Page 1
listill
Wou The Will No. 4 SSNO2
ANOPENLETTERTO
Yoшг Excellarлсу,
It is with pair aid a guish that We write - the pair and a guish of a people who, you will be the first to admit, hawe, Struggled brävely and Courageously for justice against a Continuing oppression and Who, above all else, have struggled to be recognised as a people with a homeland, We also write as a friend to a good friend who has sought to Come to our assistance. And we ask in pain, why is it that as the Prime Minister of the major power in South Asia, you have been unable to secure justice for the Tamils of Ceylon?
Som aftar your assumption of office as Prime Minister in December 1984, you declared that you wanted a "just and lasting Solution" to the Conflict in Sri Lanka, And we wẹTH bLIøyant with hippā. But more than two years later, that "just and lästing' solution that you hawe spoken about seems to be an ever receding mirage, Our fortunes hawe fluctuated with the frequent changes of Ministers and Secretarie Siri the South Block.
The Thimpu Declaration, which expressed the joint and unanimous Will ofall the Tamil Liberation Organisations and which set out a principled framework for the
 
 

85p
S6-4488 February 1987
MR. RAJIV GANDH
negotiating process was not acted upon. And the negotiating process in search of a political solution has slithered down a slippery slope of Sri Lankan expediency, And all that has been found "lasting" has been the pain anda ng Luish of the Tamils of Ceylon.
More änd i Tora Tails hawe been intimidlated, tortured, raped and killed and today an economic blockade has been imposed on the Northern Districts and an organised military attack launched on the Tamil civilian population - an attack which despite assertions to the contrary continues with increasing ferocity. And Wher We TËsist, A WE SOITTEtimos har the woices of a sanctimonious morality which equates the wiolence of the oppressor with a fight-back of the oppressed who seek to escape that oppression.
Many of us live as wandering nomads, driven from our LaLaaaCaaLL aLLLL LLLLLLL LaLHLL aLLLLL LLLLLLLCCC LHLLL aCO sought refuge. And we scream that a "Biafra' is about to take place in Our homelands. But it would see that our SCreams are not heard — not even by o Lur friends, And We ask. Ourselves whether that is because our cause is unjust,
The four-point Declaration of the Talhil Liberation Organisations at Thimpu in July 1985 was something that the Tamils considered just and principled, Was the clairl of the Tamil people to be recognised as a nationality unjust? Was their claim that they could not hawe ble CCT1 e a people with a Separate lang Lage and a Separate Culture without a contiguous homeland and their fear that without a contiguous homeland they would cease to be a people, an unjust claim and an unwarranted fear? Is their claim to sit as equals with the Sinhala people and fashion a constitutional structure Where equity may prevailan unjust claim?
We do, of Course, Lunderstand President JayaWardene's rejection of our claim to be recognised as a nation because that, after all, is the logical extension of the task in which the Sri Lankan Government is engaged - the task of annihilating the identity of the Tamil people in Ceylon. But we believe that it is not your intention to assist President Jayawardene in his task, Has not the title come for you to declare openly that the Tamils of Ceylon constitute a nation, and that Sri Lanka today is a multi-national State? Has not thë time Corne to declare that the gross and consistent violation of human rights by the Sri Lankan Government constitutes the deliberate response of that Government to the claims of the Tamil people for justice?
Cortir redor Birck page

Page 2
2TAMILTIMES
TAMILTIMES
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION
UK/India/Sri Lanka......E10/USS 17 All other countries....... E15/USS25
Published monthly by
TAMIL TIMES LTD
P.O. BOX 304
London W13 90N
United Kingdom
CONTENTS
B Editorial.............................................. 2.
i Candidly Speaking........................... 3
Appeal of Tamil Welfare & Human Rights Committee................. 4.
News from Canada.......................... 6
LTTE Communique issued from Madras............................................... 7.
"Full Scale"Probe into Prawn Farm Massacre................................. 8
Jayawardene's Bullet-Riddled Heart...................................... 9
Jaffna-Bearing the Blockade. 10
Thimpu Declaration................ ... .s 11
Lanka Offensive Against Militants Continues ........................ 14
Sri Lanka- s Conflict or Compromise?............... 15.
Media File ........................................ 18
Letters to the Editor........................ 19
Classified Ads................................. 22
Bogus Refugees ............................. 24
Views expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of the editor or the publishers.
The publishers assume no responsibility 鑽 for return of unsolicited manuscripts, photographs and artwork.
Printed By Clarendon Printers Ltd, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire.
IT IS MORE thay Lankan political sc the country for the the indifference an elementary safety
ordinarily availabl inhuman and barb
community, India
speedy intervention ruled the streets. Th Foreign Minister, clean-up of the bur that littered the stre and more, the Sri L In the wake of th mediation thereaft particular but the w a good neighbour notwithstanding. pouring into India outbursts evident ir offinding an early s We have seen an daily its Tamil pop to find the finalso have gone on now Sometimes become balance'. But what and perfunctory na even a ray of light community contini knocking at every enduring the abus “terrorists”, etc. T Sri Lankan Gover, attrition, are sonnet what of India?
The inalienable equals in their hom least by the time ( forcefully asserted. is the crux of the m Unless an unequiv are able to work w problem is bound 1 has been compror proposal after anot However, despi and proposals dra borne with fortitu conducive to a sett have come to be Tamil people, and acknowledged as s handful of terroris Secondly, and si Lankan Governm agreement reach implementation of
LTTE'Said J. R. J.
This is the seco
tardy peace proces
the track record o broken promises, confrontation, this If three years ha albeit within a 'coh The HINDU corn, strategy is not fart
 
 

FEBRUARY 1987
three and a half years now since India entered the Sri ene as mediator in the protracted conflict that has plagued last thirty years. Spurred by the pangs of conscience over d inactivity of the Sri Lankan Government in affording and security to a community, their own citizens, and in any civilised state, and Overcome by general grief at the trous atrocities organised and orchestrated by the majority xpressed grave concern' at the genocidal situation and her I brought to an abrupt halt the murder and mayhem that at was July-August 1983. The news of the arrival of India's Narasimha Rao was itself sufficient to launch a feverish it-out vehicles and looted belongings of Sri Lankan Tamils ets - the operation continuing well into the night. For this ankan Tamil community is forevergrateful. ۔ is show of sympathy and solidarity, India's further offer of 'r was not merely welcomed by the Sri Lankan Tamils in 'orld at large as a generous gesture India owed to herself as and to humanity in general, her cultural and ethnic ties The wave upon wave of Tamil refugees continuously across the Palk Straits, even today, and the emotional India itself were and are still proof of the urgent necessity olution to this ethnic conflict. d experienced its demoniac efficiency in decimating almost ulation in what has come to be conceived as a desperate bid lution almost verging on the Nazi tradition. Negotiations or the last three years. The Tamil problem to the world has 2 almost like a see saw finely attuned to the military is now obvious, even to a casual observer, is the dilatory ature of the peace process that has taken so long without manating at the end of the tunnel. All this while the Tamil ues to run helter-skelter in search of safety and security, hospitable door the world over in search of protection, 2 and insults, "cheats', 'brutes', 'economic refugees', he machinations and the machiavellian manoeuvres of the nment in delaying a solution until it succeeds in its war of hing that the Sri Lankan Tamil has come to live with. But,
right of the Sri Lankan Tamils to live and be recognised as eland is what their struggle is about. It is their birthright. At of the Thimpu Conference this had become defined and That was as far back as August '85. This to the Tamil mind atter and lies at the very root of the current confrontation. ocal position is reached, or at least the negotiating parties ithin such a framework, any lasting solution to the Tamil o elude us. What is noticeable however is that this position nised or allowed to slide away in meeting to argue one her without adequate cognizance of this fundamental fact. e the repeated failures of the several talks and discussions wn up and reneged, despite the hardship and suffering le by the Tamil community, two other significant factors lement have emerged almost imperceptibly. The Militants ecognised as an effective and representative voice of the ever since the Thimpu Conference, at least, they have been uch by the Sri Lankan Government. They were once but 'a 5 . - urprisingly so, India has been recently requested by the Sri ent itself, to underwrite and supervise any negotiated 2d. 'Sri Lanka expects India to underwrite the any agreement reached between the Government and the yawardene in his Address to Parliament. ld positive improvement that is noticeable in the long and s. The Tamil community have always wanted it so. Given the Sri Lankan Government in respect of the long list of unfulfilled hopes and breaches of trust that has led to the the Tamils consider vital and certainly augurs well. ve been thus spent in identifying the issues at the periphery, erent framework of solidarity with an oppressed people', as mented editorially, a recognisable baseline to guide India's
seek.

Page 3
erregRUARY "ir987
CANDDLY S.
To speak candidlyistc
THE FUEL blockade imposed on the Jaffna District in early January must be seen for what it was. It constituted a near genocidal attack on the Tamils of Ceylon. The ostensible reason for the blockade by the Sri Lankan government was the announcement of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that they intended to make arrangements for the civil administration of the peninsula - a civil administration which had fallen into disarray and , , which badly neede reconstruction. But, whatever may be the ostensible reason, that which is relevant is that in July 1983, long before the LTTE announcement, President Jayawardene, had set the frame for his government's response to the claims of the Tamil people. for justice, by declaring in his now famous interview with Ian Ward of the Daily Telegraph: “... I am not worried about the opinion of the Jaffna people now . . . Now we cannot think of them. Not about their lives or of their opinion about us . . . The more you put pressure on the north, the happier the Sinhala people will be here . . . really, if I starve the Tamils out, the Sinhala people will be happy . . .''. And the fuel blockade sought to 'starve the Tamils out'.
-·aw
Security Minister uttered in Parlian spring to mind: "W person who uses a terrorist who acco a gun? Is he not al. house to a person wants to kill? Is he watches the movi then goes and tel that way, the arr that occasion the advise the . Tam Province to take relatives in other that the armed f identify those wh terrorists. And, concentrated mili launched on all th act on the Minis holiday from their The recent kili forces follow a p been set. It wa emerged as long a more than 50 Tal by the state secur of Jaffna and Or President of the
Independent observers of the Sri Association, WS
Lankan scene will, therefore, be forgiven if they take the view that the recentactions of the Sri Lankan government which have caused untold misery, and deprivation
the New York Tir 1983: “I believe security authorit previously set . .
”ཡིན་ s amongst the Tamil people were, in facts) bear full responsi actions intended to translate into reality of the right to life
the words uttered three years ago by an elected President about the lives and the opinions of a section of his electorate. And they will also be forgiven if they link the fuel blockade in early January with the massive military offensive launched later in January, against the Tamil people both in the North and the East of Sri Lanka. More than five hundred Tamil civilians have been killed in recent weeks and these included 21 Tamil employees Batticaloa seafood farm who were allegedly lined up and shot dead by the
human rights, es wide powers that given the securi despite the co international hum the murder of Tar 1984 and thereal massacre in Chuir Amnesty Interna there is strong ev
in a si “died as a result
shootings by air fo Sri Lankan army :
state security forces. In a telegram to in Chunnakambu
President Jayawardene, the Batticaloa Citizens' Committee pleaded that Tamil "males were being systematically killed by the armed forces.
It was a telegram reminiscent of the communication sent by Paul Nallanayagam - some 18 months ago about a similar incident and for which he was arraigned before the High Court of Colombo for publishing false rumours - a charge of which he was acquitted after a prolonged period of detention and trial. But then, it is unlikely that telegrams such as those sent by the Batticaloa Citizens' Committee, cause much concern to the Sri Lankan government. After all, to the Sri Lankan government every Tamil is prima facie a “terrorist' and therefore qualified for elimination. The words of National
well.
In May 1984 commented that “ at - least . 100 Ta province of Jaffr security forces — til that these people this is contradict every independe visited Jaffna . . Amnesty Interna greatly concerne has permitted i commit grave ab that it has failed these abuses and t And, yet again, in International refe widespread killin

TAMILTIMES 3
PEAKING. . .
speak openly and frankly.
Lalith Athulathmudali ment in December 1984 "hois a terrorist?Is it the
gun? Or is he also not a
impanies a terrorist with so a terrorist who gives a who has a gun and who e also nota terrorist who ement of the army and ls a terrorist: do not go my is around?' And on e Minister went on to nils in the Northern a "holiday with their parts of the country, so orces would be able to to remained as the real today, it seems that a tary offensive has been, ose Tamils who did not ters advice and take a homelands. ngs by the state security attern that had already is a pattern that had go as 1983. In July 1983, mil civilians were killed ity forces, on the streets ville H. Schell, former New York City Bar moved to comment in mes on the 24th August, that recent killings by ties follow a pattern . The government must bility for these breaches and other violations of pecially in light of the in recent years it has ty forces . . .''. And, ncerns expressed by lan rights organisations, mill civilians continued in fter. In respect of the ınakam in March 1984, tional concluded "that idence’ that the people of deliberate random. orce personnel. And the shot at random not only it elsewhere in Jaffna as
, the London Times in the past two months mils in the northern a have been killed by he official explanation is were all terrorists, but ed by the accounts of nt observer who has ... And in June 1984, tional continued to be d' that the government ts security forces to uses of the right to life, explicitly to condemn o halt their occurrence'. January 1985, Amnesty arring to allegations of gs in the Mannar area'
by personnel of the security forces pointed out that the scale of these killings was "unprecedented and that it was alleged that 'at least ninety unarmed
civilians, nearly all Tamils, many of them
old men, women and children, were shot dead.
According to another independent observer of Sri Lankan scene, Trevor Fishlock, writing in the London Times in January 1985, the Sri Lankan forces were conducting a harsh and remorseless
campaign of intimidation among the
island's Tamil minority - by means of random murder, indiscriminate shootings, beatings, torture and plunder’. And Senator A. L. Missen Summed it all up when he declared in the Australian Senate on the 13th March, 1986: “... some 6,000 (Tamils) have been killed altogether in the last few years. These events are not accidental. It can be seen that they are the result of a deliberate policy on the part of the Sri Lankan government . . .”.
And, it was a policy which the Sri Lankan government did not hesitate to publicly declare, from time to time. Kuldip Nayar reported in The Island on the 17th February, 1985: “... The President conceded that “terrible things' were happening in Sri Lanka . . . asked if he would set up an inquiry commission to go into the atrocities committed by the army against the Tamils, he said: "Did the British appoint a commission during the war? . . .”. The Sri Lankan government has had its moments of frankness. It was frank when it declared that it was no longer worried about the lives or the opinion' of the Jaffna people. It was frank when it declared that in its perception the Sinhala people would be happy if the Tamils are starved'. It was frank in advising the Tamils to take a holiday from their homelands, so that those who remained may be identified as terrorists and dealt with as "terrorists. It was frank when it declared that it was 'at war with the Tamil people. And, it is important that the Sri Lankan government should be
taken at its word.
The Sri Lankan government is engaged in a war to subjugate the Tamil people. But the process of subjugation is not without difficulty. The victim does not quietly submit. He screams for help. He
seeks refuge and becomes a refugee. And,
he even has the temerity to resist and retaliate. And in an increasingly small
world, injustice anywhere begins to affect
peace everywhere. And in the end, it is this which has given rise to the increasing
international concern for securing human
rights. Today, there is a need for informed
opinion everywhere, to recognise that the
continuing violations of human rights by the Sri Lankan government are not some accidental happenings - they have come as the deliberate response of the Sri Lankan
continued on page 4

Page 4
4. TAMILTIMES
APPEA
Tamil Welfare & Human to Prime Minister Rajiv Ga
of the Sri Lar
IN DESPERATION, we plead with you to act decisively an the Tamils in Sri Lanka from the current economic blockade We are disturbed by the reports that the people in Jaffna deprived of fuel and even medicines, oxygen and other supplies. Fuel shortage has seriously affected the movemento denying the facilities to deal with emergency medical treatment These moves by the Sri Lankan Government do not come because we find that the J. R. Jayawardene regime is only car which are not secret as evidenced from the following public utti
1. During Interview with Mr. Ian Ward of Daily
Telegraph, July 11, 1983
"I am not worried about the opinion of the Tamil people. . . now, we cannot think of them, not about their lives or their opinion ... the more you put pressure on the North (Tamil territories) the happier Sinhala people will be here. ... really, if I starve the Tamils out the Sinhala people will be
happy...'.
2. During BBC Interview on October 25, 1985
"I am not fully prepared to tackle Jaffna. I want to finish first with the other provinces. It is not difficult to handle Jaffna. We can cut off food supplied to the peninsula and flush out the Terrorists (Tamils) in a month's time.'
These helpless and persecuted Tamils living in northern and eastern Sri Lanka continue to rely totally on you and India for their survival and safety. We feel that India has an obligation to save the Tamils and also to provide their essential supplies. Also we feel that India has the responsibility to raise the issue at international forums without further delay, and to ensure justice and the safety of Tamils. We submit that the national leaders in India should be concerned about the worsening situation in Sri Lanka and join forces with you in protecting the Tamils who share a common culture, language and religion with fellow Indians. We are not certain whether the Tamil Nadu government have appraised you of the seriousness of the situation in the midst of their own problems. .
J. R. Jayawardene talks about a negotiated settlement, which has always been a facade designed merely to placate India, to deceive the international community while he continued to systematically eliminate the Tamils with his long-time determination to annihilate them, and to erase them from the face of Sri Lanka. If it is really so, it will haunt India in the future and we would have been silent victims. How else could we perceive the mass killings, rapes, plunder, arson, destruction of private property and infrastructure over a period of almost ten years? In July 1983 about 4,000 Tamils were killed. In 1985, the year that was
hailed as the year of was actively involved killed. More than 1,00 in 1986 and many mol and disappeared. Thi not a single day pa about a negotiated se Indian participation. started with the econd northern province a further elimination
eastern province. Tl intensified its milita
Messag Ofndiar Of the N
ECONOMIC BLOCK stoppage of fue a population. Crops, i and medical faciliti standstill. Populati medical facilities. Ir appeal to your honc blockade forthwith Northern Province, lmmediate intervei Northern Province action.
President of the Tar
CANDID
government to the cla be recognised as peop government seeks to i people by threatening paraphrase the word Kruper, there is toda refine the norms
intervention for the ex Self-determination of positive area of hum which, both gover governmental agenci merely with mouthing Securing justice, shou their time and en genocide will continue human rights more of

