Pointing to the ‘genocidal war’ the Sinhala-dominated state is waging against the Tamils of Sri Lanka, the Liberation Tigers this week urged the international community to “recognise the sovereignty of the Tamil people, and support the peace process in accordance with this principle.”
The world should “provide appropriate opportunities to the Tamil people to express their aspirations, as have been given to the people of East Timor and Kosovo,” the LTTE also said.
The LTTE statement, released to coincide with hardline Sinhala President Mahinda Rajapakse’s address to the United Nations General Assembly, said the Tamil people’s voice had been marginalized.
“As the LTTE and Tamil people are denied a fair chance to interact directly with the International community, we choose to submit this statement,” the LTTE said.
“We strongly believe that the international community understands that the Tamil liberation struggle against oppression has been taken up according to international norms. And it cannot be compared to aimless, intolerant causes of violence: terrorism,” the LTTE said.
“Further, we expect the international community recognize that it is always the LTTE that keeps the doors wide open for peace talks.”
“Whereas the LTTE continued to respect and urge for a full implementation of the [2002] ceasefire agreement (CFA), the Rajapaksa regime eventually embarked on its war of occupation.”
“Since elected to office, President Mahinda Rajapakse has been systematically weakening the internationally-backed CFA and has blatantly ignored all the promises that were made at the Geneva talks.”
The Rajapakse government was insincere in its claims to be prepared to negotiate a solution, the LTTE said, adding: “GoSL has made schizophrenic public statements that ranged from, the intention to ‘wipe out the LTTE’ and give a political solution to the Tamils, and to ‘weakening the LTTE’ in order to ‘force’ it to come to the negotiating table.”
“The tactic of appointing ‘All Party Representative Committees’ and ‘Round Tables’ to resolve the national conflict are an established deceptive habit of the successive Sri Lankan governments.”
“But some members of the international community had shown confidence in this latest APRC and have been assuring everyone that it would come up with a framework for the resolution of the conflict. This misplaced confidence has not brought any constructive outcome to date,” the LTTE said.
Meanwhile, “the growing statistics of [Tamil] civilian casualties amply prove beyond doubt that this war conducted by the Sri Lankan armed forces is indeed a genocidal war against the Tamil people,” the LTTE said.
“Oppressive laws sanctioned by a majoritarian Sinhala government are legitimizing its brutality. The Emergency Regulations give cover and impunity for unlawful arrest, torture, killing, and disposal of bodies without investigations.”
A few days before their formal statement, the head of the Tigers’ Political Wing, Mr. .P. Thamilchelvan, said that amid international apathy, the Sri Lankan government is waging a genocidal war against the Tamil people,
He warned that the LTTE’s military restraint in the face of continuing military offensives by the Sri Lnakan state should not be taken as weakness.
“Without caring for international policies and [their] passive requests [for an end to conflict], the Government of Sri Lanka is continuing its genocidal war against the Tamil people,” the LTTE's Political Head S.P. Thamilchelvan said last week.
“The concerns raised by the International Community have failed to make any dent on the ethnic cleansing by Colombo government which has proved itself a terrorist-state.”
Moreover, “some International governments, without understanding realities, give aid to the deceitful purposes of the Sinhala government,” he said.
This “will only escalate the island's ethnic conflict to hitherto unseen heights," he warned, without elaborating.
“The LTTE is maintaining patience and is still restricting itself to a defensive war,” he said.
“By doing so, it wishes the International Community to realize the futility of achieving peace by dealing [in negotiations] with such a government.”
Every form of international assitance given to the Government of Sri Lanka is "cunningly misused" under the cover of "development" to convert the Tamil homeland into a land of refugees and disrupt its contiguity and for Sinhala colonization, he said.
It is the Colombo government is dictating the use of international aid, he pointed out.
The core theme of the government’s development plans - and the "most cruel part" of the agenda - are to dismember the contiguity of the Tamil homeland in the island’s Northeast.
"The Tamil people wonder in what way this [outcome] serves the interests of the donor countries," said Mr. Thamilchelvan.
"The LTTE therefore requests the International Community not to be carried away by the deceitful program of the government and to stop every form of aid so as to pressure the government to create an environment for peace efforts,” he said.
The Rajapakse regime was “desperately” trying to cover up its human rights abuses, by preventing news from reaching the outside world and by using all its resources for false propaganda, he said.
“We expect the International Community to make its own assessment by visiting the affected areas and gathering information through its own sources,” the LTTE's political head said.
