Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

Ethnic Divide Worsens as Sri Lanka Conflict Escalates - New York Times, March 8, 2008

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — There are no eyes on this war. A truce between the Sri Lankan government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam is over, and gone are the Nordic monitors who kept watch over it.

Security is tight, and tensions high, in Colombo. Some minority Tamils fear wrongly being arrested during checks like these.

The government has refused entry to United Nations human rights monitors. Independent journalists are not allowed anywhere near the front lines. Only occasionally does a glimpse of the war’s damage surface, as when the Red Cross confirmed that in the first six weeks of this year alone, 180 civilians had been killed, a toll it called “appalling.”

Female suicide bomber hits Sri Lankan capital | csmonitor.com, Nov. 29, 2007

A female suicide bomber struck Wednesday in Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, killing herself and one other person, but not the government minister who was the intended target. Authorities blamed the attack on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), or Tamil Tigers, whose long-running separatist war flared up last year after the collapse of a Norwegian-brokered 2002 cease-fire.

The suicide bombing came one day after Sri Lanka warplanes bombed a LTTE radio station to stop the broadcast of an annual speech by rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. The group separately accused the military of planting a roadside bomb that killed 13 people, mostly students. In his speech, which was carried by other rebel media, Mr. Prabhakaran said it was impossible to make peace with the ethnic Sinhalese majority. For its part, the Sinhalese-dominated government has said it can defeat the LTTE in its northern stronghold and vowed Monday to kill Prabhakaran.

The suicide bombing took place near the office of Welfare Minister Douglas Devananda, reports Reuters. The minister’s personal secretary died and two other people were wounded in the blast, according to hospital officials. An officer of the elite police Special Task Force told Reuters that it was a suicide mission….

The LTTE has fought since 1983 for an independent Tamil homeland in northern Sri Lanka, in a war that has killed around 70,000 people. Tamils make up 11.9 percent of the island’s 20 million people, and almost 74 percent are Sinhalese, reports Bloomberg.

In July, Sri Lanka’s Army flushed the LTTE out of the island’s multiethnic east. Earlier this month, President Mahinda Rajapakse vowed in parliament to “eradicate” terrorism from the country and said that the LTTE had “demonstrated that they will never be ready to surrender arms and agree to a democratic political settlement.”

Unsurprisingly, the renewed conflict has driven away foreign tourists, reports Agence France-Presse. Arrivals fell 20 percent in the first 10 months of the year to 387,790. Tourism is the island fourth-biggest industry.

In an analysis last month in Asia Times Online, security consultant James Voortman said that having taken back the eastern region Sri Lanka now has the upper hand over the LTTE. But the cost of a military victory, if attainable, could be prohibitive.

Defense analysts are divided on whether or not the military can drive the Tigers from their northern stronghold. The proponents of an assault argue that the Tigers are currently weak. There is an element of truth in this, as is seen with the loss of the east and subsequent battles on the northern fringes…However, other defense analysts see this lack of activity as exactly what makes the Tigers even more dangerous. This theory claims that the rebel leadership has dedicated all of its manpower to defending the north. With the Tigers stronghold being heavily fortified, it will not fall easily, and the military is likely to suffer high casualties.

Political Leader of Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers Killed in an Airstrike - New York Times, November 3, 2007

NEW DELHI, Nov. 2 — The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the Sri Lankan separatist group known for suicide attacks on political and military targets, lost their most prominent international representative on Friday when the head of their political wing was killed in an airstrike by the Sri Lankan military, according to the guerrilla group.

The Tamil Tigers announced the death of the leader, S. P. Tamilselvan, along with those of five associates, in a news release issued early in the afternoon Sri Lanka time. The Sri Lankan military said he had been killed in air force strikes on an area called Thirivearu, near the rebel garrison of Kilinochchi, where the military said senior rebel leaders had gathered for a meeting. There was no independent verification available of exactly when he was killed, or where.

The killing further ratcheted up the stakes in Sri Lanka’s renewed quarter-century-long ethnic conflict between the majority ethnic Sinhalese-dominated government and the rebels, also known as the L.T.T.E. For more than a year, a series of open military attacks and counterattacks, suicide bombings and mysterious abductions has left no pretense that a 2002 cease-fire agreement, which Mr. Tamilselvan had helped draft, still holds.

Sri Lanka Admits More Damage by Rebel Raid - New York Times, October 25, 2007

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Oct. 24 — A rebel attack on a Sri Lankan air base this week caused far more damage than previously acknowledged, destroying eight aircraft, including a vital surveillance plane, Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake said Wednesday.

The admission, in a statement to Parliament, came amid growing accusations from the opposition that officials had lied about the destruction from Monday’s predawn attack on the Anuradhapura air base.