FEBRUARY 1987
of
ights Committee (U.S.A.) ndhi On the present plight
kan Tamils
promptly to save by the government. have been totally essential hospital fambulances, thus
as a surprise to us ying out its designs
aCeS:
peace in which India , 2,215 Tamils were 10 Tamils were killed e taken into custody was a year in which ssed without 'talks tlement with active The year 1987 has omic blockade of the ind continues with of Tamils in the he government has ry violence against
e Cabled to the Prime Minister egarding economic blockade Orthern Province On 23.1.87
(ADE of the Northern Province of Sri Lanka, in particular the ind essential food supplies, is causing grave hardship to the rrigation, public and private transportation, operation of hospitals es, and distribution of food and essential goods have come to a on is threatened by starvation and death from lack of food and view of this impending human calamity of grave proportion, we urable self to intervene and take action to force withdrawal of this . Despite appeals on humanitarian grounds from the citizens of President Jayawardene has refused to withdraw the blockade, tion from your government alone can save the people of the rom disaster. We make this plea to you in desperation for prompt
DR. BENJAMIN JOSEPH RAJ, ni Welfare and Human Rights Committee of The United States ofAmerica
Tamils, and hundreds of Tamils have already been killed in the eastern province. We do not have to detail the chaos and calamity wrought by such heinous crimes. It is no secret that the Sri Lankan government feared India for decades till 1981. Now, it is perhaps the perception of Jayawardene and his advisors that India has been vacillating and lacking political perception thus encouraging the Sri Lanka government to commit crimes that were never done by the majority against a powerless minority in any country in human history.
We appeal to you “PLEASE ACT NOW AND IN EFFECTIVE MANNER TO SAVE THE HELPLESS TAMILS . . .''. Let it not be said that the patriots of India ignored the sentiments of Tamils in Sri Lanka. Let them all give you moral ѕирport.
Benjamin J. Raj, President February 7, 1987
Y S PEAKI N G Continued from page 3
im of the Tamils to le. The Sri Lankan timidate the Tamil
genocide. And, to of Professor Leo an urgent need to for humanitarian arcise of the right of people. This is the an rights work, to ments and nones, concerned not platitudes but with d increasingly give :rgies. Otherwise, to be a scourge and en than not a mere
exercise in rhetoric. And it is in this context that we welcome Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's initiative in calling upon the Sri Lankan government to lift the fuel blockade, desist from the continued military onslaught on the Tamil people, and to get to the negotiating table. Hopefully, the Sri Lankan government will recognise that peace will not come by killing more and more Tamils and by seeking to starve the remainder into submission - it will come only through a negotiating process firmly founded on the recognition of the Tamils of Ceylon as a nation. It is around reason that peace will grow.
Savitri

Page 5
FEBRUARY 1987
RESUME oFAc
TAMILWELFARE&HUMA
8Camellia Court
1. The committee organised a memorial service for all the Tamil victims of Sri Lanka. This service was done in collaboration with Washington Tamil Sangam. 2. The committee organised a signature campaign in support of unifying all Tamil areas in Sri Lanka. More than one thousand signatures were sent to the Indian Prime Minister. 3. We exhibited the photographs of Tamil victims to Indian gatherings such as Association of Indians in America and attracted several enquiries. 4. The members talked about 'Human Rights Violations in Sri Lanka' in India House of Worship, a Gujarati organisation in Washington.
5. India Hous initiative of Prof huge parcel of refugees at Mac M.U.S. T.
6. The commi grams, letters et appropriate time. decisions and to
perspective. We w interests of India
7. The COmmi "Human rights v, Medical Scient Civitan Interna Amnesty Intern response and con
Sri Lanka Blacklists Swedish Professor
A SWEDISH SCIENTIST, Peter Schalk, has been pronounced "undesirable' by the Sri Lankan Government - this despite the
fact that his research is supported by .
Swedish aid money.
Peter Schalk is professor on history of religion with emphasis on India and East Asia at the Uppsala University. His treatise dealt with Buddhism in Sri Lanka.
For the past two years Schalk has amongst other things devoted himself to a great scientific project on the armed conflict between the ruling Sinhalese and the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka. "I was scheduled to give a series of lectures in Jaffna. There was nothing controversial and the subject did not even deal with Sri Lanka', says Professor Schalk.
The Recipient of Aid Money
"It looks to me as if the Lankan Government wishes to prevent me from gaining contact with Tamil scientists', says Professor Schalk. Aru Sandanam, a Tamil doctor resident in Sweden for the past 17
years, says that a series of independent ...
observers had earlier been refused entry permits to Sri Lanka. This applies amongst others to personnel from the Red Cross and to journalists.
Scientific Research Scrubbed
Other scientists are also affected by the hardening control imposed by the Lankan authorities. In future all scientific research projects will be scrutinised for approval by the Lankan embassies in the various donor countries before a visa is granted.
"I know of four Swedish scientists who are directly affected by this decision but for them there should be no great problem as they are technicians', said Professor Schalk.
The Hydro-Electric Scheme at Kotmale
Aulin,
finalised with at during this and 1 Over and abo International D contributing abo education and ( areas. With this meeting the crit Lanka is only elite.
'It is idealisti into an agreeney at the same time l which terrorises even dropping
a jourr country.
TWO HUND| Toronto Tal representative governmento 11 tO Comme construction Homes. The C place at the c Avenue in To followed by a Co-op in the sa As Preside operative, welcomed th ceremonies. ment of Car agency, Cana Corporation, mortgage fin | annual opera Holder, Toro CM HC. The O| which also pro Subsidy and assistance fo households, v Munro, a Mini While them not involved op, both the
in Sri Lanka financed by Sweden will be

TAMILTIMES5
TVITIESIN 1986 of
NRIGHTS COMMITTEE (U.S.A.) , Baltimore, MD 21234
e of Worship on the
B. P. Shah presented a used clothes to Tamil
dras which was sent to i
tee members sent telec., to Indian leaders at to desist from disastrous put the case in its proper vill continue to do so in the and the Tamils.
ttee members discussed iolations in Sri Lanka" in ists Committee, NIH, tional, Silver Spring, ational etc. and evoked Céዘ‛ክ1. i
8. The committee released a pamphlet on the third anniversary of mass violence: which occurred in Sri Lanka (July 1983) and this was sent to several key persons,
organisations and news media in USA and abroad.
9. The committee in collaboration with Amnesty International, USA has distributed literature, videotapes and audiotapes for mass circulation in USA.
This was our humble start for 1986. We can sustain it further with your donations
by cheque, stamps etc. Though there are
requests to make our committee international, we are unable to do so because of lack of time and money.
least 250 million crowns, he coming financial year. ve this SIDA (Swedishi 2velopment Authority) is ut 200 million a year on development in the rural investment SIDA will be icism that the aid to Sri
benefitting the Sinhalese
c but naive. By entering at with Sri Lanka one will egalise a detestable regime the Tamil population by bombs', says Sven-Ake talist familiar with the
PETER scHALK
Tamil Housing Project
RED MEMBERS of the mid community joined es of four levels of in the afternoon of January morate the official start of of Tamil Co-operative eremonial sod turning took onstruction site on Wade ronto's west end and was reception at Perth Avenue ame neighbourhood. nt of the non-profit CoVr. Mahe Thurairajah he guests and led the Representing the Governnada, which through its da Mortgage and Housing guarantees the 100% ancing and provides an ting subsidy, was Mr. Ken nto branch manager of ntario Ministry of Housing, vides an annual operating d rent-geared-to-income ir half the project's 129 was represented by Mr. Bill stry official.
unicipal governments are in the financing of the CoCity of Toronto Alderman,
Betty Disero, and the Metropolitan Toronto Councillor, Richard Gilbert, had been helping in getting community support and municipal approval for the eight-storey apartment complex. Ms. Disero was able to take part in the ceremony while Councillor Gilbert was represented by his assistant, Mr. Rob Maxwell.
The Society for the Aid of Ceylon Minorities (SACEM), the sponsoring organisation which first began pursuing the development of a housing Cooperative in 1984, was represented by its President, Mrs. Rosaline Rajanayagam. She gave a resumé of the activities of SACEM, noting in particular the relationship of the housing Co-operative to the larger task of welcoming recent refugees to Canada and publicising the nature of the troubles in Ceylon.
The construction of the rental project will take around 14 months with initial occupancy to begin in March 1988.
Lantana Non-Profit Hones, 761 Oueen Street W., Toronto, Ontario M6J 1 G1, telephone (416) 366-3734 will provide further information for would-be residents.

Page 6
6TAMILTIMES – -
s: '...weamwake-wxtreme www.wess
News from Canada.
Tamils March Tor
Protest Sri Lankan Conditions
By Elana Rabinovitch
TWO HUNDRED Tamil demonstrators marched on Parliament Hill to protest what they say is the Sri Lankan government's recent action of preventing food, medicine and gasoline from reaching the island country's northern province where nearly 1,000,000 Hindu Tamils live. The march began at the Sri Lankan Embassy and continued on to Parliament Hill until below zero temperatures forced organisers to cut the rally short. :
Rev. Philip Ratnapala, president of the Eelam-Tamil Association in Ottawa, said the demonstration was to urge the Canadian government to aid Tamils who have had to flee the country to other areas, particularly South India, because of the ongoing civil war.
Earlier, at the Sri Lankan embassy, the demonstrators presented the office of the High Commissioner with a list of grievances. The charges included the embargo of supplies in the northern region, as well as the alleged killings of innocent people in the eastern province, another area of the country heavily populated with Tamils.
Tamil spokesmen said the Sinhalese government's action is particularly crippling to the country's Tamil minority. In the wake of the government's expulsion of Red Cross workers in the area in 1983 and without medical aid, pharmaceuticals and food, Tamils are dying, victims of a civil war which has escalated since it began that year, they said.
By courtesy of** The Ottava Citizen''
NORTH
Jaffna
Mannar Vavuniya Mulaitivu
EAST
Batticaloa Amparai Trincomalee
... To
سسسسسسسسسسسسسسسسT
THETA THE (
MV
persuade Government of the transportati Supplies to the Lanka,
... To use the Ca
Development A
, emergency relie
refugees in the India where the refugees from Si
. To give financi
Government o Madras to cater the Tamil refuge
. To urge the Gov ...to allow the Inte
Crescent to assi
war in the No Province of Sri L
Ар)
Total 831,112 106,940
95,904 77,512
1,111,468
330,899 388,786 256790
976.475
OVERALL TOTAL
2,087,943
(From Cen,
Sri Länka Tamil areas
Sri Lanka Tamils descend from South Indian settlers 1000-2500 years ago.
Få Indian Tamils descend from workers introduced by the British 70-120 years ago.
Country's po
SINHALA SRI LANKA INDIAN TAM MOOR OTHER
 
 
 
 
 
 

eLASLCSqSALMMLrLLSLLMqLerekLSACSLMMMT0LLMMLMLSSLqA LLAeS SAASAAAAAAS
STS"
༡་་་་་་་་་་་་་་་་་་་་་ ངས་ཁ་ལ་ ༠༦ བར་ན་ ས་ག ། FEBRUARY 1987
MLS OF CANADA PETITION OVERNMENT OF CANADA
2 Սrge The Government
the Jayawardene Sri Lanka to restore on of food and fuel Tamil Areas of Sri
nadian International gency (CIDA) to give f to the poor Tamil State of Tamil Nadu, re are over 100,000
iLanka, \
al aid to the State f Tamil Nadu in to the basic needs of eS,
ernment of Sri Lanka
... To confer with the Commonwealth
Canadian Peace
. To send a Canadian medical team
Government has banned and expelled the Red Cross workers since July, 1983).
Office in London and plan to send a Delegation of eminent persons to bring peace to this island country. This peace delegation to visit Colombo, Jaffna, Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Madras and New Delhi to urge all parties to resolve this bitter ethnic conflict,
with medical supplies to Jaffna, Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Madras to care for the wounded victims of the
rnational Red Cross/ is civil War. st the victims of civil rthern and Eastern anka. (The Sri Lankan
P.O. Box 2426, Station D,
January 16, 1987
..., Ottawa, Ontario K1 P5W5
pendix A: Ethnic Breakdown-North & East
Others
Sinhalese Tamils - Moors Indians
4,615. 792.246 13,757 20,001 493 8,710 54,106 28,464 14,072 1588 15,978 54.541 6,640 18,592 255 3,948 58,904 3,777 10,766 116 33,149 959,797 52,638 63,431 2.453
2.98% 86.35% 4.73% 5.71% 23%
10,646 234,348 79,317 3,868 2,720 146,371 78,315 161,481 1,410 1,209 86,341 86,743 74,304 6,767 2,526 243,358 399,406 315,201 12,045 6,465 24.92% 40.90% 32.28% 1.24% .66%
276,507 1,359,203 367,839 75,476 8,918 13.24% 65.10% 17.62% 3.61% .43%
rus of Population and Housing 1981)
pulation: 15m
74.O. AMIL 12.6 % l 5.6% 7.1% O.7% 1981 Census
50% Inkan Tamil
5% inkan Tamil
47%
Tani -

Page 7
PEBRUARY 1987
SRI LANKA LAUNCHES ALL
80 TAMIL CIVILIAMS MAS
IW MAWAR
BY OPENING UP a new front of engagement at Thondamannaru, Valvettiturai and Palali, in the peninsula, Sri Lanka has escalated the arms conflict with the LTTE, and has transformed the entire Northern Province into a theatre of war. Fierce fighting is raging in several areas, between the LTTE fighters and Sinhala soldiers as the war reaches the fifth day, assuming the dimension of an allout offensive by Sri Lankan forces in a desperate attempt to wrest control of the North.
LTTE guerillas are putting up a stiff resistance in several areas of Mannar and Kilinochchi, and the troops having suffered serious reverses in the battle with the LTTE have turned their revenge on civilian masses. The worst affected are the people from Mannar, who are being subjected to untold suffering from the rampaging army.
4,000 troops drawn from various
camps, descending on the villages of
Pandiviruchcha Manthai, Uyelar danthan, went slaughtering in burning down th 80 civilians wer the rampaging arson, looting a children were sacred. 18 refug waram refugee ( and shot dead.
About 500 rounded up at army and held a a human shield advanced. Abot fled into the ji starvation. In th aircraft has drop civilian targets than 30 houses.
In the clashes raging for the t have been killed
Fuel Embargo & Military C
ON 2 JANUARY 1987, the Government
of Sri Lanka announced an embargo on
fuel supplies to the Northern Tamil district of Sri Lanka. The government has admitted that this measure was a response to the declaration by Tamil militants that they would control the issue of vehicle licences as part of their plan to set up thei own civil administration in the region.
The fuel embargo covers supplies :: petrol, dieselene and paraffin to an area
densely populated by civilians who are heavily dependent on them. Petrol and dieselene are vital not only for transport. but also to operate agricultural machinery (water pumps, tractors etc) and to provide lighting. Paraffin is still widely used in the villages of this region as cooking fuel.
There is also growing evidence of an unofficial, yeti effective embargo on movement of supplies. It is reported that nearly 250 trucks have been prevented from reaching the northern peninsula. These trucks were loaded not only with food but also urgent medical supplies including oxygen for hospitals in the region.
The civilian Tamil population of this region who have had to put up with the excesses of an army of occupation during the last three years is now being subjected to a comprehensive economic blockade
which could well lead to a Biafran
situation - death through starvation and back of medical facilities. −
ham-fisted appro
reports (quoted i
the BBC On 1 F attack with armo gunships on an Province, where
civilians lost th survived the attac
local factory wer down. In spite government's de 'borrowed war St. Indian governm seriously enoug concern at this lat The actions ta authorities to co show a cynical ( sufferings they he even though Tar nurtured by tl prevarication an with the Tamil d measure of autono These latest m beyond the scope civilised governm problem.
We therefore u who are concern human lives, to dissuade the Sri L. continuing these reprisal. C Kathir esan, On behar
More recent proof of this callous and-standing Committee of

TAMILTIMES 7
as: 10 February, 1987.
OUT OFFENSIVE IN THE NORTH
SACRED
Thiruketheswaram, kulam and Parappuka
on a wild rampage nocent civilians and heir houses. More than e hacked to death and soldiers left a trail of ind rape. Women and also mercilessly masees from Thirukethesamp were rounded up
refugees have been Madhu church by the s hostages and used as whenever the military ut 10,000 people have ungle and are facing e meantime, a fighter ped napalm bombs on and set ablaze more
; in Mannar, which is hird day, 14 soldiers and a number of them
wounded. The LTTE have fighters.
The jubilant claims made by the Sri Lankan army, that it has destroyed LTTE bases and killed a large number of fighters at Mannar, are far from the truth. The army has killed innocent civilians but claims to have wiped out LTTE fighters. Military atrocities are continuing in the area.
Heavy fighting is still raging at Kilinochchi for the fifth day. In a fierce counter-offensive, the LTTE fighters. have driven the troops from Uruthayapuram, where they attempted to hold hostages.
In the peninsula, heavy fighting is raging around Thondamannaru and Vasavilan. Troops, drawn from the Valvettiturai, Palali, and Thondamannaru armp camps are locked in a fierce battle with LTTE guerillas near Thondamannaru bridge. In an all-out war in the North, the Sri Lankan government have deployed more than 10,000 troops in this combined operation. The air force and navy are actively involved in providing support to the land forces.
fost six
onslaught
ach is just emerging with in the World Service of
ebruary) of a three day
ured cars and helicopter area in the Eastern
it is estimated, 200 Some who
(eir lives. k claim that workers in a e lined up and gunned of the Sri Lankan nial of these reports as ories, the neighbouring ent has taken these h to express grave est development. ken by the Sri Lankan
ontain Tamil militancy*
lisregard for the awful ap on innocent civilians, mil militancy itself was he government's own vacillation in dealing emand for a reasonable my.
oves, however, go far of actions available to a ent faced with a similar
rge those in this country, ed with the sanctity of voice their concern and ankangovernment from devastating methods of
lf of the Human Rights Council Tamils 2 February, 1987.
, Tamils get landed : status in Canada
A TOTAL of 8,639 persons (many of them Sri Lankan Tamils) have been granted landed immigrant status in Canada between the period 21st May to 19th December, 1986. This number is out of a total of 25,000 claimants who had arrived in Canada before 21st May, 1986. One thousand two hundred and forty eight applications were rejected, and about 2,500 kept pending for further checks.
The refugee question and the influx of a large number of refugee claimants to Canada have been periodically highlighted in the press here, first by the arrival of 155, Sri Lankans by boat off the coast of Newfoundland in August, 1986, and more recently by the arrival of thousands of Turks. and persons from South American countries, all trying to beat an imaginary deadline when Canada might shut its doors. In the Montreal area alone more than 700. "refugees', most of them Turks, arrived in just three days. S.V.P
Crackdown on refugee flood
Canada has introduced emergency measures to stem the flood of refugees coming into Canada. On February 20th, immigration Minister Benoit Bouchard announced that he was scrapping the blanket approval for refugee claimants from 18 countries including Sri Lanka, to which Canada did not deport persons if their claims for refugee status were found to be groundless. There will not be any automatic admittance of refugee claimants at Canadian borders, who come through the United States. Transit visas will also be required from citizens of 98 countries who plan to travel through Canada to another country.

