AoD Blog 4 (Sri Lankan Civil War)

Subject: The Civil War in Sri Lanka
-----The LTTE has committed many various criminal and terrorist acts. The previous post did cover a few of these, although in the context of similarities to other terrorist/rebel groups. This post is about the two major types of LTTE attack, violent actions committed against the civilians, and assassinations on political and military targets.
-----The most detrimental attacks are done by the LTTE are usually civilian oriented attacks. These purely civilian attacks are claimed to be for collateral damage by the LTTE, although for the instances such as massacre, the collateral impact seems to be non-existent opposed to the massive body counts. These attacks are usually located near large groups of people or large areas of interest, such as banks. The most notable attacks are: the Gonagala massacre, the Anuradhapura massacre, the Palliyagodella massacre, and the bombing of Sri Lanka's Central Bank.
• The Gonagala massacre was an attack by 75 LTTE members on the small village of Gonagala where over 50 men, women, and children were hacked to pieces in the middle of the night, the reason for its notability is because the majority of the attackers were women, according to the survivors.
• The Anuradhapura massacre was an attack on 146 Sinhalese men, women, and children in a bus station in Anuradhapura by the LTTE, which was then followed by the LTTE gunners driving to a Buddhist Sri Maha Bobhi shrine and continuing the carnage. This massacre is notable because it is the largest massacre of Sinhalese by the LTTE to date.
• The Palliyagodella massacre was an attack on 109 Muslim men, women, and children by the LTTE in Palliyagodella, the notable factor being that this was the largest Muslim massacre by the LTTE to date and female cadres along with child soldiers were used in the attack.
• January 31, 1996, the LTTE crashed a lorry (large transport truck) containing 440 pounds of high explosives into the main gates of the Central Bank. The detonated bombs killed at least 91 people and injured 1,400 others. At least 100 lost their eyesight from the blast. A three-wheeler carrying two LTTE cadres with an automatic rifle and RPG were apprehended by Sri Lankan police. Another bombing on a train in July, caused Sri Lanka’s tourism to drop by 40%. This bombing was the deadliest LTTE bombing of the civil war until 2006.
-----Civilian attacks are common, even though not many of them grow to such levels, but an even more common method of LTTE attack is assassination. Examples of theses assassinations are: the former mayor of Jaffna, Alfred Duraiappah (said to be done as revenge for the killing of 9 Tamil civilians by Sri Lankan police), the former minister of foreign affairs and minister of defense, Ranjan Wijeratne, and one of the most notable, Rajiv Gandhi, the 7th Prime Minister of India, who was assassinated by a female LTTE suicide bomber while he was campaigning at Sriperumbudur, India for the Sriperumbudur Lok Sabha Congress candidate.

AoD Blog 3 (Sri Lankan Civil War)

Subject: The Civil War in Sri Lanka

-----The LTTE have some similarities to many terrorist and rebel groups strategies known throughout the world today. Actually, some of these well-known groups, like Al Qaeda, copied attacks done by the LTTE. The similarities to other groups range from the child armies, to the suicide bombings, to genocidal attacks.

-----The first similarity is to the numerous amounts of rebels in Africa. This similarity is the use of children in the army. Even though the LTTE has promised to stop the use of child soldiers, they have allegedly still been doing so. There have been reports of them abducting children, conscripting Tsunami orphans, and using Tamil children in their armies. Since 2001, when the Tamil Tigers promised to stop using child soldiers, there have been, according to UNICEF, 5,794 child soldiers used.

-----The suicide bombings of today were first used by the Tamil Tigers in 2001. Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a Tamil Tiger using a prototype suicide vest. According to Jane’s Information Group, an organization that collects military information, between 1980 and 2000 168 suicide attacks were commenced by the LTTE. These attacks have been copied by terrorist organizations in the Middle East, more notably the Al Qaida.

-----Like most terrorist organizations, the LTTE does perform ethnic cleansing. These cleansings are against the Sinhalese and the Muslims in Sri Lanka. An example of this is the forcible removal of the entire Muslim population of Jaffna in only two hours in 1990. These ethnic cleansings are usually only preformed in the areas the LTTE control. These cleansings are also usually followed up by an excuse. The Muslim evacuation of Jaffna was explained as a mistake on the part of a regional commander, although the supreme leadership was based in Jaffna at the time and no punishment has been given to the commander.

AoD Blog 2 (Sri Lankan Civil War)

Subject: The Civil War in Sri Lanka

-----The structure of the Tamil Tiger organization is a three-group system, consisting of the military wing and political wing mainly, with the third group being a central governing group headed by the LTTE supreme leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran

-----First wing to talk about is the military, as that is the wing that causes the most problems in the country. The recruits into the military wing are prepared to die for their cause and are equipped with a cyanide pill for capture. Like many popular terrorist groups today, they also have a suicide squad, called the Black Tigers. As for the rest of the wing, they are divided into two groups: the Sea Tigers and the Air Tigers. They also have an intelligence unit and a political office. The most noteworthy attribute of this wing is that the Air Tigers are the first air force to be controlled by a terrorist group.

