Vaddukoddai Resolution
Unanimously adopted at the First National Convention of the
TAMIL UNITED LIBERATION FRONT
held at VADDUKODDAI
on 14-5-1976

Chairman: S.J.V. Chelvanayakam Q.C., M.P. (K.K.S)

[A Translation]
Political Resolution Unanimously Adopted at the 1st
National Convention of the Tamil United Liberation
Front Held at Pannakam (Vaddukoddai Constituency)
on 14-5-76, Presided over by Mr. Chelvanayakam, Q.C,
M.P.
Whereas throughout the centuries from the dawn of
history the Sinhalese and Tamil nations have divided
between them the possession of Ceylon, the Sinhalese
inhabiting the interior of the country in its Southern
and Western parts from the river Walawe to that of
Chilaw and the Tamils possessing the Northern and
Eastern districts;
And whereas the Tamil Kingdom was overthrown in
war and conquered by the Portuguese in 1619 and
from them by the Dutch and the British in turn
independent of the Sinhalese Kingdoms;
And whereas the British Colonists who ruled the
territories of the Sinhalese and Tamil Kingdoms
separately joined under compulsion the territories of
the Sinhalese Kingdoms for purposes of
administrative convenience on the recommendation of
the Colebrooke Commission in 1833;
And whereas the Tamil Leaders were in the forefront
of the Freedom movement to rid Ceylon of colonial
bondage which ultimately led to the grant of
independence to Ceylon in 1948;
And whereas the foregoing facts of history were
completely overlooked and power was transferred to
the Sinhalese nation over the entire country on the
basis of a numerical majority thereby reducing the
Tamil nation to the position of subject people;
And whereas successive Sinhalese governments since
independence have always encouraged and fostered
the aggressive nationalism of the Sinhalese people
and have used their political power to the detriment of
the Tamils by-
(a) Depriving one half of the Tamil people of their
citizenship and franchise rights thereby reducing
Tamil representation in Parliament,
(b) Making serious inroads into the territories of
the former Tamil Kingdom by a system of planned
and state-aided Sinhalese colonization and large
scale regularization of recently encouraged
Sinhalese encroachments calculated to make the
Tamils a minority in their own homeland,
(c) Making Sinhala the only official language
throughout Ceylon thereby placing the stamp of
inferiority on the Tamils and the Tamil Language,
(d) Giving the foremost place to Buddhism under
the Republican constitution thereby reducing the
Hindus, Christians, and Muslims to second class
status in this Country,
(e) Denying to the Tamils equality of opportunity
in the spheres of employment, education, land
alienation and economic life in general and
starving Tamil areas of large scale industries and
development schemes thereby seriously
endangering their very existence in Ceylon,
(f) Systematically cutting them off from the mainstream
of Tamil cultures in South-India while
denying them opportunities of developing their
language and culture in Ceylon thereby working
inexorably towards the cultural genocide of the
Tamils,
(g) Permitting and unleashing communal violence
and intimidation against the Tamil speaking
people as happened in Amparai and Colombo in
1956; all over the country in 1958; army reign of
terror in the Northern and Eastern Provinces in
1961; Police violence at the International Tamil
Research Conference in 1974 resulting in the
death of nine persons in Jaffna; Police and
communal violence against Tamil speaking
Muslims at Puttalam and various other parts of
Ceylon in 1976 – all these calculated to instill
terror in the minds of the Tamil speaking people
thereby breaking their spirit and the will to resist
injustices heaped on them,
(h) By terrorizing, torturing, and imprisoning
Tamil youths without trial for long periods on the
flimsiest grounds,
(i) Capping it all by imposing on the Tamil Nation
constitution drafted under conditions of
emergency without opportunities for free
discussion by a constituent assembly elected on
the basis of the Soulbury Constitution distorted
by the Citizenship laws resulting in weightage in
representation to the Sinhalese majority thereby
depriving the Tamils of even the remnants of
safeguards they had under the earlier
constitution,
And whereas all attempts by the various Tamil
political parties to win their rights by co-operating
with the governments, by parliamentary and extraparliamentary
agitations, by entering into pacts and
understandings with successive Prime Ministers in
order to achieve the bare minimum of political rights
consistent with the self-respect of the Tamil people
have proved to be futile;
And whereas the efforts of the All Ceylon Tamil
Congress to ensure non-domination of the minorities
by the majority by the adoption of a scheme of
balanced representation in a Unitary Constitution have
failed and even the meagre safeguards provided in
article 29 of the Soulbury Constitution against
discriminatory legislation have been removed by the
Republican Constitution;
And whereas the proposals submitted to the
Constituent Assembly by the Ilankai Thamil Arasu
Kadchi for maintaining the unity of the country while
preserving the integrity of the Tamil people by the
establishment of an autonomous Tamil State within
the framework of a Federal Republic of Ceylon were
summarily and totally rejected without even the
courtesy of a consideration of its merits;
And whereas the amendments to the basic resolutions
intended to ensure the minimum of safeguards to the
Tamil people moved on the basis of the nine point
demands formulated at the conference of all Tamil
Political parties at Valvettithurai on 7th February 1971
and by individual parties and Tamil members of
Parliament including those now in the government
party were rejected in total by the government and
Constituent Assembly;
And whereas even amendments to the draft proposals
