posted May 30, 2002 09:14 AM            

The following is a speech delivered by D. B. S. Jeyaraj, an Internationally acclaimed journalist, at the first Anniversary celebrations, on April 20th, 2002, at the Holiday Inn, Toronto.

It's a privilege to address you all today. I don't want to go into a detailed political analysis as the time is not very opportune for such a discussion. But, I would just like to touch on few points that I think that are salient and quite important at this juncture when the Island of our origin is on a course towards what may be the dawning of a real and durable peace.

Many of you, I think almost all of you would have either seen on T.V or herd on Radio or at least read in the newspaper the gist of the press conference that was conducted by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leader Mr. Veluppillai Pirabhakaran on the 10th of April, 2002. Among the many interesting aspects of that press conference, there are two questions that I would like to high lite or focus on because that is central to the topic that I have been asked to speak on. First one is that when he was asked to whether his original position on Tamil Eelam stands and he said that it still is and what he meant was later amplified by his political advisor Mr. Anton Balasingham that it's up to the Sri Lankan government to offer a viable alternative.

The second one was that when he was asked to asked as to whether a statement purportedly stated by him years ago that if he ever to compromise on Tamil Eelam that one of his cadres could shoot him Mr. Pirabhakaran has immediately said that it is so.
So, these two statements have led to some kind of disappointment which could be seen in most of the Sinhala media or Colombo based media and even sections of the International media that if this was the position then whether the whole exercise is futile and whether there is an element of hypocrisy in the whole stand.

Now, I personally think that to have expected Mr. Pirabhakaran to come out with a disawawal of fundamental policy on which the whole struggle has been waged for so many years was prematured. Nevertheless one could also see from the press conference that unlike many political leaders that we have seen there was a remarkable refreshing attitude in Mr. Pirabhakaran in the sense that he was trying not to bluff. I mean he could have uttered some platitude or he could have made some diplomatic pronouncements and made every body happy. But he didn't . He still stuck to his original position. But of course with a proviso or rider it was still open for negotiation.

Now I remember that when Mr. Eric Solheim met Mr. Pirabakaran two years ago and came to address a press conference he was asked a question whether Mr. Pirabakaran was genuine and sincere. What Mr. Solheim said it is understood that the whole peace negotiation exercise is on the premise of unity and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka and the aspirations of the Tamil people. These are the two premises on which the whole peace process exercise in.

Now, what I would like to stress here is that I don't see any contradiction in the stands that was out lined by Mr. Pirabaharan and the whole search for negotiated peace. For that I think the history of the whole demand for Tamil Eelam. I am not going to go into every detail. But I am just going to say one point that the demand for Tamil Eelam did not comeout from the loop. It was an evolutionary gradual kind of incremental increase.

At the beginning of the 20th century the Tamil people thought they were equal to the Sinhala people and that they were the two founding races of modern Sri Lanka or Ceylon as it was known then. It was then when the state council and territorial representations came Tamil people thought of themselves as principal minority in Sri Lanka and the demand they articulated was the balanced representation where they saw themselves
as the principle minority leading the other minority community to be par with the Sinhala majority.

After independence it became Federalism from a position where the Tamils thought that they belong to the whole Island, they thought they had a special place in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka which they consider as the traditional home land. This kind of Federalism then became separatism in 1977 and then the arms struggle which we all know took over and it had been there.

Now, 1977 one point that was ignored or glossed over or under emphasized is that in 1977 the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) contested on the platform of a separate state and won an overwhelming mandate within the parameters of a general election. They won 18 out of 19 Tamil majority electorates and won 57 % of the total votes.
Now, the response to this so far from the successive governments have not been very positive.

Now, there were two methods , the carrot and stick method. The carrot method which was of course various political strategents that they tried the District council, the Provincial council and so many conferences etc., etc., The stick which we all know the military onslaught that was unleashed on the Tamil people and which has contributed to many of us having come over here.

Now, unlike other countries where a more positive attitude was displayed to a people to within certain people rather than an appeal to reason alieanated from the main stream and felt that they had no choice but to go on their own in Sri Lanka. What happened was that the Tamil people got mostly the brunt or brute force rather than an appeal to intellect, it was never a clash of ideas as such . It was a brutal repression right throughout and in 1983 after within 10 days of Pogram that was unleashed on Tamil people we had on August 4, 1983 the 6th amendment to the constitution in Sri Lanka which disawowed the separatism.

Automatically for 19 years the whole concept of Tamil Eelam has not been discussed, has not been debated openly in Sri Lanka. So it has been left to some of the expatriates at times to kind of focus on that and so what has happened is that the Tamil Eelam mandate which was central to entire Sri Lankan Tamil people at one point of time is no longer on the agenda overtly. So, for 19 years we have been kind of forced to labour under an illusion that the Tamil Eelam option is totally out and that it's only a search for a peace within a united Sri Lanka.

posted May 30, 2002 10:31 AM            

an Internationally acclaimed journalist has written a biased article. There goes his credentials down the drain. He has some accurate facts, however not a single mention of LTTE massacres of huge number of Tamils. May he wants to live longer and don’t want to hurt LTTE.

>> It was then when the state council and territorial representations came Tamil people thought of themselves as principal minority in Sri Lanka and the demand they articulated was the balanced representation where they saw themselves

Tamils didn’t asked a the balanced representation, rather 50% of the government share compared to 15% they deserve.

Rest of the biased crap deleted, not even worth reading.