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The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, pronounced L-T-T-E), popularly known as the Tamil Tigers, Tamil, founded in 1976, is seeking to establish an independent state for Ceylon Tamils, to be called Tamil Eelam, in the north-east of Sri Lanka.

The head of the organisation is the reclusive guerilla leader Velupillai Prabakharan, who is wanted by Interpol for offences "Murder, Organised Crime and Terrorism" [1]. The LTTE has absorbed most of the cadres from the other Tamil miltant organisations over the two decades long war, for independence struggle. The organisation is widely recognised as the entity the government must negotiate with if it is to find a peaceful resolution to the country's ethnic conflict. It is currently a party to negotiations with the government aimed at seeking a solution to the long-standing crisis. LTTE-backed Thamizarasuk Katchi has won over 90% of votes in the electoral district of Jaffna, in the Northern Province, in the parliamentary elections. The LTTE did not participate in the election as a political party but did openly support the TNA.[2] However, the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (Lanka Academic) accused the LTTE of being involved in this election illegally, and using violence and impersonation to support TNA members. [3] Centre for Monitoring Election Violence also stated that the election was not a "free and fair" one due to voter intimidation and violence by both of the major parties. [4] LTTE is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by several countries including USA, Britain, India, Australia and Malaysia but the ban in Sri Lanka was lifted to facilitate peaceful negotiations.

Current status

The LTTE controls sections in the north and east of the island, especially the regions lying outside the major cities. Since late 2001, there has been a ceasefire, and the LTTE has indicated its willingness to give up its call for a separate state, seeking political and economic autonomy for Tamils within a one-state solution. The peace process has been mediated by Norway, a country that has often found favour with both the government and the insurgents. This was certainly true at the inception of the peace process. But successive Sri Lankan leaders from the President downwards have been accusing Norway and its peace monitors in Sri Lanka of open bias in favor of the LTTE. [5] In fact one Norwegian chief monitor was asked to leave Sri Lanka because of open bias during a sea battle off the eastern Sri Lankan coast; the monitor, according to the Sri Lankan government, helped frustrate efforts to seize a Tamil Tiger ship carrying arms. [6] [7] Together with the other Nordic countries, Norway supports the monitoring of the ceasefire through the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission.

Talks on an interim solution were stalled due to accusations of soft politics by the President Chandrika Kumaratunga, against the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who belongs to the opposition party, and who was in charge of the negotiations. The talks are on hold until political uncertainty between the two main parties leaves it clear with whom the LTTE is to negotiate.

The Sri Lankan government, while involved in a military expansion program, accuses the LTTE of using the ceasefire to build up its forces. The LTTE also continues to be accused by the government and international human rights organizations of abducting school children, killing political rivals and using suicide bombers. The LTTE, on the other hand, accuse the Sri Lankan government of carrying out killings of civilians, political workers and journalists using paramilitary groups armed by the government and operating from Sri Lankan military bases and government police stations in government-controlled Tamil areas. Others worry that the LTTE, government and some others are too focused on the money poised to come in from northern countries as peace unfolds, rather than seeking a solution that will lead to a workable and lasting peace.

The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake has increased tensions between the LTTE and the national government. Each group is blaming the other for inadequate preparation and treatment. The Sri Lankan government is alleged to have been blocking basic humanitarian aid for tsunami victims and access by foreign humanitarian agencies to the Tamil rebel held areas where over two thirds of the damage and deaths from the tsunami occurred. This included refusal to allow the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to visit the worst hit areas on the island which are on the rebel held East coast when he asked to do so. The head of the UN World Food Program Jim Morris, however was finally able to visit rebel-held territory, despite initial objections by the Sri Lankan government. He added that aid had reached "nearly everyone... who has been harmed by the disaster". [8]

Child Conscription

File:Childsoldiers.jpg

LTTE "baby brigade"

The LTTE has been accused of continuing to recruit child soldiers, including from tsunami relief camps.[9] UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has called for travel bans on the LTTE, along with 40 other groups accused of using child soldiers, as a result of this.

