In the neighbouring island nation of Sri Lanka protests started gathering following certain pro sinhala policies of the Government when the minority Tamils smelt a rat of marginalisation. It is another matter debatable as to whether such reverse discrimination is justified or not because in our own country, Dravidian parties have implemented such policies against Brahmin domination. But the discrimination was just discrimination providing preferential treatment to the majority. Early Tamil Leaders were fighting politically to restore such rights they previously enjoyed in abundance but sinhala Chauvnist elements like Janatha Vimukthi Perumana stalled all such efforts supported by a vocal Buddhist clergy. Unlike the Brahmins of Tamil Nadu, who non chalantly accepted the fact of life, that is disproportionate occupation of all opportunities is against all norms of justice and either migrated to the west or neighbouring states, the Jaffna Tamil felt offended and took to arms. This Tamil revolt was accentuated by Welicade prison massacre and there were plenty of Tamil men wielding arms to protest not as a matter of retaliation but as a matter of intimidation. These men were then trained in modern weaponry by Indian State for their own reasons and the infratricide resulted in large scale killings of men- sinhala tamil or Budhdhist. Ultimately one man survived. This man was the blue eyed boy of late MG Ramachandran and later claimed to represent the aspiration of entire Eelam Tamils. 

LTTE could not be tamed by Sri Lankan Army. JR Jayawardane entrusted this task to IPKF who also were foiled by the guerilla tactics and use of human shields. This further bolstered the morale of LTTE cadres who thought they have become invincible and one day they will liberate Eelam. Infact LTTE was running a parallel administration in Sri Lanka collecting taxes and running civic services to the people of Jaffna. On a couple of occasions Sri Lankan Army managed to capture Jaffna but LTTE always bounced back. the heroics endeared them to the masses such that it was believed that Tamil Eelam is very much attainable reality. 

For all his brutality, Prabakaran had an army of men having implicit allegiance to his idealogies. LTTE was a well knit force and they also practised and became much like a conventional army in later years. This Rebel leader was compared often to Yasser Arafat, Fidel Castro et all by his supporters. LTTE claims its territorial rights on Eelam to the rights of Palestinians. but unlike Israel who always got away with massive humanitarian crimes due to strong US and European lobbies, LTTE slowly became a proscribed outfit following the ghastly murder of Rajiv gandhi excecuted  purely on personal vendatta. 

Prabakaran had his moments of truth. He always had support of tamils in exile who exercised enormous clout on Western Governments so that every time LTTE was cornered they managed a ceasefire. Norwegian interlocutors were allowed to mediate in the internal affiars of Sri Lanka and they succeeded in making Sri Lanka climb down from a high pedestal willng to accomodate a political solution albiet within the territorial soverignity of Sri Lanka. Prabakaran could have surrendered his arms and accpeted the political solution. Well destiny willed otherwise. Prabakaran broke the truce yet again only to be killed after a long battle bringing untold miseries to millions of Tamils. LTTE seems to have been finished for the moment but the mutual hatrad, distrust between the two estranged linguistic groups seems to get widened. It is for Rajapakshe to arrest this and win the confidence of the people if his war has to have any meaning at all