Also significant was the complexity of the threat faced. What sets it apart is the sheer savagery of the war that developed over three decades. Sri Lanka’s conflict did not end much differently from other historical instances of major combat. Even the recent January 2015 upset win by an opposition coalition headed by a former ruling party intimate, Maithripala Sirisena, is unlikely to result in a shift fully in the direction desired by those who seek to mandate that war be something other than what it has always been: barbarous and cruel. So it reoriented its foreign policy to new regional forces, notably China. They joined cause-oriented groups in seeking sanction through international humanitarian and human rights law for what they saw as callous (and illegal) indifference to civilian casualties in the final period of struggle.Īn outraged Sri Lanka became estranged from those democratic nations that it had the most in common with. Ironically, the struggle has not yet been closed, for a shift in the political winds caused many governments, led by European nations and the United States, to turn on their Sri Lankan former partner. These included the near-mythical leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, who had emerged in the late 1970s as the group’s head and ruthlessly hung on to the position throughout the conflict.
LTTE itself admitted defeat on May 17, 2009, after basically all its major figures were killed in action. A last stand on a narrow stretch of northeastern beach ended in annihilation, with considerable collateral casualties to civilians forced to accompany LTTE fighters as human shields. A force that at one point fielded as many as 35,000 combatants found its maneuvering space squeezed by the inexorable advance of government columns using punishing innovative tactics. Its sometime foreign supporters, notably its neighbor India, had deserted it, and even a pronounced global shift of attitudes on what was acceptable in warfighting could not turn outrage into tangible pressure on Colombo before the Tigers’ end came. Having grown from a ragtag band of angry young men into an impressive guerrilla group, then to a full-fledged army, the self-proclaimed flag-bearer of Tamil nationalism found itself caught in the same position as the Confederacy in the 1861-65 American Civil War: outmobilized and outfought. LTTE’s end, when it came, was as spectacular as its three decades of existence. Total casualty figures for the Eelam insurgencies are subject to considerable disagreement but cannot be less than 120,000 dead. This was JVP II, the second upsurge of the original Maoist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP, or People’s Liberation Front) uprising, which had erupted and was crushed in 1971 (JVP I). Further complicating the picture, the IPKF years saw Sri Lanka fully committed to suppressing another insurgency on a wholly different front. In fact, each of the Eelam conflicts involved periods of negotiation and cessation of hostilities, though all were problematic in implementation and intent (certainly on the part of LTTE). This was accompanied by an uneasy cease-fire.
And the gap between Eelam III and IV saw the effective rule of the Tamil Eelam state in areas of the north and east. The gap between Eelam I and II saw the interlude of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF), which clashed bitterly with LTTE. These dates are open to discussion given realities on the ground. The Tamil Eelam case actually encompasses four distinct conflicts, generally referred to as Eelam I (1983-87), Eelam II (1990-95), Eelam III (1995-2002), and Eelam IV (2006-9). The result, in May 2009, was complete military defeat of the insurgency. But this victory of sorts produced a host of unforeseen consequences leading to the July 2006 resumption of hostilities. LTTE grew in capacity until it was capable of forcing the government to agree to a February 2002 cease-fire and the de facto existence of a Tamil state, or Tamil Eelam. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was an insurgency that privileged terrorism as a method of action yet ultimately fielded land, air, and sea regular forces, rounded out by powerful special-operations and information capabilities. Until recently, Sri Lanka was the homeland of an illicit power structure unlike any other.