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The
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (
LTTE, ), commonly known as the
Tamil Tigers, is a militant
Tamil nationalist organization that has waged a violent
secessionist campaign against the
Sri Lankan government since the 1970s in order to create a separate
Tamil state in the north and east of
Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon). The LTTE is currently
proscribed as a
terrorist organization by 31 countries (see
list). It is headed by its founder,
Velupillai Prabhakaran.
History
Rise to dominance
The LTTE was founded in 1972 by
Velupillai Prabhakaran and attracted many supporters amongst disenchanted Tamil youth, who were dissatisfied with policies followed by successive governments towards solving various concerns of the nation's Tamil community. They carried out low-key attacks against various government targets, including policemen and local politicians. A notable attack carried out during the time was the assassination of the Mayor of
Jaffna, Alfred Duraiyappah. Initially the LTTE operated in cooperation with other Tamil militant groups which shared their same objectives, and in April 1984, the LTTE formally joined a common militant front, the
Eelam National Liberation Front (ENLF), a union between itself, the
Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO), the
Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS), the
People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) and the
Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF).
TELO had always supported India as it was openly funded, trained and supplied by India. TELO usually held the Indian view of problems and pushed for India's view during peace talks with Sri Lanka and other groups. LTTE denounced the TELO view and claimed that India was only acting on it's own interest. As a result in 1986, the LTTE broke from the ENLF. Soon fighting broke out between the TELO and the LTTE.
Over the next few months clashes took place between the LTTE and TELO. As a result almost the entire TELO leadership and many of the TELO militants were killed in the clashes.
A few months later, the LTTE attacked training camps of the
EPRLF, forcing it to withdraw entirely from the
Jaffna peninsula.
LTTE's practice such as wearing a cyanide vial for consumption if captured appealed to the Tamil people as dedication and sacrifice.
Other practices by the LTTE also involved taking an oath of loyalty which reiteration of the LTTE’s goal of establishing a state for the
Sri Lankan Tamils also gave them the edge on the support by Tamil people. and launched its first suicide attack against a Sri Lanka Army camp, killing 40 soldiers.
The IPKF period
In 1987, faced with growing anger amongst its own Tamils, and a flood of refugees,
The result was that the LTTE now found itself engaged in military conflict with the
Indian Army, and launched their first attack on an Indian army rations truck on October 8, killing five Indian para-commandos who were on board by strapping burning tires around their necks. The government of India then decided that the IPKF should disarm the LTTE by force, and the Indian Army launched number of assaults on the LTTE, including a month-long campaign dubbed
Operation Pawan to win control of the Jaffna peninsula from the LTTE. The ruthlessness of this campaign, and the Indian army's subsequent anti-LTTE operations made it extremely unpopular amongst many Tamils in Sri Lanka.
The post-IPKF LTTE
The Indian intervention was also unpopular amongst the Sinhalese majority, and the IPKF became bogged down in the fighting with the Tamil Tigers for over 2 years, experiencing heavy losses. The last members of the IPKF, which was estimated to have had a strength of well over 50,000 at its peak, left the country in 1990 upon request of the Sri Lankan government. A shaky peace initially held between the government and the LTTE, and peace talks progressed towards providing devolution for Tamils in the north and east of the country.
Fighting continued throughout the 1990s, and was marked by two key assassinations carried out by the LTTE, that of former Indian Prime Minister
Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, and Sri Lankan President
Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993, using suicide bombers in both occasions. The fighting was briefly halted in 1994 following the election of Chandrika Kumaratunga as President of Sri Lanka and the onset of peace talks, but fighting resumed following the sinking two Sri Lanka Navy boats in April 1995 by the LTTE. In a series of military operations that followed, the Sri Lanka Army re-captured the
Jaffna peninsula, the heartland of Tamils in Sri Lanka. Further offensives followed over the next three years, and the military captured vast areas in the north of the country from the LTTE, including area in the
Vanni region, the town of
Kilinochchi and many smaller towns. However, from 1998 onward the LTTE hit back, reversing these losses, culminating in the capture of the strategically important
Elephant Pass base complex, which is located at the entrance of the Jaffna Peninsula, in April 2000, after prolonged fighting against the Sri Lanka Army.
Mahattaya, a one-time deputy leader of the LTTE, was accused of treason by the LTTE and killed in 1994. He is said to have collaborated with the Indian
Research and Analysis Wing to remove Prabhakaran from the LTTE leadership.
