Women in the Sri Lankan Civil War

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The Sri Lankan civil war between 1983 and 2009 had a significant impact on women. [1]

Contents

Background

The Sri Lankan civil war was a civil war fought in Sri Lanka between 1983 and 2009. The war principally opposed the Sinhalese-dominated Government of Sri Lanka against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), an internationally designated terrorist group that aimed to create an indepedent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in northern Sri Lanka. Sparked by the Black July anti-Tamil pogrom in 1983, the war would end with the Sri Lankan government victorious after a 2009 offensive that militarily defeated the LTTE. Between 1987 and 1990, the Indian government was also involved in the conflict, through the Indian Peace Keeping Force.

In the LTTE

A significant number of women fought with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the Sri Lankan Civil War, constituting 20-to-30% of LTTE combattants over the course of the war. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] According to Kara Joyce of Georgetown University, the LTTE "were unique in many ways, one of which being their inclusion of women in combat roles during the Sri Lankan Civil War," saying that the LTTE "included women in all aspects of their organization, from combat to naval expeditions to logistics." [8] According to journalists Kim Wall and Mansi Choksi, the LTTE "boasted the world’s fiercest army of women, even as Tamil society imposed a culture of subservience. In the early years of the war, women were assigned roles in recruitment, propaganda, medical care, and fundraising. But slowly, women made up a large contingent of commandants, especially in suicide squads." [9]

According to Reed Wood of the University of Essex and Lindsey Allemang of the University of Iowa, the "combination of a permissive gender ideology and acute resource pressures contributed to the large-scale recruitment of female combatants" by the LTTE. [10]

Malathi was the first female LTTE fighter to die during the war, being killed in action in 1987 in a battle with the Indian Peace Keeping Force. A brigade of the LTTE was later named after her, the Malathi Brigade. [11] Maria Vasanthi Michael, known under the nom de guerre Major Sothiya, commanded the first women-only unit of the LTTE, the Sothiya Brigade, formed in 1989. [12] The Gonagala massacre in 1999, where 54 civilian villagers were murdered by the LTTE, gained notoriety for being perpetrated by a mostly female LTTE force. [13]

Women also participated in the LTTE Black Tigers suicide attacks, including the Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, carried out by Kalaivani Rajaratnam. [14] According to Josh Roose of the Australian Catholic University, the LTTE "are widely credited with mainstreaming the use of the suicide vest as a force multiplier," instilling "an increased sense of horror and terror among the wider population that anyone—man or woman—might be the next bomber." [15]

In the Sri Lankan military

In February 1998, the Sri Lanka Air Force reported that it had received over 800 applications from women to enlist to fly transport planes in the war zone after launching its first recruitment advertising campaign aimed at women. [16]

Aftermath

Post-war, many women who fought with the LTTE faced difficulties in transitioning to civilian life, particularly as they were often expected to occupy less equal roles than they had as combatants. [17]

Around half of the HALO Trust staff working on demining operations in Sri Lanka are women. [18] [19]

Literature

Journalist Rohini Mohan 2014 non-fiction book The Seasons of Trouble includes the story of a female combattant in the LTTE. [20]

V. V. Ganeshananthan's 2023 novel Brotherless Night follows the coming-of-age story of a teenage girl who wishes to become a doctor but gets swept up in the civil war. [21]

Film

In 1998, Indian director Santosh Sivan released the film The Terrorist, based on LTTE suicide bomber Kalaivani Rajaratnam. [22]

See also

Related Research Articles

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<i>The Orders Were to Rape You</i> A book by Meena Kandasamy

The Orders Were to Rape You: Tigresses in the Tamil Eelam Struggle is a book by Meena Kandasamy about the violence, particularly sexual violence, faced by the female fighters of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam after the end of the Sri Lankan Civil War. She narrates the suffering faced by first-person accounts by women who moved abroad to Malaysia and Indonesia after the end of the Sri Lankan Civil war. She narrates the suffering of a woman married to an LTTE member who had no direct connection with the movement, she speaks of the questioning, harassment, and torture by Army personnel and female fighter of the LTTE who narrated her ordeal of being repeatedly raped by army personnel and contemplated suicide but decided against for the sake of her child during there detention in camps after the end of the Civil War in 2009. In the other part she writes about the resistance poems written by the female fighters.

