Compiled by Kumar Kirinde, Retd Officer of the SLAF, whose chosen title was as follows:“The Air Tigers: The Air Wing of A Terrorist Organisation” …… with information and images sourced from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Tigers and Google Images)
Pirapaharan (ext. left) with Anton Balasingham on his left and KP Pathmanathan in front and Shankar on the extreme right in the Vanni jungles circa 2001(?) … Shankar was in effect the Air Tiger chief
“Once, while waiting for a CTB bus at Kurumbacciddy Junction in 1974, I saw a blackboard advertising a lecture by the then proto-LTTE which showed speedboats pulling the Jaffna peninsula across the Palk Straits and joining it to Tamil Nadu.”[1]
DEAR JANE, WHEN precisely in 1974?
Yours is an intriguing piece of ethnography … The Tamil New Tigers were a tiny group then[2]…. and the ISSUE IS:who had the vision/imagination to formulate this prospect and/or this propaganda line? KP? Pirapaharan? …………………….. michael
Gerald H Peiris, being an article presented at an international conference held in New Delhi in October 2001 under the sponsorship of the Delhi-based Institute of Conflict Management. It has since then been published as a chapter in The Global Threat of Terror: Ideological, Material and Political Linkages, eds. K P S Gill & Ajai Sahni of the same institute….. with highlighting in black being the work of Peiris and that in red the hand of The Editor, Thuppahi
LTTE leaders at Sirumalai camp, Tamil Nadu, India in 1984 while theywere being trained by RAW (from L to R, weapon carrying is included within brackets) – Lingam; Prabhakaran’s bodyguard (Hungarian AK), Batticaloa commander Aruna (Beretta Model 38 SMG), LTTE founder-leader Prabhakaran (pistol), Trincomalee commander Pulendran (AK-47), Mannar commander Victor (M203) and Chief of Intelligence Pottu Amman (M 16).
The LTTE carried out its first major attack[44] on 23 July 1983, when they ambushed Sri Lanka Army patrol Four Four Bravo at Thirunelveli,
Introduction: The campaign led by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for the creation of a Tamil nation state consisting of the northern, northwestern and eastern parts of the island of Sri Lanka is financed in various ways which include donations from individual benefactors, private organisations, and, on a few occasions, foreign governments; extortion from its captive/pliant Tamil communities in Sri Lanka and abroad; smuggling of narcotics and weapons; trafficking in refugees; and forging currency, credit cards and travel documents.
Shamindra Ferdinando, in The Island, 21 July 2021, where the title is“How Premadasa paved the way for first Parama Weera Vibushanaya, posthumously”
One-time Army Commander Gen. Daya Ratnayake (2013-2015) recently joined a special event on Zoom in honour of those who made the supreme sacrifice at Kokavil, 31 years ago. Prof. Raj Somadeva and writer Charith Kiriella delivered special lectures on the occasion. Those who defended the isolated Kokavil base– Officer Commanding, Kokavil transmission complex, Saliya Aladeniya, an old Trinitian who was posthumously promoted Captain of 3 Battalion, Sri Lanka Sinha Regiment (3 SLSR), and his men, perished in the battle. The LTTE didn’t hand over their bodies.
Yesterday (29/07/20) in the House of Lords, Lord Naseby spoke in the debate on Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020: “My Lords, I have no problem at all with the financial aspects of this SI. I think there is a big challenge with individuals and human rights; I remember Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein and Assad, all of whose communities we interfered in at huge human cost to those communities. I want to focus, though, sadly, on the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers—LTTE—which we proscribed in 2001. It was succeeded by the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam—TGTE—itself proscribed in Sri Lanka. It is staffed and organised by former LTTE people and yesterday it started a legal action in the courts here in the UK to lift the proscription on the Tamil Tigers.
Recent Thuppahi entries have highlighted the Workshop on “Sacrificial Devotion” held in Adelaide University in late 2005, one framed within the concept fashioned by Michael Roberts to study and comprehend suicidal commitments to political cause. Note the ITEM
Michael Roberts: An Introductory Note, 30 April 2020
In early April this year 2020 I came across new data – or rather, information which had bypassed me earlier – garnered by DBS Jeyaraj via his exchanges with KP Pathmanāthan[1] in KP’s capacity as the head of the international arm of the LTTE from 31 December 2008.[2] This data confirmed and elaborated on the processes of Western imperialistic intervention in Sri Lanka in 2009 as the LTTE slid to defeat.
It is unclear whether this item is from today in 2020 in the Daily Mirror online …. or …. from 23rd November 2012
TITLE = “LTTE Leader thwarted Oslo’s Moves for a Ceasefire in 2009”
By D.B.S. JEYARAJ
Q: The recent media exposure about an internal report compiled by the UN regarding its role and conduct in Sri Lanka has focused much attention on the final phase of the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009. You also made several observations in this respect when I interviewed you in detail in 2010 for the “Daily Mirror”. In view of the media spotlight on this issue I am thinking of focusing on it again to clarify certain matters. Shall we re-visit those past events again?
Yes. I am also seeing a lot of interest in the subject again. Old things are being dug up again. As usual some facts are being suppressed or distorted by interested people. I am ready to talk about whatever I know in this so that some aspects of the truth are made known.
Jeevan Thiagarajah, in Daily News, 29 July 2019, where the title is “Implementing Brain gain initiative. Our diaspora”
There is sheer waste of rich resource and benefit to Sri Lanka by our failure to tap into the rich resource available in the Sri Lankan Overseas Communities. There is no co-ordinated effort to tap into this rich willing resource. In the end what most do is undertake personal initiatives. This is what a lot of people do.There are two ways to implement the brain gain: either through the return of the expatriates to the country of origin (Return Option) or through their remote mobilization and association to its development (Diaspora Option).
Iselin Frydenlund, ….. which reached me via the University of Adelaide circuit and where the title is “Tamil Militancy in Sri Lanka and the Role of Religion”. It is presented here against the wishes of the author, with a change of title, modifications in the hyphenation style, the addition of illustrative photographs from my own stock and the use of coloured highlighting to mark significant passages….. The Editor, Thuppahi
From the late 1970s to its defeat by the Government of Sri Lanka in 2009, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fought for Tamil independence in Sri Lanka. The ultimate aim of what was often considered to be one of the world‘s most disciplined and efficient insurgency groups was to create an independent Tamil homeland (which they called Tamil Eelam) in the northern and eastern parts of the island. The LTTE based itself on a unique mix of Tamil nationalist, socialist, and feminist visions of a new future for the marginalized Tamil communities of Sri Lanka.