The collapse and after

How has the LTTE come to this current point of near defeat? In a discussion organised by the Center for Place, Culture and Politics at the City University in New York in February, moderated by Himal Southasian contributing editor Ahilan Kadirgamar, Ragavan and Nirmala Rajasingam, former LTTE members now living in exile in the UK, analysed the factors leading up to the LTTE's loss of military control. Nirmala, the first woman detained by the Colombo government under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, in the early 1980s, was subsequently freed from prison in a dramatic action by the LTTE. She eventually left the Tigers, however, due to what she felt was a lack of democracy within the movement, coupled with its human-rights abuses. After ten years with the movement, Ragavan, a founding member of the LTTE, likewise parted ways, due to its increasingly authoritarian character and internal abuses.

Ahilan Kadirgamar: Many people now believe that the LTTE is on its last legs. If so, what were the factors that led to the collapse of an organisation that enjoyed an army, a large territorial base and even an air force?
Ragavan: A major problem that the LTTE faces today comes from its authoritarian culture and militaristic structure, in which the political objective is subservient to the military goal. Initially, after 1983, when the LTTE was still a guerrilla force in need of the people's support, it received considerable backing from the Tamil masses. As it grew, the LTTE's primary agenda gradually became the building of a conventional army with a repressive character and an absence of any liberatory objectives. This alienated the population because it came hand in hand with harsh practices such as the forcible recruitment of children, taxation and other forms of control. During the Norwegian peace process the LTTE, instead of using the resources and money allocated to support the people under its control, appropriated the funds and resources to build up its own infrastructure, such as its sophisticated arsenal and air-conditioned bunkers for its leaders. They became parasites who lived off the people without giving back anything to them. Ultimately, a contradiction arose between its original goal, of fighting for the rights of the Tamil people, and the reality of military control over those very people.