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Kalaivani Rajaratnam was a prominent Sri Lankan Tamil militant associated with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Born in Kaithady Nunavil in the Jaffna Peninsula, she is notably recognized for her role as a suicide bomber in the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. She is also known by her aliases Dhanu, Thenmozhi, Gayatri and Anbu. Rajaratnam's involvement in this high-profile act of violence marked her as a significant and controversial figure in the Tamil separatist movement and South Asian political history.

References

  1. ↑ "Sri Lanka's Conflict-Affected Women: Dealing with the Legacy of War". International Crisis Group . 28 July 2017. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  2. ↑ "Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam". Mapping Militants Project. 1 July 2015. Retrieved 21 November 2024.
  3. ↑ Buthpitiya, Vindhya (1 May 2023). "How to Capture Birds of Freedom: Picturing Tamil Women at War". Trans Asia Photography. 13. doi: 10.1215/21582025-10365016 . Retrieved 21 November 2024.
  4. ↑ Dissanayake, Sara (1 August 2017). "Women in the Tamil Tigers: Path to Liberation or Pawn in a Game?". Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses. 9 (8): 1–6. JSTOR   26351541 . Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  5. ↑ Chamberlain, Gethin (12 April 2009). "Sri Lanka conflict: 'Two of us fled. 75 other women killed themselves with grenades,' says Tamil Tiger". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  6. ↑ Gowrinathan, Nimmi (25 April 2017). "The committed female fighter: the political identities of Tamil women in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam". International Feminist Journal of Politics. 19 (3): 327–341. doi:10.1080/14616742.2017.1299369 . Retrieved 21 November 2024.
  7. ↑ Stack-O'Connor, Alisa (6 February 2007). "Lions, Tigers, and Freedom Birds: How and Why the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Employs Women". Terrorism and Political Violence. 19: 43–63. doi:10.1080/09546550601054642 . Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  8. ↑ Joyce, Kara (1 August 2023). "Gender Roles and Military Necessity: Women's Inclusion in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam" (PDF). Retrieved 21 November 2024.
  9. ↑ Wall, Kim (22 May 2018). "A Chance to Rewrite History: The Women Fighters of the Tamil Tigers". International Women's Media Foundation . Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  10. ↑ Wood, Reed M. (9 August 2021). "Female fighters and the fates of rebellions: How mobilizing women influences conflict duration". Conflict Management and Peace Science. 39 (5): 565–586. doi:10.1177/07388942211034746.
  11. ↑ "Remembering 2nd Lt. Maalathy". Tamil Guardian . 10 October 2024. Retrieved 21 November 2024.
  12. ↑ "Remembering Major Sothiya". Tamil Guardian . 11 January 2021. Retrieved 21 November 2024.
  13. ↑ "Slaughter of villagers led by women". The Straits Times . 19 September 1999. Retrieved 23 December 2024.
  14. ↑ Khan, Stephen (11 June 2009). "Female suicide bombers: Tamil Tiger teenage girl led the way". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  15. ↑ Gunia, Amy (25 April 2019). "'The Birthplace of the Suicide Belt.' Sri Lanka's Deadly History of Suicide Bombings". Time Magazine. Retrieved 21 November 2024.
  16. ↑ "800 Lankan women apply to fly air force planes". The Straits Times . 14 February 1998. Retrieved 23 December 2024.
  17. ↑ Robertson, Holly (7 July 2018). "From soldiers to housewives: Women who fought as Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka are forced into traditional roles". The Washington Post. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  18. ↑ Joyce, Allison (8 March 2019). "The women clearing Sri Lanka's minefields - in pictures". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  19. ↑ Saxena, Akanksha (9 December 2024). "Female deminers drive Sri Lanka's postwar recovery". DW. Retrieved 9 December 2024.
  20. ↑ "The Seasons of Trouble: Life amid the Ruins of Sri Lanka's Civil War". Publisher's Weekly. 22 September 2014. Retrieved 21 November 2024.
  21. ↑ Allardice, Lisa (14 June 2024). "'Don't read just one book about Sri Lanka': VV Ganeshananthan on her civil war novel". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  22. ↑ Maharaj, Shanoo (10 October 1999). "Life's cheap for 'toughest girls in the world'". The New Paper . Retrieved 23 December 2024.
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