Vaddukkoddai and Thimpu

"Calling for the creation of independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam, based on Vaddukkoadai Resolution (VR) was the last spontaneous and definite mandate by Eezham Tamils in a totally free and democratic atmosphere. As the need for democratic political organisation unfolds afresh, Tamils have to take up the thread directly from the VR. The Thimphu principles and all the other formulas put forward subsequently under the duress of powers, and failed as negotiation models, do not get precedence over the VR as bases for political organization. Mu’l’livaaykkaal was not the real defeat. The defeat comes only when Tamils are made to politically denounce their heart-felt aspirations. The diaspora needs to peruse and correct course of any proposal that stops just at self-determination. In UN charter and in international law it is just an empty phrase that doesn’t protect nations or ethnicities."
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By A special correspondent

(September 27, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Vaddukkoaddai Resolution of 1976, calling for independent, sov¬ereign, Tamil Eelam in the North and East of the island of Sri Lanka was a proclamation of all democratic Tamil political parties, including Ceylon Workers Congress, the then united po¬litical party of the Upcountry Tamils. The Eezham Tamil voters of the North and East overwhelmingly endorsed it in the 1977 elections. Thus it was a definite democratic mandate of Tam¬ils and so far they didn’t get another chance to democratically tell what is in their heart.

The Thimphu principles of 1985 were a diluted version of Vaddukkoad¬dai Resolution, after truncating inde¬pendence and sovereignty and stop¬ping just at Tamil nation, homeland and self-determination.

The Thimphu principles, diluted to facilitate negotiation with Colom¬bo, were jointly put forward by all the Tamil militant organizations of that time and the TULF. There was no man¬date of the people. The most important fact to be noted is that the Indian Estab¬lishment that was always keen in nulli¬fying Tamil independence in the island was behind making Tamil militancy then under its influence agreeable to the principles as a minimum platform for negotiation.

The Indo-Sri Lanka agreement of 1987 imposed on Tamils touched only the point of homeland, that too tem¬porarily, and it was recently breached by Colombo. There was no credible mandate as the LTTE boycotted and the elections took place under the co¬ercing presence of the Indian military. However, the provincial government elected under it finally felt it necessary to declare independent and sovereign Eelam, before winding up and while the Indian military was present.

The Oslo communiqué of 2002 was a further dilution of Vaddukkoaddai in another way, by its adoption of an in¬vented phrase ‘internal self-determina¬tion’. Norway and some other powers that later became the Co-Chairs were behind making the LTTE agreeable to experiment negotiation with this dilu¬tion. Again there was no mandate of people. LTTE’s chief negotiator Anton Balasingham, writing in 2004, ques¬tioned the concept of Oslo Declaration and implied the expiry of LTTE’s con¬cession on internal self-determination.

The ISGA of 2003, which has ref¬erence to Vaddukkoaddai but not to Thimphu, was only an interim proposal during the Co-Chair sponsored peace. It was apparently a move of the LTTE to supersede Oslo Communiqué. The mandate it received from Tamils has to be considered limited as the elections took place with the 6th Amendment to the constitution in effect. Its only elec¬toral validity today is that it binds the TNA.

Even after considerably diluting the freely mandated aspirations of Vaddukkoaddai Resolution to suit their geopolitical agenda, India and the Co- Chairs miserably failed in making the Sri Lankan state agreeable for experi¬menting political solutions.

Had they succeeded, there would have been a different course of events and they would have had a standing in telling the Tamil mind to consider ex¬perimenting within a united Sri Lanka. But they chose the path of brutally abetting or allowing a crushing mili¬tary defeat and open as well as barbed-wire incarceration of the whole nation of Tamils in the island.

Eezham Tamils are now left with the option of politically organising themselves afresh.

In the emerging scenario of demo¬cratic organisation of Eezham Tamil politics there need to be no place for Thimphu, Oslo or any other – non mandated, experimental, and failed negotiation formulas extended by mili¬tancy under duress of powers.

If there is democracy then nothing should prevent the democratic stream to get back to what was last mandated by people and what has become the heart-felt need of Eezham Tamils more than ever now, and to begin the politi¬cal process and negotiation from that point.

However, the very forces that have inflicted military defeat on Tamils are now all out to defeat them politically by capturing, hijacking or deviating the democratic politics of Tamils.

India and the West compete in subtle ways in this exercise, adopting crude as well as highly sophisticated methods. Preparations, institutional arrangements and recruitments have been done long back by them to face a ‘post-defeat’ scenario as it was their foregone conclusion to inflict military defeat on Tamil nationalism.

The powers have carefully studied the non nation-centred ‘virtue’ of sec¬tions of Tamil elite or rather weakness of the Eezham Tamil nationalism, cul¬tivated since colonial times to always orientate their politics in terms of the interests of others - British colonial interests, Colombo-centric interests, Indian interests, Western interests and there was a time when some were ori¬entating it to the interests of Russia and China.

