The previous chapter explained why sexual violence was so widespread against women during the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Conversely, this chapter will demonstrate that women are not only the victims of violence in conflict zones, but they can also be perpetrators. Taking the Sri Lankan Civil War as a case study, this report will examine the origins of the Tamil insurgency and explore the reasons why women chose to became soldiers.
Historical Background
In India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, women were important participants in national liberation movements. This was not the case in Sri Lanka. Unlike their Indian counterparts, Sri Lankan elites gained independence peacefully through negotiations with the colonial master, Britain. Therefore, there was no large-scale anti-colonial nationalist movement before Sri Lanka became independent. Sri Lanka often receives praise for empowering women. As early as 1931, Sri Lanka gave women the right to vote before many Western countries. Sri Lanka also had two female prime ministers. Sirimavo Bandaranaike was the world’s first democratically elected female prime minister in 1960. Although Sri Lanka has long recognized women’s right to participate in politics since gaining independence in 1948, women’s participation has, in practice, been very low. For years, it stood at barely 4%. Left-wing parties, such as the Communist Party, were exceptional in that they consistently supported women’s rights and advocated for women’s equality. This endemic and decades-long marginalization of women, and Tamil women in particular, would have terrible consequences in the late 20th century.
Section 1: Colonial history and Ethnic Tensions in Sri Lanka
In the early 17th century, the Portuguese (1619-1658) ruled the Kingdom of Koti founded by the Sinhalese. In 1638, another Sinhalese state, the Kingdom of Kanti, joined forces with the Dutch against the Portuguese. In 1658, the Dutch defeated the Portuguese and annexed the Tamil kingdom of northern Sri Lanka, dividing their territory into three provinces. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Sri Lanka officially became a British colony, and in 1798 the Kingdom of Kandy was also incorporated into the British colony. To this day, Sri Lanka remains a member of the British Commonwealth. Hundreds of years of colonial rule had a detrimental impact on ethnic relations in Sri Lanka.
1:1 Colonisation Brought New Ethnic Groups And Religions, Which Worsened Sri Lanka’s ethnic Tensions
Sri Lanka was colonised by Portugal, the Netherlands, Britain and other countries, and European colonists intermarried with the locals. During the Dutch colonial period, Dutch citizens were encouraged to go to Sri Lanka and were allowed to intermarry with local Sri Lankan Christian women. By the end of Dutch colonial rule, the descendants of Dutch settlers and local people, after many generations of intermarriage, gradually became a new ethnic group called the “Berg”, divided into “Dutch Berg” and “Portuguese Berg”. During the colonial period, the Bergs were a privileged group, and after Sri Lankan independence, numerous Bergs emigrated to Australia, New Zealand, and other countries. After Sri Lanka became a British colony, the British imposed indirect rule by promoting Tamils and suppressing the Sinhalese. British authorities recruited tens of thousands of Tamil labourers from India to work in Sri Lanka as well, which upset the balance between the two ethnic groups.
The Indian Tamils, also known as plantation Tamils, are both Tamil and predominantly Hindu, but due to caste differences and other reasons, the two groups have little contact with each other. After independence, Sri Lanka was reluctant to grant citizenship to plantation Tamils and demanded that they return to India, even though plantation Tamils in Sri Lanka were descendants of immigrant workers who had no connections with India. New Delhi and Colombo negotiated repeatedly to settle the status of these workers. India eventually agreed to grant citizenship to the descendants of plantation Tamils. As a result, many Tamils chose to return to India, and their numbers steadily declined in Sri Lanka.
1:2 Colonial Policies Intensified Ethnic Animosities In Sri Lanka
Colonists adopted a policy of divide and rule on the island. A Sinhalese elite emerged when the Dutch ruled Sri Lanka. After the arrival of the British, the population of Sri Lanka was divided into Sinhalese, Tamils, Bergs, and Moors (Muslims). Sub-groups within each ethnicity began to emerge as well. The Sinhalese are divided into Lowland Sinhalese and Kandy, while the Tamils are divided into Ceylon Tamils and Indian Tamils. During British rule, native English speakers received preferential treatment, and an Anglicized elite developed within Sri Lanka, initially dominated by Hollandbergs and later by Sinhalese and Tamils. In addition to ethnicity, the caste system also hardened to some extent during the colonial period. Certain castes of Sinhalese, Tamils, and Muslims were promoted, while lower castes were marginalised.
