home > by publication type > backgrounders > Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (aka Tamil Tigers) (Sri Lanka, separatists)
Email
| Author: | Preeti Bhattacharji, Research Associate |
|---|
Updated: May 20, 2009
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), also known as the Tamil Tigers, are a separatist group in Sri Lanka. Since the 1980s, 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 its war against the government has cost more than seventy thousand lives. In May 2009, the Sri Lankan government declared the twenty-six year long conflict had ended. The military claimed it had defeated the rebels and killed the LTTE's elusive leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran. The group conceded defeat and in a statement said it had decided to lay down its arms. However, some experts warn it may be too early to write off the group, which has proved to be a ruthless guerilla outfit in the past. 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. According to the report, violations of the 2002 cease-fire agreement by both the LTTE and the government have killed more than 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. The government increased military operations against the Tigers, and in May 2009 claimed it had defeated the rebel group. According to South Asia Terrorism Portal, a terrorism database, more than 13,000 people were killed in 2009, including over 9,000 civilians, the highest number of casualties in a single year since the conflict began.
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. In January 2009, Human Rights Watch said both the government and the LTTE were placing civilians at risk in their ongoing war. Brad Adams, the organization's Asia director, said: "The government and the LTTE appear to be holding a perverse contest to determine who can show the least concern for civilian protection."
* Editor's Note: Corrects to say U.S. State Department attributed deaths to both LTTE and the Sri Lankan government.
Weigh in on this issue by emailing CFR.org.
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1.212.434.9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
Complete list of CFR Books
The report of this bipartisan Task Force of distinguished leaders and experts represents a strong consensus on the importance of repairing America's immigration policy. It makes the case that maintaining America's political and economic leadership depends on attracting talented and hard-working immigrants, and on securing the country's borders in a smart, effective, and humane way.
This report finds that nuclear weapons will remain a fundamental element of U.S. national security in the near term, and makes recommendations on how to ensure the safety, security, and reliability of the U.S. deterrent nuclear force, prevent nuclear terrorism, and strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime.
About Independent Task Forces at CFR
Complete list of Task Force reports
Identifying international threats and acting on them may be the most difficult job for U.S. policymakers. This report
provides an actionable road map for managing international threats before they erupt into crises and makes a strong case that preventive action is not a luxury but a necessity.
For more than a decade, the United States has mostly watched from the sidelines as Asian countries organize themselves into an alphabet soup of new multilateral groups. In this report, the authors review the relationship between pan-Asian and trans-Pacific institutions and suggest policy guidelines for a new U.S. approach to this new Asian landscape.
Complete list of Council Special Reports
To request permission to reprint or reuse CFR material, please fill out this permissions request form (PDF), referring to the instructions on page 1.
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.