The 2001 ceasefire
In 2001 the LTTE dropped its demand for a separate state. Instead, they stated that a form of regional autonomy would meet their demands
Following the landslide election defeat of Kumaratunga and the coming to power of
Ranil Wickramasinghe in December 2001, the LTTE declared an unilateral ceasefire . As a result the Sri Lankan Government also agreed to the ceasefire. In March of 2002 both sides signed an official Ceasefire Agreement (CFA). As part of the agreement, Norway and the other
Nordic countries agreed to jointly monitor the ceasefire through the
Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission.
Six rounds of peace talks between the Government of Sri Lanka and Tamil Tigers were held but they were temporarily suspended after the LTTE pulled out of the talks in 2003 claiming "certain critical issues relating to the ongoing peace process".
In 2003 the LTTE proposed an Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA). This move by the LTTE was welcomed by the international community. This proposal was based on self-governing authority. However, the Sri Lankan President rejected this offer.
In December 2005, the LTTE boycotted the 2005 presidential election. While LTTE claimed that the people under its control were free to vote it's alleged that they used threats to prevent the population from voting. The United States condemned this act.
Further peace talks were scheduled in Oslo, Norway, on June 8 and 9 but canceled when the LTTE refused to meet directly with the government delegation, claiming its fighters were not being allowed safe passage to travel to the talks. Norwegian mediator Erik Solheim told journalists that the LTTE should take direct responsibility for the collapse of the talks.
Rifts grew between the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE which resulted in a number of ceasefire agreement violations by both sides. Suicide attacks, military skirmishes and air raids took place during the latter part of 2006.
Military confrontation continued into 2007 and 2008. On January 2008 the Government officially pulled out of the Cease Fire Agreement
Dissension
In the biggest show of dissent from within the organization, a senior LTTE commander named
Colonel Karuna (
nom de guerre of Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan) broke away from the LTTE in March 2004 and formed the
TamilEela Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal amid allegations that the northern commanders were overlooking the needs of the eastern Tamils. The LTTE leadership accused him of mishandling of funds and questioned him about his recent personal behavior. He tried to take control of the eastern province from the LTTE, which caused clashes between the LTTE and
TEMVP. The LTTE has suggested that TEMVP is backed by the government, and the Nordic SLMM monitors have corroborated this.
Organization and activities
Structure
The LTTE is organized into two main divisions, namely, a military wing and political wing. A central governing body oversees both of those divisions, which is headed by the LTTE supreme leader, Velupillai Prabakaran.
Military
In the LTTE, recruits are instructed to be prepared to die for the cause, and are issued with a
cyanide capsule to be swallowed in the case of capture. The LTTE also has a special squad of suicide bombers, called the
Black Tigers, which it deploys for critical missions.
The military wing contains following specific subdivisions, which are directly controlled and directed by the central governing body:
- Sea Tigers - an amphibious warfare unit focusing on utilization of naval firepower and logistics, mainly consisting of lightweight boats.
- Air Tigers - an airborne group, consisting of several lightweight aircraft. It is known to be the world's first air force controlled by an organization proscribed as terrorists.
- Black Tigers - a suicide commando unit.
- An intelligence wing.
- A political wing.
The Sea Tigers is the naval force of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and is lead by
Colonel Soosai . The sea Tigers are believed to have about 2000 personnel and have become a potent threat to the Sri Lankan Navy at Sea. Over the years it's reckoned that they've destroyed 35-50 percent of the Sri Lankan Navy's coastal crafts.
The Air Tigers is the air force of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The Air Tigers are believed to operate five light aircraft. The Air Tigers were revealed on 2007 when it conducted it's first air raid on the Sri Lankan Air Force base. Since then they've conducted another four air raids. With the Air force the Tamil Tigers became the first rebel organization to establish an air force .
Administrative
Even though the LTTE was formed as a military group, it has later transformed itself to a de facto Government. The LTTE controls sections in the north of the island, especially the regions lying around the cities of
Killinochchi and Mulathivu.