-----The political wing is smaller since it hasn’t formally created a political party in the country. It has, however, openly supported the Tamil National Alliance in 2004, which won an alarming amount of votes in the country.

-----The main wing, or the administrative wing, is more civilian oriented than the other two wings. It controls a number of sections in the north of the island and regions around the cities of Killinochchi and Mulathivu, although, interestingly enough, it still uses the Sri Lanka rupee and many of the civil servants in its areas are paid by the Sri Lankan government. Due to the Indian help during 1987 when the Sri Lankan government was attacking Jaffna, the LTTE have been able to create most of the structures that supported these functions. The time since 1987 have allowed the LTTE to transform from a completely militaristic organization to a quasi-government. Functions that are within this new government include: the Voice of the Tigers broadcast, a judicial service with a court and public prosecution system, a police force, a banking system, and even a customs agency, although the term customs is somewhat loose. These structures are present in the areas that the LTTE does control, even though Jafna is no longer one of those areas.

AoD Blog 1 (Sri Lankan Civil War)

Subject: The Civil War in Sri Lanka

-----There is currently a civil war going on in Sri Lanka. This war is going on between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a.k.a., the Tamil Tigers. The Tamil are a terrorist group (as defined by 32 countries) and is headed by Velupillai Prabhakaran. Their goal is to secede from Sri Lanka and become a country in the north and east areas, which was formerly known as Ceylon, before the British occupation.

-----The history of this conflict is quite interesting, and mimics the Iraq situation in some aspects. The feudal era left Sri Lanka in a situation where one island was inhabited by seven warring kingdoms. This division created a huge weakness in the kingdoms. This weakness was exploited first by the Portuguese in 1517, who founded a fort in the Muslim port city of Colombo, which led to Portuguese control of the coastal areas. This pushed the Muslim kingdom, the Sinhalese, to move their capital inwards to Kandy, for better defense against the new invaders.

-----In order to protect themselves against the Portuguese, the Kandy king (get it?) appealed to a new settler for help, the Dutch. The Dutch began to push against the Portugal inhabitants, but in 1683 they fully attacked, capturing Colombo. At this point, the Dutch controlled the whole island except for Kandy. With this new-found land, they persecuted the Catholics and heavily taxed the native inhabitants.

-----In 1659, a British captain, Robert Knox, landed on Sri Lanka and was captured by the king of Kandy, and then escaped 19 years later to Britain, where the island was brought to Britain’s attention. The Napoleonic Wars pushed Britain to act on this knowledge, for fear of it becoming French. By 1802, the whole island was British. The only exception was the kingdom of Kandy, which proved more difficult with the 3 Kandyan Wars, which consisted of British invaders and Sri Lankan defenders. On the 2nd K. War, the British actually occupied the kingdom, but the fighting stopped after the bloody suppression of the 3rd K War, also known as the Uva Rebellion. The island was renamed Ceylon, and the inhabitants reduced to peasants living in a British Dependency. Social hierarchies were introduced, with the rich British at the top, followed by the Burghers (Dutch/Sri Lankan people), then the rest of the inhabitants. The British occupation introduced diplomacy to the island for the first time, such as Burgher self-government in 1833, constitutional development in a partly-elected assembly in 1909, and majorities of elected members in comparison to official appointees in 1920.

-----Groups began to appear in favor of independence, usually following either a constitutionalist path or a radical one. The constitutional groups sought to gain independence through gradually changing the laws and rights and eventually become free, whereas the radical groups, although almost entirely made up of minorities, wanted quick and utter independence. The radicals were not able to make a move against the British government, and the constitutionalists were taking their time to gain independence. The chance for independence actually came during WWII. This war brought up many radical movements, a couple of which actually received any attention. It was the constitutionalists that eventually won independence from this opportunity with the Soulbury constitution in 1944.

-----On July 1983, the Tamil Tigers ambushed and killed 13 Sri Lankan soldiers, which received huge ramifications from the Sinhalese population. These riots caused 400 deaths and 150,000 to leave. “President” Junius Jayewardene used the emergency powers of his position to effectively become a dictator over Sri Lanka till 1989. In 1987, a military offensive on the Vadamarachchi peninsular caused India to become involved as well. This caused even more problems and resulted in an air raid from India, a Peace Accord between the Indian Prime Minister and Sri Lankan President, and the election of a new president. Following these events, the politics of Sri Lanka has become engulfed by ethnic fighting, primarily between the Tamil Tigers and the current government of Sinhalese. This fighting has mangled Sri Lanka’s economy, but incredibly it is still the second most prosperous nation in South Asia.