Section 2: Divide-And-Rule Policies Damaged Relations Between The Sinhalese And Tamils
As the last Western country to occupy Sri Lanka, Britain colonised the island for 133 years and had the most profound influence on ethnic relations. The country’s post-independence elites often blamed Britain’s divide-and-rule policies for Sri Lanka’s ethnic tensions. During the British colonial period, the racial superiority and ethnic identity imposed by the colonialists led to the emergence of Sinhalese and Tamil nationalism. These conflicting nationalisms lay at the heart of the Sri Lankan civil war (Jonathan, 2002). The British employed Tamils as agents and collaborators, which aroused the suspicions and hatred of the Sinhalese majority.
Patrick Peebles, in his book A History of Sri Lanka, argues that the rapid rise of the Tamils during British rule owed a lot to the activities of American missionaries in northern Sri Lanka, who built churches and missionary schools in Jaffna (Jonathan, 2002). Attempts to promote Western, English-oriented education by missionaries coincided with the Tamil tradition of valuing education, and the Jaffna area gradually became the epicentre of education in Sri Lanka. Schooling in the English language allowed Tamils to work in many industries and professions, including the colonial government. Numerous Tamils moved to central and southern regions and achieved considerable economic success in a short amount of time due to having learnt English. In the twilight years of British colonial rule, English-educated Tamils formed a large middle class and held nearly 40% of upper government jobs, making Tamils a privileged caste. In contrast, Muslims, who were often unwilling to participate in education systems organised and controlled by Christian missionaries, turned to commerce and agriculture.
Section 3: Ethnic Politics In Post-Colonial Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka emerged unscathed from World War II and underwent rapid economic development due to the export of strategic materials like rubber. Therefore, Sri Lankans had high hopes when London granted Colombo independence on 4th February 1948. Sri Lanka’s original name was Ceylon, which was changed to the Republic of Sri Lanka in 1972 and to the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka in 1978. In general, post-colonial elites promote massive mobilisation campaigns that try to tear down ethnic and racial boundaries. However, because Sri Lanka’s political elite achieved independence quite peacefully, Sri Lanka was unable to bridge ethnic differences before the establishment of the state with grassroots social movements. Following the founding of Sri Lanka, the new government failed to reach a “basic consensus” that could have created a unified, multi-ethnic country. As a result, unresolved issues regarding religion, language, ethnicity, and caste continue to undermine ethnic relations in Sri Lanka. In order to resist the Sinhalese government’s assimilation policies, the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), also known as the “Tamil Tigers”, waged a fierce struggle against government forces for decades. This war had a horrific impact on ethnic relations in Sri Lanka.
3:1 Electoral Politics And “Sinhala First” Policies
Sri Lanka introduced universal suffrage as early as 1931. When Sri Lanka became independent in 1948, the new government was dominated by the Sinhalese and adopted a representational model based on majority ethnic parties, which reversed power relations between Tamils and Sinhalese. The 1956 election marked a watershed in Sri Lanka’s political development. Sinhalese parties came to power thanks to slogans like “Sinhalese First”, and Sinhala was adopted as the official language of Sri Lanka that same year. On December 31, 1960, Sri Lanka passed a law that made Sinhala the only official language. The use of Tamil in government jobs was banned, and Tamils had to pass a Sinhala language test before they could get a job (Samanth, 2015). This led to protests by Tamils, and tensions between the two communities persisted until January 1966, when the Sri Lankan government made Tamil the administrative language of the northern and eastern regions of the country. Due to restrictive language laws, the number of Tamils employed in the upper ranks of the Sri Lankan government sharply declined from 30% in 1956 to 5% in 1975 (Jonathan, 2002). In 1978, Sri Lanka’s new constitution named Tamil as an official language for the first time and promised to protect religious freedom. Unfortunately, language reforms came much too late to stabilise ethnic relations.
A series of policies derived from Sinhalese linguistic nationalism deprived ethnic Tamils of their formerly privileged position in society, which triggered a fierce backlash. Sri Lanka’s educational and cultural policies at the time were also biased in favour of the Sinhalese. In the 1960s, Sri Lanka nationalised a number of private schools and obliged all public institutions to teach in the student’s “mother tongue”, which meant that non-Sinhalese students could not receive a Sinhala education. This aimed to prevent minority ethnic groups from acquiring government jobs by blocking their access to education taught in Sinhala. In 1973, Sri Lanka introduced a “standard score” for university entrance exams and a quota system for university admission, with Sinhalese students being admitted at a higher rate than Tamils. Tamil students needed to obtain higher scores to attend the same universities as Sinhalese students. This greatly reduced the number of Tamil students attending universities. Since the 1970s, Colombo’s economic liberalisation policies brought more investment to the south, which is predominantly Sinhalese, than to the Tamil-populated north. This considerably widened the gap between the rich and poor and exacerbated ethnic tensions even further.
