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“LTTE is the buffer that protects the Tamil National soul from destruction”

“As long as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam continue with their commitment to safeguard the Tamil people and win back their lost sovereignty and freedom, nobody on earth can destroy the Tamil National soul” said Mr. Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, TNA Jaffna District Member of Parliament addressing a mammoth gathering of over 100,000 people in the Jaffna University’s Medical Faculty grounds yesterday, 30 September 2005. Mr.Ponnambalam was one of the TNA legislators who participated in the Tamil Uprising, Pongu Thamil in Jaffna.

Exerpts:

“We have converged here today in Jaffna, the citadel of Tamil civilisation, to tell the world that our message of determination to win back our lost sovereignty should be heard in the right perspective. The Tamil people always opted to co-exist with their Sinhala brethren, but were pushed out of the political equation as second class citizens, discriminated, persecuted and pushed to the fringe of frustration when all genuine attempts to reconcile failed due to the apathy and dominating attitude of the Sinhala polity. No nation of people ever resorted to war when avenues were open to rectify injustices. This mode of negotiating and entering into solemn pacts, was well utilised by the Tamil people from the time their distinct sovereignty was lost in the hands of foreign invaders in the early sixteenth century. Saner counsel always prevailed in our senior political leaders of yore when they endeavoured to bring home to the British, the need for providing sufficient safeguards for the Tamil people when considering full independence to this island. Trust was the magic word then and unfortunately the Sinhala polity had no intnetion of honouring it.

Cheated we were, not once but throughout the history and the youth of the seventies like their counterparts in the south who rose up in rebellion against social injustice, had to take up arms to defend themselves against selective persecution as Tamil youths. This is the war that the Tamil youths of the LTTE have been fighting all these years. Having demonstrated its capacity to evict the occupying military from major parts of the Tamil homeland and in a position of strength, the LTTE unilaterally announced a cease-fire, which ultimately became a permanent cease-fire agreement. Three and a half years of cease-fire and six rounds of negotiations have produced nothing as peace dividend to the Tamil people.

Even a natural catastrophe like tsunami did not move Colombo to deliver to the affected Tamil people, already battered by two decades of war. Instead, Colombo took refuge in the rigid unitary constituion, a constitution to which the Tamil people were not a party in the making of it. A constituion becomes respectable and acceptable only if all the citizens of that country are made active partners in the making of it. Through these uprisings in all the Tamil districts, we are telling the international community to be fair by the Tamil people and act without prejudice caused by the government’s adverse propaganda”.

The Chairpersons of the organization for the disappeared and representatives of the Displaced Civilians Organisations called upon the international community to bring pressure on the government to release the Tamils detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, investigate into the disappearances of hundreds of youths in Jaffna, Batticaloa and other Tamil districts, many of whom have been killed by the military and buried in mass graves and to provide unfettered access to the civilians whose dwellings are inaccessible due to military occupying them under the High Security Zones. They also reiterated the moral responsibility of the international community in ensuring that the Government of Sri Lanka, as a party to the agreement, fulfills its obligations relating to bringing in normalcy by adhering to the CFA clauses pertaining to the military presence in densely populated areas and proliferation of armed groups that are engaged in violence and killings.

01 October 2005

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