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The LTTE created the ‘Office of Great Heroes’ (OGH) in 1991 in order to foster public support for LTTE martyrs. The office is part of the LTTE’s propaganda wing, which operates in Jaffna as well as in various European and North American countries.³⁶⁵ With Pirabakaran’s guidance,

365 The LTTE’s propaganda wing has offices in 54 countries from Burma, Botswana, to the UK, Canada, Australia, France, and Switzerland. The LTTE has a publishing office in London that is used to disseminate LTTE

one of the first actions instituted by the OGH was the establishment of the ‘Great Heroes Day’

(GHD). GHD occurs every year on November 27, the day in which the first Black Tiger, Captain Millar, participated in a suicide attack against the SLA. It marks the end of what the LTTE calls ‘Heroes Week.’ The purpose of GHD is twofold. First, it introduces the martyrs to the Tamil population. The LTTE keep the identities of their martyrs in strict secrecy until a few months after an attack has occurred. Details are then slowly released to the public by the OGH.

This is in stark contrast with a Islamist groups, like Hamas, that actively broadcast the identity of a suicide attacker almost immediately after the suicide attack has occurred.

Second, the GHD is a way to inculcate a societal veneration of all LTTE martyrs. In Tamil, GHD is called eluccinal or ‘the day of rising.’ Poems and stories are read about the lives and heroism of the LTTE martyrs. Also shared for the first time are the poems written by Black Tigers or others who have become martyrs fighting for Tamil Eelam. An example of one such poem is given below written by an LTTE member named Tirunamam.

“They go, the great heroes, they go-

Having won the war with the enemy they go to their death.

The big army of the ruler arranged to march in rows In the sounds of music they dissolve-

In a vehicle decorated with flowers, wrapped in the red flag Go the ones who command respect.

Having paid the great debt to the soil of the good Tamil Mother Crowned with the golden band they go-

Their Mothers to wail and our country’s people in sobbing rows they go.

Consciously having given their own body for the land The life for Tamil, they go-

Courageous with the pride of youth in their body Flower bedecked they go-

In the house’s doorway a lamp, the filled jar of perfection, the black flag A string of coconut leaves to hang over the threshold, so they go

Having created an epic like to the deep sea

materials to the diaspora community. See Daniel Byman et al., Trends in Outside Support for Insurgent Movements, (Santa Monica: RAND, 2001), 44.

Go the heroic guardians.

Before the heroic war tigers sink into the ground A thousand tigers sprout

Having beaten their chest, having lived in honor, these Unbowed they go-Great Heroes

Unsullied, having given their lives for the life of our village To seek the final resting place they go-

Their names mentioned they go on to live as history In the hearts of the Tamils tomorrow.”³⁶⁶

The event is emotionally charged and inundates residents with Black Tiger propaganda.

Posters of the dead martyrs line the streets, pro-LTTE music is broadcast constantly, and Black Tiger videos are played throughout the day. A popular movie that attracts Tamil youth is called Tayakkanavu, a movie produced by Nitarcanam, the official television station of the LTTE.

According to Peter Schalk,

“[the movie begins] by showing a happy family…[who are] sitting in the garden celebrating a birthday. They have good relations with their neighbors. The son takes the neighbor’s young daughter to school on his motor-bike. One day the Lankan Air Force drops bombs on the school, and the boy can only take the dead body of his young friend to her parents. In his inner vision, he anticipates that this could have happened to his own younger sister. He decides that he will enter the squad of the Black Tigers.”³⁶⁷

The film depicts the rigorous training given to a Black Tiger and emphasizes the Tiger’s joy when he is chosen to participate in a Black Tiger operation.

Another prominent event of Heroes Day is the annual speech given by Pirabakaran.

Pirabakaran’s speech is considered as “a sort of throne speech in which he usually elaborates on

366 See Dagmar Hellmann-Rajanayagam, “And Heroes Die: Poetry of the Tamil Liberation Movement in Northern Sri Lanka,” (Journal of South Asian Studies, Vol. 28, No. 1, 2005), 129.

367 Peter Schalk, “Resistance and Martyrdom in the Process of State Formation of Tamil Eelam,” in Martyrdom and Political Resistance, 77.

the victories, ground situation, future plans and an analysis of the current political situation.”³⁶⁸ The speech is given at sunset next to the ever-burning ‘flame of sacrifice,’ which commemorates the eternal memory of all LTTE martyrs.

The public speech enables Pirabakaran to present his ideology of martyrdom to the Tamil people. From his first speech delivered in 1992, to the one given before his death in 2009, he has used this chance to inject his ideology into the Tamil population. During his first GHD speech delivered in 1992, he told his Tamil audience that GHD “is the sacred day when we cherish in our memory those exceptional beings who, by their sacrifice, have made our freedom struggle a heroic epic in the annals of world history.”³⁶⁹ This mirrors the language that he uses with the Black Tigers, who believe that achieving a liberated Tamil homeland is a sacred aim. This theme is of central importance to Pirabakaran’s ideology of martyrdom, which is evidenced by the fact that the theme appears in every GHD speech given by Pirabakaran from 1992-2008.³⁷⁰ Pirabakaran uses this to emphasize to the Tamil people the importance of the struggle against the Sinhalese state. It is a struggle that takes on a religious importance and as such requires the sacrifice not only of the LTTE members but also the Tamil people.

