People's Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam

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தமிழீழ மக்கள் விடுதலைக் கழகம்
දෙමළ ඊළාම් ජනතා විමුක්ති සංවිධානය
People’s Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam People’s Liberation Organization of
Tamil Eelam
Party flag
Party leader Uma Maheswaran (1979 to 1989)
D. Siddarthan (since 1989)
Alignment Tamil nationalism, Marxism-Leninism
Parliament seats
0/225

The People's Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam ( PLOTE , Tamil தமிழீழ மக்கள் விடுதலைக் கழகம் , Sinhala දෙමළ ඊළාම් ජනතා විමුක්ති සංවිධානය , "People's Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam ") is a former militant and later political organization of Tamils in Sri Lanka .

history

The PLOTE was founded in 1980 by Kadirgamapillai (Kathirkamar) Nallainathan ( Nom de guerre Uma Maheswaren or Mukundan ). This had originally been a leadership cadre of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), but had fallen out with its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran . PLOTE and LTTE were ideologically similar. Both groups fought for an independent socialist Tamil state in Sri Lanka. Of all the larger militant Tamil organizations, the PLOTE was most shaped by Marxist-Leninist ideology. The PLOTE also rejected the guerrilla tactics pursued by the LTTE. Occasionally, PLOTE and LTTE carried out joint actions against representatives of the Sri Lankan authorities, but the relationship was mostly characterized by hostile rivalry. In the early 1980s, PLOTE was supported by the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), the Indian foreign intelligence service. However, the latter ceased support in the mid-1980s and from 1986 the LTTE began systematically to eliminate all rival Tamil militant organizations. In 1987, a large part of the PLOTE cadre fell victim to this “clean-up”. In 1989 the PLOTE founder and leader Uma Maheswaren also died in an assassination attempt. The remaining PLOTE fighters formed a small paramilitary group that fought on the side of government troops against the LTTE and other Tamil groups. On November 3, 1988, about 80 PLOTE fighters were involved as mercenaries in an unsuccessful attempted coup against the government of the Maldives . In 1989 a political arm called the Democratic People's Liberation Front (DPLF, ஜனநாயக மக்கள் விடுதலை முன்னணி) was founded, with which the PLOTE participated in elections and in 1999 the group stopped its terrorist activities. The last known terrorist action by the PLOTE is the murder of three Tamil politicians from rival groups (including two from TELO ) on May 15, 1999 near Bambalapitiya ( Colombo ). The paramilitary arm of PLOTE was active on the side of the government troops until the end of the civil war in 2009. This paramilitary wing has been repeatedly accused of human rights crimes.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mapping Sri Lanka's Political Parties: Actors and Evolutions, chapter People's Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE). (PDF) Verite Research / Westminster Foundation for Democracy, pp. 27–28 , accessed on July 31, 2020 .
  2. ^ Helena Lisibach: Tamil Actors in Sri Lanka - Issue Paper. (pdf) Swiss Refugee Aid , December 2007, p. 18 , accessed on August 1, 2020 .
  3. ^ A b People's Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam. Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), Stanford University, accessed July 31, 2020 .
  4. ^ Asia: Sri Lanka. Human Rights Watch World Report, 2002, accessed August 1, 2020 .