Sri Lanka's female Tamil Tigers
By Kylie Grey, Kilinochchi, Sri Lanka
(aljazeera.net)

The Tamil Tigers' female fighting force has developed a reputation for their focus and determination.

Their all-female combat units are currently fighting on the frontline as the Sri Lankan military prepares for what it says could be its final offensive in the north of the country.

Most of the girls are prepared to fight to the death to defend what they say is their rightful homeland in the north and east of Sri Lanka.
But President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government is equally determined to finish the civil war and finish off the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Elam (LTTE).
More.... http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/41D90602-2717-4E42-B47B-180816031476.htm

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The historic accord that few remember today (Two decades of India-Sri Lanka accord)

By IANS
Saturday July 28, 09:06 AM

New Delhi, July 28 (IANS) It was hailed as India's biggest diplomatic coup when it was signed amid violent street protests. Twenty years and thousands of deaths later, the India-Sri Lanka accord of 1987, which sought to restore peace to the island, has become history - almost.
It was on July 29, 1987, that then Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi flew to Colombo to sign the agreement with president J.R. Jayewardene in a bid to end a raging Tamil separatist drive.
That was not the only thing the accord sought to achieve.
For the first time in Sri Lanka's troubled history, the country was formally recognised as a multi-religious, multi-ethnic and multi-lingual society. It also brought about the only major act of constitutional reforms, devolving powers to minorities in the form of provincial councils with judicial, civil and police services.
It made Tamil an official language of the country, declared the island's northeast 'areas of historical habitation of the Tamil speaking people' and had provisions to end state-sponsored colonisation of Tamil areas.
Starting from the evening of July 29, thousands of Indian troops began to be deployed in the war-torn northeast, heralding a sudden peace the country had not known for years.
But after putting down a small part of its weaponry, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) refused to disarm itself, citing security reasons, and went on a killing spree of its rivals and others.
Sections of the Jayewardene government unhappy with the pact and also India's role were intent on tripping the Tigers. In the complex tragedy that followed, the Indian troops took on the LTTE in Jaffna from Oct 10, 1987.
The fighting dragged on for well over two years. By the time the soldiers returned home, both Gandhi and Jayewardene were out of office. An India-backed provincial government in the northeast had collapsed. And the Tigers ended up controlling Jaffna and large parts of the northeast.
But many blood-soaked years later, the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government are still fighting, India remains an interested but distant party to the goings on, and there is no light at the end of what looks a dark and unending tunnel.
Amid growing international concerns over Sri Lanka, does the accord still have some relevance?
'Though the agreement is a dead letter, though neither government wants to give any life to it, there are some fundamental principles advocated in it that still remain a source of inspiration,' said S. Sahadevan, a South Asia expert at Jawaharlal Nehru University here.
'It can be the starting point for a discourse on devolution of powers. However, legally and politically, the importance of the accord is somewhat lost now,' he said.
P. Rajanayagam, editor of Tamil Times of Britain, told IANS: 'The accord provided for a reasonable and comprehensive institutional architecture for the settlement of the ethnic conflict. The accord substantially addressed almost all the grievances of the Tamil people that had remained unresolved for decades.
'It presented a historic opportunity to once and for all resolve the ethnic conflict but was squandered away... The rejection of the accord, not allowing it to be implemented and taking up arms against India are acts of criminal folly and an utter betrayal of the Tamil people.'
V. Suryanarayana, another Sri Lanka expert who is based in Chennai, said the accord collapsed because it was never seriously implemented. 'The tragedy today is that the Sri Lankan government is not willing to give even what was in the accord.'
The fighting between the LTTE and Indians not only led to the death of nearly 1,200 Indian soldiers and hundreds of Tamils, combatants and non-combatants, but also disrupted the historically warm ties between India and the Tamil community.
So why is the accord's 20th anniversary passing so quietly?
Explained Sahadevan: 'Both the governments have buried the agreement; not just Sri Lanka, India also does not remember it. When you don't remember, how do you expect the other party which never liked it to remember?'