Tej Thapa, a South Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch says, "The Tamil Tigers are stealing children from their homes to put them on the firing line. Despite all their promises, they are demonstrating absolute disregard for the most vulnerable part of the population it claims to represent" [10]

Amid international pressure, LTTE announced in July 2003 that it would stop conscripting child soldiers, but has reneged on the promises. Among the conscripted are the Tamil children orphaned by the tsunami. [11]

UNICEF expresses disappointment over LTTE's continuous child conscription, "The LTTE has not lived up to its commitment to end once and for all the practice of taking children into its ranks." [12]

Allegations of Ethnic Cleansing against Sinhalese and Muslims

LTTE has carried out attacks on Sinhalese and Muslim in the predominantly Tamil Northern and Eastern provinces. During the mid-1980 and official plan was implemented "to settle 30,000 Sinhalese in the dry zone of Northern Province, giving each settler land and funds to build a house and each community armed protection in the form of rifles and machine guns."[13] Armed Sinhalese settlers who came from the poorer and less fortunate classes of the Sinhalese used established local militia called home guards to protect themselves from the hostile Tamil population. Sri Lankan president Jayewardene asserted that no part of Sri Lanka could legitimately be considered an ethnic homeland and thus closed to settlement from outside.[14]

Amnesty International reports how an LTTE soldier describes one of his attacks on villagers, "When recounting one attack, he described how he had held a child by the legs and bashed its head against a wall and how he enjoyed hearing the mother’s screaming." -[15]

File:LTTEAmpara.jpg

30 Sinhalese civilians, mostly women and children, massacred by LTTE women cadres in Ampara

Amnesty International reports also recounts testimony from children who were abducted and tortured by the Sri Lankan Army because of their Tamil ethnicity.

The Amnesty International paper Children In South Asia: their securing their rights recounts the abduction and torture of an 11-year old boy Rajah by the Sri Lankan Army. Rajah was tortured because his family was suspected of providing food to members of the LTTE.

"Two soldiers... threw me in a tub which had no water in it. I got up and ran to my mother at the gate. I held my mum and asked her not to allow them to take me. They snatched me away again. I was put against the wall and one of the soldiers kicked me with his knee in my stomach. I screamed. Then they took me behind their compound. There was a coconut tree. They tied my legs with rope and pulled me upside down. While hanging, I was beaten with netted [twisted] wire about six times. Then they let me down and tied my hands. I was beaten with sticks from the tulip tree." [16]

Children were also killed by the Sri Lankan Army, and armed Sinhalese and Muslim Home Guards in reprisal for attacked carried out by the LTTE.

Amnesty International stated in reprisal for the LTTE attack on the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy, "Amirthalingam Surenthran, a 13-year-old student and his 17-year-old brother, Amirthalingam Jagendram, were among eight civilians deliberately shot at close range by police and home guards at Tampalakamam, Sri Lanka, on 1 February 1998. At about 6.30am, around 20 police and home guards who appeared drunk dragged them out of the house and reportedly took them inside the police post and shot them." [17]

Refugees International reports "In October 1990, the LTTE decided to evict the Muslim population of Jaffna, approximately 100,000 people, with two days notice. The Muslims were told to leave the North within 48 hours or face death." [18]

The BBC reports on LTTE's evicted the Sinhalese and Muslim population of northern Sri Lanka, "Just a decade ago, Jaffna was a cosmopolitan city, where the Tamils lived alongside Muslims and the predominantly Buddhist Sinhalese. Upon taking control, the LTTE asked the Sinhalese and Muslims to leave." [19] The LTTE has stated that it was evicting Sinhalese and Muslim settlers, who were moved in state sponsored programs.

India's involvement

The LTTE's early years of struggle reportedly enjoyed considerable sympathy from the Indian government, especially in the state of Tamil Nadu where there was sympathy for the discrimination against Sri Lankan Tamils by the majority Sinhalese. It is widely believed that India provided the LTTE and other Tamil guerilla groups with monetary and training support.

After the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord was signed on July 29, 1987 by Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and President Jayewardene, the Sri Lankan Government made a number of concessions to Tamil demands, which included devolution of power to the provinces, merger—subject to later referendum—of the northern and eastern provinces, and official status for the Tamil language. India agreed to establish order in the north and east with an Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) and to cease assisting Tamil insurgents. Militant groups including the LTTE, although initially reluctant, agreed to surrender their arms to the IPKF.

