeal, we will, next year, in solidarity with our people, intensify our struggle for self-determination, our struggle for national liberation to establish self-government in our homeland". Source: TamilNet.

Extracts from the official translation

“Today we are faced with a critical and complex situation, unprecedented in the history of our liberation struggle. We are living in a political void, without war, without a stable peace, without the conditions of normalcy, without an interim or permanent solution to the ethnic conflict. Our liberation struggle will be seriously undermined if this political vacuum continues indefinitely.

“Three years have lapsed since we entered into a ceasefire agreement with the Government of Sri Lanka, after three decades of protracted armed struggle. You are fully aware that during this period of ceasefire we have been making every endeavour, with sincerity and commitment, to seek a negotiated settlement to the Tamil national question through peaceful means. In various capitals of foreign nations, with Norway as facilitators, we engaged in peace talks with the government. The six sessions of negotiations held over the duration of six months, turned out to be futile and meaningless. Sub-committees that were set up for the de-escalation of the conflict, for the restoration of normalcy, for the rehabilitation and resettlement of the displaced and for the reconstruction of the war damaged infrastructure, became non-functional. In the meantime, the Sri Lanka government, having excluded our liberation organization, participated in the donor conference held in Washington, thereby undermining our status as equal partners in the peace process. It was in these objective conditions that our organization decided to express our displeasure and disappointment by temporarily suspending the talks. Our intention was not to terminate the talks and put an end to the peace process. During the period of suspension we urged the government of Mr Ranil Wickremesinghe to formulate and submit a draft proposal for an interim administrative structure.

“We were not satisfied with the three successive draft proposals on an interim set-up submitted by Ranil’s government. The draft frameworks lacked adequate administrative authority and they were unacceptable to us. Ultimately, we decided to formulate our own set of proposals. We discussed with our people at different levels and consulted political experts, legal specialists and constitutional scholars in the Tamil Diapsora and finalized our proposals for an Interim Self-Governing Authority.

“Some international governments welcomed our proposal, because it was the first time the Liberation Tigers had clearly and explicitly spelt out their political ideas in writing. Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government did not reject our proposal for an Interim Self Governing Authority to deal with the rehabilitation of the war affected people and to reconstruct the war devastated Tamil nation. His government viewed our proposals as different from their drafts, yet it agreed to resume peace talks on that basis, whereas the Sri Lankan Freedom Party outrightly condemned our interim administrative framework as the foundation for a separate Tamil state.

“Politically, the most powerful partner in the Alliance, the JVP, vehemently opposed granting political rights or devolution of power to the Tamil people. It has severely criticised the Norwegian government, which plays the role of facilitator. It has also outrightly rejected our proposal for an Interim Self-Governing Authority.

“We submitted our proposals for an interim administration at the final stage of our negotiations with Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government. The leadership of the United National Party continues to insist that peace talks can be resumed based on our set of proposals, but the Kumaratunga government is imposing a condition for the resumption of talks. The government says that any form of interim administration should be an integral part of a permanent settlement. While we are demanding an interim administrative set-up, the Kumaratunga government is insisting on talks for a permanent settlement to the ethnic conflict.

“There are important reasons as to why we are insisting on the formation of an interim administrative set-up as early as possible. As a consequence of a brutal and protracted war our people are facing urgent existential needs and immense humanitarian problems. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Tamils continue to languish in refugee camps in appalling conditions. In the meantime, the donor governments have pledged a massive aid package for the relief and rehabilitation of the war affected people. Therefore, it is of critical necessity that an interim administrative mechanism should be instituted with adequate powers to undertake the task of providing relief and rehabilitation to the suffering Tamil population and to reconstruct the war devastated Tamil homeland.

