Adele Balasingham

Adele Balasingham
Adele Balasingham
Born	Adele Ann Wilby; 30 January 1950; Warragul,Australia
Nationality	Australian, United Kingdom

Adele Ann Wilby (born 30 January 1950), married name Balasingham, is the Australian-born former leader of the women’s wing of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam of Sri Lanka.^[1] She currently resides in London, UK.

Biography

She was born in Warragul, Victoria in Australia. She became a professional nurse and worked in Gippsland, 150 km from Melbourne. She eventually migrated to the United Kingdom where in 1978 she met and married Sri Lankan born British citizen Anton Balasingham. Mr. Balasingham later became the chief strategist and peace negotiator for the LTTE in Sri Lanka. Her husband Anton died on 14 December 2006.^[2]

Separatist leader

Adele Balasingham moved with her husband initially to Madras in India then on to northern part of Sri Lanka in Jaffna during the early stages of the Sri Lankan civil war that started after the 1983 Black July pogrom. In Sri Lanka she became the women’s wing leader of the LTTE.^[1]

Peace negotiator

She later participated as part of the LTTE peace negotiating team in numerous peace talks with the various Sri Lankan government negotiating teams since 2002. She is also the author of number of books including the semi autobiographical The Will to Freedom ISBN 1-903679-03-6^[1]^[3]