IV 

118TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION H. RES. 1230 

Recognizing the hundreds of thousands of lives lost during Sri Lanka’s 

almost 30-year armed conflict, which ended 15 years ago on May 18, 

2009, and ensuring nonrecurrence of past violence, including the Tamil 

Genocide, by supporting the right to self-determination of Eelam Tamil 

people and their call for an independence referendum for a lasting peaceful resolution. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

MAY 15, 2024 

Mr. NICKEL (for himself, Ms. WILD, Mr. DAVIS of Illinois, Ms. MALLIOTAKIS, 

Mr. CAREY, Mr. DAVIS of North Carolina, Ms. LEE of Pennsylvania, and 

Mr. JACKSON of North Carolina) submitted the following resolution; 

which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs 

RESOLUTION 

Recognizing the hundreds of thousands of lives lost during 

Sri Lanka’s almost 30-year armed conflict, which ended 

15 years ago on May 18, 2009, and ensuring nonrecurrence of past violence, including the Tamil Genocide, 

by supporting the right to self-determination of Eelam 

Tamil people and their call for an independence referendum for a lasting peaceful resolution. 

Whereas May 18, 2024, marks the 15-year anniversary of the 

end of the 26-year armed conflict between the Government of Sri Lanka and various armed Tamil independence organizations; 


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•HRES 1230 IH 

Whereas the Sinhalese people and the Eelam Tamil people 

have lived on the island presently known as Sri Lanka for 

thousands of years and lived in separate and sovereign 

Sinhalese and Tamil kingdoms, and in 1833, the Sinhalese and the Tamil territories were merged under a single unitary administration by the British; 

Whereas all major Tamil political parties united under the 

Tamil United Liberation Front and adopted the 

Vaddukoddai Resolution on May 14, 1976, asserting the 

right to self-determination of the Tamil nation and calling for the restoration and reconstitution of an independent, free, sovereign, secular Tamil Eelam as the solution to the Tamils, and in the subsequent election 

which the Tamils treated as a model referendum, the 

Tamil people gave their overwhelming electoral mandate 

for the independent, free, sovereign Tamil Eelam; 

Whereas the 6th amendment to Sri Lanka’s constitution, introduced in 1983, was targeted towards the Eelam Tamil 

people to limit their ability to advocate for their independence, and to criminalize such activity, thus the 

amendment infringes on the Tamils’ freedom of expression which is guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of 

Human Rights; 

Whereas, subsequent to the persistent calls by the international community to resolve the ethnic conflict, Sri 

Lanka, without any consultations with the Eelam Tamils, 

unilaterally introduced the 13th amendment to the constitution in 1987, which claimed to be a solution to the 

conflict but which was rejected by the Eelam Tamil political leaders as not meeting the aspirations of their people, 

and their homeland still remains as non-self-governing 

territory; 


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•HRES 1230 IH 

Whereas Richard Boucher, then-Assistant Secretary of State 

for South and Central Asian Affairs, acknowledged during a visit to wartime Sri Lanka on June 1, 2006, that 

‘‘There are legitimate issues that are raised by the Tamil 

community, and they have a very legitimate desire, as 

anybody would, to be able to control their own lives, to 

rule their own destinies and to govern themselves in their 

homeland; in the areas they’ve traditionally inhabited.’’; 

Whereas, in a joint statement by the United Nations Secretary General and the President of Sri Lanka following 

the Secretary General’s visit to Sri Lanka in May 2009, 

Sri Lanka gave assurance to find a lasting political solution addressing the aspirations and grievances of all communities and to an accountability process for addressing 

violations of international humanitarian and human 

rights law; 

Whereas the United States cosponsored the United Nations 

Human Rights Council Resolution, HRC 51/L.1 (2022), 

which emphasizes the importance of elections and referendums to strengthen the democratic process, calls 

upon the Government of Sri Lanka to fulfill its commitments to the devolution of political authority, and extends 

and reinforces the capacity of the Office of the High 

Commissioner for Human Rights to collect, consolidate, 

analyze, and preserve information and evidence, and to 

develop possible strategies for future accountability processes; 

Whereas the January 2021 report from the United Nations 

High Commissioner for Human Rights warns that ‘‘Sri 

Lanka’s current trajectory sets the scene for the recurrence of the policies and practices that gave rise to grave 

human rights violations’’ and ‘‘Given the demonstrated 


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•HRES 1230 IH 

inability and unwillingness of the Government to advance 

accountability at the national level, it is time for international action’’; 

Whereas, 15 years after the end of the war, the traditional 

homeland of the Eelam Tamils remains heavily militarized by Sri Lanka, while Sri Lanka engages in land appropriation in Tamil territory and the destruction of 

Tamils’ heritage sites and war cemeteries, the root cause 

of the ethnic war has so far not been resolved, and Sri 

Lanka, despite numerous commitments, has not made 

enough progress toward accountability, justice, and political solution, nor has it taken sufficient measures to 

guarantee the nonrecurrence of the past patterns of violations against the Eelam Tamil people; and 

Whereas similar conflicts have successfully been democratically, peacefully, and legally resolved by exercising the 

right to self-determination by the people in countries 

such as South Sudan, Montenegro, East Timor, Bosnia, 

Eritrea, and Kosovo via independence referendums with 

support from the United States and other countries: 

Now, therefore, be it 

1 Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 

2 (1) urges the United States to strengthen diplo3 matic channels with the Eelam Tamils and collabo4 rate toward peace and stability in the South Asian 

5 region of the Indo-Pacific; 

6 (2) urges the United States and the inter7 national community to advocate for and protect the 

8 political rights of the Eelam Tamil people and work 

9 toward a permanent political solution based on their 


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•HRES 1230 IH 

1 right to self-determination that is democratically and 

2 peacefully approved by them through a universally 

3 accepted process of independence referendum; and 

4 (3) recognizes the genocide against the Eelam 

5 Tamil people by Sri Lanka. 

Æ 


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