“Though we have entered into a ceasefire agreement and observed peace for three years and participated in the peace talks for six months, our people have not yet received any peace dividends. For these reasons we want the immediate resumption of peace talks, based on our proposal, so that an interim administrative authority can be established as early as possible to address the grievances of our people. If some elements of our proposals are deemed problematic or controversial, these issues can be resolved through discussions at the negotiating table. Once the interim administrative authority is institutionalised and becomes functional we are prepared to engage in negotiations for a permanent settlement to the ethnic problem. That is our position. Our position is reasonable.

“There are borderlines to patience and expectations. We have now reached the borderline. At this critical moment we wish to make an urgent appeal to the Sri Lanka government. We urge the government to resume the peace negotiations without conditions, based on our proposal for an Interim Self-Governing Authority. Source: TamilNet.

“The LTTE leader met journalists in a village at Kilinochchi. The venue was a partially open hall with a low wall running on three sides. The hall had been built in a clearing.” Front Line Magazine.

Sources
Prabakaran in First Person, Front Line Magazine, Volume 19 – Issue 09, Apr. 27 – May 10, 2002;

Quotations

“It is our people who put forward this demand for Tamil Eelam. The people gave a mandate to the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) for this as early as 1977. We, therefore, with people’s support, are fighting for Tamil Eelam till now.” Velupillai Prabhakaran, leader of the Tamil Tigers.

[On the LTTE's involvement in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi]: “In response to a question whether he was denying the LTTE’s and his involvement in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, Prabakaran said: “This is a tragic incident that took place ten years ago. We don’t want to comment further on it.” Velupillai Prabhakaran, leader of the Tamil Tigers.

“We have told the Government and we have informed the Norwegians that de-proscription is a necessary condition for the commencement of the talks…. We want to be de-proscribed properly. The provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act should be amended properly so that we can be de-proscribed and accepted as the authentic representative of the Tamil people and so that we will participate in the peace process as representatives of our people with equal status [to that of the Sri Lankan government representatives]. That has been our official position.” Anton Balasingham, LTTE chief negotiator and theoretician.

The talks lasted two rounds and took place in Thimpu, the capital city of the Kingdom of Bhutan. The Tamil Delegation consisted of representatives from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO), Eelam Revolutionary Organisation (EROS), Peoples Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) and the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF). The LTTE, EPRLF, TELO and EROS were also constituent members of the Eelam National Liberation Front (ENLF) formed in April 1984.

The first round of talks took place from 8 July to 13 July and the second round of the talks commenced on 12 August and concluded on 17 August 1985. During the first round, the Sri Lankan government delegation proposed draft legislation for devolution of power, which the Tamil delegation rejected and response put forward its four main demands, or ‘cardinal principles’:

(a) Recognition of the Tamils of Sri Lanka as a distinct nationality;
(b) Recognition of an identified Tamil homeland and the guarantee of its territorial integrity;
(c) Based on the above, recognition of the inalienable right of self-determination of the Tamil nation; and
(d) Recognition of the right to full citizenship and other fundamental democratic rights of all Tamils, who regard Sri Lanka as their country.

The Sri Lankan government rejected the first three of these demands arguing that they violated Sri Lanka’s sovereignty.

Sources
An Analysis of Thimpu Talks (1985) and the PA-LTTE Talks (1994-95) – Some Lessons on Processes of Negotiations in Armed Conflict, Ketheshwaran Loganathan (2001), presented at Exploring Possible Constitutional Arrangements for meeting Tamil Aspirations within a Unified Sri Lanka, Switzerland, 11-14 June 2001; Sri Lanka, Lost Opportunities: Past Attempts at a Negotiated Settlement, Kethesh Loganathan.