The Sri Lankan government’s heavy-handed Sinhalese language policies had severe consequences. In addition to provoking recurrent protests by non-Sinhalese, the mandatory promotion of Sinhalese language instruction encountered fierce opposition from the Sinhalese and even inspired a more radical Sinhalese nationalism among younger Sinhalese generations. This was because the Sri Lankan government, through its Sinhala-first policies, tried to create a Sinhala-speaking elite to replace the English-speaking elite that emerged in the colonial era. However, young people quickly discovered that employers hired people based on their English-speaking skills. This made it very difficult for youths who only spoke Sinhala to find a job.
In 1965, the People’s Liberation Front (JVP) mobilised Sinhalese youth, who had been educated in Sinhala but were deeply frustrated due to a lack of opportunities. They viewed the Anglicised elite and the Tamils as an exploitative upper class, and hoped to establish a Sinhalese socialist state. At the time, the Sri Lankan government was under pressure from both the Tamil rebellion and Sinhalese extremists led by the People’s Liberation Front. In 1971, the People’s Liberation Front launched a rebellion to overthrow the government, but it was suppressed. The JVP was banned until 1988 as a result.
3:2 Tamil Protests Turn Violent
From the 1950s until the 1970s, Tamils elites were dominated by conservatives who sought constitutional autonomy for Tamils and opposed violence. Tamils took to the streets several times in protest, but they were ruthlessly suppressed by the Sri Lankan army. Efforts to resist Sinhalese supremacy repeatedly failed, leaving a generation of Tamil youth deeply resentful. After the 1970s, thanks to the growing influence of Tamil youth, Tamil politics radicalised and a number of violent groups emerged in Tamil populated areas, including the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) and the LTTE. Their political philosophy differed markedly from that of the former Federalist Party, which claimed to represent Tamil interests. In 1972, a group of Tamil political parties joined forces to form the Tamil United Front (TUF), renamed the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) in 1976, which won a landslide victory in the 1977 Jaffna district elections.
When Veupillai Prabhakaran, a radical Tamil youth who shot and killed the mayor of Jaffna in 1975, a relatively moderate Tamil, it was clear that tensions between Tamil youth and older conservatives had reached a boiling point. As younger generations came of age, the Tamils’ quest for political rights took a very violent turn.
In 1983, the extremist Tigers attacked Sri Lankan government troops, which marked a definitive break with the past. Tamils began to reject peaceful protests and negotiations, in favour of a brutal armed conflict to gain Tamil autonomy. The 1983 campaign led to the rapid growth of the LTTE’s support among Tamils, including conservatives who had previously rejected the LTTE’s extreme tactics. By 1986, the LTTE had become the most powerful militant group in north and northeastern Sri Lanka (Jerome, 2005). The group fought and eliminated other Tamil guerrilla groups and spearheaded the armed conflict between Tamils and the Sri Lankan government.
3:3 External Factors During The Sri-Lankan Civil War
The Tigers owed their survival to external support for over two decades. The LTTE built a vast donor network to raise money from overseas Tamils. Studies confirmed that Tamils living in Switzerland, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Scandinavian countries were the LTTE’s main fundraisers (Chalk, 1999). Another external factor affecting the conflict was New Delhi. India provided aid to the Tigers, which included the training of Tamil fighters and the airdropping of food and weapons to Tamil guerillas. These covert operations triggered severe disputes between the two countries. However, India’s support for the Tigers quickly evaporated after Tamil separatism in Sri Lanka fuelled Tamil insurgencies within India itself.
Section 4: Women And The Tigers
Of all the political parties formed before and after the establishment of Sri Lanka, only left-wing organisations and parties shed a light on women’s issues. The Sri Lankan Socialist Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), originally formed in 1935, was the first party to back proposals for women’s equality. The Communist Party, founded in 1943, called for the improvement of working conditions for women, the elimination of gender discrimination, and equal pay for all. Both the LSSP and the Communist Party included equal rights for women in their general election manifestos in 1952, 1956, 1960, and 1965. The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) also called for equal rights while actively recruiting women. In addition to these parties, another organisation that recruited women was the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Conversely, the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), while quite radical in its demands for an independent Tamil state, was reluctant to tackle women’s issues and recruited far fewer women compared to the LTTE (Dagmar, 2008).
