Briefing: Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger conflict
Questions and answers on the 26-year insurgency that appears to be over.
By Carol Huang | Asia editor 05.18.09
Sri Lanka reached a milestone this week in its 26-year war with the rebel Tamil Tigers: The group admitted defeat Sunday in its battle for a separate homeland for the island’s ethnic Tamil minority. The Army dealt the Tigers another potential blow Monday when it claimed to have killed their chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran, among other leaders. (Click here to read why Prabhakaran’s death would be a major loss for the group.)
Here’s a primer on the South Asia conflict that has killed more than 70,000 people. Who are the Tamil Tigers? Why has the FBI labeled them “among the most dangerous and deadly extremists in the world”? Is this the end of the Tamil resistance movement?
Why the fighting?
Conflict between Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese ethnic majority (74 percent of the population) and Tamil minority (18 percent) erupted in the 1970s. That’s when some Tamils – who had long decried discrimination by the Sinhalese dominating the country – began calling for a separate homeland and forming armed groups.
Who are the Tamil Tigers?
The Tamil Tigers – formally called the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (“eelam” means homeland) – established itself as the most powerful separatist group. It claimed to represent all the island’s Tamils, though they have terrorized some of those same people and forcibly recruited some, including children.
As militants organizations go, the LTTE has distinguished itself in a number of ways:
They’re the first group to use suicide belts or deploy women as suicide bombers, according to the FBI.
They’re the only group to have assassinated two world leaders – a president of Sri Lanka, Ranasinghe Premadasa, in 1993, and former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.
They’re the only armed separatist group with all three military wings – air, land, and sea – although the air force consists of pretty rudimentary light aircraft.
Thirty-two countries have labeled the Tigers a terrorist organization.
Did the two sides ever try peace talks?
Tamil leader Prabhakaran brought the Tigers to the negotiating table in the mid-1990s and again in 2002 under a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire. But he was unwilling to settle for anything less than a homeland. Thousands of Tamils had died for the cause and “their deaths cannot be in vain,” he told an Indian reporter. There was plenty of ill feeling on the government’s side, too, though experts say the 2002 ceasefire had the support of many political elites. Subsequent peace talks failed to elicit an agreement on power sharing, though, and all-out fighting resumed in 2006.
Western countries that had listed the LTTE as terrorists saw the group as a spoiler. “The international community felt badly done by the Tigers after putting a lot of effort and money into the peace process,” says Alan Keenan, senior analyst in Colombo for the International Crisis Group.
One of Prabharakan’s senior lieutenants defected in 2004 in what he says was frustration over his leader’s intransigence. Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan, who commanded LTTE combatants in the east, says he gave up on the struggle when Prabhakaran told his negotiators to reject an offer of federalism. “I told him, ‘This is a good time to stop this. A federal situation is a very powerful solution,’ ” says Mr. Muralitharan, who is now a government minister in Colombo.
Where will the Tamil independence movement go from here?
Moderate Tamils might seek autonomy through elections. The Tamil diaspora may put funds behind a new armed resistance movement. Already Tamils in Britain, Canada, the United States, and elsewhere have shown their support by staging protests – thousands turned out in London and hundreds in Washington Monday. Some of the Tamil Tigers may have escaped and could reorganize under new leadership and carry on the fight, although on a much smaller scale.
In any event, it’s widely agreed that the conflict can only end with a political deal for the ethnic Tamils, given the deep divisions between the two sides.
Another pressing concern is the rising humanitarian crisis: Some 8,000 civilians have been killed in the fighting since late January, according to estimates from the United Nations and health officials. Some 265,000 have fled the war zone in recent months, according to the UN refugee agency. (See the Monitor’s report about the camps where they’ve taken refugee here.) The international community has accused both the Army and the rebels of killing civilians, especially in the final weeks of battle. On Monday the European Union called for an independent investigation into alleged war crimes on both sides.
Correspondent Simon Montlake contributed reporting.
<< OMG! Queen Rania’s on Twitter! tweets r gd so far | MainComments
2. fareed | 05.25.09
Dear Editor
I am not a ardent supporter of either side, but I amust stress that both sides to be blamed for not comming to a suitable agreement whrn the oppertunity came their way by Intl negotiaters.