Tamils in rebel-held Sri Lanka sick of civil war

Posted Thu Jul 19, 2007 10:23am AEST

Thamalin Thirvakumar and her baby son live in a camp for war-displaced in rebel-held north Sri Lanka. Her husband is stuck across an impassable frontier in territory held by the Sri Lankan army.

Her husband has missed all but the first few weeks of his son's life after the "border" that separates government from rebel territory in the northern Jaffna peninsula was suddenly shut last year following a renewed escalation of civil war.
As fighting between the state and Tamil Tiger rebels deepens, there is no hope of them being reunited any time soon.
Like many impoverished families repeatedly displaced in government and rebel territory alike by two decades of war, Ms Thirvakumar longs for an end to fighting that has killed nearly 70,000 people since 1983 and displaced hundreds of thousands.
"I haven't seen my husband since the road was closed. He hasn't seen the child. I'm very sad," she said mournfully.
"Both sides must stop the war. We hope there will be peace so we can go back to our village and live a normal life. If this war continues, what future will my son have?"
Civilians are paying a high price on both sides in a war that pits the majority-Sinhalese government against Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels who say they are fighting for an independent state for minority Tamils in the north and east.
Forced from one camp to the next as fighting spreads, they must often leave their worldly belongings behind. There are few work opportunities, which means no income and dependency on food handouts from aid agencies.
While the Tigers claim to be the sole voice of Sri Lanka's Tamils, and vow all those living in their territory will fight to the last, civilians here overwhelmingly want peace. They blame both sides for the war and for their misery.
"The problem is there's no water, there's no work to do, so I can't earn any money. It's very difficult to live here," 57-year-old Kanavathipallai Thavamani said, who is living in the camp with two of her grown up children and two grandchildren.
"Army shells and LTTE shells - that's why I came here. It is the innocent people who die in war. So as long as the war is there, we will suffer."

Desperately poor

Around 70 per cent of the more than 190,000 people in the northern district of Kilinochchi, the heart of the Tigers' northern stronghold, are below the poverty line - earning $US22.50 a month or less - making it the poorest district in Sri Lanka.
The United Nations estimates around a quarter of the estimated 350,000 people living in the Tiger's de facto state in the far north have been displaced by the war.
Hundreds of thousands have been displaced in the government-held south too.
Compounding the misery, thousands of families who survived the 2004 tsunami and were trying to rebuild their lives, have had to abandon homes in various states of reconstruction because of shelling.
A government embargo on construction materials such as cement, steel and fuel, has forced aid agencies to halt or abandon development projects in rebel areas.
"Projects funded by the World Bank and ADB (Asia Development Bank) are unable to continue without construction materials," Nagalingam Vethanayahan said, the central government's representative or 'Government Agent' in Kilinochchi.
"Most of the people are living in small huts due to these restrictions. They are unable to do anything. We have to give up development work, no?" he said, lamenting the restrictions imposed by his own government and the military.
At another nearby settlement housing tsunami and war displaced, a new school funded by UNICEF has progressed no further than its foundations because of lack of building materials.
The architect's model sits inside a nearby hut gathering dust.
Fishing, one of the main livelihoods in the area, is too dangerous.
"We only go one mile out to sea because of the navy, but there are no fish close to shore because of the season," 22-year-old fisherman Sanmugamoorthy Nishan said, idling in the camp with friends.
"When they see the boats, they don't know if we are fishermen or the LTTE, so they open fire.
"I know of four fishermen who have been killed by the navy in the past month."
Back at her hut, with little more than a few clothes, pots and a plastic mirror to her name, Ms Thirvakumar lives in constant fear of shells booming in the distance and the sporadic growl of fighter jets flying overhead on bombing raids.
"I will only see my husband again if there is peace and the war ends," she said.

