Suicide Bombers of Sri Lanka -Part Three

PULL FACTORS:Youth and children, because of their age, immaturity, curiosity and love for adventure, are susceptible to ‘‘Pied Piper’ enticement through a variety of psychological methods.
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by Daya Somasundaram

Beliefs

(June 12, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) In the beginning, youth joined the militant movements out of altruistic beliefs to safeguard their threatened ethnic identity (Somasundaram, 1998). For example, when in the 1983 riots Tamils as a group were humiliated, the youth took up arms to prevent a complete eclipse of the group’s identity. They joined whichever Tamil militant group was available.That they did so in the thousands with complete dedication, determination and resourceful¬ness is a mark of the deep threat that was felt at the core of their beings, a fear for their identity as a group. It was left to the youth to redeem the Tamil identity and honour, to take up the mantle and meet the challenge for group survival with a violent defiance. It could be said that this was the prime moti¬vating factor at the beginning of the Tamil militancy.

Konrad Lorenz (1963) described such strong motivation as ‘militant enthusi¬asm.’ Due to the powerful emotional charge involved, challenges to group iden¬tity often end in confrontation and conflict, particularly when obstructed or suppressed violently in situations of inter-group tensions, perceived injustices and inequities. Unfortunately, leaders are well versed in the art of cleverly exploiting this reservoir of energy and turning it to their own purpose by appealing to patriotism, language, religion and such mystical concepts as soil and blood. Such appeals have the power to strike deep chords in one’s being, evoking ultimate loyalties and emotive passions. With time, the early motivat¬ing factors changed to more mundane ones.

After they eliminated the other Tamil militant groups taking complete totalitarian control, together with the subsequent Indian intervention in 1987, the Tamil Tigers started using children and women as older men were no longer joining. In time, the older youths matured enough to become disillusioned with the way the struggle was being directed. The intra- and inter-group internecine warfare soon disenchanted most. The vast majority of youth have been fleeing aboard, using complex routes and all their family resources and ingenuity to find asylum in foreign countries, choosing assimi¬lation to the margins of their host culture. However, this widespread Tamil diaspora continued to support financially, vocally and even emotionally the violent nationalist project back in their erstwhile homeland. Yet, neither they, nor their children ever came back to join the militancy and sacrifice them¬selves for the cause.

To a large extent, under the Tigers, recruitment had been ‘voluntary’ until the situation became desperate towards the end of the fighting in 2008–2009. Earlier, for a very short transient period, the Indian Army-backed EPRLF (another Tamil militant group) forcefully conscripted youth for their make-shift Tamil National Army, many of whom were later killed by the Tigers. Child recruitment by the Tamil Tigers became institutionalised after 1990. The Tigers themselves deny that they used child soldiers, but it has been vari¬ously estimated that 50% may be women and 20–40% may be children (UTHR-J, 1995a; Unicef and SCF, 2000). Methods of recruitment have changed more recently with conscription and abductions being reported from the last days in the Vanni (UTHR-J, 2009). It is among those who are unable to find a way to flee aboard, those of the lower socio-economic class trapped in the North and East with no other avenue of escape that have become the catchment population for the militants. Once in the LTTE, the atmosphere within the group, trauma from repeated battles, and a heightened sense of dedication may result in some volunteering to become Black Tigers.

Psychological Methods

Youth and children, because of their age, immaturity, curiosity and love for adventure, are susceptible to ‘‘Pied Piper’ enticement through a variety of psychological methods. Public displays of war paraphernalia, funerals and posters of fallen heroes; speeches and videos, particularly in schools; and heroic, melodious songs, poems and stories, drawing out feelings of patrio¬tism and creating a martyr cult, have all created a compelling milieu.

Following the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom, a whole subculture has grown up around the Tamil militancy, in particular the LTTE which claimed to take up arms to defend the Tamils, their honour, dignity, homeland (Eelam) or Tamil motherland (Tamil thaiyaham) and culture. The LTTE cadres swore an alle¬giance to the leader, Prabhakaran, with their life, with the cyanide capsule (kuppi) worn around their neck as a symbol of their complete sacrifice (thiya¬ham). When they died in battle or in service, they were eulogised as ‘Mavirar’ (great heroes), bodies taken in state by vehicles all over the region with funeral music wailing over loudspeakers in street corners and buried (vithai¬kapaduthal, sowed as seeds) in special cemeteries called Thuyilam Illams (sleeping homes) as memory stones (natukal or ninaivukal when their bodies were not available). Their pictures appeared in posters pasted all over the north-east, in the media (including daily papers, periodicals, publications and internet sites), and glorified in songs, poems, stories, drawings, dramas, vid¬eos, statues, loudspeakers and speeches. Mavirar families were also given spe¬cial status in LTTE controlled (‘uncleared’)4 areas with privileges in accessing services, respect at ceremonies and exemption from giving further children to the LTTE (increasingly ignored in the final months). Annual commemora¬tion celebrations were held all over the north-east with massive public partic¬ipation and abroad among the Tamil diaspora on special days, such as Mavirar Nal (27 November, when the first martyr died) and 5 July (Black Tiger Day) with ritualistic practices and cultural performances. Pictures of the Mavirar are posted all over the media, on walls, as cut-outs, in special pandals erected for this purpose with decorations (in red and yellow). LTTE songs are played over loudspeakers and flames (theepam, signifying the flame of the eternal spirit or soul) are lit at auspicious times. A pride of place is given to acknowledged Black Tiger martyrs at these ceremonies and on the day specially reserved for them, 5 July. This is a great public honour and spec¬tacle that obviously helps in the LTTE propaganda, their public image, con¬trol over the populace, and recruitment.