Page 8
8TAMILTIMES
'FULL-SCALE' Probent
THE GOVERNMENT will launch a full-scale inquiry into the Kokkadicholai prawn farm incident, National Security Minister Lalith
Athulathmudalisaid yesterday (February 3).
... This follows allegations by the Serendib Sea Food Company that the Police Commandos of the Special Task Force had killed 22 of its employees and counter allegations by the STF that the farm was used as a terrorist hideout with several terrorists on the pay of the
company.
Mr. Victor Santiapillai, Managing Director of the Company has said the employees shot dead were not terrorists. He says the employees were ordered by three members of the STF into
the farm's tractor trailer and shot.
Mr. Santiapillai says the driver of the tractor and a few others are still around to tell the tale. He has also alleged that the STF opened the sluice gates of a number of grow-out ponds thus
allowing the prawns to float out of the farm.
Mr. Athulathmudali said Mr. Santiapillai was of unimpeachable character but the Managing Director of a company could not be expected to admit terrorists were employed by the company. The Managing Director of a company must protect its employees, he said. Mr. Athulathmudali said if the tractor driver and some others were alive, they would be welcome to make a statement to the police to
assist in the investigations.
“The Island' reliably learns that the Board of Directors of the Company comprise Mr. V. Thiruchelvam, Messrs. N. Santiapillai, Joe de Livera, V. E. Selvarajah, Ranjith Fernando, David Milton, K. D. Wisler, R. Lund, I. Lund and Mrs.
Santiapillai, Dr. Neelan
Milton.
Sri Lanka Expects
India. . .
MR. JAYAWARDENE made it clear in Parliament yesterday that his Government would neither put a halt to security operations nor lift the fuel embargo on Jaffna until the LTTE agree to cease violent activities and military preparations and make an announcement in that regard.
He said that Sri Lanka expects India to 'underwrite' the implementation of any agreement reached between the Government and the LTTE.
He said if the LTTE was prepared to attend talks with the Government of Sri Lanka towards a peaceful solution 'appropriate talks might be held in New Delhi with the assistance of Indian Government.
He said he had conveyed this to India on February 13 in his response to Mr. Gandhi's message. Mr. Jayawardene in his response reaffirmed that "the results of the discussions held So far, including the proposals of December 19, will be the basis for evolving a durable solution'.
He also said that if the militants give up their arms, a general amnesty would be granted to them and when talks for a peaceful solution commence the Government would release those held in custody under the PTA against whom there were no charges.
By courtesy of Indian Express, February 20
Meanwhile Mr. Santi Media Centre's version sa to the Media Centre’s fili follows: Serendib Seafoo approved public comp shareholding of a group (mainly US and British) group of Sri Lankan inve institutions, viz the Na Bank, the Export Develo Capital Development and The company has pione Sri Lanka and was the fir prawn from Sri Lanka in (there is no factory or located in Manmunai, adj Mahuladitivu, about two Kokkadicholai.
The Small farm office i farm premises, while the the Farm Manager's resi together in a house a Batticaloa, Mr. Bruce Cy, line of foreign Farm Man the farm, as the farm sleeping facilities for local
On 1 January, 1987, Karunaraj (now shot dead the company since its ince Farm Manager in pursuan policy of replacing foreign Lankans. Mr. Bruce Cyr connection with the Mar capacity of a Visiting Ag responsibility would be to on the west coast. On my la I met Mr. Sumith de S
Officer for the Batticaloa 1987 and introduced to
Manager. The Accountar office also was present.
The farm has been very 1
Tamil
A TAMIL REBEL LEA that more than 20 Committed suicide E ampoule of potassiun wears around his n, captured.
'It is better to take cy own life than be sub torture,” said Rahim, Liberation Tigers of Ta 'We are only hun withstand torture. Secrets, and So We Ch death rather than be struggle,' he said, ad of the 5,000 rebels capsule. Cyanide is re component in fertilis other processes. His C by Brigadier Gerry commander of the J said that 'more that cyanide' but he could figures.
Since 1982, Rahim have lost 420 mer government forces a have committed suicid

FEBRUARY 1987:
) Prawn Farm Massacre
pillai rebutting the is the facts, contrary hts of fancy, are as ls Ltd., is an FIACiny with a 50/50 of foreign investors and a broad-based stors including three ional Development ment Board and the investment Co. Ltd. ‘red prawn culture in it to export cultured April 1985. Its farm processing plant) is cent to the village of to three miles from
s located within the main farm office and lence are combined : Boundary Road, , who is the third in agers never lived at as only very basic light shift staff. a Sri Lankan, Mr. who had worked for ption, was appointed ce of the Company's : ers with trained Sri was to continue his munai farm in the ent, while his main develop a new farm st visit to Batticaloa, ilva, Co-ordinating area, on 17 January, him the new Farm it of the Batticaloa
much operational till
the events of last week. In January, 1987 we had two harvests which brought in for the Company and the country Rs. 3.3 million in foreign exchange. Nine other grow-out ponds which were due to be harvested up to the end of March contained, conservatively, Rs. 12.5 million worth of prawns.
As Chief Executive of the company I have exercised the greatest care in recruiting staff to the company by making enquiries from government officials in Batticaloa and having local senior citizens (e.g., the present Secretary. of the Batticaloa Citizens' Committee and his predecessor) screen new recruits.
Furthermore, we maintained very cordial, relationships with the senior officers of the security forces in Batticaloa (at present, myself with Mr. Sumith de Silva and Mr. Bruce Cyr with Mr. Jayasundere, Head of the Special Task Force) and we have repeatedly told them that, if they had the slightest reservations about any of our Batticaloa staff, they should let us know quietly and we would take action discreetly to get such persons out of the Company.
I repeated the request to Mr. Sumith de Silva on 17 January, 1987, when I met with him and he assured me and my two colleagues that he had no such reservations and would give every support to a development project in the area that offered employment opportunities. How these same good men became terrorists on 28 January, 1987 confounds me. y Against this background, I totally reject the Media Centre's charge that the 22 Serendib Seafoods staff members (plus 12 still missing) who were shot by the security forces were terrorists. The Centre must find some other more intelligent and plausible ways of handling such incidents.
By courtesy of "The Island', 3rd February, 1987.
Rebels Prefer Suicide
To Capture
DER has disclosed O guerrillas have y swallowing the cyanide that each 2ck in case he is
anide and take your jected to inhuman a lieutenant of the Tmil Eelarm. nan. No one can We would reveal | ose an honourable tray our liberation iing that every one wears the poison adily available as a er production and laim was endorsed de Silva, army ffna peninsula. He 50 per cent take not supply casualty
said, the 'Tigers' in battles with
ld more than 200
2 with cyanide.
Tamil Tigers in their Jaffna barracks proudly displaying cyanide capsules.

Page 9
FEBRUARY 1987
JAYAWARDENE'S B
"When every bullet from 'terrorists' or security forces kills a civilian, the bullet goes into my heart,'
President Junius Richard Jayawardene at SAARC meeting in Barngalore.
What a terrible tragedy, that Sri Lanka's dear President should have such a bulletriddled heart. Only now the people of this country, including the thousands of innocent Tamil civilians, men, women, children and the rest of the world know how hard the President's heart could be after so many bullets have entered it during the last three years. Or, could it be possible that the great President has no heart now? To have absorbed so many bullets into that precious heart has indeed been a stupendous feat, especially if such a heart could have existed after almost a thousand bullets, both from the security forces and the terrorists.
: The President has also followed the bullet in my heart cry with, interalia, "I do not know how to stop it. Violence achieves nothing, except distress and hatred'. Then he goes on about the Gautama Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mrs. Indira Gandhi and elaborates on having participated in the non-violent movement in India and ends his speech thus: "As I say again violence means hatred. Hatred cannot be conquered by violence, but only by non-violence and love. That is the way I would like to follow.'
Never Went Back
Great sentiments and well expressed Mr. President. While reading your speech, my mind wandered down memory lane . . . the famous liberalisation of the economy affected the farmers of the North and East very badly. Why wasn't the All Party Conference to settle the minority problems called? After 1977 the gradual escalation of violence started on both sides - the security forces and the militants. . . In 1979 the Government threatened to 'wipe out terrorism in six months' and a State of Emergency was declared. Several Tamil youths taken into custody never went back. . . and although even a Parliamentary Select Committee did not exonerate the police and the security forces, no further investigations were made.
In 1981, the UNP candidate Thiagarajah and two policemen were killed by the militants during the DDC election campaign. That resulted in the storming of Jaffna by the JSSshock troops and security forces. The Jaffna Public Library with around 95,000 valuable books were burnt. The public markets in Jaffna, Chunnakam and Kankesanthurai were also destroyed by fire. . . that was real violence which could not control hatred.
Then came the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and since 1979 how many young men have been taken into custody
and detained oft suspicion of "terrorisn'?
Amnesty Intel Movement in Sri for Inter Racial condemned the concern at the and excesses of Sinhala political the Government
Settlin
That was in ti Sinhala areas i thuggery was Government to The general strik a salary incre dismissing the 100,000.
A pro Gove section of the st, trade unionist. T Around 13 of thi about 10,000 hl their jobs. Viole all trade union ac Thuggery is si During the last f have been us individuals that grievances thro tion.
Take the ca, workers on stri weavers, Buddh, of the clergy, Prof. Ediriwee, were set upon b of the police. M. absolute innoce was not aware of Police officers human rights we and any damage Court paid by th everything Sup humiliated and , had been tran, vehicles;
EROS
The Eelam Re appealed to in Cause. He calle
No problem the liberation PLO and SWA negotiation, a which movem movement hac
He further si Government a Colombo had prepared total
interim settl Comprising th interim setten the EROS wou |

3 ጳጳ፣i ፕጻጿዶ£ፍ + + TAMILTIMES9
ULLET-RIDDLED HEART
en incommunicado on the being involved with
national, the Civil Rights Lanka and the Movement Justice and Equality have PTA and expressed grave violation of human rights the security forces. Many parties have also called on to repeal the PTA.
g By Thuggery he North. What about the n the South? Since 1977 resorted to by the suppress dissenting views. ce of July 1980 demanding ase was suppressed by strikers numbering about
rnment mob attacked a rikers, killing Somapala a heir families are starving. em committed suicide. Yet ave not been given back 'nce was used to Suppress tivity.
ynonymous with violence. ew years after 1977, thugs ed. against groups or sought redress of any ugh peaceful demonstra
ses of students, women ke, nurses, the 700 blind ist monks, joint gatherings the Sinhala Balavegaya, ra Sarathchandra. They y thugs with the assistance ay be our President in his nce and dharmista ways any of those incidents.
found guilty of violating are immediately promoted 's ordered by the Supreme le Government. To crown eme Court judges were intimidated by thugs who sported in state owned
Several leading politicians in the UNP
are alleged to have hit squads ready to be, rushed to any place where settlement by thuggery was called for. Settling matters by
thuggery may give short-term results
suitable to the Government. But thuggery could boomerang as has happened in the
case of the militants. Of course the
President, whose heart bleeds when a bullet
enters it, has not been aware of any of the
incidents of violence given in general outline.
Unbridled Violence
The Referendum of December 1982, when unbridled violence and thuggery were unleashed often encouraged by the police, was the final trump in the game of thuggery. Then came the holocaust of July 1983. The orgy of looting, arson, rape and murder went unchecked. The immediate provocation, allegedly was the killing of 17 Sinhala soldiers by Tamil militants on July 23. But the killing of about 40 Tamilyoung men taken by the security forces on July 24 was made public only later.
From the dawn of July 25, thugs went on the rampage. There was absolute anarchy, with some sections of the security forces participating in the violence. A curfew was declared from Monday 2 p.m. to Wednesday. That kept indoors only the law abiding people. The thugs never had it so good.
On Thursday, 29 July, 1983, President Jayawardene spoke to the nation on television. His message was in reality an excuse for the violence by the Sinhalese. He added that early legislation (the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution making the demand for a separate state illegal) would be passed early.
It would have been fun going down the corridors of memory had the incidents that took place in this country not been so full of tragedy, misery and frustration for not only the Tamils but to all reasonable Sinhalese.
However, I only weep for the bullet. riddled heart of President Junius Richard Jayawardene. - •ܥ
A, M. HETTARACHCH
s Leader Pleads for PLO-type Status
volutionary Organisation (EROS) co-ordinator, Mr. V. Balakumar, has dia formally to recognise the liberation movements fighting for the Tamil d upon the India Government to spell its stand out clearly.
with LTTE: Addressing a press conference in Jaffna, Mr. Balakumar said movements would then gain the status enjoyed by organisations like the APO. Such a move would dilute the aggressive stance of Colombo in nd increase India's leverage in the process. Mr. Balakumar did not say ents he wanted recognised. The EROS leader, however, said that his dno problem with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). aid EROS was not prepared to take part in direct talks with the Sri Lanka lone. Experience of bilateral talks between the Tamil political parties and shown that nothing worthwhile could be achieved. The EROS was not k without Indian good offices being available.
lement unlikely: Mr. Balakumar said the EROS ultimate goal was Eelam, e Northern and Eastern Provinces and Uva district. It did not think an nent was possible but was prepared to accept one if it emerged. If it did, ld definitely not contest for any political office, he said.

Page 10
10TAMILTIMES..
A.
JAFFNA – Beari
COLOMBO'Seconomic blockade of the Jaffna area in nor is the latest strategy in the Sri Lankan Government's w Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the group that control of the area. To gauge the Success of that strategy a overall limitary situation, India Today's Madras Corres Venkatramanivisited Jaffna last month and reports:-
THICKSMOKE billowed over Jaffna last fortnight. But it had nothing to do with any battle between the army and the LTTE, or the “boys' as they are popularly known. It was a fiery demonstration of the total control that the Tigers currently wield over the strategic city. The cause of the smoke was the four-storeyed Veerasingham Hall, the tallest building in Jaffna town. Located within 50 yards of the Old Dutch Fort, it had once housed income tax and labour department offices. 3. Shortly before noon, the northern regional commander of the LTTE, Sathasivam Krishnakumar alias Kittu, his deputy Kanakaratnam alias Major Rahim, and other important leaders of the militant group arrived at the building site with barrels of petrol and bottles of kerosene. They had managed to procure the fuel in spite of the total cut-off of all fuel supplies to the Jaffna peninsula by the Sri Lankan Government from the new year. They doused the building with fuel and then set the city landmark on fire.
“We decided to burn down these buildings because we had information that the army was planning to advance from the fort and occupy them,' explained Rahim. The army, keen to live down the ignominy of having been contained by the Tigers, drives a lot of propaganda mileage by occupying abandoned buildings in the
OW.
But there is nobody, who can raise as much as a finger against the LTTE among the 1.5 lakh people of Jaffna town or even the 8 lakh population of the entire Jaffna peninsula. Outside the Sri Lankan Air Force base in Palaly, the newly established army bridgehead in Mandaitivu Island off Jaffna town, and the tall boundary walls of
the historic Jaffna Fort, it is the LTTE's...,
writ that runs in the whole of the Jaffna. peninsula as well as parts of Vavuniya and Mullaitivu districts immediately south of
Jaffna, and a good chunk of the north
western Mannar district. The Sri Lankan Government had imposed a fuel blockade on Jaffna from January 2, because the Tigers, who had been gradually taking over more and more wings of the administration in the northern Jaffna peninsula, had declared their intention to register vehicles and police traffic.
After 1983, Colombo has slowly lost control of Jaffna. Police disappeared from the north. The taxation authorities and other government departments followed suit. Even the municipal sweepers yanished. Civil administration collapsed.
Today, at each of the nine entrances to affna town within 100 to 200 metres of the periphery of the fort, a couple of armed
: tUITINOVer
LTTE sentries stand gu coexistence of the milit militants. Anybody ent from anywhere near th sign a register maintai entry post and take Tigers have put up effectively mined the these posts. Two battal Soldiers at the fort a helplessly as groups of l year-olds Sporting a v cated weapons rule the J ... It is the LTTE, the been trying to fuel Jaff and practically wiping Eelam Liberation Org and May last year, and curtain down on the Eelam People’s Revolu Front in the north.
The cadres of the Eel Organisers are surviving their Convener V. i expressed confidence ir Velupillai Prabhakar, military commander returned to Jaffna from other prominent mili People's Liberation Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) to Tamil Nadu. C Gopalarathnam, editor Jaffna Tamil newspape LTTE which is functi Towards the end of las even gained implicit o from Colombo when a from the capital visite discussions With the Tig{ But with the C Government's civil adın
...north the Tigers had to
into other than m
operation. That was wh
shoe began to pinch. Th
: 116 people's courts to
divisions of the penins
that kind of dispensa justice wasn't foolpro stopped collecting incC
taxes, the arbitrarily collecting the sales tax from wholesa had classified as luxur and alcoholic beverages made a half-hearted atte own municipal conserv the northern provi apparently, the boys wi home with their bunker brooms. And last mor announced that it was
vehicles and have its C

