Statement by the for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples
under Agenda Item on the Right of Peoples to Self Determination and its application to peoples under colonial or alien domination or foreign occupation, 25 March, 1999
Self Determination and the Question of Tamil Independence
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The experience of the last fifty years years shown us that the international community is still woefully ignorant of the importance and nature of what is meant by 'self determination'
Throughout the Cold War, the lack of interest in conceptualising self determination at the theoretical, legal and political level, paralleled the International community's overall reluctance to engage in the internal conflicts of states.
The end of the Cold War, and the lack of any critical threat to global security in our time, has once more placed internal conflicts at the forefront of the international agenda. Due however to the inexperience of the international community in this area neither individual states such as the U.S, or international organisations such as the UN or OSCE, have been able to craft coherent and far sighted policies to address the realities and dynamics of internal conflict.
The struggle of the Kosovo Albanians for self determination appears to have at last galvanised the international community to take a more pro active stand towards such conflicts, and to question whether the stubborn insistence on the absolute Inviolability of established borders, be they colonial or otherwise, could constitute a potential threat to global security. From the international perspective, the so called ‘brush fires' of internal conflicts are clear signs that existing patterns of international boundaries no longer correspond to the realities and prerequisites of effective governance.
Naturally, the application of self determination is not necessarily tantamount to the granting of political independence. As embodied in various international instruments, among them the 1993 Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action and the affirmations by the ICJ in the Western Sahara and East Timor cases, self determination can be implemented along different political modalities ranging from local or regional autonomy to outright independence. What is lacking in this description, however is a common set of criteria specifying how the implementation of self determination can be calibrated with the context in which those aspiring to self determination find themselves.
The glaring lack of interest and activity among the international community in developing such criteria is obvious when we consider the fifty conflicts in the world today that are being fought over the issue of self-determination. Only by analysing these and other past conflicts can we begin to develop criteria for self determination, and in the process contribute to removing the stigma attached to liberation movements and clarifying the often subjective understanding of ‘terrorist activities’.
The struggle of the Tamils of Sri Lanka for instance, provides a strong argument for determining when a people should have the right to declare itself an independent and sovereign state. The current conflict in Sri Lanka began following independence in 1948 with a series of government policies that progressively and systematically deprived the Tamil population of its fundamental rights, and institutionalised violent persecutions and human rights abuses. Following 1983 the Tamil’s struggle for their rights which had hitherto been non violent, transformed into a military campaign led the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, whose objective remains the removal of Sinhalese control of the north-eastern region of the island, the historical homeland of the Tamils.
In their struggle against government discrimination the Tamils have three objectives: equality in rights and opportunities, the right of self determination, and the withdrawal of government forces from the north-east. Given the history of the conflict to date, and the government’s refusal to even entertain the possibility of dialogue, the majority of Tamils believe that these objectives can only be fulfilled through the creation of an independent Tamil state. This argument is buttressed by at least five factors that illuminate the conditions under which independence is justified as a form of self determination.
First, the Sri Lankan government has persistently deprived the Tamil population of its entire range of collective fundamental rights. Starting with the 'Sinhala Only' decree instituting Sinhala as the single official language of the state, Tamils have been denied access to education, effective participation in the political system, and have been economically defranchised through the confiscation of property and the destruction of their means of subsistence.
Second these individual policies together amount to what can only be called a form of economic, social and cultural genocide aiming to destroy the fabric of Tamil society by undermining and targeting the fundamental bases of Tamil identity. Instead of accommodating Tamil interests or even attempting to foster a pan Sri Lankan identity, the government has followed a policy of exclusion and annihilation against the Tamils relegating them to the status of social and political 'undesirables'.
Third these policies of social and political exclusion have in recent years been buttressed by policies of physical exclusion. Since 1991 an economic blockade has been imposed on the north-east, a region containing a 90% majority of Tamils. Justified for military purposes, this blockade has prevented the entry of educational materials, electricity petrol, and most alarmingly food and medicine. Through this blockade the government is clearly not targeting the LTTE but rather the Tamil population as a whole, revealing an exclusionary orientation that considers as 'aliens' and targets them for destruction.
Fourth, in other Tamil inhabited regions of Sri Lanka. the government has recently begun policies of forced displacement, removing Tamils from their lands and homes and encouraging Sinhalese settlement . This policy of internal colonialism has only one goal: the alteration of the demographic realities of these areas and the forced relocation of the resulting Tamil refugees towards the north.
Finally, the Tamils have been prevented from effectively addressing their grievances at the political level owing to the permanent Sinhala majority in government. In the last parliamentary elections of 1977, over 75% of Tamils voted for the independence of the Tamil homeland, a result which triggered an escalation of repression by the government.
This vote is tantamount to a referendum on self determination and if the democratic nature of this principle is to be respected by the international community, it can only be considered as conclusive proof of the wishes of the Tamil population a whole to govern itself.
The struggle of the Tamils for independence in Sri Lanka is today one of the world's forgotten wars. Three recommendations follow from this situation.
First, regardless of the political situation, it is clear that the international community has a duty to provide humanitarian aid to the victims of this war and break the government blockade against the Tamils.
Second, greater scrutiny should be placed on those western states that supply the Sri Lankan government with arms and material - their implicit support of a government engaged in repressive acts equivalent to genocide should be publicly questioned.
Third, the United Nations should endorse the establishment of a fact finding mission to the conflict regions to assess both the nature the situation, and the basis on which the Tamil’s claims for self determination rest. Only in this way will the international community be able to arrive at valid criteria linking the rights of people and the manner in which self determination is to be implemented.
