Reflections on Maaveerar Naal: Great Heroes’ Day
Ruben Nagesparan Chandrakumar, BS
On this day of remembrance for Eelam Tamils around the world who grieve their loved ones who heroically lost their lives in the fight for an independent country, we are tasked with determining what the future holds for Eelam and Sri Lanka and what our role in it is. While the government of Sri Lanka has skillfully used its political power to revise the historical narrative of what happened, it is on days of remembrance and other national holidays that the voice of the Eelam people cannot be ignored.
After the referendum of 1977, led by SJV Chelvanayakam (revered as the Gandhi and Founding Father of Eelam), ended in an overwhelming mandate for independence in the North, multiple government-sponsored riots and the rise of militant groups in the North led to a full-scale civil war in July of 1983. In this war, thousands of Eelam Tamils lost their lives fighting to protect their homeland and their right to an independent country, as enshrined in the right to self-determination of the UN Charter. After over 15 years of nonviolent protests and failed attempts at federalist solutions, Chelvanayakam, the leader of the major political alliance of the Tamil United Liberation Front, wisely decided that there was no other option than to declare independence. The Government of Sri Lanka ignored the nonviolent, democratic referendum held by the TULF in 1977 and instead responded with silence and complicity in the ’77 riots, the burning of the Jaffna Library in ’81, the riots and rapes of ’81, and the carnage of Black July.
Black July is commonly known as the start of the Eelam Civil War. In the riots, Sinhalese mobs—backed by local police—raped, assaulted, and murdered thousands of innocent Tamils. The mobs engaged in the most brutal and wicked forms of dehumanization, including stripping victims, burning them alive with tires around their necks, stabbing them, throwing them into bodies of water to drown, and other disgustingly evil acts. An estimated 3,000 lives and 18,000 properties (worth an estimated $350 million USD, adjusted for inflation) were destroyed during Black July. This was not only backed by the complicity of the local police, as hundreds of Tamil survivors who witnessed it will still attest, but also by the highest-ranking officials of the country. Just two weeks prior to the riots, President JR Jayewardene stated during an interview with the Daily Telegraph, “The more you put pressure in the north, the happier the Sinhala people will be here… really, if I starve the Tamils, Sinhala people will be happy.”
Instead of attempting to quell the rising tensions following the catastrophes of July, the Government forced a war by enacting the Sixth Amendment in August of 1983, which states that “No person shall, directly or indirectly, in or outside Sri Lanka, support, espouse, promote, finance, encourage or advocate the establishment of a separate State within the territory of Sri Lanka” or he will “not be entitled to civic rights,” among other penalties.
By making even the peaceful, nonviolent support for a separate state illegal, the Tamils of the country were left with two options: remain under the tyranny of the state or wage an armed conflict to secure independence. (Contrary to popular belief, armed resistance to secure the right to self-determination is legal under international law, as codified in Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions.) For over 25 years, the two militaries fought tooth and nail for the claim and international recognition over the territory that is the ancestral homeland of Eelam Tamils. After the defeat of many Tamil militant leaders and the brutal massacre of over 40,000 Tamil civilians in the government-declared “No-Fire Zone” of Mullivaikkal in 2009, the war-aspect of the conflict ended (despite the North still being heavily militarized by soldiers to this day).
Following the genocide of Mullivaikkal, Tamils who had fled the country formed and elected members in 2010 to a Transnational Government in order to continue the fight for justice. The elections held in 2010 garnered over 200,000 votes, which accounts for around 20% of the diaspora. Since there is no platform in which the political aspirations can be articulated within the state of Sri Lanka—even by local Tamil politicians who are gridlocked by the Sixth Amendment—the only option for a lasting, peaceful solution to the 65+ year conflict must involve the diaspora and its allies. Hundreds of thousands of innocent lives were lost, thousands of brave soldiers’ lives were lost, and millions live in a state victimized with little hope of returning home with freedom and rights. Despite this, there is still great hope for what can be accomplished and, thank God, there are highly competent and conscious individuals working to ensure a future centered around blind justice, inter-ethnic and inter-faith peace, regional stability, equality of opportunity, and prosperity.