The LTTE has implemented a judicial system that consists of courts to adjudicate in criminal and civil matters. Currently the Tamil Eelam judicial system consists of district courts, High courts and Supreme court as well as a court of appeal. The district courts handle civil and criminal cases. The two high courts handles criminal cases such as rape, murder, treason and arson. The supreme court has jurisdiction over the whole of
Tamil Eelam. The
Tamil Eelam courts are said to be effective
and people who have a choice sometimes go to the
Tamil Eelam courts rather than the
Sri Lankan courts
LTTE has also established a police force. The Tamil Eelam police is the other key factor in maintaining law and order. The Tamil Eelam police was formed in 1991 and currently has its headquarters at Killinochi.
In addition to the civil administration LTTE also runs its own
radio and
television stations. These entities are named the
Voice of Tigers and
National Tamil Eelam Television respectively. Both the radio and television channel are aired from the areas under LTTE control.
LTTE also runs a
bank named the
Bank of Tamileelam which uses the Sri Lankan rupee as its currency but offers higher rates than any bank on the island.
Humanitarian assistance
After the
Boxing Day tsunami the Tigers set up a special task force called
tsunami task force. The newly established force was responsible for humanitarian assistance to the people affected by the tsunami. The Planning and Development Secretariat (PDS) was responsible for needs assessments for various humanitarian organization to maximize effectiveness of resettlement reconstruction and rehabilitation. After the tsunami the PDS was responsible of coordinating and directing the various NGO's that were involved in Tsunami relief work.
During the second round of negotiation between Tigers and the Government of Sri Lanka a agreement was reached for a joint Post-Tsunami Operational Management Structure (P-TOMS). This mechanism would allow the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE to share funds for tsunami relief. However, this agreement was bitterly opposed by hardliners in the Sri Lankan government and some moderates. As a result the P-TOMS was challenged in the Sri Lankan supreme court. The Sri Lankan supreme court put the P-TOMS on hold.
Women in LTTE
In 1984, LTTE created a unit of female squad called the Freedom Birds (
Suthanthirap Paravaikal). This unit was the first group of women to be given military training in India. The LTTE advocates equality for women from both male oppression and social oppression. The support of the LTTE for equality attracted many women into the LTTE ranks. As a result LTTE became the first Tamil militant group to employ women as a soldiers in the battlefield. The main belief of the Tamil women fighter is that their participation in the armed struggle will bring them advantage in the future, peaceful society and allow them to take part in "liberating" their society. The proportion of female combatants in the LTTE was small until June 1990 but increased rapidly afterward.
Alleged Links to other designated terrorist organizations
Some experts have alleged the existence of connections between the LTTE and other internationally
designated terrorist organizations including
al-Qaeda.
Others security and counter-terrorism experts, such as the Council on Foreign Relations have rejected claims of links as propaganda. Al Qaeda is well known to have a deep loathing of secular politics of the sort pursued by the LTTE, and the LTTE is formally a secular organization with no interest is helping establish Islamic regimes elsewhere. If anything, the LTTE is more associated with Hinduism (Tamils being Hindus) than any other religion.
The anti-rebel website "South Asian Terrorism Portal" claimed that the LTTE provided forged passports to Ramzi Yousef, the man who was one of the planners of the first attack against the World Trade Center in New York in 1993.
South Asian Terrorism Portal claimed that there are increasing intelligence reports that the LTTE was smuggling arms to various terrorist organizations, including to Islamics in Pakistan to their counterparts in the Philippines, using their covert smuggling networks, and findings by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies that they were building commercial links with al-Qaeda and other militants in Afghanistan.
Allegations that the LTTE stole Norwegian passports and sold them to the al-Qaeda organization to earn money to fund their arms purchases.
However, most of these allegations have been made by Sri Lankan government officials and their sympathizers (especially post 9/11), and are therefore subject to some skepticism.
According to an anti-rebel website, Glen Jenvey, a former employee of the government of Sri Lanka and a specialist on international terrorism claimed that al-Qaeda has copied most of its terror tactics from the LTTE He highlighted the LTTE as the mastermind that sets the pattern for organizations like al-Qaeda to pursue. However, has established no causal link, no interaction between groups, just coincidences.
According to Asian Tribune, an anti-LTTE website, attacks on civilians in buses and trains in Sri Lanka were copied from the attack on public civilian transport during the July 2005 bombings in London.
Other countries have also proscribed LTTE under the same rationale. Some countries cite that LTTE attacks civilians and recruit children. The FBI has described the LTTE as the "amongst the most dangerous and deadly extremist outfit in the world".
Attacks on civilians
The LTTE has attacked non-military targets including commuter trains and buses, farming villages, temples and mosques, resulting in civilian deaths.
