Lingering rebellion of Tamil Tigers

A SUICIDE Tamil Tiger bomber killed Sri Lankan Minister for Highways and Road Development and 14 others by targeting a road marathon organised in the Weliweriaya on Sunday. The Minister a vocal critic of the separatist Tamil Tiger rebels and a member of Sri Lanka’s failed peace talks with the guerrillas was the second to be killed by the rebels this year.

The LTTE, also known as the Tamil Tigers, has used conventional, guerrilla, and terror tactics, including some 200 suicide bombings, in a bloody civil war that has claimed more than 60,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans since it was founded in l972. It was involved in the assassinations of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991 at a campaign rally in India and of Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993.

Several rounds of peace talks between the Sri Lanka government and the LTTE have failed to produce any result. History is replete that such wars are supported by neighbouring countries otherwise no rebel group or separatist organisation can sustain its struggle. On the request of the Sri Lankan government US State Department and several West European countries declared the LTTE as a terrorist organisation and banned financial dealings with it.

However it is still continuing its war against the state for a separate home land for minority Tamils and surely it is receiving financial support and weapons smuggled into areas under its control through fast speed boats and several of them were destroyed by the Sri Lankan navy.

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