Conflict in Sri Lanka:Beginning of an end of another Era

"Key events in Sri Lanka's LTTE separatist war "

(November,02, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian)

1972: The Tamil Tiger leader, Uma Maheshwaran with Velupillai Prabhakaran, forms the Tamil New Tigers.

May 1976: The Tamil New Tigers become the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as tensions increase in the Tamil-dominated north and east of the country.

July 1983: The LTTE ambushes army patrol in Jaffna, killing 13 soldiers and sparking anti-Tamil riots in which an estimated 300-600 people die. The events of the month, dubbed Black July, ignite a civil war that claims at least 65,000 over the following two decades.

July 1987: India and Sri Lanka sign a pact to end Tamil separatism. India deploys peacekeeping troops in Sri Lanka.

March 1990: Indian troops withdraw from Sri Lanka.

June 10 1990: The LTTE resumes the separatist war.

May 1991: The former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi is blown up, allegedly by an LTTE suicide bomber.

May 1993: President Ranasinghe Premadasa is blown up by an LTTE suicide bomber.

October 1994: Peace talks begin between the government and the LTTE.

December 1995: Jaffna falls to the Sri Lankan army.

July 1996: Tigers overrun an army camp in the north-eastern town of Mullativu, killing 1,200 troops.

September 1998: Tigers overrun the Kilinochchi army camp, killing more than 900 government soldiers and losing 250 of their own fighters.

December 1999: President Chandrika Kumaratunga is wounded in a suicide assassination bid. Twenty-seven others are killed.

February 2000: The Norwegian government plays an intermediary role in putting a new peace package before the Tamil Tiger rebels.

February 2001: The LTTE is banned in Britain.

February 2002: The Sri Lankan government and the LTTE sign a long-term ceasefire agreement.

April 2002: The Tamil leader signals the end of civil war.

September 2002: The Tamil Tigers drop their independence claim.

February 2003: Peace talks are shaken by a Tamil Tiger suicide blast.

November 2003: Sri Lanka is plunged into crisis as the president suspends parliament, sacks three ministers and brings the army on to the streets of the capital, Colombo. Norwegian mediators pull out of peace talks.

July 2004: Suicide bomb blasts in Colombo are the first in three years.

December 2004: Fresh hopes arise that a long-lasting ceasefire might be possible after the Indian Ocean tsunami devastates swaths of the island.

November 2005: The prime minister, Mahinda Rajapakse, is elected president after taking a hardline stance against the LTTE terrorism during campaigning.

December 2005: A state of war, in all but name, returns. Ceasefire monitors warn of the "irreparable deterioration" of security. An estimated 5,000 people are killed over the next 18 months.

October 2006: An LTTE suicide attack on a Sri Lankan naval convoy kills more than 100 sailors as fighting intensifies in Habarana.

March 2007: The Tigers claim to have established an air force and launch a bombing raid on an international airport. The number of foreign tourists slumps.

April 2007: The former LTTE commander Colonel Karuna claims the 2002 ceasefire was no more than a ruse by the group to buy time to re-arm.

June 2007: The government is accused of ethnic cleansing after Tamils are transported from Colombo to their northern and eastern homeland.

September 2007: More than 70 Tamil Tigers are killed in fighting, the army claims.

November 2007: The leader of the LTTE's political wing, SP Thamilselvan, is killed in air raid. Thamilselvan had become the rebel group's link to the outside world, conducting meetings with Norwegian peace envoys and foreign ceasefire monitors.