Quotations

“I ask of you very little. Let us forget the issue of training camps, the existence of Sri Lanka terrorists in South Asia; their plotting and planning. I ask you to help me to prevent them coming here with arms. …If we can agree on a common scheme to do this, by some form of mutual or combined surveillance, it will enable me to withdraw the Armed Services from combat; to suspend the operation of the Terrorism Act, and to help the North and East of Sri Lanka to return to normalcy. …Cross border terrorism threatens the very fabric of this democracy. … Do please understand our position, which is now yours too, and help.” Letter from J.R. Jayewardene to Rajiv Gandhi, 1985, cited in Rohan Gunaratne, Indian Intervention in Sri Lanka: The Role of Indian Intelligence Agencies, Colombo, South Asian Network on Conflict Research, 1994.

“[We wish] to express our disapproval over the usage of the category ‘militants’ in the ceasefire document to describe the united front of major Liberation Organizations, while ascribing the notion ‘Tamil political leadership’ to the TULF. Such categorization may create serious misconceptions and undermine our status as authentic political organizations representing the aspirations of our people.” Joint Memorandum of the Tamil delegation, July 1985.

“If the first three [Thimpu Principles] are to be taken at their face value and given their accepted legal meaning, they are wholly unacceptable to the Government. They must be rejected for the reason that they constitute a negation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka, they are detrimental to a united Sri Lanka and are inimical to the interests of the several communities, ethnic and religious in our country. … The implementation of any agreement reached at these talks requires as a pre-condition a complete renunciation of all forms of militant action. All militant groups in Sri Lanka must surrender their arms and equipment. All training camps whether in Sri Lanka or abroad must be closed down.” H.W. Jayewardene, leader of the government delegation, in a prepared Statement rejecting the “Thimpu Principles”, 12th August 1985.

“The four basic principles that we have set out at the Thimpu talks as the necessary framework for any rational dialogue with the Sri Lankan Government are not some mere theoretical constructs. They represent the hard existential reality of the struggle of the Tamil people for their fundamental and basic rights. It is a struggle which initially manifested itself in the demand for a federal constitution in the 1950 and later in the face of continuing and increasing oppression and discrimination, found logical expression in the demand for the independent Tamil state of Tamil Eelam.” Joint Memorandum of the Tamil delegation, 12th August 1985.

Extracts from ‘An Analysis of Thimpu Talks (1985) and the PA-LTTE Talks (1994-95)’
“These proposals were only marginally different from the one which was placed before the All Party Conference of 1984 and had been rejected by the TULF. It once again demonstrated the Sri Lankan State’s incapacity to place before the Tamil polity far-reaching proposals that would be seen as a viable alternative to the pitched-up demand for Tamil Eelam. Further, the proposals were presented in a drab, legalistic form by a delegation comprising mainly of lawyers and bureaucrats. This irritated the Tamil delegation, particularly the representatives of the Tamil politico-military organizations, who were driven by ideological and political fervour and whose patience was being sorely tested. The TULF representatives had already been exposed to the draft legislation in the APC of 1984 and, although quite at home with the legalistic tenor, took a decision to take a back seat. … The Tamil Delegation declined to negotiate any proposals that had already been rejected by the TULF at the APC. Further, the Tamil politico-military organizations had taken the position that the burden of presenting a broadly acceptable formula lay with Colombo, since it was solely to be blamed for the militarization of the ethnic conflict. The Tamil Delegation, instead, subjected the Sri Lankan government delegation to a series of ‘lectures’ on what constituted the Ethnic Question and as to why the burden lay with Colombo to come out with a solution ‘worthy of our consideration’. And, as though to drive home the point, the Tamil Delegation placed before the Government delegation a set of ‘four cardinal principles. …

“The gap between the government’s set of proposals and the Thimpu principles was not just a difference of opinion or perception, but one operating at two totally different ideological and conceptual planes. The Government’s proposals while going beyond decentralization and delegation of power, envisaged in the pre-existing District Development Councils system, was nowhere close to the devolution of powers available in the Indian constitution. Further, it failed to recognize the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka as a National Question. …

“The ‘Thimpu Principles’, on the other hand, was a strident call for the recognition of the Tamil people as a nation with its inalienable right to self-determination. The decision to forward the Thimpu Principles was not only an assertion of Tamil nationalism, but a strategic move to avoid placing concrete proposals that was seen as a pre-mature abandonment of the goal for which arms had been raised – namely, a separate state of Tamil Eelam. The Thimpu princples, therefore, could not have been anything other than an articulation of an Ideal, bereft of constitutionalism and legalism.”

