Tamil Eelam Liberation Struggle
by People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) 1985
Source: Padippakam.com;
Transcribed: for marxists.org by Laxshen.
1. — Voice of Thamileelam 23.4.85
2. — PRESS RELEASE - Attack on the Nikaweratiya police station
Comrade Umamaheswaran in an address to the people of Thamileelam and Sri Lanka on the development of the Tamil liberation struggle, the political stand of 'PLOT", and clarification of its position regarding the armed struggle.
Since its inception the history of the Tamil liberation struggle has gone through a process of change over the years. During the initial stages, our slogans called for regional autonomy and regional security. They were mainly nationalist in character. The call for the setting up of the state of Thamileelam early during the struggle reflected its nationalist background, and was in fact a call to divide the country along national lines.
The revolutionary process, however, had its effect on the revolutionaries and their organisations. That which was initially a singularly nationalist call broadened its scope to demand basic rights and human rights. The base of the struggle which was initially for survival as a race gradually grew into one which took into consideration the wider issues of the country and its people as a whole.
From this point it was not long before those involved in the liberation struggle learned to look at the problems confronting the masses on a class basis. The growth of the People's Liberation Organisation of Thamileelam which was passing through phases of change smoothly, was overtaken by events with the outbreak of the government-sponsored racial pogrom of July 1983. However, the gradual changes which occurred within the People's Liberation Organisation of Thamileelam, taking it from one which was to an extent chauvinistic at its inception, to one which grew into a revolutionary movement, won for itself recognition and sympathy not only in the international field but even among the progressive forces among the Sinhalese people. The struggle has today progressed to the extent that the revolutionary forces among the Sinhalese people have aligned themselves alongside the Tamil liberation fighters in the struggle for liberation.
The immediate goal of the liberation struggle is the establishment of a People's Democratic Republic of Thamileelam, built on the foundation of a strong people's democracy. This alone can guarantee the democratic rights of the masses as a whole, and do away with the pseudo-democracy enjoyed by a section of the people - the privileged class. To make this a reality the People's Liberation Organisation of Thamileelam is involved in a massive programme of mass mobilisation to prevent the emergence of Thamileelam as a bourgeois state. The aim is therefore to ensure that the working class assumes leadership at all levels of the struggle.
It is therefore necessary to ensure that all the democratic forces are linked under the leadership of the working class to form a strong united front for the armed struggle.
This is our immediate task.
In the struggle for the establishment of a socialist state PLOT has clearly identified two phases. During the first phase the aim is a democratic revolution via a national liberation struggle, the second stage being the consolidation of the first phase, and the continued class struggle leading to the establishment of a socialist state.
There being no strong industrial base in Thamileelam, the broad masses of the workers in the agricultural and fisheries sectors, together with those masses oppressed in the name of caste, form the backbone of the liberation struggle of the people of Thamileelam.
Despite the gains the revolutionary struggle has made so far however, it is clear to the discerning observer that the revolutionary process is still in its initial stages. The final putsch to achieve the liberation of Thamileelam will necessarily have to be an all out strike against the forces of the state.
There is consensus of opinion among all groups involved in the liberation struggle of Thamileelam that the only means to achieve this goal is through the armed struggle.
Our differences lie in tactics and strategies. In the final analysis it is the political philosophy of a group or movement which decides the modes of operation of that group or organisation. The method of struggle adopted by the People's Liberation Organisation of Thamileelam is a people's war. And a people's war cannot be fought if the people - that is the people's army - is not fully politicised.
To achieve this end PLOT is engaged in a programme of mass mobilisation, while at the same time building up its army. It is only such an army built on a political philosophy based on a people's needs, which is in a position to take on the forces of the racist state backed by the resources of imperialism in a prolonged guerrilla war.
The forces of the state while enjoying undoubted military superiority are yet weakened by the fact of being the mercenary force of a fascist regime.
The method of armed struggle adopted by PLOT can be divided into three stages:
The first being the building up of guerrilla fronts. Here the groups involve themselves in an attack on the state forces only as a means of protecting themselves. In other words the attack is a means of defence, when the enemy initiates onslaughts against us.
The second stage is when the liberation forces who are trained and ready, initiate attacks on the state forces. At this stage the liberation fighters are on the offensive. The guerrillas involved in this stage of the struggle are the main cadres of the people's army.
This in turn leads to the third stage, which is a direct war with the enemy by the liberation forces. They have by this time grown into a permanent army. However, the development of the armed struggle will not be one of equal development. It is dependent on the political development of the people. While in some areas the struggle may be in the first stage of development, in other areas it could be in the second stage of offensive attacks.
