Sri Lanka: Let us unite as World Tamils and work tirelessly for realising the dreams of our Martyrs! TGTE

Today is Martyrs’ Day, a day to celebrate the great sons and daughters of our nation. Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE).

A day for the Tamil people all over the world to remember with affection the valiant heroes who fought for the liberation of our nation and people and fell down as seeds.

A great day of the Great Heroes of the nation of Tamil Eelam who asserted themselves as a synonym of sacrifice and sowed the seeds of new hope for the oppressed peoples around the globe.

The Martyrs were the protective bulwark of our nation. A symbol of the people’s thirst for freedom.
They lived their lives as pioneers of a new society they intended to build, and acted as national architects raising on the soil of the Homeland a society where equitable social justice prevails.

The Martyrs and their Abodes of Final Rest are monuments of equality. The Martyrs’ Day is the occasion for our people to hold in equal esteem and pray in the temple of their hearts all the Martyrs who laid down their dear lives for the emancipation of our beloved motherland.

The Martyrs’ Day is a day on which our nation glorifies as issues of one mother all our children who fell for the cause of national emancipation, as equals without any discrimination as to whether senior or new-comer, male or female, or old or young.

The TGTE joins the Tamil people all over the world on this, the Martyrs’ Day, in saluting, and paying our heroic homage to, our Martyrs, the Great Heroes!

Dear People!

The Martyrs sacrificed their invaluable lives for realizing the political objective of forming a separate sovereign and independent state of Tamil Eelam on the territory of the Homeland of Tamils.

They took up arms, convinced, through historical experience, that the ushering in of an independent state of Tamil Eelam is the only political arrangement for the Tamil people to lead a free, equitable and secure life protecting them from genocide by the Sinhala state.

Our martyrs whom we hail as Great Heroes were out and out national fighters, never racists. They always fought for the emancipation of our people and the retrieval of our Homeland, never for occupying other nations. They always fought for protecting our people from genocide, and as such our martyrs’ struggle against the crime of genocide is most progressive and can even be a beacon light for the freedom of the peoples of the world.

Thanks to the protracted struggle waged by our Great Heroes, our Nation grew conscious of its character and set out harnessing itself into a strong nation. It is due to the sacrifice of the martyrs that, even though our land is small, our Nation has attracted the attention of the whole world. But for our martyrs’ unflinching struggle tempered with supreme sacrifice the Tamil people’s national problem would not have drawn to itself the attention of the international community.

The project genocide launched by the Sinhalese in the 1950s had hit a snag due to the struggle of our Martyrs. Without their heroic campaign the Sinhalese would by now have made rapid advances in their project genocide. This can be discerned from the project structural genocide deliberately being undertaken by the Sinhalese since May 2009.

The Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE)drew up its policy with the object of realizing the Martyrs’ dream. When we launched the TGTE in the year 2010 we had the Martyrs at heart. Thence unto this day the TGTE has been taking measures on the international arena for the establishment of an independent state of Tamil Eelam. The TGTE has proved itself unique in its approach of adopting transparent measures of political and diplomatic struggle by democratic means.

Political and diplomatic means are interlinked with each other. The strength we build up by political means would open up more opportunities for our diplomatic moves. As we grow stronger and stronger we would become a force to reckon with in the international balance of power. Although at present we are not as powerful as when the armed struggle was on and we had our de facto state, even now we remain a strategically important people capable of gaining strength based on soft power. Our homeland still retains its strategic weight.

The international powers base their international decisions on their own interests. As our National Leader once said, the international order does not run on wheels of moral ethics, but turn on interests. We can now clearly see how prophetic his words have turned out to be.

The international big powers concerned with the island of Sri Lanka have not taken the stance of expressing support for the oppressed people of Tamil Eelam being subjected to genocide. On the contrary they are more anxious about bringing forth a government favorable to, and defending, their interests. Their approach is to handle the internal situation accordingly.

In this context we can see two kinds of attitudes in Eelam Tamil politics towards handling the international powers. One is to wait for a benevolent glance from the international powers; to accept without protest the standpoints of the international powers and beg for a little kind consideration. Such leaders as represent this attitude do not put sufficient pressure on the international powers from the viewpoint of a strategically important people.

So, these powers, which are liberal in praising these leaders in words, simply ignore them when it comes to deeds. But our leaders of this attitude would console themselves and the people saying, “We are speaking to the international powers, we will soon see good progress, we can do nothing by antagonizing the international powers,” etc.

Those who represent the second attitude reject outright the international powers not accepting their standpoints and isolate and alienate themselves from the international stage. They severely denounce the international powers for their actions contrary to the interests of the Tamil people and tend to see them as ‘international conspiracy’. They find not much use in developing contacts and working with the international powers and are not sufficiently interested in international political and diplomatic moves.
We are of the considered view that these two attitudes are not conducive to correctly handle the international community. Hence the TGTE considers it necessary to adopt a third new attitude other than the above-mentioned two and is taking steps towards that end.

