Eye Of The Tamil Tiger - Ctrl.Alt.Shift

This is an online feature I wrote for Ctrl.Alt.Shift about the Tamil Tigers; their almost literal sense of a 'never-say-die' attitude, and their notorious history of using child soldiers and suicide methods. Note: This is not to be confused with my perception of the Tamil people - this was as a follow-up to my research on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE):

Young Blood: Eye Of The Tiger
Evil is in the eyes of the beholder.

From the view of a rebel soldier, the Tamil Tigers are a group to be admired and praised. They function with extreme discipline and full commitment to the victory; every initiated Tiger wears a small pendant containing a fatal dose of cyanide around there neck, ready at any time to take an “honourable death” if ever caught.

Therein lays the motto of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE); that in the course of battle, one must to fight to the death, and that death and suicide for the cause is better than capture or defeat.



No fear. Pure passion. However, from the outset, is the path of the Tiger necessary discipline? Or unnecessary evil?

There are talks in this country for a drastic recall of national service, in hopes to control delinquent youths. Take a hypothetical step back. Can we imagine what implications such an extreme revolution of our system would have if our youth were trained in the same light as the guerrilla rebels in Sri Lanka? The sheer prospect is an unnerving one.

The Tigers cannot be pigeon-holed. They belong in no league. They have endured over 20 years of civil war, fighting for Tamil homeland against the Pakistani government, initiating over 240 suicide attacks and killing a former Sri Lankan president in the process.



Beauty hardly describes the Tiger’s ruthless regime including their audacious long history of recruiting under-age troops for military battle. In past reports the LTTE have been known to demand one child per supporting Tamil household to join the “cause”. And despite releasing 135 under-age Tigers last year, UNICEF reported that over 1000 minors remained in rank (a shameless contribution to the global figure of over half a million children already being deployed as weapons of war).

Velupillai Prabhakaran leads this unforgiving army and culture of self-sacrifice. Nevertheless, despite their questionable tactics and harsh nature, the Tigers do come with their small minority of supporters who claim the rebels are fighting against the Sinhalese majority on behalf of their years of suffering and oppression. I say good for them-but as to how the aid is being executed, I am yet to be convinced...

Read the full article here