…the prime minister announced that three helicopters, four training planes and a Beechcraft surveillance plane had been destroyed in the attack, essentially confirming the Tamil reports of the damage. He did not explain the discrepancy.

Jalal Ghazi, War on Iraq: Evolution of the Suicide Attacker, Alternet, October 9, 2007

The war in Iraq has enabled insurgent groups to develop the relatively modern innovation of suicide bombs into a strategic weapon.

Suicide operations, the signature weapon of the Iraqi insurgency, have evolved into a tactical method of warfare used by insurgents around the world. These “moving and thinking bombs” are more effective, numerous, adaptable and sophisticated — able to carry out both mass killings and targeted political assassinations — and are harder to counter since women and children are being used to carry them.

A study by the Gulf Research Center, a Middle East think tank, analyzes these operations from a technical perspective. The report, “Security and Terrorism: Suicide Bombing Operations,” published in Arabic and English, focuses on suicide operations in Iraq, Chechnya, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and Israel.

Although the study does not provide evidence of direct relations between insurgent groups operating in different countries, their similar tactics strongly suggest that they are learning from each other. The Iraq war has served as a suicide operations school for insurgent groups around the world, Dr. Mustafa Alani, director of Security and Terrorism Studies at the Gulf Research Center, told the Dubai-based Al Arabiya television network.

Suicide bombings in Afghanistan increased from one attack in 2001 to 118 in 2006, according to Hekmat Karzai, director of the Center for Conflict and Peace Studies in Kabul. Half of all operations carried out by the Taliban in Afghanistan are now suicide operations.

Dans le chaudron des kamikazes, Libération, 6 Septembre, 2007

Un peu moins de quatre ans après la fameuse nuit du 16 mai 2003, au cours de laquelle une dizaine de kamikazes issus du même quartier de Sidi Moumen firent quelque 50 morts à Casablanca, le cauchemar se répète. Cette immense banlieue est devenue synonyme du cocktail explosif formé par la misère et le terrorisme. En fait, avec ses 350 000 habitants (sur les 5 millions que compte Casablanca), Sidi Moumen est une ville dans la ville. Même chez les pauvres, il y a des beaux quartiers et des bidonvilles. Le cybercafé se trouve dans un quartier «en dur». Il faut encore rouler un quart d’heure avant d’atteindre Douar Sekouila, le quartier où habitait Abdelfettah Raydi. Une pièce unique de moins de 10 m2 qu’il partageait avec sa mère et ses six frères et sœurs. Il n’y a ni eau courante ni électricité. Les vaches paissent dans les ordures. Khoudri n’habitait pas loin. Une fois le soleil couché, plus personne, pas même la police, ne s’aventure dans ces venelles sans éclairage. Les gosses sniffent de la colle avant 8 ans. Depuis tout petits, Raydi comme Khoudri gagnaient leur vie en vendant des jus de fruits aux abords des mosquées, seules institutions de ces quartiers à l’abandon.

Argo, Human Bombs: Rethinking Religion and Terror, 2006

De Mel, Body Politics: (Re)Cognising the Female Suicide Bomber in Sri Lanka, Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 2004

Cultures & Conflits : Les combattants de la « mort certaine ». Les sens du sacrifice à l’horizon de la Grande Guerre
Les combattants de la « mort certaine ». Les sens du sacrifice à l’horizon de la Grande Guerre
Cultures & Conflits n°63 (automne 2006) pp. 63-81
François Lagrange

Cultures & Conflits : Le quasi-contrat du combat suicidaire
Le quasi-contrat du combat suicidaire
Cultures & Conflits n°63 (atuomne 2006) pp. 25-46
Louis-Jean Duclos

Cultures & Conflits : Israël face aux attentats-suicides : le nouvel ethos de la violence
Israël face aux attentats-suicides : le nouvel ethos de la violence
Cultures & Conflits n°63 (automne 2006) pp. 83-99
Lætitia BUCAILLE

Cultures & Conflits : Le « Jeu de l’amour » : trajectoires sacrificielles et usages stratégiques des martyrs dans le mouvement sikh pour le Khalistan
Le « Jeu de l’amour » : trajectoires sacrificielles et usages stratégiques des martyrs dans le mouvement sikh pour le Khalistan
Cultures & Conflits n°63 (automne 2006) pp. 113-133
Laurent GAYER

Human Rights Watch November 2004 Vol. 16, No 13 (C)
LIVING IN FEAR
Child Soldiers and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka

Cultures & Conflits : Les kamikazes sri lankais
Les kamikazes sri lankais
Cultures & Conflits n°63 (automne 2006) pp. 135-154
Eleanor PAVEY

Ressorts du séparatisme tamoul au Sri Lanka, par Eric Paul Meyer (Le Monde diplomatique), avril 2007