We do not repudiate the role of international politics and geopolitics and that of the international powers in the struggle of the Tamil Eelam people for the right to self-determination. On the contrary, we very well understand their importance and think of ways how to turn them in our favor. So we do not reject the international powers. At the same time we refuse to accept Tamil leaders acting as handmaids of international powers or endorsing the decisions of the international powers without protest, even when they go against the interests of the people of Tamil Eelam.

A case in point is our approach towards the decision of the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2015 to entrust the Government of Sri Lanka with the transitional justice mechanism. This was a step in the interests of the international powers, but against those of the Tamil people. One section of the Tamil political leadership accepted it without protest, while the other section rejected it outright and strongly condemned it.

The TGTE criticized the UNHRC decision on proper grounds and appointed a watchdog committee by the name MAP (Sri Lanka Monitoring and Accountability Panel) consisting of international experts. This panel is working as monitor at the international level on the basis of the UN Report. We have hereby taken a step forward in preparing the ground for us to approach the international arena from our standpoint. It can be well discerned how the international powers in the UNHRC are closely taking cognizance of the activities of the monitoring panel appointed by us.

Dear friends!

The Sinhalese hope of drowning to end the Tamil people’s struggle for national liberation at Mullivaaikkaal has turned out to be a pipedream. The Sinhalese efforts at showing the island of Sri Lanka to be a nation and its inhabitants to be a people and burying the Tamil and Muslim peoples in the Sinhala majority has not succeeded thus far. Yet the Sinhalese would not give up. Like the mythical Vikramadhithya of our childhood stories the Sinhalese are again and again pursuing the same by various tricks.

The recent initiative for enacting a new constitution is just the latest venture to assert Sinhalese hegemony over the Tamil and Muslim peoples. The Sinhalese leaders with the help of the international powers have put up a show of the new constitution being adopted with the main purpose of solving the Tamil national question. A few Tamil leaders have also abetted this farce.

The Sinhalese leaders set up things to drag on time to their advantage and the Tamil leaders made much ado and trumpeted that a federation though not called by that name was coming. But the interim report and the other indications available thus far only point to a scenario of the new constitution only tending to further strengthen the Sinhalese-Buddhist supremacy. In the opinion of some analysts, the Sinhalese leaders would, after buying the time they need, abandon the initiative for a new constitution.

It is however our considered view that only when our status as a nation is recognized can a political solution be found for the Tamil people. The TGTE opines that the efforts towards a political solution should be based on the recognition of the people of Tamil Eelam as being entitled to the right to self-determination and seeking remedial justice for being subjected to genocide.

In this regard, any political solution for the Tamil people should be arrived at only after obtaining a mandate from the Tamil Eelam nation through a special referendum in the homeland of Eelam Tamils as well as among the diaspora Tamils. The TGTE calls for such a referendum.

It is our standpoint that any referendum for the whole country without recognizing the Tamil people as a nation or as being entitled to the right to self-determination will never be accepted by the Tamil people as part of an effort to find a political solution.

We have already announced a campaign called YES TO REFERENDUM with regard to the referendum to be conducted among the Tamil people. This campaign is to be launched as a people’s movement in January 2018. Details of this campaign will soon be made public. Meanwhile, it is learnt that a group believed to be connected with the Sri Lankan government has forged a statement in my name that the TGTE would be dissolved in January 2018. It is our firm belief that such false statements would by no means confuse our people.
Dear People!

As we memorialize our martyrs, it is necessary that we keep in mind their political dreams. Our act of memorializing the martyrs should not be reduced to a ritual of our culture.
Every lamp that we lit in memory of our martyrs, and every flower we place at their feet should give us the determination to move forward.

The martyrs’ families who gave unto the homeland their sons or daughters, husbands or wives, their dear ones deserve our nation’s respect. Many of them, we are aware, are in despair whether the sacrifice of their dear ones would be in vain.

It gives us a lot of encouragement and great joy that people are enthusiastically taking part in the Martyrs Day events in the Homeland areas defaced by Sinhalese occupation. At the same time we plead with the political leaders observing the remembrance of the martyrs to advance the politics that seeks to bear in heart the dreams of the martyrs.

The hope should be deep in us that the sacrifices of our martyrs would never be in vain. Masses united are a great force. We must act with a staunch hope and belief that our activities would bring justice to our martyrs and our people killed in genocide by the Sinhalese.
Let us take a pledge on the Martyrs Day that we will unite as world Tamils, assimilate into us the dreams and sacrifices of the martyrs and work tirelessly to realize their ideals.

Viswanathan Rudrakumaran
Prime Minister
Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE)

To contact Viswanathan Rudrakumaran,

Please email to: pmo@tgte.org

Link to Tamil Press Release: உலகத் தமிழர்களாக ஒன்றுபட்டு மாவீரர் இலட்சியத்தை நனவாக்க அயராது உழைப்போம்! நாடுகடந்த தமிழீழ அரசாங்க மாவீரர்நாள் அறிக்கைnk : http://world.einnews.com/pr_news/417861037/

Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam
TGTE