FEBRUARY 1987
ng The Blockade
thern Sri Lanka var against the now has total
and analyse the.
pondent S. H.
ard. It is an ironic ary forces and the ering Jaffna town e fort area has to ned at an LTTE
permission. The road blocks and roads at each of
ions of uniformed
und Palaly watch ungi-clad 16 to 25ariety of sophistiaffmaroost.
refore, which has na after taking on out the Tamil
フ
anisation in April
after bringing the
activities of the tionary Liberation
am Revolutionary g in Jaffna because Balakumar has the leadership of an, the LTTE who recently y Tamil Nadu. The itary group, the Organisation of has been confined oncedes S. M. of Eelamurasu, a r: "It is only the oning in Jaffna.ʼ it year, the LTTE fficial recognition peace delegation d Jaffna and held ær leaders. ollapse of the ministration in the necessarily fan out ilitary areas of here the liberation e Tigers organised function in all the ula, but certainly tion of summary of. As Colombo xme and business Tigers started ir own 10 per cent lers on what they ies like cigarettes . The LTTE even ampt to provide its fancy services for ince, but duite ere much more at 's rather than their nth, as the LTTE going to register wn traffic police,
Colombo came down heavily with a cripplingfuel embargo. : Admittedly, Jaffna province had received 7.09 million gallons of petroleum products from Colombo during each of the last three months of the last year,: which was half the normal monthly supply before 1983. But when Colombo suddenly clamped the fuel embargo, the peninsula had fuel stocks to last for barely a month.
The Jaffna economy had begun to totter much earlier. While there are hardly any economic statistics about the peninsula available, it is a pointer that while the Jaffna coast used to export over 30 metric tons of fish daily to southern Sri Lanka during the fishing season lasting two months in a year, the figure now is eight metric tons. And roughly one-third of the peninsula population is directly or indirectly dependent on fishing for its livelihood.
While some fuel was getting smuggled into the peninsula last fortnight, the exorbitant prices of . kerosene and firewood has made life difficult for poor and lower middle class people. Firewood costs have gone up by 50 per cent. Petrol prices went up from the normal rate of Rs. 17.50 for a 3/4 litre bottle to over Rs. 60. Consequently transport costs and the prices of all essential commodities also shot up. Potatoes weren't available in Jaffna last fortnight, and even locally grown onions, which used to be Rs. 3 a kg in relatively normal times, were being freely sold in Jaffna town for Rs. 10 a kg. Nearly a hundred lorries used to cross Elephant Pass every day carrying foodgrains and other essential commodities to the northern peninsula but last fortnight, on average, only four lorries were allowed to cross the pass everyday to go to the north.
The problems were everywhere. An official source disclosed that in the Jaffna Government Hospital half the stock of life-saving drugs would run out by midFebruary and 19 of the 34 oxygen cylinders in the intensive care unit were empty.
The Sri Lankan Government deliberately imposed the economic blockade on Jaffna in the hope that the suffering northern Tamils would pressurise the Tigers to come to a settlement with Colombo. National Security Minister Lalith Athulathmudali made no secret of the fact that “what we want is the dismantling of the LTTE's civil administration and that the Tigers should come to negotiate with us. We can even think of giving amnesty to many militants. We are in touch with Kittu and Rahim but have not yet been able to establish contact with Prabhakaran”. Sri Lankan President J. R. Jayawardene told India Today “I am willing to consider a general amnesty for all the militant Eelamists if they are willing to lay down arms and accept the unitary
ss status of the country'. continued on page 19

Page 11
FEBRUARY 1987,
AT THIMPU, in July, 1985, all six Tamil Liberation Organisations, consisting of the Eelam Peoples Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), the Eelam Revolutionary Organisation (EROS), the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Peoples Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO),
and the parliamentary Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), jointly and unanimously declared: - -
"It is our considered view that any meaningful solution to the Tamil national question must be based on the following fou cardinal principles:- ; :
1. recognition of the Tamils of Ceylon as a nation or nationality . .
2. recognition of the existence of an identified
homeland for the Tamils in Ceylon
3. recognition of the right of self-determination of the
Tamil nation
4. recognition of the right to citizenship and the fundamenal rights of all Tamils who look upon the island as their country.'
“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 . . . However, in view of our ernest 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.'
The Thimpu declaration continues to represent a watershed in the Tamil struggle because apart from anything else, it was the expression of the joint and unanimous will of all six Tamil Liberation Organisations engaged in the struggle and it therefore served to crystallise the political issues of that struggle.
Sinhala Nationalism's Denial of Tamil Nationalism
But, the negotiating process initiated at Thimpufloundered and continues to flounder because of the continued refusal of the Sr. Lankan government to recognise the existence of the Tami nation in Ceylon. The stand of the Sri Lankan government was enunciated by Dr. H. W. Jayawardene, the leader of the Sr. Lankan government delegation to the talks:
". . . it is clear that a political settlement of the Tamil question cannot be made either on the basis of the claim to be a separate nation or nationality distinct from other racial groups that are citizens of Sri Lanka or on the basis of a claim to be heirs to a territorially demarcated area styled the 'traditional homelands o the Tamils' transcending the provincial boundaries of the Norther and Eastern Provinces, since both such claims are inconsistent with and contradictory to a united nation' (Dr. H. W. Jayawardene Report to the Cabinet on the Thimpu Talks - Sunday, 18th July 19851.
And, ten months later, in presenting the so called peact proposals' of the Sri Lankangovernment to the Political Partie Conference on the 25th June, 1986, President Jayawarden reiterated that the proposals of the Sri Lankan Government hav to be examined within the framework of the principles to whicl the Sri Lankan Government Subscribes and these included, no only the maintenance of the unity, integrity and sovereignty of Sr Lanka', but also the maintenance of the unitary character of th Sri Lankan constitution”.
Pragmatism?
Again, Lord Avebury, a member of the Internationa Emergency Committee on Sri Lanka has been moved t COIIIIlent
". . . I may be wrong in my interpretation, but it is not helpfulfo either side to lay down, in advance of negotiations, condition

TAMILTIMES 11
N: THE PATH OFREASON
which are absolute. . . If there is a genuine willingness to negotiate, the fairest solution would seem to be one that demands equal concessions, however that can be measured. On the other hand, there has been so much bombastic rhetoric about 'legitimate expectations on the Tamil side, and so much bloodshed in the struggle for 'liberation, that some elements would find it emotionally impossible to accept anything less than unconditional surrender from the government . . .' I Lord Avebury: Keynote Speech of the International Alert USA Seminar on Sri Lanka, Los Angeles, 25th October, 1986). m
The view that it is not "helpful for either side to lay down, if advance of negotiations, conditions which are absolute' and the further view that "given the willingness to negotiate, the fairest solution would seem to be one that demands equal concessions are views that do have a certain pragmatic appeal. It is a pragmatic approach which may also be described as the 'shopkeeper's approach' to the resolution of conflict - that which is fair is the bargain that is struck. But it may not always be easy to determine where pragmatism ends and the slippery path of expediency begins, And the negotiating process may then descend into a political horsedeal, which at best may serve the immediate self interest of some of the negotiators, but will be unrelated to the central issues of the conflict. And political horsedeals quickly become unstuck. A political negotiating process is concerned with securing the interests of large numbers of people and that which is fair and therefore acceptable to large numbers of people, cannot be determined without crystallising, beforehand and with some care, the central matters that are in issue. And, strange as it may seem to some, the Tamil Liberation Organisations took the view that an open discussion about the framework for the negotiating process would help, rather than thwart, the negotiating process.
by Nadesan Satyendra
Thimpu Declaration: Rhetoric Or Path Of Reason?
Be that as it may, comments such as those made at the International Alert Seminar and the continued refusal of the Sri Lankan government to accept the framework suggested at Thimpu focuses attention on the need to examine the rationalities of the Thimpu declaration. Did the Thimpu declaration represent bombastic rhetoric or did it seek to concretise the political reality which had moved both the Tamil guerrilla movement and the Sri Lankan government to peace talks'? Did the Thimpu declaration prescribe absolutist pre-conditions to the negotiating process or did it set out a principled framework intended to advance the negotiating process '2 Was the Thimpu declaration a reflection of an "emotional attitude which would not "accept anything less than unconditional surrender from the Sri Lankan government' or, on the contrary, did the declaration recognise that "different countries have fashioned different systems of government to secure the principles set out in the declaration and did the declaration therefore seek to construct a rational basis for discussion about an acceptable political solution? What does reason show? . . . . . . .
What Does Reason Show?
Reason shows that a political resolution of the conflict between the Sinhala people and the Tamil people should, after all, begin by recognising the existence of the Sinhala people as a people, and the Tamil people as a people. Otherwise we shall all be engaged in an exercise in cuckooland. And central to the Thimpu declaration was the claim for the recognition of the Tamils as a nation. And it was this which led the representatives of the Tamil Liberation Organisations to declare at the Thimpu Talks on 17th August, 1985: -
. . we say, very respectfully, please understand that we too are a people and please deal with us on that basis, or not at all. Please do not give us the niceties of legal interpretations. Please tell us
continued overleaf

Page 12
fŘMIETIMÊg
continued from page 11 straight: do you regard us as a people or not? We are here because we seek to engage you in the serious business of talking about the problems that have arisen between the Sinhala people and the Tamil people. And that is why, as a reasonable people, we say at the beginning, please tell us with whom do you say you are talking? . . . And for our part, we declare here at Thimpu, without rancour and with patience, that we shall speak at Thimpu, or for that matter anywhere else, on behalf of the Tamil nation or not at all . . .' (Statement made at Thimpu on behalf of the Tamil Liberation Organisations on the 17th August, 1985)
A Nation Is Not A State
What, then is a nation? It is useful to begin by recognising with Professor Seton-Watson that the belief that every state is a nation or that all sovereign states are national states has done much to obfuscate understanding of political realities:
"The belief that every state is a nation, or that all sovereign states are national states, has done much to obfuscate human understanding of political realities. A state is a legal and political organisation, with the power to require obedience and loyalty from its citizens. A nation is a community of people, whose members are bound together by a sense of solidarity, a common culture, a national consciousness . . .' I Professor Hugh Seton-Watson: Nations & States - Methuen, London, 19771
The continued assertion of the Sri Lankan government that the demand for the recognition of a 'Tamil nation was inconsistent with and contradictory to a united nation' is an attempt to obfuscate an understanding of political realities. It is an assertion which confuses by using the term 'nation' in two different senses at the same time. It is an assertion which prefers to cloud the reality that not 'every state is a nation' and that not “all sovereign states are national states'. And it is an assertion which refused to face up to the question whether Sri Lanka today is a multi-national state consisting of both the Sinhala nation and the Tamil nation.
The Political Force of Tamil Nationalism
But, perhaps, more than matters of constitutional or international law (though, these are not without relevance and do have their place) that which must be confronted in a search for a political solution, is the political reality. What is the political force of Tamil nationalism today? Again, what does reason show? Reason shows that the Tamil nation is a deep and horizontal comradeship which exists amongst the Tamil people - deep because it is rooted not only in their cultural identity but also in their suffering; horizontal because it prevails despite the inequalities amongst them. It is a stubborn togetherness born out of a process of differentiation and opposition. Distress has bound the Tamils of Ceylon together. Suffering is a great teacher. That was the lesson that was taught by Gautama, the Buddha. And the suffering of the Tamil people, appropriately enough in Buddhist Sri Lanka has served to educate them about their identity - that it did not matter whether they were Jaffna Tamils, or Colombo Tamils, or Batticaloa Tamils or Trincomalee Tamils or Badulla Tamils or Indian Tamils-that it did not matter whether they were Hindu Tamils or Christian Tamils or Muslim Tamils - that it did not matter whether they were so called high caste' Tamils or so called “low caste Tamils- that it did not matter whether they were public servants, professionals, teachers, students or farmers, employees or employers, well-educated or ill-educated, qualified or not - that which did matter to the environment in which they lived was that they were Tamils.
And, it was the political force constituted by this togetherness which took the representatives of the Tamil people to Thimpu in July, 1985. It was a political force rooted in the direct personal feelings and the material interests of large sections of the Tamil people, whether they be public servants deprived of increments and promotions in consequence of the Sinhala Only Act, whether they be expatriate Tamil professionals who had left Ceylon in the face of a growing discrimination so that they may lead a life not of luxury but of dignity, whether they be those who continued to suffer discrimination at their workplace because they had nowhere else to go, whether they be students deprived of
t]

*/: A } .
řÉ8RUÁRý 1987
imission to Universities because of standardisation, whether ley be parents who saw no future for their children's ivancement, whether they be farmers who were forced to ontend with an 'open economic policy which granted them no rotection, whether they be businessmen who had their usinesses burnt and destroyed by Sinhalagoon squads, whether ley be those who had their kith and kin killed and raped and their omes looted, whether they be those who were rendered omeless and who lived in refugee camps in their own omelands', whether they be those who had left their homelands fear and who had sought refuge in Tamil Nadu or as wandering omads in foreign lands, whether they be those who continued to 'main in Sri Lanka and live in fear because they were Tamils and hether it be those who said that "enough was enough and who ould not take it lying down anymore and who were ready to give leir lives in an armed struggle.
A nation is an idea - but it is more. And they err who conceive e nation as a mere intellectual platform. On the other hand, ey also err who see the force of nationalism as simply the thrust a people to better their material conditions of existence. These tter fail to recognise that ideas too have a material force. And work without ideal is a false gospel'. A nation is an amalgam of e “ideal with the “material' and it is this inter-play, evidenced in e cultural identity of a people, which gives nationalism its rength in the political arena - its power to influence and direct Le conduct of millions. To fail to understand this is to fail to nderstand the wellsprings of human action. It is also to fail to nderstand that which has made possible the colossal sacrifices so illingly suffered by so many thousands of young Tamils during lepast several years.
inked To The Tamil Homelands
And, nations do not come into being in the stratosphere. It is nd which constitutes the physical base of the life of a people and is around land that the togetherness of the Tamils of Ceylon has own. The homeland of the Tamils in the North and East of eylon did not come into existence overnight. The togetherness the Tamils of Ceylon has grown, hand in hand, with the growth their homelands in the North and East of Ceylon where they ved together, worked together, communicated witheach other, unded their families, educated their children, and also sought fuge, from time to time, when subjected to physical attacks sewhere in Ceylon. Without an identified homeland, the Tamils Ceylon would not have become a people with a separate culture ld a separate language and without an identified homeland, the amils of Ceylon will cease to exist as a people in the future. And, ese were the rational concerns which found expression in the cond claim at Thimpu - the claim for the constitutional cognition of an identified homeland for the Tamils in the North ld East of Ceylon - a claim which, after all, the 1978 Sri Lankan onstitution had itself, by implication, partially recognised when
made provision for the use of the Tamil language in the orthern and Eastern provinces.
nd The Right Of Self-Determination
And, the third claim at Thimpu - the claim for the recognition the right to self-determination of the Tamil nation was intended secure an open recognition of the equality of the parties to the gotiating process. The Tamil people do not deny the existence the Sinhala nation in Ceylon. The question is whether the nhala people are ready and willing to recognise the Tamils of ylon as a nation and to deal with them on that basis. And on the swer to that basic question, depends not only the political status the negotiating parties, but also the nature and content of any litical solution, and the political will of both the Tamil people d the Sinhala people to work for the implementation of that hich may be agreed. The concerns of the Tamil people for their hysical security, employment and education' cannot be resolved a negotiating process unless the Sinhala people recognised the lmils as a people and the two people, together fashion a institutional structure on the basis of such recognition. It will be e to pretend that equity will be achieved through a negotiating ocess which does not itself commence on an equitable footing.
continued opposite

