Legacy of the Tigers
by Michael Schaffer
MAY 21, 2009 TAGS:
When the Sri Lankan government overran the football field-sized final redoubt of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam on Sunday, it marked a rare case of a war that ended with an actual victory. Rather than fighting to a stalemate while representatives work out a peace in some distant European capital, the two sides fought to the end, which meant the destruction of the once-fearsome Tiger leadership — not to mention the gruesome deaths of thousands of unfortunates who got in the way.
Fittingly, the end of a 25-year civil war that had killed 80,000 people took place out of view. With independent reporters banned from the battlefield, the scenes of fleeing civilians and burning buildings and shelled hospitals earned little play.
Of course, the Sri Lankan war was obscure even before the New York Times was denied a visa: Without much relevance to the Cold War standoff that reigned when it began or the struggle against Islamism that dominates geopolitics as it ends, the conflict could be ignored by even the well-informed Americans who made it their business to learn about Nicaragua or Darfur. About the only recent reference to the war in Western culture came via Sri Lankan Tamil rapper M.I.A, who extolled the rebels as freedom fighters, filling her videos with LTTE imagery.
MIA was wrong. The mainly Hindu Tamils had — and still have — a legitimate beef with the Sri Lankan state. But the organization that started in the late-1970s quickly evolved into a vicious terrorist organization that outdid even the most ghastly acts of the Buddhist Sinhalese-dominated national government it opposed. During the years the Tigers controlled up to a quarter of the Indian Ocean island’s territory, they ran their fiefdom as a dictatorship, building a cult of personality to their leader, brainwashing child soldiers and engaging in ethnic cleansing against members of the Tamil-speaking Muslim minority.
Though they enjoyed some success in conventional war, operating a navy and a quasi-air force of light planes from their territory, the Tigers truly excelled at the spectacular terror attack. Over the years, they killed one Sri Lankan president and nearly got another, blinding her in one eye. Two presidential candidates were also blown up, as were scores of Tamil leaders who had the temerity to oppose the Tigers. As Indian prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi ordered his country’s bungled peacekeeping intervention in the unhappy island to the south. Two years later, the Tigers killed him, too.
Thousands of more obscure people died from bombs in city streets, Buddhist shrines, shopping malls, bus stations, trains, banks and post offices, among other public places. The relentless attacks came during times of Tiger battlefield success and battlefield failure, at moments when the peace process looked hopeful and at times when it looked futile. Many people believed Vellupillai Prabhakaran, the Tigers’ mysterious supremo, was clinically insane.
And yet, once the dust settles following Prabhakaran’s death during the final battle on Sunday — details are sketchy, and even though the government displayed his body on TV, at least some Tiger sympathists insist he’s still alive — he will probably be remembered most of all as an innovator. Bloodthirsty monsters come and go, but the Tigers elevated terrorism to an art form, indoctrinating suicide squads back when Osama bin Laden was a Saudi Arabian rich kid and Middle Eastern insurgents frightened Westerners simply by hijacking airplanes. Because he didn’t target foreigners, and because his network didn’t operate on al Qaeda’s multinational model, Prabhakaran never became a household name away from home. Among those who follow terrorism, though, he was the one to watch.
Among the Tigers’ innovations: the suicide belt, the explosive apparatus worn by would-be assassins, since copied by better-known organizations around the world. The Tigers also mastered the task of indoctrination, recruiting a generation of male and female true believers for units like the Black Tigers suicide squad. Cadres traveled with cyanide capsules around their necks, with the idea that they’d bite down on one rather than be captured. How one inducts members of a mostly Hindu community into a cult of death may be different from how one recruits young Muslims into a similar function, but the Tigers proved more adept than most of the Middle Eastern groups that obsess American policymakers.
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During their reign, the Tigers allegedly had a few cash-on-the-barrelhead interactions with better-known terrorists elsewhere — doing some training for the PLO, according to one account, and trafficking in illegal weapons with insurgent groups elsewhere. But these are the sorts of non-ideological interactions that get turned into a necessity by a group’s underground status. If indeed Prabhakaran’s heirs have been driven from the battlefield, the deadly skills they practiced could fetch big money on the open market — more money, at any rate, than an average defeated insurgent could expect to make by giving up the dark arts of violence. Should that happen, the Tigers’ knack for innovation could haunt whole new countries.
Michael Schaffer’s book, One Nation Under Dog, about culture and the American pet industry, was published March 31.
