Resolution of US Massachusetts House of
Representatives
Calling for the Restoration of the Separate Sovereign State of
Tamil Eelam
18 June 1981
[see also
Proclamation of Eelam Day by Edward J.King, Governor of Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
16 May 1979
Human Rights for Tamils in Sri Lanka
- US Congress Resolution - Hon. Mario Baggio of New York in the US House of
Representatives, 8 May 1980
Proclamation by Mayor of
Somerville, Sister City of Trincomalee, Eelam (Naval Base), 22
June 1981]
Comment
by tamilnation.org,
20 March 2007 -
The
Resolution passed by
the Massachusetts House of Representatives
on 18 June 1981 (more than twenty five years ago) makes it
abundantly clear that the United States is not without an understanding of
the
justice of the Tamil Eelam struggle for freedom.
What
then has changed in the ensuing 25 years? Not much, if we recognise that
countries do not have permanent friends but have permanent interests. Not much, if we recognise that the interests of a state
are a function of the interests of groups which wield power
within that state and 'foreign policy is the external
manifestation of domestic institutions, ideologies and other
attributes of the polity'.
In 1981 at the time that the
Massachusetts Resolution was passed, Indira Gandhi was building her influence
within the Tamil militant movement. In 1998 at a Seminar in
Switzerland, Jyotindra Nath Dixit Indian High Commissioner in Sri Lanka 1985 /89, Foreign
Secretary in 1991/94 and National Security Adviser to the Prime
Minister of India 2004/05 explained
Indira
Gandhi and India's Motivations in 1981-83 -
"...It would be relevant to analyse India's motivations and
actions in the larger perspective of the international and regional
strategic environment, obtaining between 1950 and 1981 President Reagan was
in power and the Soviet Union was going through the post Brezhnev
uncertainties preceding Gorbachev’s arrival on the scene....The rise of Tamil militancy in Sri Lanka and the Jayawardene
government's serious apprehensions about this development were utilised by
the US and Pakistan to create a politico-strategic pressure point against
India, in the island's strategically sensitive coast off the Peninsula of
India. Jayawardene
established substantive defensive and intelligence contacts with US,
Pakistan and Israel. The Government of India was subject to internal
centrifugal pressures in Punjab and Kashmir and portions of the north east
during this time. Tamil militancy received support both from Tamil Nadu and
from the Central Government not only as a response to the Sri Lankan
Government's military assertiveness against Sri Lankan Tamils, but also as a
response to Jayawardene's concrete and expanded military and intelligence
cooperation with the United States, Israel and Pakistan."
The Massachusetts Resolution of 1981 served to enhance US
influence in the
Tamil struggle (and build links with Tamil Eelam activists) in the same way as Indira Gandhi sought to
enhance New Delhi's influence on the Tamil struggle by
encouraging Tamil Nadu rhetoric (and build links with Tamil
Eelam activists). We will not be too far wrong if
we conclude that at that time, Massachusetts was to Washington
what Tamil Nadu was to New Delhi. It was also during this time
period that in the US, Tamil rhetoric was allowed to flow freely at
International
Tamil Conferences.
At the same time US General
Walters, a senior figure in the US strategic and
intelligence establishment,
was advising Sri Lanka and
the
US State Department
proclaimed not long after the
1983 Genocide
that "Sri Lanka is an open, working, multiparty democracy."
It is
understandable therefore that today the same strategic US interests in the
Indian Ocean region
lead to statements such as those made by U.S.
Ambassador Robert Blake on 1 March 2007 that "Sri
Lanka has in President Rajapakse a strong leader " and by US
Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns on 21 November 2006 that
"we
hold the Tamil Tigers responsible
for much of what has gone wrong
in the country. We are not neutral in this respect."
It is
correct that the US has never been neutral. Unfortunately, the
US (unlike Jyotindra Nath
Dixit) has failed to be transparent about its own strategic
interests and the motivations for its actions in relation to the
conflict in the island of Sri Lanka. Unfortunate, because
transparency is a first step towards an open evaluation of
that which US may 'perceive' to be its strategic interests
- after all, as we have
said elsewhere, GNP is not necessarily a measure of wisdom. Sacked Sri
Lanka Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera has ofcourse helped
the Tamil people to
further their understanding of international relations in this age
of empire, when he said on
14 February 2007 -
".... two days after the vote
(on Israel), US
Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns telephoned me. The decision
taken by us regarding the vote went a long way in building trust and
strengthening US-Sri Lanka ties. Few days afterwards,
at the
Co-Chairs Meeting in Washington DC, Nicholas Burns expressed
America's fullest support to the Government of Sri Lanka in
defeating the menace of LTTE terrorism. After the meeting
he also
held a press conference that was very encouraging to the Government
and the people of Sri Lanka..."
