Please don't ban the LTTE from EU countries

May 24, 2006

Her Excellency URSULA PLASSNIK,
The Foreign Minister of Austria
(The Presidency of EU)
Austrian Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs
Minoritenplatz 8
A-1014 Wien
Austria
May 24th, 2006

Her Excellency,

Re: The European Union ban of the LTTE will not yield peace in this troubled nation.

The International Community(IC) and European Union (EU) had failed to put adequate pressure in action on the Sri Lankan leaders to address the legitimate Tamils grievances which was widely accepted by the IC for well over fifty years.

Especially within the last four years of peace process, the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) had the best opportunity to put forward an alternate solution through negotiation with Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). There were number of agreements reached between the negotiating parties.

Instead of implementing those agreements to move forward the peace process towards the permanent peace the State cunningly used the peace time to divide the Tamils and the LTTE and unleashed the worst form of terror against them covertly and overtly.

If EU is to take serious note, any decision arrived in these last four years of peace talks never implemented by the GOSL on the ground. The latest and most deplorable act of the GOSL was failure of the non implementation of IC and EU pushed the Post-Tsunami Operational Management Structure (PTOMS) agreement which was signed between LTTE and GOSL.

The PTOMS agreement merely an aid distribution mechanism to the Tsunami affected Tamil victims. This agreement was also tossed by the state into dust bin but IC or EU was not able to force or penalize the Sri Lankan state for the non implementation of that agreement.

These are the real reasons for the current impasses for the peace process and the upsurge of violence in Sri Lanka. This violence was systematically unleashed by the Sri Lankan state to distract and divert the attentions of the IC and EU.

The Tamils were continuously denied their legitimate rights after the British rule and all form of democratic expressions of the non violent Tamils were dealt with brutal heavy handedly by the Sri Lankan rulers and its forces.

The genocide against the Tamils were systematically unleashed in 1958, 1961, 1974 and 1977 where thousands of thousands Tamil men, women and children were massacred in cold blood and perished in the hands of the terror state of Sri Lanka. Millions of Tamils were forced to displace from their homes and their hard earned properties were destroyed to call the Tamils into submission.

The LTTE was not existed in the time of the above genocides against the Tamils. The sustained state terrorism against their own Tamil citizens only forced the Tamils to defend themselves; the LTTE came into existence to defend the grand agenda of Total annihilation of Tamils from Sri Lanka by the state rulers.

We Tamils are oppressed for well over fifty years by the successive Sri Lankan governments. We should not be victimized and vilified by the International Community when we turn to LTTE to protect us from horrific sustained state terror against us for so long. Tamils used the arms struggle as a last resort to protect themselves from the complete annihilation by the Sri Lankan Sinhalese rulers and its armed forces.

It is the global and moral duty of the International Community including EU to do everything possible to see the true plight of Tamils and help them from total annihilation by the Singhalese rulers in Sri Lanka and
help them to achieve just and fair solution to their longstanding
legitimate struggle.

I urge the Your Excellency, not to yield to the pressure by the Sinhalese leaders to ban the Tigers in EU countries. The EU ban will further strengthen the Sinhalese hardliners' and hawkish rulers' grand agenda of committing genocide against the Tamils by isolating the Tamils and LTTE from the International Community.

Yours truly,
Tamils around the world

More informaion and Photos

http://nesohr.org/human-rights-reports/
http://www.tchr.net
http://tamilink.org.uk/tl/
http://www.tamilcanadian.com/eelam/hrights/
http://www.tamilnation.org/humanrights.htm
http://www.nitharsanam.com/?art=17276
http://www.nitharsanam.com/?nav=5785