Suicide Terrorism - Articles

LTTE Operations and Attacks: A method to the madness

An analysis of the violent attacks involving the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of Sri Lanka clearly brings out a pattern, be it in eliminating Tamil political leaders, militant opponents, Sri Lankan leaders or security personnel. It is seen that whenever a strong challenger from any of the above categories appears on the scene, he or she is targeted by the Tigers.

At a time when they were just one among the several Tamil militant groups fighting the Sri Lankan government, their ambition to be recognized as the sole representative of the Sri Lankan Tamils led them to begin a ruthless fratricidal war against the leaders and members of the EPRLF, the TELO and the PLOTE in the mid eighties. The justification for this was that these rival groups were 'quislings' of the Indian agencies and /or petty criminals who would sell the ideal of Tamil Eelam for their petty gains and could therefore not be trusted. Rival militant Tamil leaders killed by the LTTE include Sri Sabarattinam, Padmanabha and Uma Maheswaran. The Tigers have made several attempts to target Douglas Devananda, leader of the EPDP and a minister in the present government. Similarly Tamil political leader Appapillai Amirthalingam, one time mentor of LTTE supremo Prabhakaran, was also brutally murdered in Colombo by LTTE cadres for opposing the LTTE. Lakhsman Kadirgamar, the high profile foreign Minister of Sri Lanka, had done great damage to the LTTE's cause through sauve and relentless diplomacy against the Tigers. For the Tigers, he was a Tamil 'traitor' and was duly targeted.

Nothing would stop the Tiger leader from eliminating these rivals, for he feared that a rival power center would be an obstacle in his scheme to get Eelam. Prabhakaran is on record stating that he was told by his advisers not to fight with India when the IPKF was sent there, but he decided to go ahead and fight for he was unwilling to compromise the aim to get Eelam. To him, the question was not whether the opponent was more powerful, the question was whether they had the will to stand and fight for their 'cause'.

In this quest, the LTTE targeted strong political and security leaders who came on the scene in Sri Lanka and who took a tough stand on this issue. The first in this line of political leaders was Ranjan Wijeratne, Sri Lanka's Defense Minister, who was killed in an explosion in March 1991, about two months before the LTTE assassinated Rajiv Gandhi. Wijeratne had vowed to finish the Tigers.

Lalith Athulath Mudali was yet another Sri Lankan leader who was targeted by the LTTE. He had also taken a hard line in the conflict against the Tigers. Similarly Presidential candidate, Gamini Dissanayake was also assassinated by suspected Tiger killers. President Premadasa was assassinated by the Tigers even though he had at one time entered into a dialogue with the LTTE. For the LTTE, the dialogue with Premadas was only a tactic in their strategy to get rid of the IPKF and they succeeded in this. The IPKF left on 24 March 1990, and the LTTE's Eelam War II commenced on 10 June.

Chandrika Kumaratunga also tried negotiating with the Tigers when she first assumed power. For the Tigers, it seems, dialogue with Colombo is only a step in their scheme to get Eelam. Fruitless dialogues can always later be displayed as proof of their desire for a peaceful resolution of the ethnic problem. When Kumaratunga finally decided to go to war, the Tigers almost succeeded in assassinating her through a suicide attack.

Among senior Sri Lankan security leaders Gen Denzil Kobbekaduwa was the most respected. Renowned for his operations against the Tigers and breaking the Tigers' siege of the Elephant pass in 1991, he was assassinated through an IED. Major General Vijaya Wimalaratne and Rear Admiral Mohan Jayamaha were also killed along with General Kobbekadwa in the mine explosion.

Admiral Clancy Fernando was another high profile target that the Tigers assassinated through a suicide attack. General Fonseka, also known for his tough and no-nonsense approach was targeted by the LTTE and was fortunate to survive a suicide attack by the Tigers this year.

All suicide missions of the Tigers were launched by Pottu Omman's Black Tigers, and were intended to bring them strategic gains. Cases involving the Black Tigers could not be prosecuted for want of legally admissible evidence. The Tigers were therefore able to present themselves before the West, with support from their sympathizers, as freedom fighters having nothing to do with terrorism. It was only after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and the path breaking investigations of the Special Investigation Team of the Central Bureau of Investigations, that the Tigers could be prosecuted in a court of law and brought to book through due process of law. India proscribed the organization in May 1992, and today quite a number of countries have followed suit. Such action has not however deterred the Tigers from doing what they are known to do best - murder and mayhem, and continue to target strong rivals through suicide operations.