As time went on, the Indian forces began to meet with stiff opposition from all sides. None of the concessions agreed to in the Indo-Sri Lankan agreement was implemented by the Government of Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan government, fearing a large scale rebellion, began to grow wary of the presence of IPKF, and allegedly entered into a secret deal with the LTTE that culminated in a ceasefire. However, the LTTE and IPKF continued to have frequent hostilities, and according to some reports, the government even armed the rebels willing to see the back of the Indian forces. Casualties mounted and eventually India pulled out its troops. Support from India dropped noticeably in 1991, after the assassination of a recently ex-Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi, by a woman suicide bomber (Thenmuli Rajaratnam) widely believed to be an LTTE member. India remains an outside observer to the ongoing peace process, with frequent demands to press for an extradition of Prabhakaran, even if a peace deal is struck between the parties in the future.

File:LTTECoin.jpg

A coin issued by the LTTE.

After the election of Ranil Wickramasinghe as prime minister on a pro-peace mandate, the LTTE unilaterally declared a ceasefire in 2000 in which the government reciprocated and both later entered into a ceasefire agreement with the Sri Lankan government brokered by Norway. The LTTE runs a de-facto independent state, Tamil Eelam, within Sri Lanka. The LTTE is mainly funded by taxes collected within this territory. The LTTE employs both children and women in its ranks. It also has a naval wing called the Sea Tigers.

The Black Tigers is an elite unit of LTTE members responsible for conducting suicide attacks against civilian, political, religious, economic and military targets.

Notable Attacks

(Information derived from MIPT database, selected for inclusion based on lethality or notability.)

August 18, 1989: Suspected LTTE militants invaded a hospital in Colombo and from there subjected a nearby Indian Army post to grenade and small-arms fire, killing 24 soldiers. Because of the location, the Indians were unable to return heavy fire.
May 21, 1991: LTTE-affiliated suicide bomber Thenmuli Rajaratnam assassinated former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi while the latter was campaigning for a parliamentary candidate in Tamil Nadu, also killing an additional 13 bystanders. Following the assassination, seven suspected LTTE activists committed suicide after being surrounded by police.
January 31, 1996: An attack by the LTTE on the Colombo Central Bank killed 90 and injured a further 1,400 people, damaging other buildings in the process. It was the most deadly LTTE attack in the history of the group's operations.
October 15, 1997: An LTTE bomb exploded at the Colombo World Trade Center, killing 13 and injuring hundreds.
January 5, 1998: Four likely members of the Black Tiger squad drove an explosives-laden truck into the Sri Dalada Maligawa (or "Temple of the Tooth"), a major Buddhist shrine, killing 7 and injuring 25. The attack took place just days before foreign dignitaries were expected to attend celebrations of the fiftieth anniversary of Sri Lankan independence at the temple.
March 5, 1998: Two LTTE bombs exploded aboard a bus in Maradana, killing thirty-two and injuring 252 passersby.
May 14, 1998: A member of the Black Tiger squad jumped in front of a vehicle carrying Sri Lankan Brigadier Larry Wijeratne and detonated explosives, killing the general and two guards. Wijeratne was the commander of Sri Lankan forces in the Point Pedro area of the Jaffna peninsula in the Tamil-inhabited north of the country. Press reports described the assassination as a "serious blow" to the government's efforts in the area.
July 29, 1999: An LTTE suicide bomber killed Sri Lankan MP Neelan Thiruchelvam along with two others. Six bystanders were injured.
December 18, 1999: A female LTTE suicide bomber exploded herself at a rally in Colombo in an apparent assassination attempt on Sri Lankan president Kumaratunga, who was injured in the blast. Ten people were killed and three injured. Another blast elsewhere killed a United National Party activist and a former army general.
January 7, 2000: A suspected LTTE suicide bomber killed Sri Lankan Industrial Minister C.V. Gooneratne during a holiday march in Rawatne. A further 20 were killed and 60 wounded.
May 18, 2000: A suspected LTTE bomber killed 23 and injured 70 at a Buddhist temple in Battilacoa during celebrations of the Vesak holiday.
October 3, 2000: An LTTE bomb killed parliamentary candidate Mohammed Baithullah and more than twenty others in Muttur. At least 49 others were injured. Baithullah had previously served as an intelligence officer in the Sri Lankan police.

Recent developments

On August 12, 2005, the LTTE was named as the primary suspect in the assassination of Sri Lanka's foreign minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar. Two LTTE members were arrested for surveillance of the minister's residence a few weeks before the shooting. [20]

On September 27, 2005, the European Union announced a travel ban on all LTTE delegations across all 25 member states and according to the British Foreign Office is openly considering listing them as a terrorist organization in response to the killing of Sri Lankan foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar. [21]

External links