One Good News

LTTE supremo Prabhakaran

As I'm writing this, the European Union has just banned LTTE and is currently busy freezing their assets and bank accounts. The plan to declare LTTE as a terrorist organisation has been brewing for some time among the EU nations and I've read the news pieces about it a couple of months back. Since then I have been hoping for this to happen. I'm glad they did this.

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam is unarguably the longest surviving and the deadliest terrorist movement the histroy has witnessed. They have a lot of firsts to their credit. Or shall I say discredit. The tigers have successfully executed the first suicide killing in the modern history, inducted children into terrorism, and started women's wing.

When they began their operations, they were not the only Tamil liberation group. There were others such as TELO, EPRLF, etc. But the tigers systematically and brutally destroyed and disintegrated every one of them in a highly sinister way. Their plan was simple though. Just kill their leaders. And hence, other Tamil leaders such as Padmanabha, Siri Sabha Ratnam, Amirthalingam and a host of others were brutally murdered. In the end, LTTE remained a lone Tamil movement and therefore unanimously declared themselves as the undisputable representatives of Srilankan Tamils.

Due to language and cultural sentiments, Tamils in India traditionally supported the cause of tigers and in turn pushed India to help them. As a result, the Indian army trained LTTE cadres and even supplied them arms. The defining moment came when LTTE, agitated with India's attempt to force them to accept democratic solutions, decided to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi. The murder sent shock waves across India's political circles and the enraged government instantly banned the organisation. For the majority of Tamils, the sympathy was lost forever.

Child soldiers of LTTE

To me, especially the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi is the single most defining moment in India. This one act of terror literally tumbled the Indian political harmony upside down and we haven't recovered since then. And as an enraged Indian, I'm not going to forgive tigers ever.

Following India, US declared them as dangerous terrorist outfit and banned them. Despite drying up the Indian support pipeline, the tigers have been thriving primarily due to their support base in Europe. LTTE are headquartered in London and their Paris office too is quite active in mobilising funds. Every time their arms and funds dry up, the tigers call for ceasefire and move to the negotation table. As the talks progress, they replenish their arms and money, and begin striking again. Being a democracy, the Sri Lankan government cannot reject the ceasefire claims and be seen in a bad light. Meanwhile, the people of Jaffna were living in a hell city paying taxes to Srilankan government as well as the tigers and getting troubled by both. All for living in a city whose infrastructure might make Ethiopia look like Manhattan. LTTE was making everybody's life miserable.

The ban will make a lot of difference to the tigers approach to mobilising arms and funds. Unlike Islamic terrorism, tigers do not have oil money. Practically most of their money comes from Europe, Australia and Canada. With Europe drying up, and if Australia and Canada follow suit, the tigers will be severely crippled.

That will be the day of jubilation for Tamils at both sides of the Indian occean.