TAMIL EELAM:
RIGHT TO SELF DETERMINATION 

Statement by the Non Governmental Organisation Liberation

at United Nations Commission on Human Rights
Geneva 31 January 1991

"The people of Tamil Eelam have suffered enough and have waited long enough for their human rights. Today, they are a people who can no longer be denied their right to self determination"

The systematic violations of human rights by the Sri Lanka government over a period of four decades are well documented and are, clearly, no accidental happenings. They constitute evidence of the resolute and determined effort of an alien Sinhala majority to subjugate and assimilate the people of Tamil Eelam within the framework of a unitary Sinhala Buddhist Sri Lankan state.

The people of Tamil Eelam have suffered enough and have waited long enough for their human rights. Today, they are a people who can no longer be denied their right to self determination.

The views of Dr.Hector Gros Espiell in his report for the United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination of Minorities in 1980, deserve our renewed attention:

" Every people subject to any form or type of colonial or alien domination possesses the right to self determination, and no distinction can be drawn between one people and another for the purpose of recognising the existence of this right if there is evidence of colonial or alien domination of the people or peoples in question"

We also urge the Commission to give careful consideration to the comments of Professor Leo Kruper in the Minority Rights Group Report on International Action against Genocide in 1982:

"...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..." (Minority Rights Group Report: International Action Against Genocide)

We believe that it is a matter of immediate importance that the Sri Lankan government should be called upon to .. secure a political settlement of the conflict within the framework of human rights and the right of self determination of the people of Tamil Eelam.