Tamil Tigers leader Velupillai Prabhakaran asked the international community to stop aiding Sri Lanka and instead take a new approach regarding the Tamil separatist campaign.
Blaming the world for Colombo’s war on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Prabhakaran said that it was his hope that other countries would end their military and economic aid to the Sri Lankan state.
The Tamil Tigers firmly expect that at least from now on the international community will take a new approach in relation to our freedom struggle.
The LTTE made available an English translation. “On this sacred day, it is the hope of our people that the international community will cease giving military and economic aid to the Sinhala regime and accept the right of self determination and the sovereignty of the Tamil nation.”
Prabhakaran, who turned 54, accused other countries involved in the Sri Lankan peace process of making “the same mistake India made many years ago” - believing that Colombo was capable of coming out with a political solution to a dragging ethnic conflict that has claimed some 70,000 lives since 1983.
The past 60 years have proven beyond doubt that no political party in the south (of Sri Lanka) has the political honesty or firmness in policy to find a just solution to the Tamil national question.
It has also been proved beyond doubt that none of the southern parties are ready to accept the core principles for a lasting peace: the Tamil homeland, the Tamil nation and the Tamil right to self determination.
All the Sinhala political parties are essentially chauvinistic and anti-Tamil . Prabhakaran accused Sri Lanka - whose chief military strategist has claimed the military is trying to kill the LTTE chief - of unleashing a “war of genocide” that he said had turned Tamils into refugees in their own areas of habitation.
The LTTE chief did not even spare Norway, the peace facilitator that helped broker a ceasefire agreement between the Tigers and the government in 2002. The truce has more or less collapsed, triggering heavy fighting.
Norwegian facilitators (have) remained silent despite Colombo’s war against the LTTE.
He said “ The countries that preached us peace also went silent and refused to speak out. This partisan and unjust conduct of the international community has severely undermined the confidence our people had in them.”
He alleged that the All Party Representative Committee, tasked with framing a package for devolution of power to minorities in Sri Lanka, had “gone on holiday” after dragging on without putting forward any solution.
Prabhakaran also blasted the co-chairs, which is made up of the US, Norway, Japan and the European Union and which oversees the now tottering peace process.
“The co-chairs, acting as the guardians of the peace process, have failed in their responsibility. If the co-chairs do not have a moral obligation to protect peace efforts, what exactly is the purpose of their meeting from time to time in different places? Is it their intent to assist the Sinhala regime to wipe out the Tamils?”
Prabhakaran asserted that “we are not terrorists, committing blind acts of violence impelled by racist or religious fanaticism.’’
He added that their struggle has a concrete, legitimate, political objective.
They were struggling to regain their sovereignty in their own historical land where they have lived for centuries.
The move has drawn criticism from other countries.
After criticizing the India-Sri Lanka accord of 1987 and the Indian military intervention, the LTTE leader said: “We explained to India on many occasions, at many locations and at many levels about the implacability of Sinhala chauvinism... India refused to accept the reality. LTTE had only “strategically withdrawn” the region and warned that “those who plan to destroy the Tamil nation will in the end be forced to face their own destruction.
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