Prabhakaran Profile

PRABHAKARAN

Early life:                                                                                                                                                                                            

                      Prabhakaran’ father Veluppillai was born in Valvettithurai, Jaffna.  Velupillai Prabhakaran was born in the northern coastal town of Velvettithurai on November 26, 1954, to Thiruvenkadam Velupillai and Vallipuram Parvathy. Thiruvenkadam Velupillai was the district land Officer in the Ceylon Government Angered by what he saw as discrimination against Tamil People by successive Sri Lankan governments, he joined the student group TIP during the standardization debates. In 1972 Prabhakaran founded the Tamil New Tigers (TNT) which was a successor to many earlier organizations that protested against the post-colonial political direction of the country, in which the minority Sri Lankan Tamils were pitted against the majority Sinhalese people.

In 1975, after becoming heavily involved in the Tamil movement, he carried out the first major political murder by a Tamil group, assassinating the mayor of Jaffna, Alfred Duraiappah, by shooting him at point-blank range when he was about to enter the Hindu temple at Ponnaalai. The assassination was in response to the 1974 Tamil conference incident, for which the Tamil radicals had blamed Duraiappah, because he backed then the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Parly.

Personal life

The Asian Tribune has reported that Prabhakaran was married to Mathivathani Erambu on October 1, 1984 and she, along with their mother, their daughter (Duvaraga) and two sons, Charles Anthony and Balachandran were not in Sri Lanka. However, Sri Lanka military sources stated that they had recovered the corpse of Charles Anthony.^{[not in citation given]} A senior Sri Lankan minister later informed that the Sri Lanka Army had also found the bodies of Prabhakaran's younger son Balachandran, wife Mathivathani, and his daughter Duvaraga. However, the military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara later stated that there was no information about the whereabouts of the remaining members of the Prabhakaran's family. “We have not found their bodies and have no information about them,” he said. Yet, it is thought that the entire Prabhakaran's family actually has been wiped out; the bodies of Madhivadhany, Duvaraga and Balachandran reportedly were found in a bushy patch about 600 meters away from where Prabhakaran’s body was found. It is now believed that his 12 year old son was executed.

Velupillai Prabhakaran's parents, Thiruvenkadam Velupillai and Parvathi, both in their 70s, were found in the Menik Farm camp for displaced people near the town of Vavuniya. The Sri Lankan military and the government gave public assurances that they would not be interrogated, harmed or ill treated.

Tamil Tigers

Founding of the LTTE

In the early 1970s, United Front government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike introduced the Policy of standardization to rectify the low numbers of Sinhalese being accepted into university in Sri Lanka. A student named Satiyaseelan formed Tamil Manavar Peravai (Tamil Students League) to counter this biased move. This group comprised Tamil youth who advocated the rights of students to have fair enrollment. Inspired by the failed 1971 insurrection of Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, it was the first Tamil insurgent group of its kind. It consisted of around 40 Tamil youth, including Ponnuthurai Sivakumaran (later, the leader of the Sivakumaran group), K. Pathmanaba (one of the founder members of EROS) and Velupillai Prabhakaran, an 18 years old youth from single caste oriented Valvettithurai (VVT). In 1972, Prabhakaran teamed up with Chetti Thanabalasingam, Jaffna to form the Tamil New Tigers (TNT), with Thanabalasingham as its leader. After he was killed, Prabhakaran took over. At the same time, Nadarajah Thangathurai and Selvarajah Yogachandran (better known by his nom de guerre Kuttimani) were also involved in discussions about an insurgency. They would later (in 1979) create a separate organization named Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO) to campaign for the establishment of an independent Tamil Eelam. These groups, along with another prominent figure of the armed struggle, Ponnuthurai Sivakumaran, were involved in several hit-and-run operations against pro-government Tamil politicians, Sri Lanka Police and civil administration during early 1970s. These attacks included throwing bombs at the residence and the car of SLFP Jaffna Mayor, Alfred Duraiyappah, placing a bomb at a carnival held in the stadium of Jaffna city (now "Duraiyappah stadium") and Neervely bank robbery. 1974 Tamil conference incident also sparked the anger of these militant groups. Both Sivakumaran and Prabhakaran attempted to assassinate Duraiyappah in revenge for the incident. Sivakumaran committed suicide on 5 June 1974 to evade capture by Police. But on 27 July 1975, Prabhakaran was able to assassinate Duraiyappah, who was branded as a "traitor" by TULF and the insurgents alike. Prabhakaran himself shot and killed the Mayor when he was visiting the Krishnan temple at Ponnalai

On May 5, 1976, the TNT was renamed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), commonly known as the Tamil Tigers.

Religion was not a major factor in his philosophy or ideology, indeed the ideology of the Tamil Tigers emerged from Marxist-Leninistthought, and was explicitly secular. Its leadership professed opposition to religion. Their focus was on a single-minded approach toward the attainment of an independent Tamil Eelam.

Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism

Prabhakaran’s source of inspiration and direction was Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism. His stated and ultimate ideal was to get Tamil Eelam recognised as a nation as per the U.N. Charter that guarantees the right of a people to political independence The LTTE also proposed the formation of an Interim Self Governing Authority during Peace Negotiations in 2003. Former Tamil guerrilla and politician Dharmalingam Sithadthan has remarked that Prabhakaran's "dedication to the cause of the Tamil Eelam was unquestionable, he was the only man in Sri Lanka who could decide if there should be war or peace." Prabhakaran was also called "Karikalan" for his bravery and his administration (Karikalan refers to a famous Chola king who ruled around 270 CE.)

Militarism of the LTTE

Prabhakaran explicitly stated that an armed struggle is the only way to resist asymmetric warfare, in which one side, that of the Sri Lankan government, is armed and the other comparatively unarmed. He argued that he chose military means only after observing thatnon–violent means have been ineffectual and obsolete, especially after the Thileepan incident. Thileepan, a colonel rank officer adoptedGandhian means to protest against the IPKF killings by staging a fast unto death from September 15, 1987, and by abstaining from food or water till 26 September, when he died in front of thousands of Tamils who had come there to fast along with him. This further strengthened Prabhakaran's resolve that peaceful protests would either be ignored or crushed but never heard.

Tactically, Prabhakaran perfected the recruitment and use of suicide bomber units. His fighters usually took no prisoners and were notorious for assaults that often left every single enemy soldier dead. Interpol described him as someone who was "very alert, known to use disguise and capable of handling sophisticated weaponry and explosives."