Why does this rebel group in Sri Lanka have a nickname like some kind of professional sports team?
When North Vietnam was fighting the US troops, I never heard any media organization refer to them as the Vietnamese “Panthers” or some other nickname, nor where the US troops called the “Yankees”. Besides the North Vietnamese Regulars, there was the Viet Cong, but this name doesn’t translate into some term that sounds like a ball team.
Rebels are called just “rebels” or “insurgents” all over the world (except in Sri Lanka).
Because that is there actual name or rather a logical shortening of it - the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or the LTTE. They just picked a catchy name, is all.
The Sikhs seem to have had the same idea, as in the Bhinderanwala Tiger Force, which sounds like an anime title to me. However in that case we’re talking about what appears to be a minor splinter of larger Sikh terrorist groups that are more quiescent these days, hence the name doesn’t pop up much
Not at all. They are often called by the name they call themselves, such as the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) of Peru.
Another example of a rebel group with an animal name was the Simbas (“Lions” in Swahili) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the 1960s. However, AFAIK this actuallywas just a nickname, not a formal name of the group.
And in case anyone is interested, the full name in Tamil is * Veeduthalai Pukeegal Tamileelattku*, but the acronym is always in English,and since "Tamil Eelam"is one word in Tamil meaning “Tamil homeland” they often drop the final e and just say LTT.
Nasty folks and the inventors of the suicide bomb attack; and incidentally the group I spent the last two years of my life dealing with every day (and under surveillance by). We had thought that the tsunami would take some of the fight out of the organization, but it appears that hasn’t quite been the case.
Now I’m in Peru and dealing with Sendero and the MRTA in a limited way. Interesting work if it does get a bit sordid at times, not to mention dangerous.
Could you explain this comment, please? Or give a cite for it?
Because it seems contrary to what I’ve been taught. There were certainly suicide bomb attacks in WWII, even if you discount the Japenese kamikazi planes. And I believe there were some reported in WWI.
I believe the first modern suicide bombing ocurred in Lebanon a few years before the first Tamil attack. In Lebanon it was the offshoot of a recently promulgated theologic ruling by Khomeini et al issued in the early years of the Iran-Iraq war. The Iranian leadership, buying somewhat into their own propaganda, had erroneously come to believe that mass infantry attacks by lightly armed revolutionary militia had been the key in ejecting the Iraqi invaders. The rather dubious theology they came up with was intended to inspire zeal in this revolutionary infantry by speaking to the claimed holy martyrdom of fallen attackers, mowed down in fanatical wave infantry attacks. Easy to see how this was then adapted to the rationale of the suicide bomber by Lebanese Shi’a. It then spread to other groups, both secular and religious, due to its “practicality”.
The Tamil Tigers, who certainly weren’t inspired by the theology, picked up on the method and became the most notable proponents of it. So the LTTE definitely didn’t originate the idea, even in the modern era, but they were the heaviest users of it and responsible for a lot of refining of technique.
Tamerlane has it exact; I was extremely tired when I posted and somehow ïnnovators becam originators. I’ve handled some of the suicide vests that the Tigers made (one with bloodstains from its occupant, who had been shot in the head before she got to detonate.) these things are nasty advanced compared to the Lebanese and other models.
sven, I work for the State Department and I have a lot of jobs. In Sri Lanka, I was a political officer charged with watching and reporting on the LTTE, and they put me through 24 weeks of Tamil, which you do not want to do. Here in Peru most of what I do is compliance related and I handle applicants who want to recieve visas to come to the U.S. Lots of folks claimed political asylum from harassment from Sendero and the MRTA and tried to stay in the U.S.; we try to find them and determine their claims. That’s in addition to the standard visa processing for everyone who wants to work or study in the U.S.