Some of the attacks resulting in civilian deaths include the Kebithigollewa massacre, the Gonagala massacre (54 dead), the Anuradhapura massacre (146 dead), the Dehiwala train bombing (56 dead), the Palliyagodella massacre (109 dead) and the bombing of Sri Lanka's Central Bank (102 dead). The LTTE claims that some of these attacks on civilian targets are collateral damage.
The anti-rebel South Asian Terrorism Portal claims that even after the signing of the Ceasefire agreement in 2002, the LTTE has continued to carry out attacks against civilians. They murdered 6 Sinhalese farmers on April 23, 2006 and killed a further 13 laborers on May 30. In one of the deadliest attacks against civilians, a claymore antipersonnel mine attack by the LTTE on June 15, 2006 on a bus carrying 140 civilians killed 68 people including 15 children, and injured 60 others.
Assassinations
The LTTE has been condemned by various groups for assassination of political and military opponents. The victims include Tamil moderates, Tamil paramilitary groups and Sinhalese people. Most notably the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and Ranasinghe Premadasa, who were the heads of India and Sri Lanka respectively, were attributed to LTTE.
LTTE sympathizers justify some of the assassinations by arguing that the people attacked were combatants or persons closely associated with Sri Lankan military intelligence. Specifically in relation to the TELO, the LTTE has said that it had to perform preemptive self-defence because the TELO was in effect functioning as a proxy for India.
Child soldiers
The LTTE has recruited and used child soldiers to fight against Sri Lankan government forces. The LTTE was accused of having up to 5,794 child soldiers in its ranks since 2001.
Amid international pressure, the LTTE announced in July 2003 that it would stop conscripting child soldiers, but both UNICEF and Human Rights Watch have accused it of reneging on its promises, and of conscripting Tamil children orphaned by the tsunami. However, since 2007, the LTTE has claimed that it'll release all of the recruits under the age of 18 before the end of the year. On 18 June 2007, the LTTE released 135 children under the age of 18. UNICEF claims that 506 child recruits remain under the LTTE and notes, along with the United States, that there has been a significant drop in LTTE recruitment of children. A report released by the LTTE's Child Protection Authority (CPA) in 2008 reported that less than 40 soldiers under the age of 18 remained in their forces.
The LTTE argues that instances of child recruitment occurred mostly in the east, under the purview of former LTTE regional commander Colonel Karuna. After leaving the LTTE and forming the TMVP, it's alleged that Karuna continued to forcibly kidnap and induct child soldiers. Its official position is that earlier, some of its cadres erroneously recruited volunteers in their late teens. It says that its official policy is now that it won't accept child soldiers. It also says that some underage youths lie about their age and are therefore allowed to join, but are sent back home to their parents as soon as they're discovered to be underage.
Suicide bombing
The LTTE has frequently used suicide bombers as a tactic. They pioneered the use of concealed suicide bomb vests,. The tactic of deploying suicide bombers was used to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi, who was killed in 1991 using a prototype suicide vest, and Ranasinghe Premadasa, assassinated in 1993. Sinhalese and Muslim inhabitants from areas under its control, including the use of violence against those who refuse to leave. Most notably, the LTTE forcibly expelled the entire Muslim population of Jaffna with two hours notice in 1990. The LTTE are also accused of organising massacres of Sinhala villagers who settled in the Northeast under the dry lands policy.
In 2002, the LTTE leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran had formally apologized for the expulsion of Muslims from the North and asked the Muslims to return back. Some families have returned and the re-opened Osmaniya College and two Mosque are functioning now. According to a Jaffna Muslim source there's a floating population of about 2000 Muslims in Jaffna at any given time.
Proscription as a terrorist group
30 countries have listed the LTTE as a terrorist organisation. As of May 2007, these include:
India (since 1992)
Designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the United States Department of State (since 1997)
Designated as Proscribed Terrorist Group under the Terrorism Act 2000 by the United Kingdom Home Secretary (since 2000)
European Union (since 2006; 27 countries)
Canada (since 2006)
Australia and other countries have listed the LTTE as a terrorist group in accordance with Resolution 1373. Canada doesn't grant residency to LTTE members on the grounds that they've participated in crimes against humanity.