Page 13
F苷{UXR冷'罹萨
Exaggerated Sinhala Nationalism
Sufficient, perhaps, has been said to establish the rationalities of the Thimpu declaration. But, there are none so blind as those who refuse to see. And, the Sinhala political leadership refuses to see the existence of the Tamil nation. They refuse to see the existence of the homeland of the Tamils in Ceylon. They refuse to acknowledge the right of the Tamil people to sit as equals with the Sinhala people and negotiate a political solution to the conflict between them. They continue to compete with each other to nurture an exaggerated Sinhala nationalism, which claims that it is the Sinhala majority who should rule. And, if patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, then, the Sri Lankan Constitution has today become the first refuge of Sinhalachauvinism.
窦 which Has Sought Refuge In The Constitution
... ". . . Under our Constitution . . . the powers of Government inhere in all the People of Sri Lanka and this sovereignty is itself declared to be inalienable. A federal system which implies a divided sovereignty is therefore inconceivable in Sri Lanka . . .” (Statement of Observations dated the 30th January, 1986 by the Government of Sri Lanka on the Proposals of the Parliamentary Tamil United Liberation Front
It is true that in a democracy, sovereignty is vested in the people and is inalienable. The people are sovereign and they rule. But people do not rule anyhow. They rule through the instrumentalities of a constitution. They exercise legislative power through an elected Parliament. They may exercise executive power through a directly elected President or through an indirectly elected Prime Minister and a Cabinet. They exercise judicial power through judges appointed under laws enacted by Parliament. The circumstance that a people exercise power through a number of different instrumentalities does not have the result that their sovereignty is eroded. On the contrary, it is the checks and balances between the different instrumentalities which secures for a people their true sovereignty. And so, too, the checks and balances in a federal system of government, secures for a people their true sovereignty. A federal constitution does not somehow “divide’ the sovereignty of a people - on the contrary, it enhances their sovereignty, by helping them to exercise their power and their influence more effectively, and by helping them to cooperate and work with each other on an equitable basis. And in the end, a federal constitution, when enacted by a people, will itself be the expression of their sovereign will. But, the Sri Lankan Government would have the Tamil people and the world believe that the federal constitutions of the U.S.A., the U.S.S.R., India, Australia, Canada and Switzerland are all instances of a 'divided sovereignty' and, for that reason, "inconceivable in "democratic' Sri Lanka.
And “Democracy
And, to the Sri Lankan government democracy means rule by a permanent ethnic majority within the confines of a unitary state.
"The Tamil United Liberation Front cannot be unaware of the longstanding opposition of the two major political parties of the Sinhala people, who represent nearly 74% of the population, to a federal form of government. . .” (Statement of Observations dated 30th January, 1986 by the Government of Sri Lanka on the Proposals of the Parliamentary Tamil United Liberation Front)
Whilst democracy may mean according to the rule of thર્ટ majority, democracy also means government by discussion and persuasion. It is the belief that the minority of today may become the majority of tomorrow that ensures the stability of a functioning democracy. But in Ceylon, where a unitary state has sought to govern a territory inhabited by two peoples, the arithmetic of democracy has resulted in the continued and permanent dominance of one people by another. The reality of democracy in Sri Lanka is that no Tamil has ever been elected to a predominantly Sinhala electorate and no Sinhalese has ever been elected to a predominantly Tamil electorate. And so the practice of democracy within the confines of a unitary state has inevitably resulted in rule by a permanent ethnic majority. It was a permanent ethnic majority which through a series of legislative and administrative acts, ranging from disenfranchisement, and

TMAVÉSf
standardisation of University admissions, to discriminatory language and employment policies, and state sponsored colonisation of the homelands of the Tamil people, sought to establish its hegemony over the Tamils of Ceylon. These legislative and administrative acts were reinforced from time to time with physical attacks on the Tamils of Ceylon with intent to terrorise and intimidate them into submission. It was a course of conduct which led eventually to the rise of Tamil militancy in the mid-1970s with, initially, sporadic acts of violence. The militancy was met with wide ranging retaliatory attacks on increasingly large sections of the Tamil people with intent, once again to subjugate them. In the late 1970s large numbers of Tamil youths were detained without trial and tortured under emergency regulations and later under the Prevention of Terrorism Act which has been described by the International Commission of Jurists as a "blot on the statute book of any civilised country'. In 1980 and thereafter, there were random killings of Tamils by the state security forces and Tamil hostages were taken by the state when 'suspects were not found. Eventually, in the eyes of the Sri Lankan state all Tamils were prima facie "terrorist' suspects. And in 1983, the Tamils were deprived of the effective use of their vote by an amendment to the Constitution which the International Commission of Jurists has declared to be a violation of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights and which has rendered vacant the Parliamentary seats of the elected representatives of the Tamil people. And it is to this democracy that the Sri Lankan government refers when it invites the attention of the Tamil United Liberation Front to the views of “the two major political parties of the Sinhala people, who represent nearly 74% of the population' and who have expressed a longstanding opposition' to a federal form government'. And it is this “democracy' which the Sri Lankan government seeks to preserve-by armed force, if necessary.
A Sinhala Chauvinism Which Denies The Existence Of The Sinhala Nation
The Thimpu declaration sought to question openly and directly the claims of an exaggerated Sinhala nationalism - a Sinhala chauvinism which has sought to feed on the latent fear of the Sinhala people of the Tamils of neighbouring Tamil Nadu and which has sought to encourage the belief that a “Sinhala identity can be secured only at the expense of erasing the identity of the Tamils as a "people' in Ceylon if not now, at least at some future date - a Sinhala chauvinism which has sought to subjugate the Tamils of Ceylon by attempting to “assimilate' and “integrate the Tamil people into a so called "Sri Lankan nationality within the confines of a unitary state whose official language is Sinhala, whose official religion is Buddhism and whose official name was itself changed to the Sinhala Sri Lanka without the consent of the Tamil people. It is a Sinhala chauvinism which in pursuance of its objectives, has, logically, sought to deny the existence of the Tamil nation in Ceylon and which, in addition, seeks to masquerade as a “Sri Lankan nationalism' by denying the existence of the Sinhala nation as well. And, nothing exemplifies the intellectual dishonesty of the Sinhala political leadership more than its continued denial of the existence of its own constituency, namely, the Sinhalanation in Sri Lanka.
The Basic Question
And in this context the conments of Lord Avebury in his key note speech at the International Alert seminar may not be irrelevant:
". . . Would the Sri Lankan Government be prepared to go as far as a genuinely federal Constitution, and would the majority of the Tamil community settle for something less than total independence? The outsider might be attracted to the idea, on the grounds that it would lie somewhere in between the positions taken up by the parties.' I Lord Avebury: Keynote Speech of the International Alert USA Seminar on Sri Lanka, Los Angeles, 25th. October, 1986).
But, though it may be true that an 'outsider might be attracted to the idea of a genuinely federal Constitution because it would
continued overleaf

Page 14
14TAMILTIMEST
NEM/S REPORT
THE EIGHTDAYS of sustained ground and aerial offensive by the Sri Lankan armed forces continued all over the northern districts with equal intensity after the extension of the 36-hour curfew in Kilinochchitill 6 p.m. today.
The curfew in two other districts, Mannar and Mullaitivu, was, however, lifted at 6 a.m., according to official SOCS. ...
A government communique here, said
that in Jaffna district, the security forces from Kattuwan, Kurumbasetti, Telipalai and other places had advanced eastwards to Atchuveli and on the West towards Mallakam, destroying the militants'
bunkers in numbers and capturing caches.
The militants, according to the
Aff
communique, directions, as the armed forces 'entrenched themselves' in the occupied strongholds of the Tamil rebels.
The Sri Lankan television has been screening the army operations in the northern districts, particularly in Jaffna peninsula, exhibiting in colour the bulldozing of the rebels' bunkers and movement of armoured cars and infantry.
The dailly communiques have not been specifically mentioning any number of casualties for the past two-three days leading to strong apprehension among the independent sources in northern
are fleeing' in all
Lanka
M
districts about the nu casualties.
These sources in Killinochchi, where the undertaking 'sweeping
; by firing rockets and bo said the number of civ
wounded was quite high,
'Nobody knows the 6 the mighty offensives ha during curfew hours, res news in a complet phenomenon", these sou
Authorities of some c districts, while pleading about the extent of casu civilian population, dc villagers have evacuate hamlets and taken shelte
and other safer places.
instances of armed for sacred places to houndo, or to arrest many of the being 'terrorists' symp cited by the independent,
In Madras, the politb United Liberation Front ( concern at the 'bruta innocent Tamil civilians
continued from page 13
hopefully lie 'somewhere in between the positions taken up by the parties', a "genuinely federal Constitution', will not come as a byproduct of a political horsedeal. It will come only when an honest and open answer is found to the preliminary question: who will federate with whom? Who are the two peoples who will federate to form a "genuine’ federal union? And it was to this basic. question that the Thimpu declaration addressed itself. Because it is this which goes to the root of the conflict in Ceylon. All else is secondary. And it is to this question that agencies such as the International Emergency Committee on Sri Lanka may also usefully address their minds. And, hopefully, they will also attend
to the comments of Professor Leo Kruper in 1984 - comments
which have today, assumed an urgency and an immediacy:
“. . . genocide continues to be an odious scourge on mankind . . . there are also at the present time many immediate issues related to genocide which call for the most urgent action. . . (such as) the communal massacres in Sri Lanka . . . some of these genocidal massacres arise out of struggles for greater autonomy, and might be regulated by recognition of the right of self-determination . . . there is a great need for delegations of member states with a strong commitment to human rights, and for non-governmental organisations, with consultative status, to continue their efforts to recall the UN to its responsibilities for international protection against genocide and consistent violations of human rights. These efforts would include attempts to develop norms for humanitarian intervention, for the exercise of the right of self.
determination..." (Minority Rights Group Report: International
Action Against Genocide)
It is not enough to continue to report, ad nauseam, on the 'gross
and consistent violations' of human rights in Sri Lanka without at the same time openly recognising that a threatened genocidal situation has arisen out of a struggle for greater autonomy and without openly recognising that there is an urgent need to develop norms for humanitarian intervention for the exercise of the right of self-determination of the Tamil people in Ceylon.
 
 
 
 
 

FEBRUARY 1987
Offensive Against itants Continues
nber of civilian
Mannar and army has been aerial operations mbing at times'', ilians killed and
xact number, as re been launched ricting spread of blacked out rces added. hurches in these their ignorance alties among the maintain that d a number of r in these shrines
bes raiding these ut the “refugees” m on charges of rathisers', were SOLAFCéS.
Iro of the Tamil TULF) expressed massacre' of in Sri Lanka by
the armed forces and said the Sri Lankan government was "ruthlessly persisting in executing its plan to decimate the Tamil people'. N
in a statement, the politburo alleged that the army had sofar killed 500 civilians and 'destroyed' several villages in Mannar, Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu districts since the 28th January, and over 10,000 since June 1983.
The politburo regretted that the government was not extending any assistance to the Tamil refugees who had left their homes and were facing starvation.
30,000 Facing Hunger in Lanka Jungles
MADRAS, February 13. More than 30,000 persons are facing starvation in the jungles as the rampaging Sri Lankan troops intensified their military operations in the districts of Killinochchi, Mannar, Mullaitivu and Vavuniya of northern Sri Lanka, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam said heretonight.
By courtesy of Times of India, February 13
nd informed liberal opinion which is not content with ombastic rhetoric should, perhaps, also see the need to act on e reports of Amnesty International, the International ommission of Jurists, the Lawasia Human Rights Standing ommittee, the International Human Rights Law Group; and ne United Kingdom Parliamentary Human Rights Group, on e 'gross and consistent violations of human rights in Sri Lanka ld to recognise the underlying reasons for these violations. A luctance to be seen as espousing the division of a sovereign state ould not lead to a refusal to recognise that Sri Lanka today is a ulti-national state. Two nations may agree to live together by rce of reason. They cannot be compelled to live together by rce of arms. And it is the rejection of reason by successive nhala governments which also constitutes the rationale for the ntinued armed struggle of the Tamil people for an independent amil Eelam.
The Thimpu declaration which represented the unanimous will all six Tamil Liberation Organisations was not an exercise in etoric. Too many lives had been lost and too many lives were at ke to have permitted that particular luxury. The Thimpu claration was founded on reason and time will testify to the lidity of that reasoning. Because reason, even if it be denied, Il continue to influence and direct and to give coherence and itimacy to the aspirations of the Tamil people. Time will show ut Tamil nationalism will not be easily snuffed out. It will not ietly and obediently go away and disappear from the political ne. And faced with the continued intransigence of the Sinhala litical leadership, it will inevitably seek broader channels for pressing itself. And, in the end, it will be a round reason that ace will come - not only for the Tamils and Sinhalese of Ceylon, t only for the peoples of the Indian region but also for people, }rywhere - and, in an increasingly small world it will be reasingly difficult to separate the so called "insiders' from the so led 'outsiders'. And, the words of Lila Watson come to mind:
- 'If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time . . .
t, if you have come because your liberation is bound up with ne, then let us work together'.

Page 15
FEBRUARY 1987
LORDAVEBurysilank
Keynote Speech of the International Al
Íntroduction
When communications were poor, and the notion of sovereignty had yet to be diluted by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Covenants, group conflicts within national boundaries excited less attention, and it was only in exceptional cases that outside influences were felt to have any moral or practical value. The earliest example I can think of was the demand by Mr. Gladstone in the 1880s for the Turks to withdraw from occupied Bulgaria, generally considered to have had a successful outcome, but leaving the unresolved problem of the ethnic Turks who remained in that country and are now themselves victims of extreme cultural oppression. . . . ... Today, however, the victims of these conflicts, cry out to the world for justice through the medium of television, and the acceptance by nearly all states of international codes limiting their freedom of action towards their citizens implies the external judiciability of those codes. The United Nations has gradually developed its own machinery for attempting to secure compliance with the Covenants, and NGOs have played an important role in monitoring deviations. They have gained some measure of acceptability in that governments reluctantly admit their representatives conducting investigations, and even afford them privileges such as access to prisons, and discussions at ministerial level of human rights problems. · . - , ...
But International Alert starts from a different perspective, which ought to make its work even more welcome to governments. It notices the violation of human rights as one of the symptoms of group conflict, while trying to find or at least to encourage political solutions that will remove the causes of the conflict. Thus it does not have to be judgemental in its approach. Because it does not have a mandate restricting its attention to the violence done by states to individuals, it can and does condemn the use of armed force by all groups for their own ends, whether they are in power, or form a military opposition.
We start with the assumption that outsiders may have something to contribute towards the solution of these conflicts, and perhaps that needs to be argued a little. The participants are emotionally involved, and in many cases are heavily weighed down with cultural baggage that hampers intellectual movement. They may benefit from disinterested comment, the questioning of old prejudices, and even the presentation of tentative solutions which provide a framework for discussion. Because IA have nothing to gain or lose, their advice may be respected on both sides, and thus it may be helpful as a component in any mediation process. I think it has to be emphasised, however, that unless there is the will to negotiate settlement of group disputes, outsiders can do nothing. Ultimately it is for the parties themselves to make peace, and our role is that of sympathetic, and we hope, understanding friends of both communities.
The ingredients of the conflict
I start by observing some of the features of the Sri Lanka problem, and noting where those features are shared with other group conflict situations. And the first one, so obvious that one would hardly think to mention it, is that one group has a monopoly of government. Since the Tamils form only 18.2% of the population, one would not expect them to rule, and I merely observe it as a fact. The corollary, however, is my second feature: by means of their control of the state, the majority community have secured for themselves a disproportionate share of public appointments, access to higher education in preference to better qualified minority candidates, better public services through exclusive use of the Sinhala language, and control of land in border areas formerly occupied by the minority.
The next major ingredient in the situation, a familiar one to anybody who has studied the Irish problem, is the history going back over many centuries of formal armed conflicts between the two communities. "Remember Parakramabahu' is a phrase that would be understood by almost everybody on the island. He was the Sinhala king who recovered Anuradhapura from the invading

TAMILTIMES15
-Conflict or compromise?
2rt USA Seminaron Sri Lanka, Los Angeles.
Tamils in the tenth or eleventh century AD, and the invocation of his name would carry the same overtones as the use of King Billy's has in the six counties. In fact, this illustration shows how intractable the problem is: in Ireland people remember the battle of the Boyne, a mere two centuries ago, and Cromwell, whose depredations in Ireland occurred three centuries ago. They may even refer to the Elizabethan settlement of four centuries ago. But King Parakramabahu lived nine centuries ago, and his exploits are still celebrated. Indeed, when I mentioned this contrast to a Tamil friend the other day, he said:
“You have overlooked Dutugamunu, the Sinhala king who drove the Tamils out of the island altogether about 2000 years ago.' ? For another parallel between the Northern Ireland and Sri Lankan problems I am indebted to the late Bishop Lakshman Wickremasinghe, who made this point to me after he visited Belfast a few years ago. The majority in both Sri Lanka and Northern Ireland had some of the psychological attributes of a minority, arising from the fact that the minority could look to a big “reservoir' of the same community near at hand: the Catholics of the Republic, and the Tamils of Tamil Nadu.
The reservoir was also a characteristic of the Cyprus problem. The ethnic Turks in Cyprus could look to an effective military power for advancement of their claims, as in the end did happen. In Cyprus also the communities were divided on linguistic and religious lines, and there also they lovingly tended a history of armed struggle.
The major difference between Cyprus and Sri Lanka, on the other hand, is that Turkey saw herself as having nothing to lose by intervening on behalf of “her' people, and this was roughly correct. Now that Turkey is knocking at the doors of Europe, the episode of 1974 has been forgotten already, and it is Turkey's present human rights performance which may have some bearing on her entry to the EEC. But India has every reason to discourage the Eelamites, because of the implications domestically. There are enough problems with separatism in the Punjab, without giving encouragement to local nationalism in the south, as support for total independence of a Tamil mini-state in Sri Lanka would do. -
Reference to India leads us to consider another important aspect of the problem, which may not always be given proper weight. In India, a federal state, the various nationalities by and large do not feel emotionally that to satisfy their aspirations to separate cultural, ethnic and linguistic identity, they have to be totally independent. In Sri Lanka, on the other hand, the demand by the Tamils for “self-determination' seems to imply the creation of a new mini-state, without regard to economic or geopolitical realities.
Finally on this list, which is not intended to be exhaustive, we should note the positive feedback effect of violence. With each atrocity, either by government or “the boys', the feelings of hatred between the communities are further reinforced, and the willingness to compromise is further sapped. “How do you expect us to live with these people', a Tamil asked me, at the end of a graphic description of atrocities by government forces in Eastern Province villages. And the obverse of this coin is the strong feeling among the Sinhalese that “you cannot negotiate with terrorists; they must be crushed by military force' -
The peace negotiations
The hopeful sign in Sri Lanka, which contrasts with many other group conflicts, is that some representatives on either side are at: least prepared to talk, albeit on their own terms. At Thimpu, not only the TULF, a constitutional political party, was present, but also representatives of the various military groups: EPRLF, EROS, PLOT, LTTE and TELO. In the latest round of talks, only the TULF participated, and they emphasised at the end of the round that the militants had now to be involved.
On the other side, the SLFP are playing a very dangerous game,
continued overleaf

