Political Violence Revisited: The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

Abstract

This chapter examines, dissects and revisits the three-decade-long political violence campaign of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka. It argues that in the absence of a uniting, coherent ideology beyond primordialist ethno-nationalism, it was the LTTE’s leader Velupillai Prabhakaran who managed to obtain public support and create devoted and fanatic cadres by propelling his status as an omnipotent leader, who embodied the Tamil struggle. Prabhakaran himself became the manifesto. Prabhakaran and his cadres not only exploited grievances of the Tamil community to justify acts of terror but also silenced Tamil forces that were advocates of democratic, peaceful and constitutional solutions in times of escalating social and ethnic tensions. This chapter also highlights the international outreach and scope of LTTE operations and its connections to and alliances with other terror groups throughout the world. One section is also dedicated to the group’s coercive, extortive and violent actions against the global Tamil diaspora. A key pillar of Prabhakaran’s success was the creation, training and indoctrination of elite suicide cadres, known as the “Black Tigers”, thus creating a “cult of martyrs”, which was strategically aggrandised by incorporating inter-religious and pseudo-socialist rituals and symbolism. This part of the book underscores the vanguard role of the LTTE regarding the innovation of terror practices and placing these core tactical methods within a broader strategic structure of political violence. Finally, this chapter makes the case for assessing the LTTE as one of the most, if not the most, successful terror outlets of the twentieth century.