The people's army and the use of arms, in the final analysis, is an extension of the political struggle. The armed struggle is not outside the framework of politics.
Therefore, the functioning of the people's army must necessarily be under the direction of the people's party involved in the liberation struggle.
Today hit and run tactics and assassination of isolated armed service personnel are outdated and should be given up. They served a purpose of giving our people encouragement and the morale to join in the armed struggle.
Today the only persons not actively involved in the armed struggle are the Sinhalese masses. If it is our aim to isolate the fascist state, then individual assassinations and armed attacks on police stations, the mining of roads etc., are proving counter-productive.
The armed services are made up mainly of the sons of the workers and the peasants. Today these people are living in fear for the lives of their sons who are placed in the north. As such they are blindly lending their support to the self-same state which is suppressing them as well, under the guise of fighting to save the Sinhalese people from terrorists.
This does not mean, however, that PLOT has never involved itself in the armed struggle. In fact it was the People's Liberation Organisation of Thamileelam which in 1981 gave a new direction to the armed struggle, when it attacked and captured the Annakottai police station.
Until this time the armed struggle was confined to attacks on individual armed servicemen and police informers. Sinhala-Buddist chauvinists now wielding state power and the imperialists who back them, recognise this.
They are making every effort to destroy the liberation struggle in its initial stages. The continuing pogroms and the attacks on the civilian population are nothing but strategies on the part of the fascist state to draw the militants into a face-to-face struggle before they are in a state of preparedness to do so.
All social groups and classes of the Tamils as a whole are being ruthlessly oppressed by the chauvinistic state of Sri Lanka. The entire Tamil nation therefore plays a positive role in the liberation struggle. No one group or class remains a passive onlooker. It is inevitable however that each group or class will be playing its own role in the liberation struggle on the basis of its own class interests.
Their strategies are therefore based on their class interests and their political philosophy. Each group has the inherent right to organise its own strategies and plans of action. However, these actions and plans must coincide with the total liberation process which is in a state of flux and cannot be looked at in isolation. Whatever actions are planned, they must keep in mind the situation of the people, the country and the other groups involved. Actions and strategies must be viewed with a long-term perspective of possible adverse repercussions of these actions.
In this context special mention must be made of particular actions. They have not only resulted in putting back the gains of the revolution by several years, but have also given the revolution a bad name internationally. In addition these actions instead of taking the struggle forward have helped put the enemy on his guard and hamper actions of other groups as well.
A very good example of these actions planned in isolation and without sufficient forethought for repercussions were the premature bomb-attacks in Colombo. It in no way helped to carry forward the Thamileelam liberation struggle, nor was it either properly planned or executed. What that particular action achieved was to put the state on guard, and increase the security measures of the country.
As a result of this misguided action the movement of Tamils in the south of the country have been severely curtailed. In addition any Tamil wishing to travel faces innumerable hardships. The worst aspect of this action is that in the future, even if the need arises to carry out any action in the south, it will be very difficult to penetrate the security around important sectors of the state.
Such acts, carried out in areas where the liberation fighters have no support among the local population, are meant only to create terror among the populace. Armed attacks on civilian targets for the sole purpose of spreading terror is the act of a terrorist. It does not gain us the sympathy of the local populace and it makes it more difficult for the progressive sections among the Sinhalese people to explain their support for the Tamil liberation struggle to the Sinhala masses.
The isolated attacks, often ill-conceived and without forethought, have in fact given the liberation struggle a bad reputation among the international community. It also causes confusion among the working class. The attacks on the Kent and Doller farms, followed by the attacks on the Sinhala fisher community at Nyaru and Kokulai are excellent examples of a group falling headlong into the trap set by the fascist sate. The state has over the year been trying to make out that the Tami liberation struggle was against the Sinhalese people.
We recognise that the Sinhala settlers planted on the Kent and Dollar farms by the state were not civilians in the true sense of the word. They were armed hoodlums and hard-core criminals who were also armed and guilty of attacking Tamil villages and harassing young Tamil women in the vicinity. They were settled on lands from which the up-country Tamils were evicted. They are therefore militarised civilians or para-military forces.
They were planted to provoke just such an attack. The attack carried out without advance propaganda of the activities of these criminal elements, or explaining the causes for the action, in addition to the killing of children led only to the liberation struggle being classed at the same level as that of the fascist state. It also led to widespread support for the government among the Sinhalese people who did not know the facts of the matter.
What is worse, these actions were undertaken with the motive of liberating the Tamil areas. The effect of these and other allied actions has in fact had the opposite effect.