- Reuters

FEATURE-Rifles, rockets: Sri Lanka rebels train for the kill
Fri Jul 13, 2007 5:42AM EDT reuters
By Simon GardnerDEEP INSIDE REBEL TERRITORY, Sri Lanka, July 13 (Reuters) - First there is a blazing back-flash, then a thunderous explosion -- squeezing the trigger of his rocket-propelled grenade launcher, Tamil Tiger fighter S. Kadalarasan imagines future kills.Lying in a 'foxhole' during a practice assault where Tiger fighters learn jungle warfare, he thinks of a Tamil homeland the rebels have fought for two decades to carve out in the north and east."The main objective on the battle front is how to destroy the enemy's battle tanks and armoured vehicles," he says, as fellow fighters fire .50 calibre heavy machine guns from the other side of the sandy plain at a line of bunkers, razor wire and targets to pave the way for fighters to advance and capture a mock fortification."If I blow up their vehicles, I will be happy because the enemy is coming to suppress and oppress and kill our innocent civilians, so I will be happy to attack the enemy and kill them."Kadalarasan, 22, joined the Tigers three years ago, and says he has killed at least 15 soldiers amid a new chapter in a civil war that has claimed nearly 70,000 lives since 1983.The secret training ground is deep inside the Tigers' stronghold in northern Sri Lanka, but reporters are not given precise details on the location for security reasons.The distant sound of artillery shells falling near the front line a few miles (kilometres) away serves as a reminder of the reality that lies in store.Dozens of other fighters in Tiger stripe fatigues or dark green uniforms, some wearing boots, others flip flops or barefoot, stage a mock advance firing live ammunition to capture their objective.One wing of the assault is made up of female fighters, rushing forward with Chinese-made T-56 assault rifles, and firing into shallow bunkers to kill imaginary enemies, advancing in threes with mutual cover fire.On closer inspection, faces of soldiers painted on metal sheets fired at from a distance of several hundred metres are riddled with holes.Their trainer says the assault strategy will soon be used in a real operation against Sri Lankan troops.Fresh from a drubbing by the military in the east, in which they lost vast swathes of territory to advancing troops, the Tigers have vowed to change their tactics and aim for major military and economic targets in a bid to cripple the $23 billion economy.JACKIE CHAN, BRUCE LEESome of their tactics come from unconventional sources."We have gained experience through battles and of course we have read books about strategies and tactics," says Lieutenant-Colonel V. Nishanthan Master, specialist trainer in offensive and defensive tactics, as he marshals fighters through the exercise.Shadowy rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, who has spent much of the past 20 years in hiding and is revered as the insurgents' 'national leader', gave him works by the likes of ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu to read, as well as books on the Napoleonic wars."There are a lot of movies that have been translated into Tamil, and we have also taken a lot of strategies from those," he adds, listing the likes of war movies such as Hollywood blockbusters "Saving Private Ryan" and "Black Hawk Down".Fighters are also shown Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee movies to learn kung fu moves -- as well as some lighter relief like cartoons and children's films such as "Finding Nemo"."I also yearn for a normal life. But I am here and giving training because we need to expel the oppressors," Nishanthan Master says. "Definitely we will drive the Sri Lankan armed forces from our homeland and we will create a Tamil Eelam. I have not an iota of doubt."The 36-year-old has been in most of the major battles the Tigers have fought with the military since he joined the movement 19 years ago -- which means he started out as a child soldier like those UNICEF says the rebels are still recruiting.He says Prabhakaran has given him books, certificates and even presents such as a torch light for his performance in battles past for the Tigers, who are widely outlawed as a terrorist group by a host of nations including the United States and Britain, as well as the European Union.The Tigers this week vowed to adopt guerrilla tactics after losing territory in the east. And rebel fighters are prepared for death in more ways than one."Once I have fallen, another hand will come and take this RPG," Kadalarasan said after saying a Tiger oath following the training session, showing the glass vials containing white cyanide he wears around his neck like all fellow fighters."If we are badly wounded and the enemy is going to capture us or we are about to pass out, then only we bite as a last resort," he said smiling. "In order to keep our secrets and not be tortured by the enemy -- the cyanide capsule is the solution."