Page 16
、、、熟* '**:。 16TAMITMES
continued from page 15
in doing their best to stir up the Sangha and the JVP to join in a campaign against concessions. Mrs. Bandaranaike has virtually
destroyed her own party and cuts apathetic figure today. She must .
be really desperate to play the racist card, for that is what she is doing, together with her son Anura. There is latent prejudice in 'the majority community, which can be fanned all too easily into violence and murder. It is wicked and despicable to exploit these tendencies for political ends, and Mrs. Bandaranaike is an accomplice in the murders and other atrocities which her words help to provoke.
Incidentally, there is rather less likelihood today that the Sangha will allow itself to be exploited than in the past, and the world community of Buddhists, particularly the Theravadins, can bring their influence to bear in the cause of peace. Perhaps International Alert might look into ways of mobilising the Buddhist groups in North America and Western Europe, to get the Sangha to reject Mrs. Bandaranaike's evil counsels.
There is, unfortunately, a strong tendency in the peace talks for the participants to strike attitudes, and to lay down "principles', which they say must be honoured in any settlement. At Thimpu, the Tamil delegations were demanding:
1. recognition of the Tamils of Sri Lanka as a nation.
2. recognition of the existence of an identified homeland
for the Tamils in Sri Lanka.
3. recognition of the right of self-determination of the
Tamil nation.
4. recognition of the right to citizenship and the
fundamental rights of all Tamils who look upon the
Island as their country. ; ; I may be wrong in my interpretation, but it is not helpful for either side to lay down, in advance of negotiations, conditions which are absolute. The government's preamble to their own scheme, presented to the Political Parties Conference on June 25 this year, prescribed what President Jayawardene described as a “framework', but others might call a straitjacket, within which he said the negotiations had to be conducted. The three indispensible
features, according to JR, were:
'1. Maintenance of the unity, integrity and sovereignty
of Sri Lanka.
2. The maintenance of the unitary character of the Sri
Lankan Constitution.
3. The principle of devolution of powers upon the Provincial Councils within the framework of the Constitution of Sri Lanka as proposed to be amended.' : In detail, the government scheme proposed the establishment bf Provincial Councils on existing boundaries, and of Provincial Governors appointed by the President. The Governor would appoint a Chief Minister, and a Board of Ministers on the recommendation of the Chief Minister. Executive power was to be vested in the governor, even in matters where the Provincial Councils had the right to enact legislation. The Provincial Councils were to have power to raise taxes, and they were to control some aspects of law and order, and of land settlement.
However, the provincial police were to be responsible to a national Inspector General, and were to have responsibility for a limited range of offences. The judiciary would be appointed centrally. Radio and television would be national. The settlement criteria for land settlement and irrigation schemes would be determined by a central formula. There was no question of provinces being delineated on the basis of actual ethnic and linguistic boundaries, though "suitable arrangements' were to be provided for Provincial Councils to coordinate their policies on matters of mutual interest. And at any time the President could step in and dissolve even these glorified parish councils, imposing direct rule.
Two major problems thus arise: even if the Tamil people were ready to settle for something less than a sovereign state, the realisation of a “Tamil homeland' would require thorough-going devolution, and constitutional safeguards against the revocation of provincial rights by the central government. And second, the Tamils, both constitutional and military wings, insist that the
·4悖 : ;

... l. FEBRUARY 1987
orthern and Eastern Provinces be given a single administration. heir argument is that in the twenties, the Sinhalese component the Eastern Province population was only 2%, and it has only :en raised to the 1981 census figure of 26% by a deliberate policy colonisation. (No doubt the demographic make-up of the rovince has changed markedly since the troubles began, a large umber of Tamils having been killed or having fled to the north ld into exile as a result of the systematic attacks on them by the my, police and “home-guard'). Some authorities, such as the Colombo-based Citizens' ommittee for National Harmony, have argued that maintenance national unity is fully reconcilable with a system of effective Yvolution, and they say the lesson Sri Lanka can learn from India the “need to make timely and appropriate adjustments to the oblems of ethnic and cultural identity in a rapid process of emocratisation'. Another model which may be worth examining is that of anada. After much turmoil, the Canadians have forged a onstitution in which the French and English “nations’ have uality of status, in spite of the differences in numbers. There so, the French-speaking people have felt from time to time that eir aspirations could be realised only through unique onstitutional arrangements, the latest version of which was ascribed as "souvereinité-association': Quebec was to be vereign, but was to remain associated with the remainder of anada. Today, most Quebecois must be relieved that they did bt embark on a process of constitutional experimentation, but stead turned their minds to the adaptation of federal principles, nd the extension of built-in safeguards for the human, linguistic hd cultural rights of all Canadians.
ngredients of a solution
Would the Sri Lankan Government be prepared to go as far as a 2nuinely federal Constitution, and would the majority of the amil community settle for something less than total dependence? The outsider might be attracted to the idea, on the rounds that it would lie somewhere in between the positions ken up by the parties. If there is genuine willingness to gotiate, the fairest solution would seem to be the one that mands equal concessions, however that can be measured. On e other hand, there has been so much bombastic rhetoric about egitimate expectations' on the Tamil side, and so much blood led in the struggle for “liberation', that some elements would ld it emotionally impossible to accept anything less than conditional surrender from the government. As The Hindu put
“A militant movement, which believes in the legitimacy of an med struggle to achieve its political or social objectives, is not terested in a negotiated settlement'. (The Hindu, international lition, 5 October, 1985). The constitutionalists would accept genuine federalism, as posed to the saccharine federalism they have been offered so r, if they were free agents. As we can see from the latest round of |ks, however, they have difficulty in agreeing to anything unless e military opposition is brought to the conference table. This is it "merely' a democratic gesture to the constituencies of the erilla groups, whose appeal to the public have never been sted, but also a sensible precaution tó take if they want to stay Ve . But the TULF proposals made at the PPC this year do provide the “Tamil Linguistic State', consisting of the Northern and stern Provinces, to be part of a federal Sri Lanka, with a mmon citizenship. Their practical concerns are reflected in the paration of the courts, police, and public service commissions, d the exclusive state control of all land matters including igation. After all, the demand for autonomy was not based ginally on abstract ideas of Tamil patriotism, even if the effect the civil war is to make people think in those terms. The evances which led to the armed struggle concerned crimination against Tamils at every level of society; in 'ruitment to the public and armed services; access to higher ucation; representation in the professions; land rights, and ctoral weight. If they can establish a just framework inside 'ir own state, using the term in the Indian or American sense, 'n the case for separation disappears. сопtiпиеdopposite

Page 17
FEBRUARY 1987
Those who favour the more extreme solutions ought also to have regard to the attitudes of the outside world. The United Nations rules on Self-determination are clear. and when it does suit the General Assembly to ignore them, it is always in favour of the power actually controlling the territory. In the civil wars of Zaire and Nigeria, and UN opposed separation. In the struggle of the Eritreans for their freedom they receive no encouragement or even notice from the UN, in spite of the fact that the confederation with Ethiopia was an artificial arrangement sponsored by the UN, before the General Assembly laid down rules for the decolonization process in its resolution 1514 and 1541 of 1960. One might argue, as an aside, that if a solution can be devised for Sri Lanka, it will probably demand international guarantees to make it convincing, in the light of the Eritrean case. In the case of East Timor, where the UN rules were violated, the General Assembly passed the buck to the Secretary General four years ago, and a majority no doubt hope the problem will simply go away. Other internal liberation movements which are simply ignored include the Kurds of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey and the Soviet Union; the Tigreans of Ethiopia; the Western Saharans, the Southern Sudanese and the West Papuans. If none of those cases elicit support, the Tamils are unlikely to fare any better.
What sort of concessions would the Government have to make, to get total independence dropped by all but a small minority of extremists? The Provincial Councils simply will not do. Enlargement of the scope of devolution has been mentioned already, and it may be that Indian and Canadian draftsmen might be consulted, So that a Series of models could be examined together. This is not the place to go into great detail; one only has to observe that the extent of powers granted to the subordinate legislature must be sufficient to ensure that the ability of central government to discriminate is effectively removed.
Then comes the intractable problem of boundaries. If one is prepared to accept the case that all the immigration of non-Tamils into the Eastern Province was organised by the Sinhala authorities as part of a long-term plan of internal colonisation, nevertheless we have to take account of the demographic situation as we find it. If the Northern and Eastern Provinces are combined to form a Tamil State, it would incorporate a quarter of a million Sinhalese, and 315,000 Muslims who although Tamil ethnically and liguistically, might not all welcome the idea. This has led the Citizens' Committee for National Harmony to suggest a variety of options short of a merger between the two Provinces.
For instance, of the three Districts comprising the Eastern Province, Amparai has the highest proportion of Sinhalese, at 37.6% and also the highest proportion of Muslims, 41.5%. It also happens to be the Southernmost District of Batticaloa so that its detachment would leave the remaining Districts and Trincomalee as contiguous with the Northern Province.
Whatever special arrangements are made for the Eastern Province - and there is no logical reason why it should be kept
THEANXIOUSNEIG
THE ANTI-TAMIL RIOTS of July 1983, externalised the Srí Lankan conflict with the exodus of more than 100,000 Tamil refugees to India's Tamil Nadu state, already the home of Sri Lankan Tamil rebel groups and self-exiled Tamil parliamentarians. The situation, said then Indian prime minister indira Gandhi, was 'unacceptable'. She promptly offered her 'good offices', which Colombo was in no position to refuse. Thus, India became mediator in Sri Lanka's connunal War.
Since then, two important developments have placed India and Sri Lanka on a collision course, though there have been moments of high expectations of an Indiasponsored peace settlement. First, Sri Lanka's ruling United National Party hasn't been able to forge a compromise
offer of regional aut can get Tamil separ, This is partly due - chiefly, advers Buddhist opinion a Sri Lanka Freedom prime minister Sirir three-and-a-half y doubts about the Will and misgivings lhe second deve perceives to be the of Sri Lanka, on neighbour, with the regarded as hostile While arms have China, with whom a border dispute, colonial master,

TAMILTIMES1
intact as a political unit in any settlement - there are going to be local minorities who dislike their own state. But equally, it may be assumed that the Indian Tamils, who live in Sinhala-dominated areas, would prefer an administration of their own kind. They have existed as a kind of under-class, confined to the back: breaking labour of the tea estates, living in revolting hovels called 'lines', deprived of their rightful citizenship, and of all of the benefits that should bring, such as proper education and health care. Once there is a Tamil state in the island, it may be expected that many if not most of the estate workers will migrate there, so that they can enjoy equal opportunities. Although the government has now belatedly admitted them to citizenship, they too have suffered violent racial attacks, and are bound to feel insecure in the midst of a hostile majority.
is Conclusions
From time to time over the last sixty years, federalism has been discussed and advocated in Sri Lanka. In the government's statement of 25 June, reference is made to a speech of the late Mr. S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike to a Students' Congress in 1926, and the words he used are worth repeating:
'There would be trouble if a centralised form of government was introduced into countries with communal differences. In a federal government, each federal unit had complete power over itself.'
The Donoughmore Commission of 1928 recommended an examination of a federal system, in which the Northern and Eastern Provinces would have formed one of three self-governing Lun11tS.
It was a tragedy that when Ceylon became independent in 1948, these ideas were not implemented. Europe knew enough about group conflict arising from linguistic, religious and cultural differences, and yet the constitutions we devised were all unitary, and in the case of the British territories, either based on the Westminster constituency system or the party list system of elections. In both cases the linguistic and ethnic groups tended to polarise into corresponding parties, thus accentuating their differences. It was also clear that the majority community, or the community which gained a majority in the legislature, would exploit that advantage, as we saw not only in Sri Lanka but also in Guyana, Malaysia and Cyprus.
Now it is of course for Sri Lankans to correct the mistakes made in the process of decolonisation, and the British have to be particularly careful not to allow their natural concern at the tragedy that has engulfed the Island to develop into a form of neocolonialism. We can and should condemn violence, whether from the armed forces and the police, or the military opposition. We can back up the efforts being made by Rajiv Gandhi to bring the parties together, and we can urge our friends on both sides to sit down and talk. We can explain to them what we see as the boundaries within which the answers have to be found.
Israel has opened an 'interests section' in the US Embassy in Colombo. Israeli experts in intelligence, counter-insurgency
HBOUR
'onomy that New Delhi atists to accept.
to political constraints e majority Sinhaland opposition from the Party (SLFP) of former na Bandaranaike. After aars, New Delhi has government's political about its true designs. lopment is what India gradual militarisation ice its only friendly aid of sonne countries to India. come to Sri Lanka from ndia remains locked in Britain, India's former South Africa, the
and land settlement strategies - a very sensitive area in the present context-are advising Colombo. Even more disturbing is the Pakistani presence in Sri Lanka.
India has also accused Sri Lanka of using 'American mercenaries', a charge bluntly rejected by Colombo but less so by Washington. New Delhi is concerned that Sri Lanka is being incorporated into what it sees as the 'Washington-islamabadPeking axis, which it would view as a new threat to its southern flank.
Meanwhile, Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's courtship of the US has proved brief and disenchanting, while India's strong ties with Moscow were re-confirmed by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachov's visit to India late last year.
By courtesy of Far Eastern Economic Review,

Page 18
18 TAMILTIMES
MEDIA FILE
THE THREE POINT proposition the Government of India is pressing on Colombo in order to get the negotiating process back on track is a belated recognition of what needs to be done from the standpoint of sound politics, justice and humanity. Those who are handling India's Sri Lanka policy at a complicated and difficult stage need to remember that the prospect of success in the fresh mediatory venture will depend on their ability to avoid the costly mistakes of the recent past. These have resulted in a clear weakening of India's leverage and influence in the situation without, in any way, lowering the spill-over burdens and risks this nation has had to accept in relation to the deteriorating political crisis of its neighbour to the south. The fact that New Delhi has no immediate direct way of communicating with the LTTE leader, Mr. V. Prabakaran - in some ways the key political factor in respect of negotiating a settlement with Colombo - is reflective of this self-inflicted lowering of credibility. . Y
The Government of India has, over the past few weeks, watched confusedly a new course of military brutality unfold against the Tamil population of the North and the East. The Sri Lankan Government, with its morale boosted by what it takes to be signs of weakness in the official Indian line, has pursued its two-track strategy in an educative way. It has pushed ahead with its military strategy against the Tamils, with the hawkish Minister for National Security,
Mr. Lalith Athulathmudali, very much in
charge of this track. It has thrown the burden of finding a new political initiative to
reactivate Track Two on the Government of
India - with the clear implication that, if India cannot go along with Colombo's attempt to drown the Tamil political struggle in blood, it can at least let the military heat push down the negotiating level of the Tamil militants. At a practical level, Colombo's recent response has been to compound the outrage of an economic blockade against an important section of its population with daily barbarities by the security forces against innocent Tamil civilians - there has been, of course, some grisly retaliation against equally innocent Sinhala civilians, it is regrettable that official as well as public opinion in India has seemed so inured to the violence in the ethnic conflict of Sri Lanka that it has not made much of a fuss over the liquidation of over two hundred innocent civilians by the security forces in Batticaloa district (with inputs made by specially recruited external elements including Western mercenaries and Israeli agents).
The policy of the Rajiv Gandhi administration has been conducted with no coherent framework of solidarity with an oppressed people, no recognisable base line to guide india's mediating strategy, and no strategic direction to pursue. There has been a tendency to equate the victims - the Sri Lankan Tamils and their political representatives - with the aggressors - the Sri Lankan state and its marauding security forces. The Government of India line (with the influence of the AIADMK State Government mobilised) has attempted unsuccessfully to pressure the militants, and especially the LT TE led by Mr. V. Prabakaran, into accepting ...virtually.
REACT
T
anything that has beer other side - including (in notably unsound propo Eastern Province into
Sinhala units.
The Decernber 19 fra the centrepiece of whic Eastern Province reco
excising Amparai electo
an adjoining Sinhala pro the Tamils a greater nun weight in the reconstitu an improvement on the the curious thing is
mediators have not tho
either the militants or t TULF) in any precise wi the proposal that is on li To expect the LTTE, determined leadership willingness to accept a proposition at the point C a policy that is politically All this is not to su attempt to reactivate the
a hopelessly bleak vent the ethnic conflict is
seriously in Sri Lanka,
3 state akin to desperat, reached. Political observ
an interesting but still u among high-level Sri La - those led by Mr. Atl Want to pursue a hawkis and others who believe
there is a genuine pea work in rmainStream Sinh be appealed to effective
A welcome developme, - which was neutralised by
pursued by the Tamil Governments - was the LTTE leadership that it cooperate with the Gov attempt to find a settlement (which rule that, specifically, it participate in India-me proper climate of trust a Created. v
it was significant th; November 3, 1986 to the Minister, Mr. Prabakaran the Eelarm dermand bu "meaningful' politicals to be based on the traditionally constituted homeland comprising East, Currently, the key relation to the negotiatit to be based on an insis atmosphere being cr withdrawal of the econo, Jaffna peninsula, a cess and violence by the S forces, and the release ol These are being present conditions''' but as nece the way for India-mediat Lankan Government. If i difficult to find an “agre basis for serious talk expressed its willingn 'clean slate' talks (wi proposal on either side), atmosphere.
While pressing with point proposal - ат !
 
