Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization

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விடுதலை இயக்கம் தமிழீழ
ෙමළ ඊලාම් විමුක්ති සංවිධානය
Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization
Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam
Selvam Adaikalanathan (2015)
Party leader Selvam Adaikalanathan (since 1987)
founding 1968 disorganized group
1977 militant organization
1987 political party
Place of foundation Sri LankaSri Lanka Sri Lanka
Alignment Tamil nationalism and separatism
Parliament seats
2/225
Website telo.org

The Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization ( TELO , Tamil தமிழீழ விடுதலை இயக்கம் , Sinhala දෙමළ ඊලාම් විමුක්ති සංවිධානය , "Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam ") is a small political party of the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka .

history

TELO was founded in 1968 as an unstructured extra-parliamentary militant group of Sri Lankan Tamil students. Nadarajah Thangavelu ( nom de guerre : Thangadurai ) and Selvarajah Yogachandran ( Kuttimani ) are considered founders or initiators . Officially under the current name, the organization was founded in September 1977, in a decade that was marked by strong political upheavals in Sri Lanka and the radicalization of Tamil political demands. TELO initially worked closely with the "Tamil Tigers" ( LTTE ) and carried out robberies and attacks on state facilities. One of their most spectacular actions, together with the LTTE, on March 25, 1981, was the robbery of a money truck that was carrying the entire daily income of the People's Bank in Jaffna , near Neerveli on the Jaffna Peninsula. Several people accompanying the money transport were killed and 7.8 million Sri Lankan rupees were looted. It was the largest robbery in Sri Lanka's history to date. The two leaders of the movement, Thangathurai and Kuttimani, were captured by the Sri Lankan army on April 5, 1981 at Mannalkadal, near Point Pedro, while trying to escape to India by boat. They later both died in a prison revolt during the so-called " Black July " 1983 in Wellikade prison. The exact circumstances of her death remained controversial and Tamil allegations were made of targeted killing by the Sri Lankan security forces. After her arrest, S. Sabaratnam took over the leadership of the TELO and the TELO formed a joint military alliance with other militant Tamil organizations, including the LTTE since 1984, the Eelam National Liberation Front (ENLF). During this time, the cadres and fighters of TELO were trained in secret operations by the Indian secret service in training camps in India. TELO's pro-Indian stance has been an ongoing point of contention between TELO and the anti-Indian LTTE. The LTTE claimed absolute leadership in Tamil affairs and unscrupulously enforced it against other rival Tamil organizations. After leaving the ENLF in February 1986, the LTTE murdered a large part of the 150 to 300-strong TELO cadre in a military action in April / May 1986, including on May 6, 1986 (the date varies in different sources) in Kondavil near Jaffna also TELO leader Sabaratnam.

After the destruction of its military organization, TELO reconstituted itself as a political party under the leadership of Selvam Adaikalanathan in 1987 within the framework of the Indo-Sri Lankan peace agreement . In the parliamentary elections in Sri Lanka in 1989 she entered an alliance with other Tamil parties under the party symbols of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) and in the parliamentary election in 1994 she formed an alliance ( Democratic People's Liberation Front , DPLP) with the People's Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) and the Eelam Revolutionary Organization of Students (EROS).

In 2001 it joined forces with the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) and the Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) to form an electoral alliance, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA). The TNA has run in all parliamentary elections since then and is still in existence today (as of 2020). After the parliamentary elections in 2015 , TELO occupied 2 seats within the 16-seat TNA parliamentary group.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b History. TELO website, February 25, 2012, accessed on March 24, 2020 (English).
  2. ↑ a b c Mapping Sri Lanka's Political Parties: Actors and Evolutions, Chapter 2.1. Political Parties Formally Constituted Along Ethnic Lines. (pdf) Verite Research / Westminster Foundation for Democracy, p. 27 , accessed on March 24, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO). padippakam.com, accessed March 24, 2020 .
  4. ^ Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization. Stanford center for International Security and Cooperation, accessed March 24, 2020 .
  5. ^ Diary of Incidents . In: Tamil Times . tape 5 , no. August 10 , 1986, ISSN  0266-4488 , pp. 14 (English, pdf ).
  6. ↑ A. Jeyaratnam Wilson: Sri Lankan Tamil Nationalism: Its Origins and Development in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries . UBC Press, Vancouver 2000, ISBN 0-7748-0759-8 , chap. The Miltarization of Tamil Youth, p. 127-128 (English).
  7. ↑ `We are on the correct path '. Frontlne, October 22, 2004, accessed on March 24, 2020 .