The Tigers recruited many women into their ranks, which has been the subject of lively debates among scholars and commentators. Why would women want to join a terrorist group like the Tamil Tigers?
4:1 Women In Traditional Sri Lankan politics
Sri Lanka, like other countries in South-East Asia, is home to various religious and cultural traditions. Sinhalese, Tamil, and Muslim cultures see women as disseminators of cultural traditions and the nurturers of their respective nations. The role of women is often limited to becoming mothers and wives. They are obliged to marry, have children, and run the household. The status of women in the family depends on the marriage dowry and whether they can have a son after marriage. In certain areas, women are bound by stifling national and social concepts like “morality” and “honour,” and their actions are closely monitored and disciplined. Women are constantly reminded of what they can and cannot do to meet the expectations of their families and communities. Young women are often under the control of their fathers and brothers until marriage, and are under the control of their husbands for the rest of their lives. As Rajasingham-Senanayake points out, although South Asian women are mostly born into large families, they are rarely born great (Alison, 2004).
Since the founding of Sri Lanka, the lives of Sri Lankan women have improved dramatically, with the overall literacy rate for women rising from 67.3% in 1963 to 87.9% in 1994, and life expectancy rising from 41.6 years in 1946 to 74.2 years in the early 1990s (Amrita, 2005). Though Sri Lankan women gained equal access to education and the right to vote very early on, reactionary forces remain strong. For decades after independence, the proportion of women in Sri Lanka’s parliament stagnated at around 4% (Tambiah, 2002). From 1947 to 1977, the number of female candidates in Sri Lanka’s general elections was minuscule: less than 3% in 1970 and 3.2% thereafter (Amrita, 2005). The few women who made a name for themselves in politics usually had to wait until the death of their father or husband to enter the political sphere (Jayawardena,1986:129). Today, a significant amount of Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange earnings comes from remittances earned by unskilled women (Jonathan, 2002). Women keep the Sri Lankan economy afloat, but this has done little to improve their status in society.
The status of Sinhalese women is not the same as that of Tamil women. Tamil culture tends to have much more conservative views about women compared to Sinhalese culture. The turning point in northern Sri Lanka, where education for women was once forbidden, came in 1823 with the establishment of the first girls’ school in Watukokotai by American missionaries. People living in the traditional Jaffna region came to appreciate the benefits of female education thanks to missionaries, and the school achieved enormous success in a very short amount of time. However, women’s education in Tamil-majority areas was not seen as a value in itself; Tamil men simply assumed that educated women would be better at taking care of their children.
This rigid patriarchal culture in Tamil areas endured for decades. In the early 20th century, under the leadership of the politician Ramana Maharshi, the conservative elite in Jaffna vehemently opposed women’s right to vote (Dagmar, 2008). When Sri Lanka introduced universal suffrage in 1931, many conservatives at the time were furious. There were no Tamil women in Parliament between 1942 and 1980. Unlike in Tamil areas, Sinhalese women tend to enjoy far more freedom and their education levels are higher than that of Tamil women. Moreover, Sinhalese women took part in Sri Lanka’s political sphere before and after independence (Jayawardene, 2000; 2005). These impediments to participation in Sri Lankan society partly explains why so many Tamil women decided to join the LTTE.
4:2: Female Mobilisation And Recruitment In The LTTE
The LTTE was among the first Tamil separatist groups to exploit women’s liberation discourse in order to mobilise and recruit women, especially those in their late twenties or younger. The LTTE’s propaganda disseminated an appealing narrative that combined nationalism and female empowerment. Three themes are discernible. Firstly, propaganda stressed that women’s liberation and empowerment were key to realising the liberation and empowerment of the Tamil people as a whole. Secondly, women had to participate in armed struggle to overcome past oppression. Women recruits were repeatedly told that warfare and terror were the means by which they could achieve liberation and fulfilment. Finally, according to the LTTE’s founder, Velupillai Prabhakaran, women were to be put on an equal footing with their male counterparts, at least officially.