Related events
LTTE joins Eelam National Liberation Front (ENLF)
Negotiations conducted by Indian envoy Parthasarathy
6th amendment makes espousal of a separate state in Sri Lanka illegal

Source
An Analysis of Thimpu Talks (1985) and the PA-LTTE Talks (1994-95) – Some Lessons on Processes of Negotiations in Armed Conflict, Kethesh Loganathan (2001).

Quotation

“The Tamil militant groups had emerged into a ‘politico-military- entity with remendous clout which clearly enjoyed the patronage of the Government of India.” Kethesh Loganathan (2001).

Related events
August 1983
January 1984
17 August 1985

Source
Blowback: Linguistic Nationalism, Institutional Decay, and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka, Neil DeVotta (2004), Stanford University Press.

Translation of the Vaddukoddai Resolution
Political Resolution unanimously adopted at the First National Convention of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) held at Pannakam (Vaddukoddai Constituency) on 14.05.76, Presided over by Mr S.J.V. Chelvanayakam, Q.C, M.P.

“Whereas throughout the centuries from the dawn of history, the Sinhalese and Tamil nations have divided between themselves the possession of Ceylon, the Sinhalese inhabiting the interior of the country in its Southern and Western parts from the river Walawe to that of Chilaw and the Tamils possessing the Northern and Eastern districts;

And whereas the Tamil kingdom was overthrown in war and conquered by the Portuguese in 1619, and from them by the Dutch and the British in turn, independent of the Sinhalese kingdoms;

And whereas the British colonists, who ruled the territories of the Sinhalese and Tamil kingdoms separately joined under compulsion the territories of the Sinhalese and the Tamil kingdoms for purposes of administrative convenience on the recommendation of the Colebrooke Commission in 1833;

And whereas the Tamil leaders were in the forefront of the freedom movement to rid Ceylon of colonial bondage which ultimately led to the grant of independence to Ceylon in 1948;

And whereas the foregoing facts of history were completely overlooked, and power over the entire country was transferred to the Sinhalese nation on the basis of a numerical majority, thereby reducing the Tamil nation to the position of a subject people;

And whereas successive Sinhalese governments since independence have always encouraged and fostered the aggressive nationalism of the Sinhalese people and have used their political power to the detriment of the Tamils by:

(a) Depriving one half of the Tamil people of their citizenship and franchise rights thereby reducing Tamil representation in Parliament,
(b) Making serious inroads into the territories of the former Tamil kingdom by a system of planned and state-aided Sinhalese colonization and large scale regularization of recently encouraged Sinhalese encroachments, calculated to make the Tamils a minority in their own homeland,
(c) Making Sinhala the only official language throughout Ceylon thereby placing the stamp of inferiority on the Tamils and the Tamil language,
(d) Giving the foremost place to Buddhism under the Republican Constitution thereby reducing the Hindus, Christians, and Muslims to second class status in this country,
(e) Denying to the Tamils equality of opportunity in the spheres of employment, education, land alienation and economic life in general and starving Tamil areas of large scale industries and development schemes thereby seriously endangering their very existence in Ceylon,
(f) Systematically cutting them off from the main-stream of Tamil cultures in South India while denying them opportunities of developing their language and culture in Ceylon, thereby working inexorably towards the cultural genocide of the Tamils,
(g) Permitting and unleashing communal violence and intimidation against the Tamil speaking people as happened in Amparai and Colombo in 1956; all over the country in 1958; army reign of terror in the Northern and Eastern Provinces in 1961; police violence at the International Tamil Research Conference in 1974 resulting in the death of nine persons in Jaffna; police and communal violence against Tamil speaking Muslims at Puttalam and various other parts of Ceylon in 1976; all these calculated to instill terror in the minds of the Tamil speaking people, thereby breaking their spirit and the will to resist injustices heaped on them,
(h) By terrorizing, torturing, and imprisoning Tamil youths without trial for long periods on the flimsiest grounds, capping it all by imposing on the Tamil nation a Constitution drafted, under conditions of emergency without opportunities for free discussion, by a Constituent Assembly elected on the basis of the Soulbury Constitution, distorted by the citizenship laws resulting in weightage in representation to the Sinhalese majority, thereby depriving the Tamils of even the remnants of safeguards they had under the earlier Constitution;