368 Natali Cristiania, Building Cemeteries, Constructing Identities: Funerary Practices and Nationalist Discourse Among the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, (Unpublished Dissertation, University of Bologna, 2007), 6.

369 Vellupillai Pirabakaran, "Heroes Day Speech-1992." Available online at www.eelamweb.com.

Accessed on 6/29/09. English translations of the Martyr's Day Speeches done by LTTE International Secretariat, 211 Katherine Road, London E61BU, UK. Every Heroes Day speech given by Pirabakaran from 1992-2008 has been translated by the LTTE’s International Secretariat and is available online at eelamweb. Some of the speeches, from 2002-2008, have been videotaped so that one can watch them online. Many of Pirabakaran’s speeches are also available via YouTube.

370In each speech he uses the term ‘sacred struggle.’

After laying the groundwork for the holy aim, Pirabakaran goes on to describe the characteristics of LTTE martyrs. He calls the LTTE heroes “supreme idealists” who “loved their goal more than their lives.”³⁷¹ He goes on to say that “none can equal our martyrs in their dedication, deep commitment to the goal and tremendous courage that transcends the fear of death.”³⁷² Again, this mirrors the concept he developed for the Black Tigers. As aforementioned, the martyr is the tiyaki or ‘one who abandons’ his or her life for the Tamil cause. This is why Pirabakaran calls the martyrs ‘supreme idealists’ because the martyr believes that abandoning his or her life will make an independent Tamil country a reality. Additionally, Pirabakaran roots the Tamil Eelam struggle in the sacrifice of the martyrs. As he says, “our martyrs are the pillars of our freedom movement, whose blood enriches the history of our freedom struggle, whose ideal makes our struggle supreme, whose sacrifices shape the formation of our nation, [and] whose memories make our determination stronger.”³⁷³ An image Pirabakaran often uses is that the idea for Tamil Eelam is but a seed that must be watered by the blood of the martyrs.³⁷⁴

Also, the speech serves to remind the Tamil people that the SLG is the cause of the conflict and concomitantly of their suffering. Pirabakaran reiterates to the population that the injustice and intolerance of the SLG has prompted the LTTE to fight a ‘war of liberation.’

Indeed, he claims that the “anti-Tamil attitude of Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinism…has turned Sri

371Ibid.

372Ibid.

373Ibid.

374 Ibid. An interesting parallel is that Hamas uses almost the exact same line when describing their martyrs.

Lanka into a blazing cauldron of violence.”³⁷⁵ In every GHD speech he has given, Pirabakaran uses the term ‘Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinism.’ He goes on to say that this chauvinism has “its roots buried in Sri Lankan Buddhism, [which] has perversely spread throughout the Sinhala social formation and penetrated into the Sinhala political system.”³⁷⁶ The main message he is conveying is that the roots of the Tamil conflict stem from a politicized Buddhism that the first section of this chapter addressed. Indeed, he mentions that “the Sinhala nation continues to be entrapped in the Mahavamsa mindset, in that mythical ideology. The Sinhalese people are still caught up in the legendary fiction that the island of Sri Lanka is a divine gift to Buddhism, a holy land entitled to the Sinhala race.”³⁷⁷

After identifying the main cause of the Tamil conflict, he is quick to remind the Tamils that “Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism [is] not prepared to resolve the ethnic conflict through peaceful means.”³⁷⁸ If the SLG refuses to address Tamil grievances, then the only option is to obtain independence through the use of violence. As Pirabakaran tells his audience, “we cannot gain our rights by pleading with the Sinhala rulers. We must fight and win our rights. History has not recorded any liberation struggle that has won without fighting, without bloodshed, without death and destruction, without sacrifice.”³⁷⁹ He states that the fight they are engaged in is just because it is rooted in the right of self-determination.³⁸⁰ Since the struggle is based on

375Ibid., Heroes Speech 1998.

376Ibid., Heroes Speech 2000.

377Ibid., Heroes Speech 2005.

378Ibid., Heroes Speech 1999.

379Ibid., Heroes Speech 1996.

380Ibid., Heroes Speech 2004.

self-determination, he tells the Tamil people that the LTTE is not a terrorist organization. As he says, “we are not terrorists. We are not mentally demented as to commit blind acts of violence impelled by racist and religious fanaticism. We are fighting and sacrificing our lives for the love of a noble cause, human freedom.”³⁸¹

The creation of GHD and the speeches given by Pirabakaran has helped the LTTE to create and foster grassroots support and loyalty among the population for Pirabakaran’s ideology of martyrdom. This has caused the LTTE to be “the only group that is accepted by the [Tamil]

population as ‘on of our own.’”³⁸² The Tigers are lovingly referred to as ‘our boys’ and ‘our sons and daughters’ in popular discourse.³⁸³ Additionally, the Tamil population venerates the Black Tigers as examples par excellence of the sacrifice required to achieve Tamil Eelam.

Another way the LTTE fosters popular support for its martyrs is through the building of ‘martyr cemeteries’ that the Tamil population visits to revere and remember the martyrs’ sacrifices.