” ‘A God cannot die’: Divergent narratives about the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” ‘by Giacomo Mantovan and Lola Guyot (Critique Internationale)

Giacomo Mantovan and Lola Guyot co-authored an article entitled ‘“A God Cannot Die”: Divergent Accounts of the Defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’. The article was published in the journal Critique internationale.

Summary

After waging a long war against the Sri Lankan government (1983-2009), raising high hopes of victory among combatants and activists in the Tamil diaspora, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were totally annihilated in 2009. Although they share the same objective, diaspora activists and ex-combatants in exile have developed very different narratives about this event. The former, on the one hand, gloss over the destruction of the armed movement and the death of its leader and play down the defeat by declaring that victory is within reach. The latter, on the other hand, give a detailed account of the annihilation of their organisation, as well as the ensuing collapse of their culture, their imagination, and their way of being in the world. In seeking to understand the reasons for these differences, this article examines the links between memory production and the mobilisation trajectories (demobilisation and remobilisation) of activists. The efforts of defeated actors to make sense of years of struggle, the experience of defeat, and political impotence are studied in light of their various political trajectories, between capitulation and attempts to resurrect the struggle.

source: Mantovan G. & L. Guyot, in Critique internationale, 101, n°4, 2023-12-01, p. 77-98

“LTTE Reaches Out To Scottish Separatists” by Camelia Nathaniel

“The LTTE network outside London was the strongest in Leicester and Milton Keynes but even their participation was limited. Thanam was disappointed because he had operated from Milton Keynes, yet even those willing contributors and volunteers evaded him. Eventually, the LTTE UK was able only to organise five buses and they were operated carrying LTTE flags, banners and placards

To coincide with the inauguration of the Commonwealth Games, the LTTE in the United Kingdom gathered at Barrowfield Street in Glasgow G40 3QZ on July 23 at 3.30 pm. Although the LTTE expected between 400-500 cadres, activists, supporters and sympathizers living in the UK and overseas, they could muster less than 150 men and women, mostly rejected and pending asylum seekers, but a few residents. The event was organised by the Tamil Coordinating Committee (TCC) led by Lucien Rupert Soosaipillai a.k.a Thanam, the LTTE chief in the UK.”

via: http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2014/07/27/ltte-reaches-out-to-scottish-separatists/