Globe and Mail Update Published on Monday, Oct. 16, 2006 12:17PM EDT Last updated on Tuesday, Apr. 07, 2009 1:25AM EDT
Peace talks between the Tamil Tiger rebels and the Sri Lankan government later this month are under a dark cloud after an explosion on Monday continued the violence that has wracked the island nation for over 30 years.
The attack near the town of Habarana, about 190-km northeast of the capital Colombo, was one of the worst suicide bombings in the troubled Indian Ocean island and came amid international efforts to end a rash of fighting between the military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) -- the official name of the Tamil Tigers -- ahead of planned peace talks in Geneva on Oct. 28 and 29.
The Tamil Tigers have used conventional, guerrilla, and terror tactics, including some 200 suicide bombings, since the tensions between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil separatists erupted into war in 1983.
Tamils comprise about 18 per cent of the island's population, and most live in northern and eastern areas. Most are Hindu and speak Tamil, which sets them apart from the predominantly Sinhalese-speaking Sri Lankans, who are largely Buddhist.
The Tamil Tigers' power is based in economically-deprived agricultural regions, and is also manned by unemployed urban Tamil youth who the Tigers say face economic and social discrimination.
Different Indian administrations are believed responsible for training and arming the Tamil rebels in the past in different parts of the sub-continent, and much of their weaponry are said to have come from the former Soviet Union. The Tigers gain much of their finance through expatriate activists in the West.
Tamil Tiger recruits are given a rigorous military training and ideological makeover. On passing out, each one is handed a cyanide capsule to be worn around the neck, and martyrdom is achieved through avoiding capture by suicide.
The fighting force is said to be around 10,000 men and women, who use artillery, surface-to-air missiles and rocket launchers. They also are known to recruit under-age children to fight.
The Tigers are also blamed for ethnically cleansing Jaffna, when they asked all non-Tamils to leave the de facto Tamil state in 1990.
Before Norway brokered a cease-fire in 2002, over 65,000 people had died in conflict.
The peace talks broke down in February, and at least 1,000 combatants and civilians have died since fighting renewed in July.
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