The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is the heart and soul of the Tamil struggle for self-determination. It is the national freedom movement of the people of Tamil Eelam, and a predominant actor in Sri Lankan politics. It is both a political organisation as well as a military power, running a de-facto administration in the majority of areas in north-eastern Sri Lanka, the historical homeland of the Tamil-speaking people. The LTTE has an evolutionary history extending over more than 32 years. Born as an underground guerrilla outfit in the early seventies under the leadership of Mr Velupillai Pirapaharan, it has grown, developed and expanded into a national liberation organisation with the overwhelming support of the Tamil masses.
The organisation, in its evolutionary growth, has faced severe obstacles, dilemmas and challenges. It has had to fight the most bloody and savage battles against formidable forces and treacherous enemies. It has had to engage in both war, and in peace processes. In the military field, it has achieved remarkable victories and gained global recognition as one of the most efficient fighting machines in the world. The organisation has made immense sacrifices in life and blood in the cause of national freedom. It has also engaged in the realm of peace, seeking a fair and reasonable political solution, without relinquishing the inalienable rights of the Tamil people. However, because the enemy has been deceitful, dishonest and defiant and refused fundamental justice to our people, accomplishment at the negotiating table has not matched the military feats on the battlefields. The intransigent attitude of the Sinhala political establishment had made the negotiating process difficult and painful. From the Thimpu talks until the recent Norwegian facilitated negotiation process, the LTTE has involved in all the peace efforts, and made sincere attempts to seek a political solution. But all the talks collapsed or stalemated. The Sri Lanka government and the Colombo media blamed the LTTE as the villain of peace and the prime causal factor for failures at a negotiated settlement. The state inspired disinformation campaign in Colombo, and by some interested parties in India, discredited the LTTE in the eyes of the international community as an opponent of peace. This misconception, based on distortion of fact, compelled me to write this comprehensive book: to tell the truth with authentic records of historical events, of the active engagement of the LTTE in peace negotiations.
As the political advisor and theoretician of the organisation I have worked closely with the Tamil Tigers, and with their leader, Mr Velupillai Pirapaharan, for twenty-six years. I have participated in various peace talks, in most cases as the chief negotiator for the LTTE. During the period of Indian intervention, I was associated with Mr Pirapaharan in all encounters with Indian leaders and officials. With this wide personal experience with the organisation, its leadership and its political project, I feel that I am in a position to write the definitive history of the LTTE’s political struggle, particularly the struggle in the negotiating arena.
This book is divided into five chapters. The first chapter deals with the non-violent political struggles of the post-independent era, as well as the birth, growth and development of the armed resistance movement of the Tamils, spearheaded by the LTTE. The history of the Tamil struggle for self-determination, spans a period of more than 50 years. The struggle has taken different forms and modes at different times in its evolutionary history. In the early stages, during the 1950s and 60s, the political struggle was peaceful and non-violent, confined to parliamentary and constitutional politics. The old generation of Tamil leaders were Gandhians, committed to the principles and philosophy of the great Indian leader. The non-violent political struggles of the Tamils based on the Gandhian philosophy of ‘ahimsa’, inspired the spirit of nationalism and mobilised the Tamil nation into a collective force. Caste fragmented society rose into a united nation demanding political liberties, equal opportunities and self-rule in their historical homeland.
The repressive Sri Lankan state reacted violently to the Tamil demand for political rights. Military repression soon quelled the non-violent political agitations. Having crushed the peaceful Gandhian struggles, the Sinhala government intensified state repression. The multi-faceted oppression deeply affected the socioeconomic life of the Tamils. Deprived of education and employment opportunities, the rebellious Tamil youth adopted political violence. The state violence against the young Tamil rebels increased. The vicious cycle of repression and resistance aggravated the conditions of violence. As the state violence intensified, the Tamil resistance assumed the character of armed struggle, and the LTTE was born in the early 70s and grew into a fierce guerrilla movement. The first chapter narrates the historical background of the state repression and the growth and development of the Tamil armed resistance movement.
The second chapter deals with the turbulent history of Indian intervention in Sri Lanka. The Indian involvement began during the racial holocaust of July 1983 and culminated in March 1990, with the withdrawal of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF). India’s intervention marked a critical and controversial period in Indo-Sri Lanka relations, having political, military and strategic ramifications. The intervention began as an overt diplomatic offensive on one side, and a covert military operation on the other, designed to bring the defiant Sri Lankan President Jayawardane, out from the fold of western powers, to the geo-political dominance of India. Later, in the course of time, Indian involvement transformed into a protracted mediatory effort, starting from Thimpu talks in 1985 and ending in the Indo-Lanka Agreement in 1987. Following the Agreement, relations between India and the Liberation Tigers, due to unforeseen events, became hostile and exploded into an armed conflict that lasted more than two years. In this intriguing and complex history of Indian intervention, the LTTE was involved in the covert Indian military training programme and in the Indian mediated peace efforts. Further, the LTTE became party to conflict with India. I have provided a concrete analysis of the crucial role played by our liberation organisation in different circumstances at different times in the complex and controversial history of the Indian involvement. Because of the centrality of the role played by the LTTE and the politico-military debacles India faced, the Tamil Tigers became the object of negative criticism, particularly from Indian political analysts. While repudiating those criticisms as biased and unfair, I have presented, in this chapter, the authentic story of the challenges, difficulties and pressures the LTTE faced in the events of that time. The analysis in this chapter is important for Sri Lanka watchers and students of history, since it is the first time the Tamil side of the story of Indian intervention, is revealed.