The first country to ban the LTTE was its early ally, India. The Indian change of policy came gradually, starting with the IPKF-LTTE conflict, and culminating with the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. Sri Lanka itself lifted the ban on the LTTE before signing the ceasefire agreement in 2002. This was a prerequisite set by the LTTE for signing of the agreement.
The European Union banned LTTE as a terrorist organization on May 17 2006. In a statement, the European Parliament said that the LTTE didn't represent all the Tamils and called on it to "allow for political pluralism and alternate democratic voices in the northern and eastern parts of Sri Lanka".
Relationship with foreign states & International organizations
Even though LTTE is proscribed as a terrorist organization, many states like Canada, China, Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Norway have continued contact with the LTTE. International organization like Asian Development Bank, World Bank and many UN Agencies also established contact with the LTTE after the 2002 ceasefire. . LTTE also held a direct meeting with Danny K. Davis, a United States Representative, Kofi Annan's Special envoy and António Guterres, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
They also have held direct meetings with Norwegian government representatives and officials of other Scandinavian countries.
Criminal activities
On the 10th of January, 2008, the FBI stated that the Tigers (LTTE) have raised funds under a variety of cover organizations, often by posing as charities. A great deal of money, for example, was raised for the Tigers following the 2004 tsunami that devastated Sri Lanka and many other countries..
One factor that has benefited the LTTE greatly has been its sophisticated international support network. While some of the funding obtained by the LTTE is from legitimate fund raising and extortion among the Tamil diaspora, a significant portion is obtained through criminal activities, involving sea piracy, human smuggling, drug trafficking and gunrunning.
The LTTE has also been accused of committing credit card fraud in a number of countries including India and the United Kingdom. Williams, a writer at US Institute of Peace Press, alleged the LTTE of crimes such as organized crime, social security fraud, counterfeit currency trading,.
A numbers of individuals arrested in 2007 are facing charges for allegedly planning to use stolen credit card information to steal $250,000. The prosecutors claim that they were also planning to steal tens of millions more from ATMs worldwide. The prosecutors further alleged that these individuals had LTTE links. However, the defense lawyers deny these claim and insist that they were local criminals.
Sea piracy
The LTTE are reported to hijack ships and boats of all sizes, and it's common practice for them to kidnap or kill the crew members on board the hijacked vessels.
The LTTE has been accused of hijacking several vessels in waters outside Sri Lanka including the Irish Mona (in August 1995), Princess Wave (in August 1996), Athena (in May 1997), Misen (in July 1997), Morong Bong (in July 1997), MV Cordiality (in Sept 1997), Princess Kash (in August 1998) and MV Farah III (December 2006). When the LTTE captured the MV Cordiality near the port of Trincomalee, they killed all five Chinese crew members on board. The MV Sik Yang, a 2,818-ton Malaysian-flag cargo ship which sailed from Tuticorin, India on May 25, 1999 was reported missing in waters near Sri Lanka. The ship with a cargo of bagged salt was due at the Malaysian port of Malacca on May 31. The fate of the ship's crew of 15 is unknown. It is suspected that the vessel was hijacked by the LTTE and is now being used as a phantom vessel. A report published on June 30, 1999 confirmed that the vessel had been hijacked by the LTTE.
Arms smuggling
The Mackenzie Institute, an anti-LTTE organization, alleges that another one of LTTE's most secretive international operations is the smuggling of weapons, explosives, and "dual use" technologies to keep up with the military operations. The part of the LTTE responsible for these activities is given the nickname "KP Branch", taking the initials of its highest level operative, Kumaran Padmanathan (KP). The workers for the KP Branch are from outside the fighting wing of the LTTE, since the identities of those fighters are recorded and available to law enforcement and counter-intelligence agencies by India's RAW, who had helped train many Tiger cadres in the early 1980s. The KP Branch operates extremely secretively by having the minimum connection possible with the LTTE's other sections for further security. It finally hands over the arms shipments to a highly trusted team of Sea Tigers to deliver them to the LTTE-dominated areas.
The Mackenzie Institute further claimed that in order to carry out the activities of international arms trafficking, the LTTE operates its own fleet of ocean-going vessels. These vessels only operate a certain period of time for the LTTE and in the remaining time they transport legitimate goods and raise hard cash for the purchase of weapons. The LTTE initially operated a shipping base in Myanmar, but they were forced to leave due to diplomatic pressure. To overcome the loss of this, a new base has been set up on Phuket Island, in Thailand.[Further Information]
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