At the end who paid the price its the poor civilients.I hope the international community relaize tgis????
WEll all this what tamils demamds that they do not get a fair deal is not true, a tamil person can still up to now can go to any part of the country and he or she will not have any difficulty but a sinhalese other hand cannot go to north or teh tamil dominated area and ask any help no one will .
take a simple example and go to the government departments and the business and other privates compnaies and banks see the number of sinhala and the tamil work force and compare, after this bloddy 26 year war. still teh government is fare in teh distribution of jobs and there is no discrimination.
take another example, take the major western embassies, when a sinhalese business person goes to get a travel visa its been rejected without any reason first and discourage the applicant as all those frontline staff are tamils holding foreign passport and now working for teh embassies under the foreign government name but they were borna dn braed in sri lanka soil and now with the conflict settle in teh foreign country and come back to work in sri lankan / foreign embassy and take personal revenge agaisnt the sinhalese conmmunity. but the foreign authoruti are not aware of these happeninings asn they are not reported or not reach to the higher authority and manupulated by teh staff inside. well there are many more of these ahppenings. but one has to lookat a broadway to solve this problem in my openinon its far from over and would take another 26 years to come to normal or no solution at all it has to go on like this untill whole country goes under ground. its pity for lovely Island of the indian ocean, which used to be called by british a sthe pearl of the indian ocean.
writen by a heart broken sad sri lanka national
3. Rama | 05.28.09
Dear Editor
The article and some of the comments expressed here are heartless and mindless to say the least. Can a Government attack its own people and innocent civilians in the name of terminating terrorists ? Is it not worse than terrorism. While all LTTE did was not correct, is it not true that Srilankan Governement has killed hundred times more innocent civilians than what LTTE has done so far ? Who is the biggest terroist among both? Refusing international development organizations and media even after the end of the war in to the affected territory, arresting doctors for serving the wounded civilians leaves us to doubt which era are we living in ? Probaby Pre Barbaric Srilankan Era. Even for slaugtering animals we have quality standards, for endangered specied we have groups protecting them and here is where we are ! When innocent civilans are killed there is no voice protest. Even now as we discuss this people and children are dying due to want of medicines, doctors, hospitals, food and sanitation. The International Community stands by as silent spectator. India ruled by the widow of the slain leader Rajiv, is now ruled by vengenceful heart. It has become blind and cruel. It does not even undertand that China is going to be the great benefitter of this attitude and also Pakistan. Who else can be more foolish than the one nation who has become mad? If LTTE is vanguished in less than 3 decades, these powere will be done with within a decade itself by the history and march of human spirit.
A Humanitarian, one of the remaining few who has not yet become blind.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
Leave a Comment
We do not publish all comments, and we do not publish comments immediately. The comments feature is a forum to discuss the ideas in our stories. Constructive debate - even pointed disagreement - is welcome, but personal attacks on other commenters are not, and will not be published.
Tip: Do not write a novel. Keep it short. We will not publish lengthy comments. Come up with your own statements. This is not a place to cut and paste an email you received. If we recognize it as such, we won't post it.
Please do not post any comments that are commercial in nature or that violate copyrights.
Finally, we will not publish any comments that we regard as obscene, defamatory, or intended to incite violence.
1. R.Thyagarajan | 05.19.09
The LTTE’s capacity to organise land/sea and air mercinaries to fight a Srilanka and to make India think twice before interfering any thing connected with its idioloy by killing its prime minister was not got by it in a day. The expatriate Srilankan Tamils funding the outfit was the main encouragement. The Srilankan army/navy and air force were unable to judge the might of LTTE for decades. Many from the fighting forces and leaders of Srilanka died trying to stop LTTE from saying anything in running of the country.Both LTTE and the Srilankan forces are responsible for their unplanned fightings that caused several death caught in cross-fire. More over they are also responsible for creating sufferings to the innocent people.Now to get the whole population under one rule is not going to be easy for Srilankan Govt or the other countries.