And whereas all attempts by the various Tamil political parties to win their rights, by co-operating with the governments, by parliamentary and extra-parliamentary agitations, by entering into pacts and understandings with successive Prime Ministers, in order to achieve the bare minimum of political rights consistent with the self-respect of the Tamil people have proved to be futile;

And whereas the efforts of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress to ensure non-domination of the minorities by the majority by the adoption of a scheme of balanced representation in a Unitary Constitution have failed and even the meager safeguards provided in article 29 of the Soulbury Constitution against discriminatory legislation have been removed by the Republican Constitution;

And whereas the proposals submitted to the Constituent Assembly by the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi for maintaining the unity of the country while preserving the integrity of the Tamil people by the establishment of an autonomous Tamil State within the framework of a Federal Republic of Ceylon were summarily and totally rejected without even the courtesy of a consideration of its merits;

And whereas the amendments to the basic resolutions, intended to ensure the minimum of safeguards to the Tamil people moved on the basis of the nine-point demands formulated at the Conference of all Tamil political parties at Valvettiturai on 7th February 1971 and by individual parties and Tamil Members of Parliament including those now in the government party, were rejected in toto by the Government and Constituent Assembly;

And whereas even amendments to the draft proposals relating to language, religion, and fundamental rights including one calculated to ensure that at least the provisions of the Tamil Language (Special Provisions) Regulations of 1956 be included in the Constitution, were defeated, resulting in the boycott of the Constituent Assembly by a large majority of the Tamil Members of Parliament;

And whereas the Tamil United Liberation Front, after rejecting the Republican Constitution adopted on the 22nd of May, 1972, presented a six point demand to the Prime Minister and the Government on 25th June, 1972, and gave three months time within which the Government was called upon to take meaningful steps to amend the Constitution so as to meet the aspirations of the Tamil Nation on the basis of the six points, and informed the Government that if it failed to do so the Tamil United Liberation Front would launch a non-violent direct action against the Government in order to win the freedom and the rights of the Tamil Nation on the basis of the right of self-determination;

And whereas this last attempt by the Tamil United Liberation Front to win Constitutional recognition of the rights of the Tamil Nation without jeopardizing the unity of the country was callously ignored by the Prime Minister and the Government;

And whereas the opportunity provided by the Tamil United Liberation Front leader to vindicate the Government’s contention that their Constitution had the backing of the Tamil people, by resigning from his membership of the National State Assembly and creating a by-election was deliberately put off for over two years in utter disregard of the democratic rights of the Tamil voters of Kankesanthurai, and,

Whereas in the by-election held on the 6th February 1975, the voters of Kankesanturai by a preponderant majority not only rejected the Republican Constitution imposed on them by the Sinhalese Government, but also gave a mandate to Mr. S.J.V. Chelvanayakam, Q.C. and through him to the Tamil United Liberation Front for the restoration and reconstitution of the Free, Sovereign, Secular, Socialist State of Tamil Eelam.

