Thuppahi's Blog

David B. S. Jeyaraj, courtesy of the Daily Mirror, 9 May 2015, where the title is “Defeat of LTTE and Demise of Tiger Leader Prabhakaran in May 2009″

The month of May is significant in the history of the Tamil secessionist armed struggle in Sri Lanka. It was on May 5,  1976, that a section of  militant Sri Lankan Tamil youths re-organized themselves into  an  organization  called the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) which had the establishment of a separate  Tamil State on the Island  through armed struggle as its fundamental objective. It was on May 14, 1976, that the chief political configuration of the Sri Lankan Tamils re-named itself as the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) and adopted a resolution demanding the creation of a Tamil State called “Tamil Eelam”comprising the Northern and Eastern Provinces of the Island. Decades later in May 2009, the  Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam underwent a total military defeat at the hands of the Sri Lankan armed forces in the Mullaitheevu district of Sri Lanka’s northern province. Four days in May from May 15 to May 18 were of crucial importance in this regard. On May 19, 2009,   South Asia’s longest war came to an end with the official announcement that the LTTE leader Thiruvengadam Veluppillai Prabhakaran was dead. His body was recovered on the banks of the Mullaitheevu lagoon known as “Nandhikkadal”.

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