 

FEBRUARY 1987
VATING NEGoTIATING RACKIN SRI LANKA
proposed by the November, 1986) a sal to trifurcate the anni, Muslim and
nework proposal - h seems to be an nstituted, through ate and joining it to vince, so as to give
herical and political
led unit - is clearly earlier ideas. But
that the Indian ught it fit to inform he moderates (the ay of the details of ess-than-firrn offer,
with its fiercely ), to signal a
somewhat unclear
pf a gun is to pursue naive.
ggest that India's
negotiating track is ure, The burden of
being felt quite even if a political
fon has not been .
even as its earlier assault on Tami redoubts
ers call attention to nfocussed division nkan policy-makers nulathmudali, who sh military solution this cannot work. If ce constituency at ala politics it must sy by Indian policy. nt in November - y clumsy measures Nadu and Central 2 signalling by the " was prepared to ernment of India's
"lasting' political
d out Eelam) and was prepared to diated talks, if the nd confidence was
at in his letter of Tamil Nadu Chief did not emphasise t specified that a
olution would have
recognition of a
and 'indivisible' he North and the militant position in g process appears tence on a COrrect 2ated through a nic blockade of the ation of hostilities ri Lankan security political prisoners. ld notas rigid presary steps to pave 2d talks with the Sri is going to be very ed upon’’ political s, the LTTE has 2ss to enter into hout any binding given a conducive
Colombo its three neguivocal public
declaration by the Sri Lankan President, Mr. J. R. Jayawardene, that he stands by the December 19 proposal, a termination of the economic blockade of the Jaffna peninsula and a suspension of the military operations in the Northern and Eastern provinces - New Delhi must rebuild its political influence with the credible representatives of the Sri Lankan Tamils, it must prepare carefully for the strenuous and challenging task of narrowing the still considerable political gap between the two antagonists and moving them back to the negotiating track.
The one thing that can be taken advantage of in the effort to find a peaceful solution is the realisation among a growing number of sensible Sri Lankans - Sinhala and Tamil - that neither side is capable of winning a military victory in this tragic dispute. Editorial, 'The Hindu', Feb 14, 1987
ANKACVLWAR
WHAT IS GONG on in Sri Lanka can only be described as a civil war. The Sri Lankan army is waging a full-scale offensive against Tamil strongholds in the North,
in the East continues. Already, scores of lives have been lost, including those of Tamil civilians, and many times more have been wounded. For their part, the Tamil militants, if official Sri Lankan accounts are to be believed, are inflicting retaliatory punishment on the Sinha lese in, for instance, Aranthalawa village in Amparai district in the eastern province. The only hope of ending the bloodletting lies with New Delhi which, unfortunately, has done nothing beyond conveying its concern to Colombo. With the economic blockade of the Jaffna peninsula still operative, communications severely disrupted and the shortage of food becoming acute, the privation of the local people worsens by the hour. Colombo is tightening its vice-like grip on the North through other methods as well, such as its immediate ban on the flying of 'ultra-light aircraft' anywhere in the country. The ban is to prevent such planes, reportedly put together by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Jaffna, from taking off. w
Apparently, New Delhi is urging President Jayawardene to reiterate his commitment to the proposals made on December 19, so that negotiations on them between the militants and Colombo, through New Delhi's mediation, can be resumed. If he makes such an unambiguous public commitment, lifts the blockade of Jaffna and suspends military operations in the North and East, New Delhi is reportedly prepared to try and persuade the militants to accept those proposals as the basis for a negotiated settlement. While the militants have insisted on linking the northern and eastern provinces, the December 19 scheme envisages the retention of the eastern province as a Tamil-majority area after detaching the mainly Sinhalese parts of Amparaidistrict from it.
However, President Jayawardene has been hedging on accepting even this compromise since it would mean leaving
continued opposite

Page 19
FEBRUARY 1987
BEARING THE BLOCKADE
continued from page 10
But what the blockade achieved was precisely the opposite. With Colombo having shown itself to be prepared to push the Tamils right to the brink, the people of the northern peninsula felt more alienated than before from the southern Sri Lankan capital. Jaffna cycle shop owner M. Thambimuthu's, comments were more to the rule than the exception. As he pointed out: "The Tamil people will only become more loyal to the militants as a result of their present suffering.” Observed a Jaffna-based government officer working for the Land Settlement Department in Kilinochchi located immediately south of the peninsula: “The boys may be tilting at the windmills in hoping to ultimately drive out the army and attain Eelam. But considering all the suffering they have undergone in protecting the Jaffna people from the atrocities of the army, nobody here will come forward to ask them to negotiate with the Government.” Kittu himself says: “Sri Lankan President J. R. Jayawardene is trying to fool everybody, but we will not go for direct talks. We are not prepared to talk to Colombo.
We may express our views to the
Government, but we will not come to any conclusion without Indian mediation.' And the Government of India, on its part, has also expressed serious concern about the fuel blockade that Colombo has imposed on Jaffna. Late last fortnight, the convenor of the Organisation for the Protection of the Tamils of Eelam from Genocide S. C. Chandrahasan, also sent a telegram to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi calling for urgent Indian intervention to end Colombo's economic blockade on Jaffna.
So the stalemate continues. With the people of Jaffna braving the economic storm and, contrary to the Sri Lankan Government's expectations, having become more resolute in their support of the militants, the blockade may just boomerangon Colombo.
By courtesy of India today, February 15, 1987.
Letters to the
-i-. Sinhala D.
WAS rather amus of the Elections Com in your last issue - no that these should com de Silva.
You will recall that attached to the Min specially called to Gamini Dissanayake, others (who were qperations) to assist shameful and ig Development Counci Shortly afterwards he sioner of Elections i 'goodwork' done in
Chandananda was Trotskyist when he Assistant Elections Of bad in democracy foi good enough for the T
. ... -
ســـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ
盘
THE UNP Bourbons forgot nothing. This i. contemporary UNP b founding in 1946 unde wily Don Stephen Se two concepts in the U cannot be erased. O the other is 'divid imperialist concept of fact is that neither tad among an oppressed| a sovereign state in thi Take the first concep UNP tried it only to who joined them fr inauguration of the S were by the time C Election swept away f Sirimavo Bandaranaik Jayawardene's pres suffered worse fate allowed to remain information. They se whom the UNP pu destroy.
Lanka Civil War
continued from page 18 Trincomalee port under Tamil jurisdiction. h the militants can be persuaded to modify their plans for a North-East linkage and if Colombo can be made to agree to the creation of the eastern province minus Amparai, a solution may be possible.
On the other hand, so long as Colombo feels confident of being able to defeat the militants and then make them accept the solution it wants, it will have no incentive to reconsider the December 19 plan. That is
why New Delhi must make it plain to .
Colombo that any hope it might have of imposing a military solution is illusory and that New Delhi will not allow the bloodshed to go on indefinitely. But such a positive stance on New Delhi's part presupposes that it has got its own act together. , ,
Of this, there is as yet little indication.
Times of India Editorial, 10.287
Divide and rule has immemorial. If it ! colonial empires of th flourishing. To som perfected it. The Sinh copy-cats. Now the S divisions among th differences (Jaffna 7 Tamils), religious Catholics and Prc between Colombo Tai the North and the Eas between Ceylon Tam, We do not know to 'differences' have be levelofpropaganda.
There are as many c and divisions among C. P. Cde Silva rnCor Fa achieved or will a position, A Sinhale changed his religion Buddhists. The Tamil
whom are Hindus, did

emocracy
!d to read the extracts missioner highlighted t at the platitudes but le from Chandananda
e Silva, while he was istry of Lands, was Jaffna by Ministers Cyril Mathew and then there directing in conducting that nominious District Elections of 1981. | was made Commisn recognition of the affna.
started his career as
ficer. Perhaps, what is the Sinhala voter is
amils.
V Subra West Indies
FAMILTIMES 19.
Constructive Support & Sympathy
With due respect to Mr. S. Sivananthan of NSW, Australia, I wish to give myopinion of the liberationstruggle in Tamil Eelam.
Mr. Sivananthan should look at the struggle from a positive angle and see how the LTTE is transforming the popular mode of urban guerrilla warfare into a mass struggle, rather than challenging our opponents wholesale as if the Tamils are preparedfora Mahabaratha Uththam.
Secondly, Tamils know that Israel, Pakistan, to name a few, are meddling in Sri Lankan affairs now. I think we should go a
| little deeperto analyse what the Leader, Mr.
V. Pirabakaran, meant with regard to Indian intervention. Those of us who are dormiciled in developed countries, let us give our support and sympathy to the genuine
freedom fighters, the LTTE, rather than
engaging ourselves in pointless political
Would Mr. Sivanathan be prepared to sacrifice all the comforts that he now has in
Australia and serve Eelam when surely it :
i must come?
KESHA Zimbabwe
JNP Bourbons
learned nothing and s true not only of the ut the UNP since its r the leadership of the 'nanayake. There are NP vocabulary which ne is "purchasable', e et impera' (the divide and rule). The tic works any longer people who are to be 2 perspective of time. pt 'purchasable”. The earn that the Tamils 2rm the time of the oulbury Constitution if the 1956 General rom electoral politics. e's stool pigeons and ent minions have s. Those who are provide valuable 've a purpose. Those irchases, the Gods
been tried from time had succeeded, the he past would still be 2 extent the British alese have been poor inhalese talk of caste e Tamils, regional annils and Batticaloa lifferences (Hindus, testants), divisions nils and the Tamils of t, and divisive factors ls and Indian Tamils. what purpose these en highlighted to the
ifferences, jealousies he Sinhalese. Neither nasinghe Premadasa chieve the highest Se Prime Minister
to lead the Sinhala , over 90 per cent of not force their leader,
S. J. V. Chelvanayakam, a christian, to 's change his religion in order to lead them.
We hear of Kandyan Sinhalese flooding: the bureaucracy. Cyril Mathew's caste brethren never had it so good while he was a Minister. Philip Gunawardene once said in Parliament that one big fisherman had appointed two other fishermen to the Supreme Court. And the great perfect one, “Mahauttamar” Junius Richard Jayawardene, complained when N. O. Dias was Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Defence, that our 'coastal brethren' have been: recruited disproportionately to the security forces. The vicious tirade against so-called 'Catholic Action' does not have to be: repeated here,
The fact is that Tamil national identity has come to stay. There may be differences. But by offering the Chief Ministership of Jaffna (not the Northern Province) to Velupillai Prabhakaran, a military commander of the status of Field Marshal Rommel, a hero famed as the 'Desert Fox', the J. R. Jayawardene Government is trying to be too clever by half. The Tamil people will follow any charismatic leader, regardless of caste, religion or region, provided he is honourable and a man of integrity. Prabhakaran has more than proved himself. Why does senility waste its time?
There is another dimension to the military commander whose disciplined army was only the other day dismissed by Junius (sometimes we wonder whether Janus is a more apt name).Jayawardene on the B.B.C. as 'a gang of murderers'. Direct negotiations will exclude India.
The desicated calculating machines of the UNP think that Prabhakaran will fall into the trap. Once India is excluded, the Tamil National Liberation leaders will become solely dependent on the philanthropy of Colombo. Whom do they think they are dealing with? Tamil nationalism has come. to stay. The war can go on for a thousand years. The Tamils are assured of victory,
come what may. T. Viswa mainer california

Page 20
20TAMITMES
Quality, practical computer training for studentas, business and professional people
LONDON SCHOOL OFo
COMPUTING
LSC Qualification Courses
Certificate in Business Computing (6 weeks)
Suitable for both Students and Business people, gives a full understanding of the principles and operation of computers, the popular packages and systems as used commercially today. Emphasis is on smaller systems and microcomputers. Fees E600
Diploma in Software Science (2 years full-time)
This is a three part practical oriented course covering the widest spectrum of computer Software and Application in both commercial and scientific areas. The subjects are modular structured so as to cover the syllabus of most professional bodies. Fees E650 per Part
Certificate in Computing and Mathematics (2 years full-time)
This is a four part course covering mathematics and computing only.
It starts by revising some of the basic functions and algebraic techniques of 'O' level mathematics and introduces advanced
i
concepts of computing and mathematics. Fees £650 per Part Short Courses Duration Fees Fundamentals of Computers 1 Week E150 Practical Computing 2 Weeks E250 Word Processing 3 days E125 Spreadsheets 3 days E125 BASIC Programming 4Weeks E450 COBOL Programming 6 Weeks E600
"O" & "A" level Maths (Pure & Applied) revision fees ova
All full-time courses conform to Home Office requirements and all courses are also available part-time
Apply to: The Registrar, London School of Computing, Linburn House, 340/342 Kilburn High Road, London NW62G2. (Kilburn Jubilee Line Tube) Tel: London U.K. 01-328952.1/624.2286 or 452 1594 (eve) Telex 892843. COFFLET G
O O . ר
Conveyancing!
Before you buy or sell your property write or telephone us for a written estimate of our fees
SOLICTORS with substantial experience can help you with the following:
O Divorce and Family O Criminal and Civil
Matters O Personal injuries Cases O Motoring 0ffences O Landlord and Tenant O Immigration O Unfair Dismissal O Wills Provate and V Liquor Licensing
Administration
ALL LEGAL AD CASESUNDERTAKEN
Fixed Fee interview F5
Nalliah & Xavier
Solicitors, Administrators of Oaths, Privy Council Agents
Offices: HARLESDEN: A. Xavier B.A., LL.B., Ph.D. (CRIM) 1 Craven Park, London NW108SX I Te: 01-9657186
BATTERSEA: N. Balakrishnan, LL.B.
w 187/189 Lavender Hill, London SW115TB لم 2238221-Te: O1 ܢܠ
s

FEBRUARY 1987.
ynwyr
2-RatHBorEHOLDays Ltd
55 Rathbone Place, London W1. Telephone: 01-636 2391
In addition to the most competitive fare to COLOMBO
we also offer DISCOUNTS for GROUP TRAVEL
tO MADRAS, BANGALORE and TRIVANDRAM
Competitive fares tO USA, CANADA & AUSTRALIA Special discounton Club& FirstClass fares
We are specialists in travel to the South East & Far East ASA
We confirm and reserve your Seat on Same day
Callus for fast, efficient 8. courteous service
/w A. YOUR
... GUARANTEE
compare
Your present monthly premium payments with our FREE computerised OUOTATIONS from ALL leading insurance companies/lending institutions for:
MORTGAGES LIFE NSURANCE PENSION POLICES
BUSINESS FINANCE * LIFE
: PERSONAL PLANNING x MOTOR
st HOUSE y GENERAL
Contact:
P. Srinivasan ARMASSOCATES
(over 15 years experience in serving Sri Lankan clientele) Licensed by the Office of FairTrading
1524 LONDON ROAD, LONDONSW164EU Telephone: 01-6791952/3

Page 21
FEBRUARY 1987
ਜੁ
UU
|
CASTLE BUILDERS
(Residential & Commercial)
岛丽爵
faz Conversions År Painting & Decorating
★ Extensions * Plumbing
s: Electrical Work Wr Patio & Landscaping
5x Plastering Refurbishment
WE OFFER YOU HIGH OUALITY AND GUARANTEED WORK1
WHY NOT TRY US FOR A COMPETITIVE OU OTE
R. Sri R. Padcham 54 Woodlandway Mitcham Surrey CR42DY O1-646.5432
வீடியோ உலகில் மேல்ஓங்
EUROTAMIL VIDI
NOVVTra
316-318 High Road, Willesden, London N # Tamil Video Films * English Video Films # Photo Processing Facilities * Tobacco, Confectionery & Groceries * Speciality Products from Sri Lanka * Wide Range of Pyramid Video-Audio Cassettes.
Available for local and Overseas customers On special discount rate.
* Tamil Magazines — Bommai, Pesum Padam,
Kumudam & Ananda Vikadan. Available now for local and OverSeas customers.
WEW OPENING HOURS FOR CONVENIENCE;
OUR OTHER TAMIL VIDEO 27, UNDERCLIFF ROAD LEMVSHAM, LONDONSE13.
TEL 01-6918872
Ask for Rasan or Uma. (Under New Management From Feb.87.)
" உ ங் கள து தி ரு ப் தி யே
 
 
 
 
 

TAMLTIMES21
Mr S. Balakrishnan, B.D.S.
DENTAL SURGEON
42 Oueensbury Station Parade, Edgware, Middlesex HA85NN Tel 01-952 1 142
Surgery Hours:
Monday, Wednesday & Friday: 9 a.m.-1 p.m. & 4 p.m.-8 p.m. Saturday: 9.30 a.m.-1 p.m.
PHILOMIN & Co.
SOLICTORS
For All Legal Services And Conveyancing LegalAid Work Undertaken
109 Bell Street, Marylebone, London NW16T) Telephone: 01-7233018
Mariampilai Philomin, LL.B, MBIM
a நிற்கும் கலை நிறுவனம் =
EO FILM SOCIETY
lding As
R O
W102EN Tel: 01-4598589; 01-4512902
? - R.
- PAY Us A VISIT - LET US SERVE YOU.
RENTAL BRANCHES ARE:
75, MIDDLETONAVENUE, GREENFORD, MIDDLESEX. TEL, O1-5783019.
(We Have Moved Our West London Branch to Greenford). எ ங் க ள து குறி க் கே 7 ஸ் '

