home > by publication type > backgrounder > Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (aka Tamil Tigers) (Sri Lanka, separatists)
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| Author: | Preeti Bhattacharji |
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Updated: July 21, 2008
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), also known as the Tamil Tigers, are a separatist group in Sri Lanka. For the past thirty years, the LTTE have been agitating for a homeland for ethnic Tamils, who feel persecuted by Sri Lanka's ethnic majority, the Sinhalese. The LTTE is notorious for having pioneered the suicide bomb jacket, as well as the use of women in suicide attacks. They are blamed for a dozen high-level assassinations, over two hundred suicide attacks, and are engaged in an ongoing civil war in Sri Lanka that has cost more than sixty thousand lives. Recently, the LTTE has been pushed out of eastern parts of Sri Lanka, but it remains entrenched in the north, where it harbors land, air, and sea forces. Both the LTTE and the Sri Lankan military have been accused of engaging in abductions, extortion, conscription, and the use of child soldiers.
The Tamils are an ethnic group that lives in southern India (mainly in the state of Tamil Nadu) and on Sri Lanka, an island of 21 million people off the southern tip of India. Most Tamils live in northern and eastern Sri Lanka, and they comprise approximately 10 percent of the island's population, according to a 2001 government census. Their religion (most are Hindu) and Tamil language set them apart from the four-fifths of Sri Lankans who are Sinhalese—members of a largely Buddhist, Sinhala-speaking ethnic group. When Sri Lanka was ruled as Ceylon by the British, most Sri Lankans regarded the Tamil minority as collaborators with imperial rule and resented the Tamil's perceived preferential treatment. But since Sri Lanka became independent in 1948, the Sinhalese majority has dominated the country. The remainder of Sri Lanka's population includes ethnic Muslims, as well as Tamil and Sinhalese Christians.
The LTTE, which may have between 7,000 and 15,000 armed combatants (PDF), is notorious for its suicide bombings. Since the late 1980s, the group has conducted approximately two hundred suicide attacks. Targets have included transit hubs, Buddhist shrines, and office buildings. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the LTTE invented the suicide belt and pioneered the use of women in suicide attacks. LTTE fighters wear cyanide capsules around their necks so they can commit suicide if they are captured.
Beyond suicide bombings, the LTTE has used conventional bombs and Claymore mines to attack political and civilian targets, and has gunned down both Sri Lankan officials and civilians. In an April 2008 report, the U.S. State Department also accuses the LTTE of engaging in abductions and extortion. Most experts say they have murdered approximately 5,000 people since 2006.
Many of the LTTE's victims have been public officials. Over the past twenty years, the LTTE has been accused of assassinating almost a dozen high-level figures, including two heads of state. Assassinations and attacks on officials allegedly committed by the LTTE include:
While the LTTE was active in the months leading up to September 11, 2001, a lull in violence preceded a February 2002 cease-fire agreement. Whether the 9/11 attacks encouraged this is not clear. Later that year, rebels and the government reached a power-sharing agreement in hopes of achieving a lasting peace.
Violence resumed in July 2004 when a suicide bomber strapped explosives to her body in Colombo, killing herself and four policemen. The LTTE claimed the attack was "an operation of some elements who are working to disrupt peace efforts," accusing the military and police of backing a breakaway LTTE leader responsible for the suicide bombing.
Tensions continued to rise until the December 2004 earthquake and tsunami, which killed more than 30,000 people in Sri Lanka and brought relative peace between the rebels and the government. But the August 2005 assassination of Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar—for which the rebels are blamed though they deny any involvement—disrupted the peace and once again put the LTTE at odds with the Sri Lankan government.
By July 2006, fighting had reached its worst levels since the period before the 2002 ceasefire. Hundreds have been killed in the most recent wave of violence, and the United Nations reports tens of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes. The Sri Lankan government unilaterally pulled out of the 2002 cease-fire agreement in January 2008, and Nordic cease-fire monitors withdrew from the country. Since the end of the cease-fire, the LTTE have been blamed for approximately ten explosions that have killed over one hundred people. Most of these bombs targeted buses, though a train station, a zoo, and a marathon race have also been attacked. According to the State Department, the LTTE continues to control much of northern Sri Lanka, and carries out attacks throughout the country.
Experts say that the secular, nationalist LTTE has no operational connection with al-Qaeda, its radical Islamist affiliates, or other terrorist groups. However, some of the Tigers' innovations—such as the "jacket" apparatus worn by individual suicide bombers—have been copied by al-Qaeda, the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, and Palestinian groups such as Hamas and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
In its early days, experts say the LTTE did train with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The group may still interact with other terrorist organizations through illegal arms markets in Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia.
Since the end of the 2002 cease-fire, the Sri Lankan government has aggressively pursued LTTE fighters. Halfway through 2007, the Sri Lankan government took effective control of Sri Lanka's eastern province, though it has had trouble defeating LTTE combatants in the north. On its website, the Sri Lankan Ministry of Defense catalogues alleged victories against the LTTE. The United States has helped train Sri Lankan forces in agencies that relate to counterterrorism. According to the State Department, the government of Sri Lanka cooperated with the United States to implement both the Container Security Initiative and the Megaports program at the port of Colombo.
But the Sri Lankan government has also attracted widespread criticism for its alleged human rights abuses. Like the LTTE, the Sri Lankan government has been accused of engaging in extrajudicial killings, abductions, extortion, conscription, and the use of child soldiers. In August 2007, Human Rights Watch released a report that catalogues the various human rights abuses conducted in Sri Lanka by both the LTTE and the Sri Lankan military.
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