The elite politics of Eezham Tam¬ils - except for the rare occasion of Vaddukkoaddai Resolution, and that too is said to be a result of youth pres¬sure - was always hiding its mind fearing for others and was thinking in terms of others.

Influenced and discouraged by calculated power machinations, cam¬paigns and Karunanidhis, the murmur heard in some elite circles now is that if a powerful armed struggle has failed, what could be achieved through demo¬cratic politics and claiming for what the heart aspires is only bravado.
They fail to see that it is more le¬gitimate and more workable in demo¬cratic organisation to come out boldly with what you feel righteously deserv¬ing, register the claim and then to fight for it or negotiate until acceptable re¬sults are achieved.

This is possible only when we have the guts to independently evolve our politics firmly by ourselves first and then only to relate it to others. Of course this is not possible when we start looking at ourselves through the eyes of others. This mindset is the big¬gest impediment to our political organ¬isation.

Mu’l’livaaykkaal was not the real defeat. Colombo and the pow¬ers know it. Their victory comes only when Tamils are made to politically denounce their heart-felt aspirations. It is in order to achieve this victory much easier, they advice or find agents to advise Tamils to drop their national aspiration, even though democratically registering a national aspiration could in no way be considered an obstacle for negotiation.

Powers have created a desperate situation for Eezham Tamils hoping their will power would wither even po¬litically. But one should not fail to see that if not for Tamils, for the sake of their own interests, the powers have to find out solutions very soon in the is¬land. Tamils have to be ready with their own politics to face the situation.

In the past, the failure of demo¬cratic Tamil politicians in adhering to people’s emotional needs with firm¬ness and their inability to resist undue power interests, paved way for the rise and acceptance of militancy.

Tamils should take care that their political organisation now needs to be truly representative of their aspira¬tions and needs to be firm in negotia¬tion if they want to uphold democracy and avoid another rise of militancy. No need to say the powers should respect this reality, as they too share the fear.

It is now an acid test for the emerg¬ing democratic politics of Eezham Tamil nationalism.

The move in the diaspora for trans¬national government of Tamil Eelam is not only for negotiating the liberation and emancipation of Tamils in the is¬land of Sri Lanka but it is also an al¬ternative government of the diaspora, standing for the global unity, cultural identity, development and global status of the diaspora. The move for this gov¬ernment needs not to bother about any¬one in proclaiming the independence and sovereignty of Eezham Tamils in the island and requesting a mandate from the people in the diaspora.

Self-determination, as it is under¬stood in contemporary times is a vague term when applied to people or eth¬nicities. According to UN charter 1(2), self-determination is interpreted as existing only in state-to-state relation¬ship. Legally, it protects only states.

“Self-determination does not en¬tail the right to be independent, or even to vote for independence” (Geoffrey Robertson, Penguin 2008, p165).

“International law provides no right of secession in the name of self-determination” (Rosalyn Higgins, Peoples and Minorities in International Law, 1995, p33).

“At best, the people’s right to self-determination connotes the right of all citizens to participate in the political process, but this gives power to majori¬ties and not to minorities (Robertson, ibid).
The diaspora needs to seriously peruse and correct the course of any proposal that stops just at self-determi¬nation.

The Tamil National Alliance in the island, operating under constraints of Colombo and India, should not on its own, denounce the independence and sovereignty of Eezham Tamils and should not agree for experimenting anything other than a confederation with the right to secede, is an opinion strongly felt in the diaspora.

Emerging Tamil politics needs to act with far sight. The present scenario of geopolitics is not going to remain the same. The national aspiration for independence and sovereignty, which is a hard reality for Eezham Tamils today, may also get re-defined. In any future possibility of shared sover¬eignty, either regionally or globally, the Eezham Tamils should be able to find their niche smoothly without again facing the tragedy they have undergone for ages.

It is with sadness most of the Ee¬zham Tamils look at a few Marxists among them, especially of the former ‘Peking Wing’, who denounce separate nationalism for Eezham Tamils. The Marxist Communist Party of India also has adopted a similar line.

It is hard to understand that if na¬tional liberation of Eezham Tamils oppressed on ethnic grounds and ‘Ee¬zham’ as a political unit is not accept¬able to them, in what way the united Sri Lankan nationalism and Sri Lanka as a political unit upheld by them is ideologically justifiable. While view¬ing Tamil national struggle as one such serving imperialism, they practically serve the very imperialism by weaken¬ing the struggle.

Ironically, many Sinhala Marxists see justice and recognise the Tamil na¬tional struggle in the island.

The Marxists contributed im¬mensely to the social progress of Ee¬zham Tamils in the past. They have a duty in structuring and strengthen¬ing the Tamil nation further, through achieving social equality. The democ¬ratisation of politics is an atmosphere conducive for them, but they should not deprive Tamils getting their con¬tribution by keeping Tamil national liberation as an untouchable topic, by not participating in it and by not recog¬nising that their goals can be better achieved by accepting Tamil national¬ism as a unit to apply their progressive ideas and shaping it at home and in transnational governance.

-Sri Lanka Guardian