Page 22
22 AMITMES
CLASSIFIEDADS
First 20 words filo
Each additional word
Charge for Box No.f3. (VAT 15% extra)
Prepaymentessenti
MATRMONIAL
SISTER SEEKS SUITABLE Sri Lankan Hindu
bride for 32 years graduate brother civil servant and partly qualified accountant in USA. Apply with details and horoscope. BoxM149
UK SETTLED CEYON CATHOLIC Tamil, good family background, civil engineer, seeks fair pretty pleasant bride, around 25 years, preferably professional and of similar family background. Please send details with photo. Box M153
GRADUATE PROFESSIONAL sought by uncle for Jaffna Catholic USA educated niece, University lecturer, age 26, preparing for Ph.D and from professional family. BoxM154
JAFFNA HINDU PARENTS seek partner below 34 for their son presently studying in London, Mars and Sun in the Seventh House. Please send horoscope with details when replying. BoxM155
SISTER SEEKS SUITABLE bride, around 38 years, issueless, liberal for professional brother, American citizen, divorced from foreign national. Box M156
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
Barbara Atkins Memorial Thanksgiving Service for life and work of Barbara Atkins at the Putney Methodist Church, 3 pm., Saturday, March 7.
Tamil Women's League Cultural Evening, 6 p.m., Saturday, 14 March, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London, WC1.
S.C.O.T. Musical Evening, Dinner, Disco, 6 pm., Saturday, 21 March, Lola Jones Hall, London, SW15.
London Veena Group
Grand Cultural Evening, 5 p.m., Sunday, 5 April, Lola Jones Hall, off Garratt Lane, Tooting. Tel: 01-672-0603.
“Viraj Mendis Will Stay!” Conference Saturday, April 11 and Sunday, April 12. Church of the Ascension, off Royce Road, Hulme, Manchester.
London Tamil Congregation
Easter Service, 3.45 p.m., Sunday, 19 April, Putney Methodist Church, London, SW15.
Tamil Performing Arts Society. Presents "Mukamillatha Manitharkal", 7 p.m., Monday, 20 April. Bharata Vidya Bhavan, London, W4 (Performance schedulled for 7 March, has been cancelled).
S.C.O.T. Tamil New Year Lunch
1 p.m., Sunday, 3 May, Lola Jones Hall,
London, SW15.
OBTUA - MRS. EDITHLL
passes at 92
Dr. Edith Ludowyk-Gymr Prof. E. F. C. Ludowy peacefully in her sleep February 12th, in her Lo Johns Wood.
At the final leave taking Crematorium on the afte were present those who her years in Ceylon from 1 of promise, and who rega a fellow countrywoman a of her own dear H international gathering colleagues especially of Analytical Society.
"She sleeps or wak enduring de
OBITUAR
By Courtesy of 'Sri Lankan (lissue Nos. 22
KANDIAH, Ponnampalam Husband of Rajeswary, f (USA). 3 De Fonseka Place
SUBRAMANIAM, Kanaka Wife of late M. Subraman Rly.), mother of Sub, Srikanthan, Saratha, Sar avasakar, Shanthikumar ( Street, Jaffna.
CASINADER, Charles Br late Mildred, father of Be Com. Local Govt, Trinco). Methodist Central Col Nible, (Acct.), Wesley Controller, Central Bank, p and Kingsley (formerly sta presently Australia). 26/ Batticaloa.
LEDCHUMIPPILLA, Mrs Wife of late Kumarasamy Mother of Kathirgamanat Dr. Senathirajah (Austra (Zambia), Kamalambigai, deram, Sithamparapillai, maniam (Australia). 3/1. Wel lawatte, Colombo.
SARAVANAMUTTU, Lily. R. Saravanamuttu, moth late Ranee, Kamalini, Sarc
Selvan (UK). 160, O Chundikuli.
TissEVERASINGHE, F. surveyor). Husband of
(Teacher), father of Jee Angela (USA), Beanlab Puthur), Lilian (USA), Go (Canada), Fatta (USA), L Joy (USA). 24, Corington's
SARAVANAMUTHU, Mã ombo Motor Ltd.), husban father of Raj Mohan Damayanthie. Maniagar East, Kokuvil.
KANDASAMY, Seevaratr
late Viyalammah, father Kamalambigai, Sri Rajal Ranjanadevi (Germany). Road, off Peterson Lane, C
TAMPOE, W. M. S. Film P of Meena, father of Rob Devan (Australia). 10, Colombo-5.
 

RY
DOVVYK
years
i, wife of the late k, passed away on the night of don home in St.
at Golders Green noon of the 18th, knew and valued 938 to 1956, years rded her as much she was a native ngary, and an of friends and he British Psycho
es with the ad՛
ES
Situation Report" 安23儿
, Attorney-at-law. ather of Valli, Sri
Colombo-5.
mbikai (kamala). iam (Dy. Ch. Acct. athra, Suimithra, oja (UK) ManickUK). 23, 4th Cross
own. Husband of ?rtram (Rtd. Asst.
Prince (Principal, ege, Batticaloa).
(formerly Asst. resently Australia) ff Trinity College, 1, Chapel Street,
3. Kumarasamy. of Puttalai, Puloly. han (Zimbabwe), ilia), Jeganathan late Nadrajasun
(UK), BalasubraArethusa Lane,
Wife of late Dr. H. er of Rajan (UK) jini, Padmini and ld Park Road,
R. (Licenced late Diamond va, late Bertram, (Teacher GTMS dfrey (USA), Pilo burdy (USA) and Road, Batticaloa.
Iheswaran (Coli of Naguleswary, Rajan UK) and ; li ane, Kokuvi
am. Husband of of Gnanambikai, ingam (Canada), 31/1, Maheswari
lombo-6.
oducer. Husband n, Indra and Dr. Dickmans Lane,
FEBRUARY 1987
MANICKAM, Selvaratnam. Station Master, Maradana, Colombo. Husband of Parameswari, father of Vasanthi, Anandi (Denmark), Vasanthan, and Shanthi.
NADESAN, Victoria. (Rtd. Teacher, Holy Family Convent, Bambalapitiya). Wife of V. Nadesan (Lake House), mother of Gerard and George (West Germany), Gordon and
Geraldine. 92/18, College Street, Kotahena.
RASENDRA, Nagalingam. Attorney-at-law. Husband of Pushparani, father of Gajendran, Jayendran (USA) and Sivendran. 6/1, Fernando Road, Wella Watte.
RAJARATNAM, R. S. (Purser). Husband of Nallanayaki, father of Kyrie, (UK). Rajalekha (UK), Vithuran (UK). 25, Ramakrishna Road,
& x Colombo.
JAYARATNAM, Ruby. Wife of late E. D. N.
Jayaratnam, mother of Ruth (Maldives) and Sam (UK). Wariyapola Estate, Matale.
NAMASIVAYAM, Maruthappa. (Rta. Conservator of Forests). Husband of Tresilla, father of Dilkusha, Shalini (USA) and Rohanna. 21, Frankfort Place, Colombo-4.
SELLAMAH. Wife of late V. S. Selladurai, mother of Pushpakaran, Rajasuriyar, Dr. Rajendram (University of Malaysia) and late Sarojinidevi. Palaly Road, Urelu East, Chunnakam.
RATNASABAPATHY, Wijeya Indra. Brother, of late Mangaiyarkarasi Kandiah, Raja Indra (Michigan) late Maha Indra, late Poorna Indra and Mrs. Indrani Pathmanathan (Michigan). Cremation Sunset Hills Cemetery, Flint, Michigan.
THAMBIRAJAH, C. Husband of Thangaratnam, father of Jayaseelan, Jayaranee, Kamalasini (Kuwait), Pushpagnani (Australia) and Sathiyaseelan (America). 306/1 Navalar Road, Jaffna.
PERSONAL
Mrs. Mano Anantha-Nathan B.A.
鳕 &ঞ্জঠু
kasa” ZA has been appointed Head Teacher, Malorees Primary School, London N. W.6 Mrs. Anantha-Nathan is the first Sri Lankan to be appointed head of a school in the U.K. We wish her good luck in her Cafeer.
N.T.A. President Mrs. Jemmie Srivastava J.P. Delivering Her Presidential Address:
THE N.T.A. Works with the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless. In this connection it co-sponsors a project for the homeless in Tamilnadu. Mr. David McArtney of IYSH explained its work here and in Tamiinadu with a suitable film show and slides.

Page 23
-E ti ri UArk Y Vo V:
NORTHERNTAMILS CELEBRATE THAPONGAL
TAMILS in the North celebrated the harvest festival of the Tamils on Saturday, 17th January, at the Longsight Community Hall in Manchester under the auspices of the Northern Tamil Association.
Proceedings began with prayer in Tamil led by Dr. (Mrs) Sivayoham of Blackburn, Lancashire. Dr. Sivayoham also gave a discourse in English on the history, significance and impact of the Thaipongal festival, for the benefit of the large crowd present, particularly the younger listeners by and large raised in Britain.
The well-known Tamil singer from the North - MVest, Mr. V. Balasubramaniarm, rendered some popular Tamil songs and a Veena recital by Mrs Kanages
Chandrakumar followed. She was accompanied on the Miruthangam by Dr. Mathi Chandra kunnar.
Dear Subscribe
If your date c 14.87, your sul
Please hel
We have neit For your inforr and quadruple
P.O. Box304, London, W1390).
MA
TAMMS jr the N s tW In a Thanksgivin Guardian Angels Cribben speaking ti stated that witness oppressed parts of always fraught wit Lanka, where the Suppressed, it was for a Tamil priest to Truth. Fr. Bastian dic his flock both young paid with his life, Cribben.
The carefully selec was on the death of set out frontiers on would give to his ch sure it must happen: people themselves.
YOGA & CO.
For all your legal work and conveyancing
Solicitors & Administrators
of Oaths 47 Booth Road, Colindale, London NW95JS
Telephone: 01-2050899
Fr. A. T. Moraes
THE HOLYLAND 21-29March F405.00
OURLADY OFLOURDES 16-20 April, 22-26 May, 19-23 June, 10-14 July, 7-11 August, 18-22 September 5-9 October E127.50
LOURDESANONEVERS 21–26 August £15750
Asian Chaplaincy
PLGRMAGES IN 1987
FATIMA
Avila & Lisieux 7-18 July £313.00
ROME
Ars, Assisi, Pisa, Fiorence Oberammergau, Heidelberg 20 June-1 July fa65.00
For further information, or detailed itineraries, contact: Fr. A. Moraes, Asian Chaplaincy,
48 Great Peter Street, London SW1 P2HA Telephone: 01-2222895
 
 

TAMILTIMES 23.
er,
D. O. R.
frenewal is 1.1.87, your subscription is now overdue. If it is
oscription lapses with the March issue.
pus bypaying promptly and, ifatall possible, paying for
two years at a time.
her the staff nor the money to send out repeated reminders. nation, our print bill alone has doubled, since October 1985,
d since October 1981.
Yours gratefully.
Circulation Manager. Tamil Times
RTYRED FR. BASTIAN REMEMBERED
orth of England remembered the martyred priest Fr. Mary Bastian, so years after his untimely death on 6th January, 1985.
g Mass held at the Dhurch, Bury, Fr. J. p a packed gathering ing to Christ in the the Third World was h danger and in Sri
Tamils were being even more dangerous
stand for Justice and no more than care for and old and for this he
Concluded Fr. John
:ted Liturgy for the day Moses, it described and to the land that God osen people, as we are some day for the Tamil In further reading, the
text spelt out how no man had yet found the grave of Moses, and indeed no man has yet found the grave of Fr. Bastian - if ever there. WES OTE,
Tamils both young and old read the 1st and 2nd lessons while Fr. Bastian's sister, brother-in-law and family in customary fashion made offerings at the altar.
A number of Tamils from the north were. present at the Service and thereafter met at the home of Fr. Bastian's sister. It was . decided to call for donations to the Bastian Educational Assistance Scheme.
Northern Tamils seek your assistance and would be grateful if funds could be sent to:-
The Secretary, The Bastian's Educational Assistance Scheme, St. Francis Xavier's Seminary, Colombogam, Jaffna, Sri Lanka.
s.c.o.T. Events
Musical Evening, Dinner, Disco
6 p.m., Saturday, 21 March
Adults f5
Tamil New Year Lunch and
Tellipallai Cancer Hospice Raffle Draw
1 p.m., Sunday, 3 May Adults f4 'Lola Jones Hall, Greaves Place, off Garratt Lane, Tooting, London SW17 Tickets available from Treasurer,
Children f2
Children F1
S.C.O.T. 181 Torbay Road, Harrow, Middx. HA29O.F. Tel: O1-4228984.
THINK
CONVEYANCING
THINK -- K - i lju iì e
riị : r t rno-": "",
For a fast and friendly service, please contact:
Mr. Raja Thavaraja-Solicitor
Of" Mr. Waren Vigneswaran - Solicitor
SPONSORSHIP DOCUMENTS Mr. Basil Preuveneers-Notary:
PHONE: 01-6464885 it 103-105 London Road, Mitcham, CR42JA
PREUVENEERS & Co.

Page 24
24 TAMILTIMES
BO GUS REFU GEE
THE INTEMPERATE reaction of the Immigration Minister, Mr. David Waddington, to the sudden arrival of 64 Sri Lankan Tamils at Heathrow claiming asylum in the U.K. is more a matter for pity than sympathy. Pity for the insensitive approach to a problem that is plaguing Sri Lanka and its Tamil population and for Mr. Waddington's complete ignorance of the present state of the conflict raging in Sri Lanka where the authoritarian State employs with gay abandon all its might in decimating its minority community. -
Since the outburst of the July, 83 violence over 10,000 Tamils have been killed and as many injured or maimed and several thousands held in detention camps through the country. No accurate figures are available and even reputed Organisations admit their inability to obtain classification or confirmation of allegations
made to them. The last report of the Amnesty International highlights the
situation where of the 276 cases referred to the Sri Lankan Government for clarification, only TWO have been satisfactorily explained.
In the eyes of the Sri Lankan Government the Amnesty International, the BBC and the British Press are all in league to discredit what they call a 'Five Star' democracy in its desperate bid to "liquidate' terrorism by a handful of terrorists who have been eluding them for the last three years or more. The aerial bombardment of civilian targets in the North and East, the embargo on fuel
supplies and the ever so frequent rampages
of the Security Forces stationed in over 60 camps all over the Northern region, and similar numbers dotting the East in areas where the Tamils live, are of sufficient significance to dispel the theory of a 'handful of terrorists'. ... : :
What Sri Lanka faces now is a civil war, a war which threatens to divide up the country and a major confrontation between the Sinhala majority of 12 million and a minority of about 3 million Tamils.
掌為羅
ANOPEN LETTER- continued frompagé 1
It is idle to educate Mr. the security that a Tami homeland and the High Colombo may certainly h believe that any Tamil Lanka will be persecuted. are so naive, even in Ca holocaust of July, '83 wh opinion expressed its re. inhumanity to man. Commissioner truthfully Tamil's life in his homela
It is the physical safety
society or Government m
this danger from the mart the Government, both the and the notorious 'S together under the leaders person than the Preside Jayawardene, added to indiscriminate shellings / Camps and aerial strafi targets - these are someo make life for any civil besides the humiliation an any Tamil faces outside Colombo and elsewhere in
Be that as it may, the refugees and asylum-seek this country after the 198. exceed 2,000. The numbe, India is about 150,000. Th and other. European co 30,000. Canada and accepted quite consider Canada has recently gran status to over 8,000 Tamils. Not a few months ag seeking asylum from ( admitted despite the hyster Mulroney's backwoodsme, Prime Minister's historic a government will do anyt refugees in lifeboats to be t around in the ocean and tu, our shores. To think that, if Sri Lankans will diminish and ruin our immigration p resilience and strength of Ca
forc i tog We understand as head of a sovereign state your
ΥΘ3 reluctance to say anything that may be construed as CO interference in the internal affairs of another sovereign Stru
state. But after all, it was your concern for human rights- W a concern which overrides the territorial boundaries of a
state - which has given legitimacy to your mediator role. ನಿ! And, any attempt to "mediate' should surely include E.
surfacing the root causes for the continuing violations of rea human rights by the Sri Lankan Government. A
And, so we ask you to declare openly that a
negotiating process directed to achieve a political, : solution should be founded on the recognition of the E. political reality that there exist in Ceylon today two Ind nations - the Tamil Nation and the Sinhala Nation.
alo Please add your powerful voice to the voices of others ՅՈC
in the international community in their efforts to secure the right of self-determination of the Tamil people. In the words of an article which we carry on our centre pages in this issue, Two nations may agree to live together by

S
Waddington on receives in his ommissioner in Ve O resSOF tO eturning to Sri However not all ombo after the 2n international ulsion at man s an the High assert that a ld is safe. hat any civilised st provide. It is uding forces of Security Forces T. F. ' banded hip of no less a nt’s son, Ravi he regular and rom the Army gs on civilian the factors that an impossible, a suspicion that these areas, in the South. otal number of ers admitted to riots does not r of refugees in pse in Germany untries exceed Australia have able numbers. ited immigrant
9 155 refugees Germany were cal outbursts of 1. We recall the eclaration “My ning but allow urned aimlessly ned away from 'some way, 155 our citizenship
olicies is not the . ."
nada.
ჯუჯრედააზატxწყ„ბახტრაკასშტაბიბისკადრზtwwwზჭჭრბაზო’>
FEBRUARY 1987
A Tamil family getting a police escort at Heathrow, for another day in Britain.
The circumstances were almost identical but his remarks reflected the general sympathy and understanding more characteristic of the British people in the face of human misery.
As in the Canadian instance, what is more important is to find out whether they are Sri Lankan Tamils from the affected areas and the nature of their hardship so as to elicit their reasons for fleeing from the land of their birth and if these are well founded. It does not improve the image of Mr. Waddington and others of his ilk in the House of Commons who were using words such as "brutes', 'bogus' and the like to describe these pathetic frightened escapees from State terror.
Until and unless the root cause of the problem in Sri Lanka is identified and international pressure is brought to bear on resolving the conflict between the two major communities there, which is what India is precisely trying, to achieve, there will be more and more refugees knocking on the doors of whatever country which calls itself civilised. If India is involved because of her cultural and ethnic ties, Britain had her links too and the current confrontation could trace at least some of its roots to the British colonial administration that left in such a hurry.
e of reason. They cannot be compelled to live ther by force of arms. And it is the rejection of on by successive Sinhala Governments which also stitutes the rationale for the continued armed ggle of the Tamil people...". 'e welcome your call to the Sri Lankan Government it the fuel blockade, stop the military offensive and to uinely negotiate a political solution to the conflict, we plead with you to ground the talking process on on and not expediency. s a friend of the Tamil people we ask you to secure
negotiating process that be founded on the cipled framework contained in the Thimpu aration. It is only justice that will yield peace in the an Region. And justice is not an empty platitude - it e will secure political stability. Justice must be done must be seen to be done.
Yours in pain and suffering, . THE TAMIL NATION OFSRI LANKA."