Category Archives: LTTE

Incisive Strategy & Tactics behind the Defeat of the LTTE in 2006-09

Serge De Silva Ranasinghe …  This article was first available online at jir. janes.com on 11 November 2009, where it carries this title: “Good Education: Sri Lankan military learns insurgency lessons”*++*

A SUMMARY: In May 2009, the Sri Lankan government declared victory in the country’s brutal civil war. Sergei De  Silva-Ranasinghe examines the effectiveness of the military tactics that helped defeat the LTTE. … While The Editor Thuppahi has imposed highlighting to stress some key aspects

Sri Lanka’s victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009 offers insights and lessons in confronting an intractable and formidable insurgency. To achieve victory, Sri Lanka expanded its army and adopted new tactics for the largest military campaign in the country’s history. Determined leadership and superior manpower were ultimately decisive in a war that killed as many as 22,000 rebels and over 5,000 soldiers.

 

The maps indicate the Sri Lankan military’s advance through the country, the various operations that led to the capture of insurgents and the LTTE’s gradual downfall over the past four years.

 

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De Silva-Ranasinghe’s In-Depth Studies of the LTTE’s Downfall During Eelam War IV . A Bibliography

From Perth with Incisive Penetration: De Silva-Ranasinghe’s In-Depth Analysis of the LTTE’s Downfall During Eelam War IV …. A Bibliography

 

 

 

 

 

 

De Silva-Ranasinghe, Sergei 2009a “Political and Security Implications of Sri Lanka’s Armed Conflict,” Asia-Pacific Defence Reporter, Feb.  2009, Vol. 35/1, pp. 20, 22-24.

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The LTTE and Their Sacrificial Devotion to Cause

Michael Roberts on his Essays on this Theme within the Global Context ………… https://thuppahis.com/2017/07/21/sacrificial-devotion-how-i-entered-this-terrain/…. JULY 21, 2017 · …………..“Sacrificial Devotion” — How I Entered This Terrain

 

 Tiger fighters relax in camp, late 1980sPic by Shyam Tekwani who was embedded with LTTE for a while.

With the benefit of a Teen Murti Fellowship I was collecting data on communal violence in India in 1995 when my readings of news archives indicated that the death of Mrs Indira Gandhi by assassination in Delhi induced a handful of individuals in southern India to commit sympathetic suicide. Since news reports did not indicate similar reactions in other parts of India, I began to reflect on the cultural foundations that promoted such expressions – acting, of course, in contexts that also could provide political and economic inspirations. This eventually led to my first essay on this topic: “Filial Devotion and the Tiger Cult of Suicide,” Contributions to Indian Sociology, 1996, 30: 245-72.

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Revisiting FIRE & STORM

Michael Roberts

In presenting a Zoom Lecture relating to the Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka in April 2021 for Dr. Geethika Dharmasinghe’s class at Colgate University in USA a month or so back,  I deplyed the work that went into one of books: that entitled FIRE & STORM.

I now atempt to schock people around the world with pictorial illustrations of some — note “Some” (with all its partialities) — photographs of the political and Eelam War scenarios in Sri Lanka displayed in Fire & Storm.

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Chandra Schaffter: A Sturdy Sri Lankan Sportsman and Administrator For All Seasons

Michael Roberts

Sri Lanka has been blessed with generations of talented cricketers over the decades: from

  • the Kelaarts and Saravanamuttus of the 1920s and 1930s … to
  • the Macarthy’s, de Sarams and Heyns of the 1930s and 1940s …
  • the Gunasekeras of the 1950s
  • the Lieversz, HIK Fernandos and Reids of the 1960s
  • Anura Tennekoon, Michael Tissera of the 1960s-1970s
  • Duleep Mendis and the Wettimuny’s of the 1970s/80s
  • Ranjan Madugalle and Arjuna Ranatunga of the 1980s
  • the Aravinda-Ranatunga-Jayasuriya-Kaluwitharana-and-Vaas dynamos of the 1980s and the 1990s
  • the Mahela Jayawardena and Sangakkara duo of the 2000s …..
  • while not losing sight of that unique phenomenon we know as “Murali” in the 1990s-to-2000s.

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Dharshan Weerasekera’s Array of Essays and Books

Author Archive for Dharshan Weerasekera

International Law Implications of Canadian Parliament’s Motion on ‘Tamil Genocide’

Saturday, November 26th, 2022

By Dharshan Weerasekera Courtesy The Island On 18 May 2022, the Canadian House of Commons adopted without opposition a motion introduced by Rep. Gary Anandasangaree recognising 18 May of each year as Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day” (www.parliament.ca). This follows a Bill adopted by the Ontario legislature in May 2021 calling for the week following May […]

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Sri Lankan Military in Judicial Gunsights Over May 2009 Incidents

Groundviews, 14 March 2023, where the title reads “Military to Face a Day of Reckoning Over the Disappeared”

In a landmark case last month, the Vavuniya High Court ordered the army to produce three LTTE members who had surrendered to the military in May 2019 and have been missing ever since, in response to a habeas corpus case filed by their wives.

 

 

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Sri Lankan Armed Forces vs the Tamil Tigers: The Last Phase

Serge De Silva Ranasinghe, in The Diplomat, 20 May 2010,*** where the title runs thus “Reflections on the Tigers”

A year after the LTTE’s defeat, evidence shows criticism of Sri Lanka’s army is misplaced, says Sergei DeSilva-Ranasinghe.

Tamil civilians reach safety across Nandhikadal Lagoon —Pix by SL army

 

 

A year ago this week, the Sri Lankan government officially declared victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in one of the most extraordinary counter-insurgency campaigns in recent times.

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The “Truth Tigers” Documentary of May 2002

Truth Tigers – Sri Lanka  ….. Journeyman Pictures

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27 May 2002 Blood drips off the deck; a torrent of rapid gunfire sores through the air. We are in the midst of a savage sea battle, fought by the Sea Tigers — the maritime arm of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Produced by ABC Australia Distributed by Journeyman Pictures

 

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Confronting Sacrificial Devotion Worldwide, 2004-2012

Michael Roberts

Within the contemporary (2020) context of a few killings in European cities by Islamic jihadists on a journey to martyrdom at the feet of Allah, I happened to see Stephen Sackur’s grilling of a French politician in one of his “Hard Talk” presentations on Channel Four. I was critical of his narrow focus and my reflections led me on a comparative journey where I indicated that the cry of “Allahu Akbar” indicated a sense of self-fulfilment in this their final journey on earth for the perpetrators of such attacks.[1]

 

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