relating to language, religion, and fundamental-rights
including one calculated to ensure that at least the
provisions of the Tamil Language (Special Provisions)
Regulations of 1956 be included in the Constitution
were defeated resulting in the boycott of the
Constituent Assembly by a large majority of the Tamil
members of Parliament;
And whereas the Tamil United Liberation Front, after
rejecting the Republican Constitution adopted on the
22nd of May, 1972 presented a six point demand to
the Prime Minister and the Government o 25th June,
1972 and gave three months time within which the
Government was called upon to take meaningful steps
to amend the Constitution so as to meet the
aspirations of the Tamil Nation on the basis of the six
points and informed the Government that if it failed to
do so the Tamil United Liberation Front would launch
a non-violent direct action against the Government in
order to win the freedom and the rights of the Tamil
Nation on the basis of the right of self- determination;
And whereas this last attempt by the Tamil United
Liberation Front to win Constitutional recognition of
the rights of the Tamil Nation without jeopardizing the
unity of the country was callously ignored by the
Prime Minister and the Government;
And whereas the opportunity provided by the Tamil
United Liberation leader to vindicate the
Government’s contention that their constitution had
the backing of the Tamil people, by resigning from his
membership of the National State Assembly and
creating a by-election was deliberately put off for over
two years in utter disregard of the democratic right of
the Tamil voters of Kankesanthurai, and
Whereas in the by-election held on the 6th February
1975 the voters of Kankesanthurai by a preponderant
majority not only rejected the Republican Constitution
imposed on them by the Sinhalese Government but
also gave a mandate to Mr.S.J.V. Chelvanayakam, Q.C.
and through him to the Tamil United Liberation Front
for the restoration and reconstitution of the Free
Sovereign, Secular, Socialist State of TAMIL EELAM.
The first National Convention of the Tamil United
Liberation Front meeting at Pannakam (Vaddukoddai
Constituency) on the 14th day of May, 1976 hereby
declares that the Tamils of Ceylon by virtue of their
great language, their religions, their separate culture
and heritage, their history of independent existence
as a separate state over a distinct territory for several
centuries till they were conquered by the armed might
of the European invaders and above all by their will to
exist as a separate entity ruling themselves in their
own territory, are a nation distinct and apart from
Sinhalese and this Convention announces to the world
that the Republican Constitution of 1972 has made the
Tamils a slave nation ruled by the new colonial
masters the Sinhalese who are using the power they
have wrongly usurped to deprive the Tamil Nation of
its territory, language citizenship, economic life,
opportunities of employment and education thereby
destroying all the attributes of nationhood of the
Tamil people.
And therefore, while taking note of the reservations in
relation to its commitment to the setting up of a
separated state of TAMIL EELAM expressed by the
Ceylon Workers Congress as a Trade Union of the
Plantation Workers, the majority of whom live and
work outside the Northern and Eastern areas,
This convention resolves that restoration and
reconstitution of the Free, Sovereign, Secular Socialist
State of TAMIL EELAM based on the right of self
determination inherent to every nation has become
inevitable in order to safeguard the very existence of
the Tamil Nation in this Country.
This Convention further declares –
(a) that the State of TAMIL EELAM shall consist of
the people of the Northern and Eastern provinces
and shall also ensure full and equal rights of
citizenship of the State of TAMIL EELAM to all
Tamil speaking people living in any part of Ceylon
and to Tamils of EELAM origin living in any part of
the world who may opt for citizenship of TAMIL
EELAM.
(b) that the constitution of TAMIL EELAM shall be
based on the principle of democratic
decentralization so as to ensure the nondomination
of any religious or territorial
community of TAMIL EELAM by any other section.
(c) that in the state of Tamil Eelam caste shall be
abolished and the observance of the pernicious
practice of untouchability or inequality of any
type based on birth shall be totally eradicated and
its observance in any form punished by law.
(d) that TAMIL EELAM shall be secular state
giving equal protection and assistance to all
religions to which the people of the state may
belong.
(e) that Tamil shall be the language of the State
but the rights of of Sinhalese speaking minorities
in Tamil Eelam to education and transaction of
business in their language shall be protected on a
reciprocal basis with the Tamil speaking
minorities in the Sinhala State.
(f) that Tamil Eelam shall be a Socialist State
wherein the exploitation of man by man shall be
forbidden, the dignity of labor shall be
recognized, the means of production and
distribution shall be subject to public ownership
and control while permitting private enterprise in
these branches within limit prescribed by law,
economic development shall be on the basis of
socialist planning and there shall be a ceiling on
the total wealth that any individual of family may
acquire.
This Convention directs the Action Committee of the
TAMIL UNITED LIBERATION FRONT to formulate a
plan of action and launch without undue delay the
struggle for winning the sovereignty and freedom of
the Tamil Nation;
And this Convention calls upon the Tamil Nation in
general and the Tamil youth in particular to come
forward to throw themselves fully in the sacred fight
for freedom and to flinch not till the goal of a
sovereign state of TAMIL EELAM is reached.