Tilipan (Rasiah Parthipan), a senior member of the LTTE, joined the group in 1983. Born the son of a student leader, Tilipan quickly became the head of the LTTE’s political and propaganda divisions in Jaffna, before dying on hunger strike in 1987. He was quite skilled at recruiting women for the LTTE. Women made up almost a third of the LTTE’s fighting force and were represented in all of its branches, thanks in no small part to Tilipan’s efforts. (Tsjeard , 2005).
4:3: Training In The LTTE
Initially, women in the LTTE focused on advocacy, medical support, fundraising, and recruitment, but they soon received military training. Allegedly, every LTTE battalion had a female unit, and women had the same roles as men in death squads, medical units, publishing branches, administrative units, espionage divisions, and in communications departments.
In 1983, the LTTE created a special division for women, named Vituthalai Pulikal Munani (Women’s Front of the Liberation Tigers). The unit began combat training in Tamil Nadu, India in 1985 and saw action for the first time in July 1986. In October 1987, Prabhakaran set up a training camp specifically for women in Jaffna. By 1989, the women’s division had a stable leadership structure. Groups such as the Women’s Military Wing and Birds of Paradise, which made up around 30% of LTTE activists, aimed to shed conservative gender roles and resist state oppression (Alexander, 2014). By 1989, the LTTE had established Sothiya, its first female military brigade.
The women’s wing of the LTTE, also known as the “Free Birds”, was made up of six divisions: Jaffna, Wanni, Mannar, Mullaitivu, Vavuniya, and Batticaloa. The number of female fighters in the LTTE increased rapidly after 1990. In the Women’s Wing, the “Women’s Front” division was founded in 1991 to address social issues and to advocate for gender equality. It consisted of several branches: the political branch, which performed administrative tasks and raised awareness about women’s empowerment, and combat branches, which included suicide bombers. Of the 12 members of the LTTE’s Central Committee, five were women (Alison, 2004). In the late 1990s, Sivakamy Sivasubramanium, who went by the pseudonym Thamilini, meaning “a woman loyal to her Tamil identity,” became the head of the women’s political department in the LTTE.
Women fighters were renowned for their combat skills, and several female “Black Tiger” members carried out suicide bombings both inside and outside Sri Lanka. Prabhakaran is believed to have pioneered the “human bomb” tactic often used by other terrorists around the world. The Black Tigers were responsible for committing most of the LTTE’s suicide bombings, and nearly half of the suicide bombers were women. Female Black Tigers were armed with assault rifles and wore cyanide capsules around their necks, like their male counterparts. Before suicide missions, LTTE leaders handpicked women from the Black Tigers and Free Birds. They often chose women over men when picking suicide bombers, because their slender bodies were more likely to hide bombs. In the 1980s, security agencies rarely strip-searched women, so female LTTE recruits found it much easier to slip through security checkpoints than men. Moreover, female suicide bombers were likely to draw significant local and international media attention.
Conclusion
The LTTE, once described as “the most dangerous and deadly terrorist organisation in the world and…the most violent guerrilla organisation in South Asia” (Ravinatha, 2006), weaponised women’s liberation to recruit poor, desperate, and impressionable young Tamil women. The separatist group mobilised thousands of Tamil women and built a vast network headed by women within the LTTE. Female members received the same military training and political education as male members, and were frequently deployed to carry out terrorist attacks, assassinations, and combat missions. The image of the female Tiger fighters was so distinct, they became an integral part of the LTTE’s publicity campaigns both at home and abroad. Prabhakaran, the leader of the LTTE, repeatedly extolled these female fighters in public, and even showered praise on women who carried out suicide bombings. In this case, Tamil female fighters in the LTTE were perpetrators and enablers of violence in ethnic conflict.
The Tamil Tigers were not the first ethnic separatist group to recruit, train, and use women as suicide bombers, but they were probably the most influential. The image of Tamil female fighters was deeply ingrained in the Sri Lankan public, an image at odds with traditional norms. However, the participation of Tamil women in the LTTE did little to improve their status in post-civil war Sri Lanka. On the contrary, Tamil survivors live in fear and feel disempowered nearly sixteen years after the brutal civil war ended in 2009 (Francis, 2024). A headline in the Washington Post from 2018 says it all: “From soldiers to housewives: women who fought as Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka are forced back into traditional roles” (Robertson, 2018). The LTTE’s promises of women’s liberation through armed struggle, a struggle that killed approximately 100,000 people on all sides (many of whom were civilians) came to nothing.
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