The first National Convention of the Tamil United Liberation Front meeting at Pannakam (Vattukottai Constituency) on the 14th day of May, 1976, hereby declares that the Tamils of Ceylon by virtue of their great language, their religions, their separate culture and heritage, their history of independent existence as a separate state over a distinct territory for several centuries till they were conquered by the armed might of the European invaders and above all by their will to exist as a separate entity ruling themselves in their own territory, are a nation distinct and apart from Sinhalese and this Convention announces to the world that the Republican Constitution of 1972 has made the Tamils a slave nation ruled by the new colonial masters, the Sinhalese, who are using the power they have wrongly usurped to deprive the Tamil Nation of its territory, language citizenship, economic life, opportunities of employment and education, thereby destroying all the attributes of nationhood of the Tamil people.

And therefore, while taking note of the reservations in relation to its commitment to the setting up of a separated state of Tamil Eelam expressed by the Ceylon Workers Congress as a Trade Union of the Plantation Workers, the majority of whom live and work outside the Northern and Eastern areas, this Convention resolves that restoration and reconstitution of the Free, Sovereign, Secular, Socialist State of Tamil Eelam, based on the right of self-determination inherent to every nation, has become inevitable in order to safeguard the very existence of the Tamil Nation in this country.

This Convention further declares:

(a) that the State of Tamil Eelam shall consist of the people of the Northern and Eastern provinces and shall also ensure full and equal rights of citizenship of the State of Tamil Eelam to all Tamil speaking people living in any part of Ceylon and to Tamils of Eelam origin living in any part of the world who may opt for citizenship of Tamil Eelam;
(b) that the Constitution of Tamil Eelam shall be based on the principle of democratic decentralization so as to ensure the non-domination of any religious or territorial community of Tamil Eelam by any other section;
(c) that in the State of Tamil Eelam caste shall be abolished and the observance of the pernicious practice of untouchability or inequality of any type based on birth shall be totally eradicated and its observance in any form punished by law;
(d) that Tamil Eelam shall be a secular state giving equal protection and assistance to all religions to which the people of the State may belong; that Tamil shall be the language of the State, but the rights of Sinhalese speaking minorities in Tamil Eelam to education and transaction of business in their language shall be protected on a reciprocal basis with the Tamil speaking minorities in the Sinhala State; and
(e) that Tamil Eelam shall be a Socialist State wherein the exploitation of man by man shall be forbidden, the dignity of labor shall be recognized, the means of production and distribution shall be subject to public ownership and control while permitting private enterprise in these branches within limits prescribed by law, economic development shall be on the basis of socialist planning and there shall be a ceiling on the total wealth that any individual or family may acquire.

This Convention directs the Action Committee of the Tamil United Liberation Front to formulate a plan of action and launch without undue delay the struggle for winning the sovereignty and freedom of the Tamil Nation; and,

This Convention calls upon the Tamil Nation in general and the Tamil youth in particular to come forward to throw themselves fully into the sacred fight for freedom and to flinch not till the goal of a Sovereign State of Tamil Eelam is reached .

Source: Blowback: Linguistic Nationalism, Institutional Decay, and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka, Neil DeVotta (2004), Stanford University Press

Opinion
“In 1976, a new parliamentary party of Tamils was formed, the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), which sought to make political capital out of the changing aspirations of the Tamil movement, committing itself to the goal of Eelam through its founding ‘Vaddukoddai Resolution’. The Ceylon Tamil people endorsed the resolution at the 1977 parliamentary elections and voted en masse for the TULF. In subsequent years, however, the TULF abandoned its radical mandate, collaborated in a half-hearted and ill-resourced government decentralization scheme and lost significant popular support.” Self-determination: a Ceylon Tamil perspective, Sachithanandam Sathananthan (1998).

Related events
Ponnambalam calls for ‘50:50’ representation
Indian plantation Tamils disenfranchised; Federal Party formed
‘Bandaranaike–Chelvanayagam Pact’ signed
UNP forms coalition government, including Federal Party
TULF successful in general elections

Related events
19 November 1976
July 1977