Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, also known as the LTTE or the Tamil Tigers, were a rebel group of Tamils in Sri Lanka. The Tamils, who are mostly Hindus, are an ethnic and religious minority in Sri Lanka. Another ethnic group, the Sinhalese, runs most of the country. Most Sinhalese are Buddhists. The Tamil Tigers accused the Sinhalese majority of religious and political persecution. From 1983 to 2002, they fought to break away from Sri Lanka and form a separate country. They later sought regional self-rule for Tamils within Sri Lanka.
The Tamil Tigers began to fight the Sri Lankan government in 1983, when they ambushed and killed 13 Sri Lankan soldiers in the Tamil city of Jaffna in northern Sri Lanka. The murders provoked widespread anti-Tamil riots among the Sinhalese population. This violence turned into open warfare between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan army. The fighting, which took place mainly on the peninsula of Jaffna, killed tens of thousands of people. The Tigers used suicide bombings and other terrorist acts. Members of the Tamil Tigers were convicted of assassinating Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and accused of assassinating Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993.
In the 1980’s and 1990’s, the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government agreed to several cease-fires. But the two sides failed to find a lasting solution to the conflict. In 1994, Chandrika Kumaratunga was elected president of Sri Lanka on promises that she would work with the Tigers’ founder, Velupillai Prabhakaran, to find a peaceful solution to the fighting. However, Kumaratunga continued to use military force and refused to accept any peace agreement that split Sri Lanka into separate nations.
In 2002, the rebels and the government announced yet another cease-fire. Later that year, during peace talks, the rebels dropped their demand for a separate country. Other issues, however, remained unresolved. The Tigers withdrew from peace talks in April 2003 but did not break the cease-fire. In February 2006, the LTTE and Sri Lankan officials renewed their commitment to the 2002 cease-fire and scheduled further peace talks for April, which were postponed until October. In July, heavy fighting between the two sides began again. In October, both sides agreed on maintaining the cease-fire. But heavy fighting continued, and the cease-fire expired in January 2008. In 2008 and 2009, Sri Lanka’s military increased its efforts to destroy the LTTE. Both the government and the LTTE faced international criticism for placing thousands of civilians in danger while fighting raged. In May 2009, the military announced that it had killed Prabhakaran and defeated the rebels. In 2015, the Sri Lankan government announced plans to establish a special court to investigate allegations that both the LTTE and government forces had committed war crimes during the war.