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
In The Year Of One Thousand Nine Hundred Eighty One
Resolution Memorialising the President and
the Congress to Recognize
the Right of Self Determination by the Tamil people of Tamil Eelam
Whereas, the Tamils of Eelam, who number three million Hindus,
Christians and Moslems occupy eight thousand square miles live as an
oppressed minority in
Sri Lanka where the majority is composed of
ten million Sinhalese, most of whom are Buddhists, and
Whereas, from ancient times two nations the Sinhalese and the
Tamils
possessed distinct languages, religions, cultures and clearly demarcated
geographic territories until the British who were characteristically oblivious
to the differences between these two separate nations, imposed one rule for the
purpose of colonial administrative unification, and
Whereas, as was to be expected in 1948 when the British left the
island and two unwilling nations were consequently left under a
unitary governmental structure, the majority Sinhalese faction
subverted democratic principles to become the new masters of the
Tamil - speaking people, and
Whereas, one million Tamils on the tea and rubber plantations,
who prior to independence and enjoyed rights similar to those
possessed by other ceylonese, were
disenfranchised and made
stateless, and
Whereas, although the plantation
Tamils were the descendants of Indians
who were brought to ceylon more than one hundred years ago by
the seemingly ubiquitous British planters, and as such were mostly native
sri lankans who possessed no relationship with the india from which their ancestors
sailed, in 1964 the government inhumanely and
callously determined to repatriate compulsorily these Tamils,
ordering them to depart the land of their birth, and
Whereas, successive Sinhala governments have been guilty of
racism and acts of racial discrimination against the Tamils in the
fields of education, employment, religion, politics, economic
development and trade, and
Whereas, from time to time violence is used it the
Sinhala
governments, army and the police against the Tamils without
provocation as a political weapon in order to obtain subservience
and
Whereas, in 1972 the representatives of the Sinhala and
Tamil
nation met together and peacefully overthrew British sovereignty and
thereby each nation resuscitated, and reverted to, its own
sovereignty, and
Whereas,
a new constitution,
which reiterated that foremost place
should be accorded to the buddhist religion and the Sinhalese
language. was unilaterally adopted without the cooperation or
consultation with the majority of the Tamil representatives in
parliament, and
Whereas, the Tamil nation of
Eelam at the general election of may
1977 gave a
clear mandate for
the restoration and reconstitution of
the separate sovereign state of Tamil Eelam by winning 18 out of 19
Tamil seats in Tamil Eelam, and
Whereas, the Tamil people
were again not a party to the
constitution
of 1978 which replaced
its predecessor
of 1972, and
Whereas, the Tamil nation of
Eelam opposed the two constitutions as illegal
impositions on them and their territory and asserted their right of
self determination and sovereignty by non violent agitations, and
Whereas, the Sinhala government of Sri Lanka has occupied
the
territory of Tamil Eelam with its armed forces and security services
and are denying the
right of self-determination
and
sovereignty of the
Tamil nation by the use of force on Tamil people, and
Whereas, the Tamil United Liberation Front
which received the
mandate of the Tamil people at the may 1977 general election
for the separate sovereign Tamil state is continuing the
struggle for freedom by non-violent ways preached and practised
by mahatma gandhi
and by the late leader of Tamil nation,
S.J.V.
Chelvanayagam,
Therefore
Resolved, that the Massachusetts
House of Representatives hereby
urges the President and the Congress of the United States to support
the struggle for freedom
by the Tamil nation for the
restoration and reconstitution the separate sovereign state
of Tamil Eelam and to
recognize publicly the
right of self determination by the
Tamil
people of Tamil Eelam, and be it further
resolved,
that copies of these resolutions
be forwarded to the
President of the United States, to the Presiding Officer of each
branch of Congress, to the members thereof from this
Commonwealth,
to the Secretary of State, to the Director of the World Bank and to
the Secretary General of the United Nations.
House of Representatives,
adopted June 18, 1981
Speaker of the House
Clerk of the House
Representative Mary
Elizabeth Howe
