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Death of the Leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’s downfall is a lesson to all those world leaders who want to achieve their political and personal goals by the means of violence and use of gun. LTTE was formed in early eighties. Since its formation, LTTE has witnessed many ups and down along with its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. Infect he has been killed by the Sri Lankan military on May 18 and it is being said that with his death LTTE’s armed struggle for a separate Tamil land has ended. Hs death and LTTE’s defeat has been hailed by many international communities and nations which have been badly affected by the international terrorism. Though LTTE was officially declared a terrorist organization in almost 40 countries but still it has the support of some countries also. In the early years of its formation LTTE had a support of almost all of the world nations but later on it evaporated as it started to target civilians. There were many instances when LTTE used suicide bombers to kill hundreds of innocent people. UNO had also criticized LTTE for recruitment of child soldiers in its military. There were some reports when LTTE had conscripted hundreds of child soldiers following the international pressure.

Formation of LTTE When Sri Lanka got independence most of its administration was controlled by the Tamils as they were the most literate community in the island country. Successive Sinhalese governments took it as major threat for the rights of their community and many discriminatory policies were passed to keep them at bay. In the early days of his life Prabhakarn saw the discrimination of Tamils by the majority of Sinhalese that prompted him to choose arms for the protection of his community. In the early days of his youth Prabhakaran had worked in many Tamil organizations that protested the discrimination of his community. In early eighties he formed Tamil New Tigers. Prabhakaran was not adult yet when TNT was formed. TNT carried out many small scale attacks and bombings as a protest. His first political assassination was of the mayor of Alfred Duraiappah, the Mayor of Jaffna. And with it his group got notoriety and was banned by the Sri Lankan government. There were times when he slept in the open in Sri Lankan jungles without food for many days. TNT funded its activities by committing bank robberies. Prabhakaran felt that their armed struggle will be very short-lived without proper arms training. Tamils were outnumbered against the majority Sinhalese army so he chose the guerrilla way of fighting and decided to form a guerrilla group. TNT was disbanded and in the summer of 1976 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was formed by Prabhakaran and some of his close associates. LTTE is totally different from other notorious terrorist organizations as its ideology is not based on any religion. It is said that safety and the protection of his community and the formation of a separate Tamil land were the two main issues around which LTTE’s ideology revolved.

Early Days In the early days of Tamil unrest the community was led by many armed groups like the People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO) and the Eelam Revolutionary Organization of Students (EROS).There were big differences in their approach for the achievement of their goals. Prabhakaran felt that without a unified command, objectives of their struggle can not be achieved. When it became evident that Sri Lankan government was not serious about the talks with various Tamil groups then LTTE decided to choose its own way. It first eliminated the other Tamil rival groups and ordered all the remaining Tamil groups to join LTTE or be ready to meet the same fate. In 1983 LTTE ambushed a military convoy and killed 13 soldiers. It resulted in communal clashes in the Lankan capital in which more than 1000 innocent Tamils people were killed by the mobs. In the initial days of the violence Sri Lankan police and administration remained mere spectator of the action which infuriated various Tamil organizations. Though Sri Lankan government tried to control the situation effectively and succeeded in it but the underhand support of the violence by the administration brought the discrimination to the surface. It unified and strengthened the Tamil feelings for a separate land.

Indian Peace Keeping Forces Following the ethnic riots India was overwhelmed by the huge number of refugees that forced the Indian government to intervene in the matter. It must be learnt that Indian Tamils are the sympathizers of the Tamils of Sri Lanka. An agreement was signed between the governments of both the nations though no Tamil group was involved in the talks. Indian Peace Keeping force was sent to Sri Lanka to carry out humanitarian aid and disarm the armed Tamils. But LTTE opposed this move and it resulted in direct confrontation between the IPK and LTTE. IPK remained in Sri Lanka for almost three years and returned to India in 1990. And for next eighteen years, Jaffna peninsula, Kilinochchi, Elephant Pass and some other adjoining remained the main battle ground between the LTTE and Sri Lankan military till the death of Prabhakaran. These areas remained in LTTE’s control for most of the time. These places have a strategic importance as for as the military operations are concerned.

Peace Initiatives Many attempts were made by the world community for the peaceful settlement of the issue but both the Sri Lankan government and LTTE lacked the will power to solve the issue. Various political parties of Sri Lanka used the peaceful solution of the problem as a poll plank and who ever formed the government did not honestly tried to solve the problem. On the other hand Prabhakaran was the whole and sole leader of the Tamil. His words were considered LTTE’s rules. His undisputed authority over the dreaded militant group also was a major hurdle in the way of the peaceful solution of the Tamil issue.

Assassinations LTTE used violence against all those leaders and ordinary people who ever were considered its opponents or rivals. All those voices were silenced by the use of violence that opposed LTTE. A special unit of suicide bombers had been created to assassinate some key leaders or to carry out some important missions by the LTTE. It was called Black Tigers. Women were also an important part of this squad. The members of this squad were used to kill two prominent leaders. The first was former Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi who was killed on May 21, 1991 by a LTTE suicide bomber. The second leader was the President of Sri Lanka; Ranasinghe Premadasa who was killed by another suicide bomber on May 1, 1993.It is said that Rajiv Gandhi was killed because of his decision to send the IPK in Sri Lanka. More than one hundred prominent Sri Lankan personalities were brutally murdered by the LTTE militants that included, Ministers, Members of the Sri Lankan Parliament, Military Officers, Mayors, political leaders, social activists, police personal, civil servants, religious persons, academics, civil servants, writers and poets, journalists and rival militant leaders.  Except it LTTE had also targeted civilian targets and killed hundreds of the innocent people. Later on LTTE started to target Muslims also and thousands of Muslims were expelled from the Tiger ruled areas. It is said that more than 90 thousand people have been killed in the Sri Lankan civil war. LTTE had three wings of its military that were called Air Tigers, Sea Tigers and Black Tigers. Except it, it had intelligence wing and the political wing also. LTTE has also a well established Administration and the police system. There was also a separate wing that carried out social activities and welfare schemes. LTTE had a separate branch named ‘KP Brach’ that used to arrange funds and arms supply for the terrorist outfit.

Blunders and Downfall Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and the expulsion of Muslims from the LTTE controlled areas are the two big blunders that started the downfall of the LTTE regime. LTTE’s problems increased a lot after 9/11 when all the world countries adopted a new definition of terrorism. The situation in Sri Lanka remained mostly peaceful from 2001 to 2005 because of the peace talks between the Lankan government and LTTE. But the patience died amid escalating violence and skirmishes between the military and Tamil tigers. In July, 2006 Lankan government launched the major military offensive against LTTE. In the ensuing battle LTTE had to face setbacks after setbacks. Its air wing tried to target the strategic government military locations without much major success. It is believed that India has secretly played a special role in protection of the Sri Lankan military location from the LTTE air attacks. The sea tigers were defeated whenever they came into conflict with the Sri Lankan Navy. LTTE’s sea wing was totally destroyed in the battle and all the LTTE controlled ports were taken over by the Lankan military. It furthered the downfall of LTTE. In early months of 2009 Sri Lankan military took over the city of Kilinochchi and the Elephant Pass. Both these areas have a strategic importance according to the military point of view. The Tigers resorted to jungle warfare but they were outnumbered by the Lankan military. The last battle was fought on the 900 acres of land near the town of Mullaitivu form May 12 onwards. And most of the top Tiger leadership had been killed by the Lankan military. On May 18 Sri Lankan government announced that it has won the war militarily and photographs of the corpus of Prabhakaran were flashed all of the Sri Lankan TV channels.