30 years since tamil organisations unanimously agreed on thimphu principles
TRANSCRIPT
30 years since Tamil organisations unanimously agreed on Thimphu principles
Delegations meet at the first phase of the Thimphu peace talks. Tamil delegation seated on the left and the Sri lankan delegation seated on the right.Photograph: Sahajeevana Centre
13 July 2015
30 years ago today, a coalition of Tamil organisations representing
the Tamil people in Sri Lanka unanimously agreed a set of
principles concerning a political solution to the ethnic conflict
in Sri Lanka.The declaration came at the conclusion of the first
phase of peace talks with the Sri Lankan government in Bhutans
capital of Thimphu.In a joint declaration released on the 13thJuly
1985, a Tamil delegation consisting of representatives from the
Eelam Peoples Revolutionay Liberation Front (EPRLF), Eelam
Revolutionary Organisation of Srudents (EROS), Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Peoples Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam
(PLOTE), Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO) and Tamil
United Liberation Front (TULF), said,It is our considered view that
any meaningful solution to the Tamil national question must be
based on the following four cardinal principles:
- recognition of the Tamils of Ceylon as a nation
- recognition of the existence of an identified homeland for the
Tamils in Ceylon
- recognition of the right of self determination of the Tamil
nation
- recognition of the right to citizenship and the fundamental
rights of all Tamils in Ceylon
Different countries have fashioned different systems of governments
to ensure these principles. We have demanded and struggled for an
independent Tamil state as the answer to this problem arising out
of the denial of these basic rights of our people. The proposals
put forward by the Sri Lankan government delegation as their
solution to this problem is totally unacceptable. Therefore we have
rejected them as stated by us in our statement of the 12th of July
1985. However, in view of our earnest desire for peace, we are
prepared to give consideration to any set of proposals, in keeping
with the above mentioned principles, that the Sri Lankan Government
may place before us.This declaration which built on the Vaddukoddai
resolution from the previous decade, often cited as the Thimphu
principles, became one of the few times that all representative
organisations of the Tamil people on the island of Sri Lanka
formerly agreed a set of overarching principles that defined Tamil
political aspirations.
After rejecting the initial declaration of Tamil aspirations on the
basis of constitutional violation, the Sri Lankan delegation
submitted a proposal in the second phase of the talks.
The Sri Lankan delegation proposal was rejected by Tamil
organisations on the concluding day of the second phase of
talks.
On the 17thof August 1985, a joint response by the Tamil delegation
rejected the proposals as failing to satisfy the legitimate
political aspirations of the Tamil people.
Extracts from the final statement made by the Tamil delegation at
the talks are reproduced below.We, the Tamil delegation, consisting
of six organisations, unanimously rejected these proposals because
it was our considered view that any meaningful solution to the
Tamil national question must be based on the four cardinal
principles enunciated by us.
More than 50 years have passed since 1928 and we have moved from
Provincial Councils to Regional Councils and from Regional Councils
to District Councils and now from District Councils back to
District/Provincial Councils. We have had the 'early consideration'
of Mrs. Srimavo Bandaranaike and the 'earnest consideration' of the
late Dudley Senanayake. There has been no shortage of Committees
and Commissions, of reports and recommendations but that which was
lacking was the political will to recognise the existence of the
Tamil nation. And simultaneous with this process of broken pacts
and dishonoured agreements, the Tamil people were subjected to an
ever widening and deepening national oppression aimed at
undermining the integrity of the Tamil nation.
The four basic principles that we have set out at the Thimphu 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 1950s and later in the face of a continuing and
increasing oppression and discrimination, found logical expression
in the demand for the independent Tamil state of Eelam or Tamil
Eelam. It is a struggle in which thousands of Tamils have died and
many thousands more have lost their properties and their means of
livelihood - they have died and they have suffered so that their
brothers and sisters may live in equality and in freedom.A
political commentator at the time David Selbourne, writing on the
collapse of the Thimphu talks, said,
It is evident that one of the most difficult points for
commentators to grasp - and large numbers of Tamils also - is that
the Sinhalese, as I have maintained since I first began to write on
Sri Lanka, have no intention whatever of reaching a 'negotiated'
settlement with the Tamils. The Sinhalese politicians who presently
misgovern what used to be Sri Lanka, do not intend, cannot embark
upon, and will not concede, any real measure of devolution to the
Tamils.The current leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Mr R
Sampanthan represented the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF),
alongside the political advisor to the Liberation Tamil Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Mr Anton Balasingham and several other Tamil
figureheads at the time.In a tribute to the assassinated leader of
the TULF, Mr A Amirthalingam, Mr Sampanthan, in 2002 said,It was
primarily he who expounded the policies that Thanthai Chelva
enunciated for the benefit of the Tamil speaking people in the
North East. Once the Tamil people realised that the only manner in
which they could avoid being assimilated and annihilated and
preserve their distinct identity, was by bringing about the
restructuring of the powers of governance in Sri Lanka so as to
ensure very substantial self-rule in the North East and by
preserving the territorial and cultural integrity of the North
East, which was their traditional and historical habitation and
which were at the core of the policies enunciated by Thanthai
Chelva, the Tamil people very substantially reposed their faith in
Thanthai Chelva.
See more atTamilnation.org.Posted byThavam