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Fittingly, the end of a 25-year civil war that had killed 80,000 people took place out of view. With independent reporters banned from the battlefield, the scenes of fleeing civilians and burning buildings and shelled hospitals earned little play. Of course, the Sri Lankan war was obscure even before the New York Times was denied a visa: Without much relevance to the Cold War standoff that reigned when it began or the struggle against Islamism that dominates geopolitics as it ends, the conflict could be ignored by even the well-informed Americans who made it their business to learn about Nicaragua or Darfur. About the only recent reference to the war in Western culture came via Sri Lankan Tamil rapper M.I.A, who extolled the rebels as freedom fighters, filling her videos with LTTE imagery.
MIA was wrong. The mainly Hindu Tamils had — and still have — a legitimate beef with the Sri Lankan state. But the organization that started in the late-1970s quickly evolved into a vicious terrorist organization that outdid even the most ghastly acts of the Buddhist Sinhalese-dominated national government it opposed. During the years the Tigers controlled up to a quarter of the Indian Ocean island’s territory, they ran their fiefdom as a dictatorship, building a cult of personality to their leader, brainwashing child soldiers and engaging in ethnic cleansing against members of the Tamil-speaking Muslim minority.
Though they enjoyed some success in conventional war, operating a navy and a quasi-air force of light planes from their territory, the Tigers truly excelled at the spectacular terror attack. Over the years, they killed one Sri Lankan president and nearly got another, blinding her in one eye. Two presidential candidates were also blown up, as were scores of Tamil leaders who had the temerity to oppose the Tigers. As Indian prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi ordered his country’s bungled peacekeeping intervention in the unhappy island to the south. Two years later, the Tigers killed him, too.
Thousands of more obscure people died from bombs in city streets, Buddhist shrines, shopping malls, bus stations, trains, banks and post offices, among other public places. The relentless attacks came during times of Tiger battlefield success and battlefield failure, at moments when the peace process looked hopeful and at times when it looked futile. Many people believed Vellupillai Prabhakaran, the Tigers’ mysterious supremo, was clinically insane.
And yet, once the dust settles following Prabhakaran’s death during the final battle on Sunday — details are sketchy, and even though the government displayed his body on TV, at least some Tiger sympathists insist he’s still alive — he will probably be remembered most of all as an innovator. Bloodthirsty monsters come and go, but the Tigers elevated terrorism to an art form, indoctrinating suicide squads back when Osama bin Laden was a Saudi Arabian rich kid and Middle Eastern insurgents frightened Westerners simply by hijacking airplanes. Because he didn’t target foreigners, and because his network didn’t operate on al Qaeda’s multinational model, Prabhakaran never became a household name away from home. Among those who follow terrorism, though, he was the one to watch.Among the Tigers’ innovations: the suicide belt, the explosive apparatus worn by would-be assassins, since copied by better-known organizations around the world. The Tigers also mastered the task of indoctrination, recruiting a generation of male and female true believers for units like the Black Tigers suicide squad. Cadres traveled with cyanide capsules around their necks, with the idea that they’d bite down on one rather than be captured. How one inducts members of a mostly Hindu community into a cult of death may be different from how one recruits young Muslims into a similar function, but the Tigers proved more adept than most of the Middle Eastern groups that obsess American policymakers.
During their reign, the Tigers allegedly had a few cash-on-the-barrelhead interactions with better-known terrorists elsewhere — doing some training for the PLO, according to one account, and trafficking in illegal weapons with insurgent groups elsewhere. But these are the sorts of non-ideological interactions that get turned into a necessity by a group’s underground status. If indeed Prabhakaran’s heirs have been driven from the battlefield, the deadly skills they practiced could fetch big money on the open market — more money, at any rate, than an average defeated insurgent could expect to make by giving up the dark arts of violence. Should that happen, the Tigers’ knack for innovation could haunt whole new countries.Michael Schaffer’s book, One Nation Under Dog, about culture and the American pet industry, was published March 31.
--
Also by Michael Schaffer
A Dictator for All SeasonsAugust 15, 2008
Sunday, August 17 marked the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, the Pakistani dictator, who, with his waxy Victorian moustache is experiencing somewhat of a posthumous pop-culture moment.
Cheating DeathApril 28, 2009
Funeral homes are feeling the economic pinch.
Death as a Career MoveOctober 15, 2008
Not all death bounces are created equal.
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