Prabhakaran himself is reported to have a last supper with the cadres before their mission, a picture of which is released posthumously. It is said that meeting the reclusive leader who inspires awe and reverence befitting a living god can itself be motive enough for vol¬unteering for such missions. Although the LTTE claim to be secular, there is a ‘sacralisation of the national.’ All these ceremonies and manifestation con¬tain rich cultural, religious and historical symbols and motifs which are a syncretism of Hindu and Christian beliefs and practices (Hellmann-Rajanayagam, 2005; Roberts, 2005; Natali, 2008). This martyr cult gives inspiration, beliefs, purpose, zeal and meaning to LTTE cadres and Black Tigers which would encourage and sustain them in their sacrificial actions and death. The anticipated power of this cult is seen by the compulsion of the Sri Lankan state forces to destroy and bulldoze the Thuyilam Illams when they capture that territory and suppress the ceremonies. However, the real test of the long-term survival of these religio-cultural practices and beliefs would be seen by whether they revive when the grip of the state relaxes and for how long it continues.

The severe travel restrictions by the Tigers on leaving areas controlled by them, and applied particularly in the younger age group, created a feeling of entrapment, as well as ensuring that there was a continuous source of recruits. More recently, the Tigers introduced compulsory military-type training in areas under their control, instilling a military thinking. Everyone, beginning from Grade 9, is compelled to undergo training in military drills, the use of arms, and mock battles, as well as being made to carry out military tasks, such as digging bunkers and manning sentry posts. Government rations, other benefits and travel are allowed only to those who have been trained (UTHR-J, 2000).

Paralysis of Socio-Cultural Institutions

Tamil society had prided itself as belonging to an ancient, cultured civilisa¬tion; however, when children started being used in the war, the social struc¬tures and religious institutions failed to protest. In fact, they remained silent and passive. This was in part due to the milieu created by the actions of the Sri Lankan state in its indiscriminate bombing, shelling, detention and tor¬ture. It was also due in part to the general social deterioration due to the war, as well as due to the coercive power of totalitarian control exercised by the Tamil militants through intimidation and brutal elimination of all alternate structures and individuals. Thus, the Tamil militants were allowed to function freely within society, attracting children to their fighting units through their propaganda and psychological pressure exercised within the vacuum left by the abdication of social institutions. There was also popular and social sanction for the whole martyr cult (as described above), including the Black Tiger suicide missions. They became revered heroes. As Mia Bloom (2005) argues, it is when the suicidal terror and violence resonates with the public (for whatever reason, be it state suppression or terror) and finds social sanction, that it is likely to sus¬tain itself successfully. However, the Tamil public and social leaders do not per-ceive these acts as suicide or terror perpetrated against civilians, but as the LTTE choosing ‘legitimate’ military or political targets to eliminate using a weapon of war. In an unequal contest where the weaker, non-state actor does not have the same resources or heavy weaponry, the LTTE sees using a human bomb as a precision instrument, as a means of delivery of the payload to inaccessible but strategic targets. Civilian victims or terror is not the intended goal. They only have admiration for the cadre who dedicate themselves as live weapons (uyir ayutham) for this type of altruistic sacrifice (thatkodai). A potential counter¬ measure then would be to look at the reasons for this popularity or sanction and work to reduce it. In the Lankan example, the state has gone after the LTTE organisation militarily and repression thereafter, rather than solving the underlying root causes. It may not be in a position to resolve the ethnic origins as it is too emotional and intractable. Thus, it becomes an intriguing question of whether given the same material conditions, that is violent repression of the Tamil minority; a denial of their legitimate rights; the religious-cultural context where there is sanction and honour for altruistic suicide; and perhaps the most vital, militant organisational capacity for training and producing such cadre, the phenomena of suicide bombers would again manifest itself ? However unlikely, the precedence and the role models from elsewhere in the world would make one extra vigilant in taking all precautions to prevent a resurgence of similar, organised or semi-autonomous, ‘home-grown’ varieties from emerging.

Previous Part: Part One | Part Two

(Source: Asian Journal of Social Science 38 (2010) 416–441)

To be continued….