LTTE History

History of LTTE

IN 1983 a civil war began between the Sinhalese-dominated government and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).The LTTE is a group that seeks to create a separate nation for the Tamil minority in the northern and eastern portions of Sri Lanka. In June 1987, after an agreement with Jayewardene, Indian troops moved into northern Sri Lanka to enforce a peace agreement between the Sinhalese and the Tamils. Warfare subsided, and Jayewardene retired in 1988; Ranasinghe Premadasa was elected to succeed him that year, defeating Bandaranaike. Premadasa’s UNP retained its majority in the parliamentary elections of February 1989, and the last Indian troops departed in March. The period of relative peace was short-lived. In 1991 and 1992 several major battles were fought between the army and the LTTE, and in early 1993 the government was rocked by two assassinations. On April 23 Lalith Athulathmudali, who had founded the opposition Democratic United Liberation Front in 1991, was shot to death during a political rally. A week later, during the annual May Day parade, President Premadasa was assassinated by a suicide bomber who allegedly was a member of LTTE. Days later the Parliament unanimously elected UNP member Dingiri Banda Wijetunge, who was previously the prime minister, to serve as president until the next national election. In November 1993 LTTE forces managed to seize a government military base in Pooneryn, which is about 32 km (20 mi) southeast of Jaffna. Several days later government forces drove the rebel forces back and recovered the base. The fighting was some of the worst between the Sri Lankan government and rebel Tamil forces; the Sri Lankan government estimated that about 1200 people were missing or killed. Since fighting between the two groups began in 1983, about 40,000 people have been killed.

In parliamentary elections held in August 1994, the People’s Alliance Party defeated the UNP, and Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, the daughter of former prime minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, became prime minister. In presidential elections held that November, Kumaratunga defeated the UNP’s candidate, Srima Dissanayake, to become Sri Lanka’s first female president. The UNP’s original candidate, Gamini Dissanayake, had been killed during an election rally in October. As president, Kumaratunga appointed her mother, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, to serve as prime minister and pledged to open peace talks with the Tamil rebels. In January 1995 an agreement for a cease-fire between the LTTE and the government was reached, and both sides made efforts toward reconciliation by releasing political prisoners. However, the 14-week ceasefire, the longest since the onset of the war, ended in April, when rebels blew up two government gun boats. The fighting worsened as the Sri Lankan government took the offensive with the help of the Indian military. By the end of 1995 the government, after a two-month siege, recaptured the city of Jaffna which had been held by the LTTE since 1985. By 1996 the government regained control of the Jaffna Peninsula. President Kumaratunga devised a peace plan that would give limited autonomy to Sri Lanka’s provinces— including Tamil areas. The plan was still being debated by the parliament in mid-1997. To be enacted the plan must pass a two-thirds majority vote in the parliament and a national referendum. In the meantime, the fighting between the government and the LTTE continued.

In a country that has seen a great deal of political violence in its brief history since independence, Kumaratunga’s campaign promise to end the bitter ethnic civil war between the Sinhalese and the Tamils helped her win a landslide victory in the election. Initially her efforts to call a truce with Tamil separatists met with some success, but the situation deteriorated with Sinhalese opposition against devolving more power to the Tamil minority and with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)violating a 100-day truce offered by the government. Kumaratunga renewed the war against the LTTE, launching a military offensive that succeeded in capturing the Jaffna Peninsula, a stronghold of the LTTE. Kumaratunga devised a peace plan intended to give limited autonomy to Sri Lanka’s provinces—including Tamil areas. By mid-1997 the plan had yet to be voted on by parliament and the fighting continu