Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)

 

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)

                          

                                                                 (LTTE  Flag)  

          

             LTTE Stands for Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were a separatist militant group centered in northern Sri Lanka. This violent separatist movement in Sri Lanka aimed to unite northern and eastern Sri Lanka to form an independent Tamil state. It was started in May 1976 by Vellupillai Prabhakaran .

                           

                                                                  (Prabhakaran)

              Since Sri Lanka’s independence from Britain in 1948, the Tamil minority has felt increasingly marginalised and politically disenfranchised. In that very year, Solomon Bandaranayake, the country’s first prime minister, made Sinhala, which is spoken by the majority of Sri Lankans, the official language . After 1948, the Tamils also became the targets of numerous riots that swept through the island nation. Believing that these riots were instigated by the Sinhalese authorities, Tamils began calling for an independent state and for an organisation to protect their rights . The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was one of the many groups that came into existence to fight for Tamil rights .

                                    

           Great Britain ruled Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) from 1815 to 1948 . In 1815, over 90% (3 Million) of the Sri Lankan population was from Sinhala community and about 10% (300,000) was from Hindu Tamil community . Slowly, Britishers began bringing in Tamil labourers from India for plantation of tea, coffee and rubber and this led to a sudden rise in Tamilian population . Till 1930s, there was no tension between Sinhala and Tamil community . But Britishers had been working on ‘divide and rule’ theory, building, for example, disproportionate number of English-language schools in the North part of Sri Lanka, which was dominated by the Tamil community. Because English was the language of rule in Sri Lanka, this advantage enabled Tamil community to grab all important bureaucratic jobs, angering the Sinhala community. From 1936 to 1944, multiple demands were made to replace official English with Sinhalese and/or Tamil, but the British government didn’t agree.

                                  

(LTTE Air force)

               In 1948, Ceylon gained independence from Great Britain. Sri Lanka Freedom Party came to power in 1956 and passed the controversial Sinhala Only Act, which made Sinhalese the language of governance and didn’t give any official status to the Tamil language. Discrimination against Tamilians began and many of them were asked to resign from top bureaucratic positions because they couldn’t speak fluent Sinhalese. In 1971, the government made a policy to set higher benchmarks for Tamil students to enter universities. In 1975, the dreaded Prabhakaran killed a member of the governing Sri Lanka Freedom Party and a year later, created a group called LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam), which sought a separate state called Tamil Eelam in North and East of Sri Lanka. In 1983, LTTE killed an army envoy and that led to the worst anti-Tamil riots, which are considered to be the start of the civil war that lasted for over 25 years. This civil war killed more than 100,000 people over two-and-a-half decades, including the former Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi, whom LTTE claimed to have killed in 1991 for sending Peace Keeping Forces (to eliminate LTTE) to Sri Lanka between 1987-1990.

                        

(LTTE Inter national link)

         Sri Lanka in the 1970s was deeply troubled by the economic reforms implemented in the north and east. Tamil people dominated this area . During this period the demand for a separate Tamil state by the Tamil people gradually gained momentum . In 1972 Velupillai Prabhakaran started an organization called Tamil New Tiger which involved young school children . The organization was renamed Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam in 1976. In 1976, the LTTE became famous as a notorious organization by carrying out the Vilikade massacre . The LTTE became famous as the world’s most dangerous suicide bomber whose fighters carried cyanide capsules in amulets .

                         

(Attack by LTTE)

       LTTE had money for buying arms and other activities from Tamils ​​living abroad . The LTTE carried out large attacks in a sequential manner. In 1985, in the Mahabodhi attack, LTTE killed 146 people in a monastery in Anuradhapura. Apart from this, in 1987, LTTE killed 113 people in a bomb blast in Sri Lanka. This attack is remembered as the Colombo Central Bus Stand blast .

                                   

(Sri lanka war)

         The same year saw the Aluth Oya massacre in which LTTE killed 127 people of Sinhalese Buddhists, while in 1990 this separatist organization targeted the Kuttankudi mosque in which 147 people died . On May 21, 1991, a suicide bomber killed former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi while he was campaigning in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Other attacks included an August 1992 land-mine explosion in Jaffna, which killed 10 senior military commanders; the May 1993 assassination of Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa; a January 1996 suicide bomb attack on the central bank of Colombo that killed 100 people .

                               

(First LTTE Peace agreement)

         The slain LTTE chief Vellupillai Prabhakaran's wife and daughter as well as his top commander Pottu Amman have died in the Sri Lankan conflict . The slain Tiger supremo's wife Mathivathani and daughter Duwarka were earlier believed to have fled to Europe as the conflict intensified in Sri Lanka's north . Sri Lankan army has not yet found their bodies or revealed any information about them. The whereabouts of Prabhakaran's 13-year-old son Balachandran are also not known .

                               

(Prabhakaran Faimly)

            The LTTE lost control of Jaffna in October 1987 to an Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) that had been sent to Sri Lanka to assist in the implementation of a complete cease-fire .

                                

(Rajiv Gandhi last movement)

       By now it is clear that Velupillai Prabhakaran, one of the world's dreaded guerrilla leaders is indeed dead, but questions abound on how exactly he died. Depends exactly when you were asking the question . On Monday, soon after President Rajapakse spoke with Indian  foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee confirming Prabhakaran's death, the Sri Lankan military claimed that the Tiger chief and his key aides, including intelligence chief Pottu Amman and Sea Tigers chief Soosai were killed while trying to flee in a captured ambulance . On Tuesday, hours after President Rajapakse addressed Sri Lanka's Parliament declaring victory, Sri Lanka's army commander General Sarath Fonseka confirmed that the body of Prabhakaran had been recovered. The official Lankan defence website said that the 53 Division commanded had found Prabhakaran's bullet ridden body lying on the bank of the Nanthikadal lagoon . On May 18, 2009, the Sri Lankan Government announced that Prabhakaran had been killed while trying to escape advancing Sri Lanka Army troops. A week later Tamil Tiger spokesman admitted that Prabhakaran had died .

                                    

(Prabhakaran dead body)

      The resistance of the enfeebled Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) cadres to the military offensive of the government of Sri Lanka against their shrinking stronghold at Vellamullaivaikkal, a hamlet on the northeast coast of the island about five miles north of the town of Mullaitivu, ended on May 17, 2009.

                                   

(Prabhakaran mobile , handkirt chief)

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Best wishes from

            

Suvendu Singha . (India ,Odisha ,Balasore)