The third chapter provides an analysis of the peace talks held between Premadasa’s administration and the LTTE. This chapter is written by my wife Adele and taken from her book, ‘The Will to Freedom’. I have added this piece of writing from her book with her kind permission since it is a comprehensive, objective study available on the subject. Adele played an important role in the Colombo talks as the secretary to the LTTE delegation, and assisted me in my role as the chief negotiator. I am of the view that the insertion of her analysis of the Premadasa-LTTE talks will add scholarship to my work, covering the entire spectrum of the LTTE’s participation in peace talks. The inclusion of this phase of negotiations in the book is necessitated by the fact that it relates to the Indian intervention period, which I have treated extensively in the second chapter. The LTTE, as Adele has argued, entered into a dialogue with the Premadasa government with the objective of securing the withdrawal of the Indian army occupying the Tamil homeland. The politico-diplomatic effort eventually succeeded because Pirapaharan and Premadasa had common interests in the matter.
The fourth chapter deals with the ill-fated negotiations of 1994-95, between the Kumaratunga government and the LTTE. To comprehend the strategy adopted by President Kumaratunga today, a critical examination of the previous attempt to seek a negotiated settlement with the LTTE in the Jaffna peace talks is relevant. This chapter is the revised version of my book entitled, ‘The Politics of Duplicity’, with all the important letters exchanged between President Kumaratunga and the LTTE leader. The analysis of the Jaffna talks demonstrates that Kumaratunga’s peace making exercise was a duplicitous act undertaken in bad faith. There was no genuine political will or determination on the part of Kumaratunga administration either to alleviate the existential suffering of the Tamils or to find a permanent settlement to the ethnic conflict. Under the guise of peace negotiations the government prepared the ground for a major invasion of the Jaffna peninsula. Since the President is still at the helm of power and making efforts to resume peace talks with the Liberation Tigers, it is extremely useful to revisit the Jaffna peace talks to understand the real reasons behind the breakdown.
The last chapter provides a comprehensive analysis of the six sessions of peace talks facilitated by the Royal Norwegian Government. The talks began on 16 September 2002, in the naval base at Sattahip, Thailand, and the sessions covered a period of six months, ending in the hot water resort of Hakone, Japan.
The commencement of peace talks was the result of years of Herculian effort by Norwegian peace envoys to bring the adversaries to the negotiating table. The major achievement of the Norwegians was the formulation of a comprehensive ceasefire agreement between the parties in conflict, which has lasted more than two and a half years to date, providing a stable ground for negotiations. There was goodwill and mutual trust between the negotiating teams, and the parties were able to engage in serious dialogue, with a commitment to advance the peace process in stages. As the LTTE delegation insisted on de-escalation of the conflict, normalisation of civilian life, and resolution to immediate, urgent humanitarian issues, the Sri Lankan government agreed to set-up a joint sub-committee to address those critical issues identified by the LTTE. The issues related to de-escalation and normalisation soon ran into serious difficulties, as the Sri Lankan armed forces controlling populated areas in the northeast refused to relax their grip of occupation and demanded the disarming of the LTTE and decommissioning of its weapons, as a condition to allow the displaced population to resettle in the military occupied zones. This led to the collapse of the Sub-Committee on De-escalation, and the crucial issue of restoring normal civilian life became an insurmountable problem. The pledge to institutionalise an interim administrative structure was postponed indefinitely in the light of constitutional hurdles, and the Sub-Committee on Immediate Reconstruction and Humanitarian Needs (SIRHN), which was established as a provisional mechanism, became non-functional, without adequate funds and implementation authority. The enthusiasm and euphoria that manifested in the earlier stages of the talks, soon died down. Faced with a lack of progress, the facilitators and the Sri Lankan government unfortunately claimed progress in the political process, by over-emphasizing a decision made by the parties to explore federal models, a conceptual misunderstanding which I have treated extensively within the theoretical framework of the right to self-determination.
The LTTE leadership became disillusioned and unhappy over lack of progress in the talks in face of the mounting existential and humanitarian problems of the war affected Tamil people. The hostility of the armed forces and the provocative incidents on the sea also aggravated the gloomy environment. Furthermore, the excessive internationalisation of the process, with the active involvement of world governments in pursuit of their interests and agendas, affected the status of equality, or rather, the power balance of the parties, to the disadvantage of the LTTE. The exclusion of the LTTE at the Washington Donor meeting held in April 2003, signalled the danger of marginalisation of the organisation, depriving it of the status of parity on the international forums. The LTTE leadership decided to suspend their participation in the peace talks and explained the reasons to Ranil Wickremesinge. Ultimately, when the LTTE leadership submitted its own proposals on an Interim Self-Governing Authority, executive President Kumaratunga struck back, triggering the downfall of Wickremesinghe’s government. The concluding part of the chapter provides a critical analysis of the shortcomings of the Norwegian facilitated peace talks.
The book provides a historical study of the growth of Tamil nationalism, which eventually took organisational form into an armed resistance movement headed by the LTTE. The early military history of the organisation and the whole series of negotiations held at different locations are accurately presented in detail. The work opens up new realms of material, hitherto unknown, and provides in depth detail and insight into the dynamics of the Tamil liberation struggle.