Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

aka World Tamil Association

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is a Marxist Tamil separatist group that has been fighting the government of Sri Lanka since 1978.

[Page 216]Sri Lanka is an island nation located off the southeast coast of India. Sinhalese Buddhists comprise about 75 percent of the island's population, while Hindu Tamils, concentrated in the north and east of the country, make up roughly 15 percent. In the early 1970s, the Sri Lankan government began to place special emphasis on Sinhalese unity and cultural cohesion following a Marxist-led student rebellion; for instance, the 1972 constitution named Sinhala and Buddhism as the official language and religion of Sri Lanka, respectively. The government's efforts at overcoming divisions within the Sinhalese community only exacerbated existing ethnic tensions between the Sinhalese and the Tamils. The resurgence of Sinhalese chauvinism sparked a comparable rise in Tamil separatism, with calls for the establishment of a Tamil homeland, called Eelam. In 1978, a radical faction of Tamils led by Velupillai Prabhakaran founded the LTTE in the hope of gaining total independence.

The LTTE is considered to be one of the most effective guerrilla forces operating in the world; for 19 years it has been fighting a government force approximately 10 times larger than itself. Initially, the LTTE exclusively employed hit-and-run guerrilla tactics in its fight against the government, but as the force has grown larger—LTTE is thought to number approximately 8,000 in 2002—it has begun to operate in the traditional division-brigade-battalion structure used by most armed forces. Extremely well equipped, with heavy artillery (including antiaircraft rockets and grenade launchers), the LTTE even has its own small navy, the Sea Tigers, that is used for smuggling as well as attacks.

Several unusual attributes of the LTTE have attracted international interest. The LTTE has a large number of women in every division, and many have risen to command positions. Its use of child soldiers in combat, some as young as 12, has brought condemnation by the United Nations. But perhaps most unusual is the LTTE's Black Tiger division, a specially trained squad used for terrorist attacks, including suicide bombings. Black Tiger assassins have killed dozens of Sri Lankan politicians; in 1991 a LTTE suicide bomber murdered the prime minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi. At all levels, LTTE members have shown an unusual willingness to die for their cause; fighters are issued cyanide caplets worn on a chain around their necks, and many have swallowed them rather than be taken prisoner. The LTTE has been equally careless of others' lives; in addition to the suicide bombings, the organization has sometimes massacred innocent villagers to draw Army forces away from the scene of its operations.

From 1978 to 1983, the LTTE carried out sporadic attacks against the Sri Lankan police and armed forces, but was unsupported by the vast majority of Tamils. At the time, LTTE probably had, at most, a few hundred members. All this changed in July 1983, after an attack by the LTTE on a Sri Lankan Army convoy sparked days of rioting across the country in which hundreds of Tamils were killed and tens of thousands forced to flee for their lives. The riots radicalized the Tamil community, and the LTTE soon had hundreds of recruits; by 1985 some estimated the organization to have 5,000 active members and an additional 5,000 sympathizers and supporters. The riots also sparked the growth of more than a dozen other Tamil insurgent groups with which the LTTE would become bitter rivals during the next few years; some of the LTTE's most brutal attacks were made against these rival groups and their sympathizers.

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