Teenage girls are the best candidates for suicide bombers among the Tamil Tigers.
by Graemme Marshall
Captured in a photograph, taken minutes before
the bomb blast that assassinated Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Ghandi, were
girls waiting in line to present flowers. Indian authorities believe one
of these girls was a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber.
In an election rally explosion in
October 1994 in the suburbs of Colombo, more than 50 Sri Lankans were
killed-including Gamimi Dissanayake, one of the leading candidates
for president. Seen just before the blast was a young woman reaching
up under her T-shirt, probably pressing the detonator of a powerful
bomb strapped to her body. The bomb was loaded with ball bearings to
make it more deadly. The woman's head was later found on top of a building
80 yards away. The explosion was widely assumed to be the work of Tamil
Tigers.
Why so young, so
committed and why girls?
Faced with harassment and economic
deprivation, young Tamils are ready to give up their lives. To them
it is the ultimate sacrifice. They are ready to pay it. There is a
growing pantheon of martyrs for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE), which has fought a 17-year war of independence for northern
Sri Lanka. Why do they feel this way? "The only way we can get our
Eelam [homeland] is through arms. That is the only way anybody will
listen to us. Even if we die" ("Ultimate Sacrifice," Far Eastern
Economic Review, June 2000, p. 64).
The LTTE and other Tamil rebel groups
want Tamil-dominated parts of Sri Lanka to break away and create a
separate Tamil nation-Eelam-in the north and east.
Suicide bombers
an effective weapon
In addition to the assassinations
of Ghandi and Dissanayake, suicide squads have
claimed the lives of hundreds, perhaps
thousands of Sri Lankans. Suicide bombers have disrupted political rallies
leading up to recent elections, killing members of the public. More than
just an effective weapon in the Tigers' arsenal, suicide bombers are a
powerful symbol of control-the ultimate with which to hold Sri Lankan society
to ransom.
