COLOMBO - The Nelliaddy government school
in northern Jaffna peninsula is nondescript except
for a statue that honors the first suicide bomber
who blew himself up on behalf of the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and its campaign to
carve out a separate Tamil state.
On July
5, 1987, Vasanthan Vallipuram alias Captain Miller
drove an explosives-laden truck into the barracks
of the Sri Lanka Army, then housed at the school.
That attack by the first of the "Black Tigers", as
the suicide squads of the LTTE are called, left 55
soldiers dead and halted a plan by the army to
capture Jaffna town.
With a four-year-old
ceasefire between the government and the
LTTE
faltering, the army did not take any chances on or
around this year's Black Tiger Day, which fell on
Wednesday last week. Security was tightened
island-wide and additional troops were deployed in
the capital.
Where the Black Tigers are
concerned, no precaution is good enough. Their
successful "high-value" targets have included Sri
Lankan president Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993 and
former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.
In 1999, then-president Chandrika Kumaratunga
narrowly escaped a suicide bomber attack, but with
one eye permanently damaged.
Such
successful strikes, penetrating tight security
cordons, are attributed to high levels of
motivation as well as meticulous planning. Black
Tigers may stay dormant for years, melting into
the local population, until called on to execute
their deadly missions.
There is no
accurate figure as to how many people have fallen
victim to the carnage wrought by the Black Tigers.
What is certain is that as of last week, 138 men
and 135 women had blown themselves up to help the
LTTE achieve military or political objectives.
The Black Tigers have honored the current
truce, but are now back in the limelight. In
April, Sri Lankan army commander
Lieutenant-General Sarath Fonseka survived a
suicide attack carried out by a woman inside army
headquarters in Colombo. Two months later, the
army's third-ranking officer, Major-General Parami
Kulathunga, was not so lucky - he was killed by a
motorcycle-borne suicide bomber.
Since
December, 700 persons, including 450 civilians,
have died in hostilities involving the LTTE and
the security forces. And the Black Tigers are
known to have taken part in some of the worst
incidents, including in devastating attacks at sea
against the Sri Lankan Navy.
The LTTE has
fought successive Sri Lankan governments since the
early 1980s, demanding a separate state for the
country's minority Tamils in the north and east.
The fighting killed more than 65,000 persons
before it was temporarily halted by the February
2002 Norwegian-facilitated ceasefire that is now
under strain.
"No weapon, no technology
can stop the determination of the Black Tigers,"
Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran said in 2003.
"The suicide squads came into being at a critical
juncture in the history of the Tamil struggle and
has taken it to the next stage."
The Sri
Lankan military is equally aware of the deadly
potency of the human bomb. "It is a one-way
weapon," Major-General Sanath Karunarathna, now a
commander in the north, told Inter Press Service.
"Once someone is in that mood there is no turning
back."
Apart from top military and
civilian leaders, the Black Tigers have destroyed
with deadly precision the nerve center of the Sri
Lankan security forces, the central bank, key
petroleum installations and airline fleets.
Very little is known of the Black Tigers,
except of their spectacular attacks. They have
only appeared in public once. In November 2003, 27
members took part in a parade in the LTTE's
political capital of Kilinochchi, wearing black
hoods. The Tigers took care that the faces of
possible suicide cadres, who appeared with
Prabhakaran at this year's commemoration events,
were blurred before the photographs were released.
Customarily, a Black Tiger embarking on a
mission partakes of a meal with Prabhakaran. They
are given pride of place in LTTE cemeteries. But
although marked by granite tombstones, many of
their graves contain no bodies.
The
suicide cadres are divided into two categories,
according to military sources. They carry out
reconnaissance on the front lines or specialize in
infiltrating government areas. The Tigers also
talk of another group known as "champion Black
Tigers", though little is known about them. Though
exact figures are not made available, a senior
Tiger leader said during July 5 commemorations in
2003 that there were at least 500 Black Tigers
ready to go into action.
If July 5 passed
quietly this year, it could be because it also
marks the evolution of the worst internal threat
the LTTE has ever faced. On July 5, 2004,
Ramalingam Padmaseelan, alias Seenathiraja, who
headed the Tiger political office in the eastern
town of Batticaloa, was shot by the breakaway
Karuna faction.
His death eight days later
triggered severe bouts of internecine fighting.
The LTTE and its breakaway group, led by its
former eastern military commander Vinayagamoorthi
Muralitharan, alias Karuna, have since fought each
other fiercely with both sides losing high-ranking
members.
The Tigers charge that the
splinter group operates with support from
government forces and this is one of the main
reasons the ceasefire is failing. The LTTE has, as
a result of the split, been compelled to scale
down political work. Black Tiger Day events are
now low-key affairs.
But the Black Tigers
continue to inspire young Tamils. "The killings,
sexual assaults and arrests of our people should
be stopped immediately. If not, all the students
from every school will join in the struggle
against the violence and later we will attack,"
said a message issued on Wednesday by a group of
students from Nelliaddy.
