Tigers in decline

Over the past three decades, the LTTE has been portrayed as a brutal organisation, with its structure, motivations and strategies all shrouded in secrecy. Some have rejected the force as politically bankrupt and irredeemably nihilist, while others have claimed (and continue to claim) it to be the only entity that has a chance of steering the political future of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka. Over the last few years, however, a greater degree of sober public analysis has emerged on the LTTE. This has been due to several factors: the internationalised Norwegian-led peace process; the no-war situation, in which dissident voices from within the Tamil polity were able to bring to light some of the inner workings of the Tamil Tigers; and also the split in the organisation, with its former Eastern Command being used as a paramilitary arm of the government against the LTTE. Few will disagree, however, that the Tigers have radically changed the security situation and the political landscape in Sri Lanka, mainly through its military strategies and guerrilla tactics. Indeed, the LTTE's growth and survival over the last 30 years were solely dependent on its singular focus on militarism. In this context, the organisation's weakening, caused by defeats on the battlefield over the last two years, become significantly more difficult to explain, as it is its subordination of politics to conventional military efforts that could well be the cause for its seemingly irreversible decline.

During the early years of the LTTE, in the mid-1970s, the force was made up of a small group of middle-class Tamil youths, who came mostly from the Jaffna peninsula. It was inspired by the 'hit and run' tactics that had been used by sections of the anti-colonial movements in India and in Ireland. Following on the early-20th-century legacy of the militant freedom fighter Bhagat Singh, the LTTE focused on assassinations in an environment conducive to urban guerrilla warfare, where bicycle-riding youths with pistols assassinated policemen and individuals labelled as 'traitors'. These attacks, largely restricted to the Jaffna peninsula, were financed by the looting of banks. Over the next several years, state repression in response to such armed activity escalated, including the introduction of draconian measures such as the Prevention of Terrorism Act, the abduction and murder of politicised Tamil youths, and the burning of the Jaffna Library. Subsequently, the armed groups, especially the Tamil Tigers, took on larger operations, such as attacking police stations and army convoys. At this time, the LTTE consisted of no more than 30 fulltime members, divided into cells.