How Sri Lanka defeated the LTTE

[Jedburgh]

...The Tamil Tigers have probably made as much use of a global diaspora community as any insurgency (save perhaps the IRA).

In the 2001 RAND pub, Trends in Outside Support for Insurgencies, The LTTE is the focus of Chapter 3: Diaspora Support for Insurgencies.

...This chapter analyzes the scope and dimensions of diaspora support for insurgencies. It provides an in-depth examination of how the LTTE has harnessed its overseas migrant community, using it for funding, arms running, and a host of other activities. The LTTE's experience is not typical, but rather represents the apex of how an insurgent organization can exploit a diaspora for its own ends. Drawing on the LTTE's experience, as well as that of other insurgencies, the chapter then describes the reasons why immigrant communities often support insurgencies in their native lands and examines the difficulties that many host governments have in halting this form of assistance. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the utility of diaspora backing in general and its value relative to states....

[SteveMetz]

In the 2001 RAND pub, Trends in Outside Support for Insurgencies, The LTTE is the focus of Chapter 3: Diaspora Support for Insurgencies.

I once bought a suit from a Tamil tailor in Singapore so, unfortunately, I may have underwritten an RPG myself.

There's a huge Tamil population in Canada as well.

[Jedburgh]

HRW, 6 Aug 07: Return to War: Human Rights under Siege

Sri Lanka is in the midst of a human rights crisis. The ceasefire between the government and the armed secessionist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) exists only in name. Since mid-2006, when major military operations resumed, civilians have paid a heavy price, both directly in the fighting and in the dramatic increase in abductions, killings, and “disappearances.” The return to war has brought serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.

The LTTE is much to blame. The group, fighting for an independent Tamil state, has directly targeted civilians with remote-controlled landmines and suicide bombers, murdered perceived political opponents, and forcibly recruited ethnic Tamils into its forces, many of them children. In the areas of the country’s north and east under its control, the LTTE harshly represses the rights to free expression, association, and movement....

Human Rights Watch has long documented abuses by the LTTE, particularly the LTTE’s systematic recruitment and use of children as soldiers, the targeted killings of political opponents, and its abusive fundraising tactics abroad. We will continue to report on LTTE abuses and press the LTTE to change its practices.

This report, however, focuses primarily on abuses by the Sri Lankan government and allied armed groups, which have gotten decidedly worse over the past year. As the hostilities have increased, the government’s respect for international law has sharply declined, with it often appearing indifferent to the impact on civilians in the north and east....

Complete 131 page report at the link.

[Jedburgh]

ICG, 7 Nov 07: Sri Lanka: Sinhala Nationalism and the Elusive Southern Consensus

....Peace is a long way off. The LTTE has demonstrated a clear lack of interest in a negotiated settlement. The government is beholden to and sympathetic with forces that conceive of Sri Lanka as an essentially Sinhala and Buddhist nation. Denying the existence of legitimate grievances specific to Tamils and the need to accommodate their concerns in a settlement, the politically dominant forms of contemporary Sinhala nationalism assert that the central problem is a terrorist threat that needs to be crushed.

Despite claims to be committed to a political solution, the decision to rely on hardline Sinhala nationalist parties with an ideological commitment to the unitary state has left the government with little option other than to pursue the LTTE’s military defeat. Any meaningful southern consensus on devolution – necessary for a lasting solution – will take time but without much stronger international efforts to persuade both the government and the UNP to find common ground beyond unitary and federal labels, there is little chance the APRC will produce a political package attractive to Tamil moderates and able to win two-thirds support in parliament. Reaching a sustainable settlement will be even harder if government plans to establish new Sinhala settlements and weaken the power of Tamil and Muslim political parties and civil servants in the Eastern Province are in fact carried out....

[Jedburgh]

The Washington Times, 7 Apr 08: Sri Lankan Rebels Set Up US Branch

.....Mrs. Mauskopf said the LTTE has "covertly operated within the United States" for years, drawing on the country's financial resources and technological advances to further its war of terror. She said the organization had undertaken a major worldwide campaign to raise money for its offensive against the Sri Lankan government.

In Maryland, Thirunavukarasu Varatharasa, a Sri Lankan national, was sentenced in January to 57 months in prison on charges of conspiracy to provide support to the LTTE and the attempted exportation of arms and munitions. In a sting operation, he and three others negotiated to buy a laundry list of weapons from an undercover business in Baltimore.

A criminal complaint said Varatharasa conspired to export $900,000 worth of machine guns, ammunition, surface-to-air missiles, night-vision goggles and other military weapons to Sri Lanka. A co-conspirator, Haniffa Osman, who lives in Singapore, even traveled to Baltimore to test fire some of the weapons at a range in Havre de Grace with undercover U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.....

[Rex Brynen]

Hundreds Killed in Sri Lanka Battle, al-Jazeera English, 24 April 2008.

Heavy fighting between Tamil separatists and government soldiers has subsided in northern Sri Lanka after intense battles left hundreds dead or wounded.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) claimed on Thursday they killed more than 100 soldiers, wounded about 500 and lost only 16 of their fighters in a 10-hour firefight the day before.

But the defence ministry said its forces killed more than 100 Tigers and reported losing 43 soldiers, with another 33 missing in action.

It was the security forces' biggest loss in a single offensive since October 2006.

[Jedburgh]

ICG, 15 Oct 08: Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province: Land, Development, Conflict

....The province is Sri Lanka’s most ethnically complex region and has been at the heart of post-independence conflicts. It features a Tamil-speaking majority split equally between ethnic Tamils and Muslims, as well as a sizeable Sinhala minority who mostly moved there from the south under state irrigation and resettlement schemes. Lying at the intersection of competing Tamil and Sinhala nationalisms, the east has seen some of the worst of Sri Lanka’s inter-ethnic violence and remains at risk for more.

For Tamil nationalists, the province is an integral part of the Tamil homeland, but has been subject to deliberate state attempts to change the ethnic balance and undermine its Tamil character. The October 2006 Supreme Court decision to separate the Eastern from the Northern Province, temporarily merged under the terms of the 1987 Indo-Lanka accord, and subsequent provincial council elections in May 2008 were a major blow to Tamil nationalists. For Sinhala nationalists, the province should be equally open to all Sri Lankans, and its hundreds of ancient Buddhist sites and rich Sinhala cultural heritage should be defended and preserved. The east is also home to an emergent Muslim nationalism, largely a product of Muslims’ insecurity relative to Tamil armed groups and the Sinhala-dominated government.....

[Entropy]

I have to admit that I don't know much about this conflict, but the news reports of the LTTE "navy" and "Air Force" are fascinating. Here's the latest:

The air wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) carried out two attacks within an interval of about 90 minutes on a military target in the North and an economic target in Colombo on the night of October 28,2008. This is the seventh operation by the LTTE's air wing since it went into action in March last year.