As a result of the attacks on the armed services, several villages have been evacuated. A security zone has been set up leading to over 100,000 persons losing their means of living. As a result of the attack on the Kent and Doller farms over five whole villages in the area surrounding the farms have been evicted of Tamil people and burned down. In addition, a large number of persons were brutally done to death. These actions by the armed services led to widespread fear among the people who have begun to flee their traditional homes in Trincomalee, Vavuniya and in the Mannar district. Today over a hundred thousand of them have left their homes and country and live as refugees in India.
Our analysis of these hit and run attacks is that while they served a purpose during the initial days of the struggle, today they have proved themselves to be counter-productive. They only strengthen the hands of the enemy. That is, the local lackeys and their imperialists backers. Any organisation which does not have a For the liberation struggle to be successful, the people necessarily have to become partners in the struggle. They have to understand the difficulties and sacrifices involved.
They should not be misled into the belief that a particular group or organisation will achieve liberation for them.
This type of myth will only lead to an endangering of the entire struggle.
The masses must also be told that liberation will not come about simply because a few groups make a public announcement of unity. This type of unity is only a means of deceiving the people. Unity has to built around a concrete work programme, based on principles and a minimum common political ideology and strategy. Unity without a strategy is meaningless. In like manner the best laid strategy without the manpower to execute it, is equally meaningless and can only be described as an attempt to deceive the masses of our country on the one hand, and for the purpose of raising finances outside the country on the other.
In like manner the distribution of false and malicious leaflets, spreading of blatant lies and scurrilous posters do not in any way advance the cause of the liberation struggle. Today, while for instance the government of Sri Lanka has given up its efforts to jam the Voice of Thamileelam broadcast, it is unfortunate that a so-called liberation group, the LTTE, is making desperate efforts to jam the programme. These actions only serve to disillu-sion, divide and discourage our people. In this way these actions only strengthen the hands of the state against whom we are supposed to be fighting.
The People's Liberation Organisation of Thamileelam calls on the masses of our country not to be disheartened by the misguided antics of reactionaries in the guise of liberation fighters and revolutionaries. The actions of these individuals expose their true intention, that of merely seeking power through deception of the people, and not attempting to involve them in the revolutionary process.
The promise of the People's Liberation Organisation of Thamileelam is not a quick or overnight solution to our problems as promised by a few cheap tricksters. The immediate future holds for us blood, sweat and tears. But we assure our masses of the formation of a national front whose base is the force of anti-imperialism and is not confined to ethnic divides. This does not mean we rule out the role of the bourgeois parties and their role in the liberation process. The People's Liberation Organisation of Thamileelam calls on all forces opposed to imperialism to join hands in overthrowing the fascists who are oppressing our people and selling the country to the imperialists.
The Sinhala State oppression against the Tamils began to unfold its ugly forms soon after the Island's independence in 1948 when British imperialism handed over State power to the Sinhalese ruling elite. The oppression was not simply an expression of racial prejudice, but a well calculated genocidal plan aimed at the gradual and systematic destruction of the basic foundations of the Tamil national formation. The oppression attacked simultaneously on the different structural aspects of the nation, its language, education, culture, economy and territory, which jeopardised the national identity of the Tamil speaking people and threatened their very survival.
On the 25th April 1985, Commandos of the People's Liberation Organisation of Thamileelam successfully captured the police station at Nikaweratiya. Situated approximately 60 kilometres outside Colombo, Nikaweratiya is in the heartland of Sinhalese country. The commandos of PLOT after taking over the police station removed all weapons including revolvers, rifles, sub-machine guns and repeater shot guns.
The People's Liberation Organisation of Thamileelam has repeatedly stressed through its radio broadcasts (Voice of Thamileelam) and its publications that the Sinhalese people are not the enemies of the Tamil people.
The Tamil liberation struggle is not against the Sinhalese people, their race, language or religion.
The People's Liberation Organisation of Thamileelam also recognises that the members of the police force and the armed services are mainly the sons of workers and peasants who because of economic deprivation have been forced to join the armed forces. As such the raid was precisely planned and executed with minimum loss of life.
The attack and capture of the Nikaweratiya police station gives a new dimension to the armed struggle, until recently confined to the northern and eastern provinces.
The attack on the Nikaweratiya police station while executed by commandos of the People's Liberation Orga-nisation of Thamileelam was with the support and collaboration of the Sinhala masses and members of the police force.
The People's Liberation Organisation of Thamileelam regrets the death of the police officer who died during the action.
With this successful operation the way has now been cleared for more future joint actions of the oppressed people to overthrow the fascists and their imperialist backers now ruling the country.
S. Kannan
(Military Secretary)
National Polit Bureau
People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam