Facebook icon
Twitter icon
e-mail icon

25 years on, remembering Thileepan

September 26 is the anniversary of the death of LTTE Lt. Col. Thileepan in 1987 during his hungerstrike appealing for the Indian government of Premier Rajiv Gandhi to honour the security undertakings it gave to the Tamil people alongside its 1987 Accord with Sri Lanka. Click image for details.

September 26th 2012 marks the 25th anniversary of the death of Lt. Col Thileepan of the LTTE, after he fasted to death on a hungerstrike appealing to the Indian government to honour pledges made to the Tamil people.

Thileepan, the then political wing leader of the Jaffna district for the LTTE, began his fast on the 15th of September 1987, with 100,000 people gathered around the historic Nallur Kandwaswamy Temple in Jaffna. He put forward 5 demands to the Indian government:

- the release of all Tamils held under Sri Lanka’s Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA),
- a halt to the state-sponsored Sinhala colonisation of Tamil lands,
- an end to the building of new Sri Lankan military camps in the Tamil areas,
- the withdrawal of the Sri Lankan security forces from Tamil schools, and
- the disarming of Sinhala and Muslim paramilitary militia.

25 years later, Tamil political prisoners are still being detained, colonisation has continued unabated, the Sri Lankan military continues to dominate the Tamil homeland, and government-backed paramilitaries are still on the rampage.

Also see:

Self-sacrifice for the greater good has a long tradition (Opinion)

Witness to Thileepan’s fast (Feature)

See also, the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord and the LTTE's response to it.

See a Tamil-language documentary on Thileepan's fast, with footage from his hungerstrike below.

We need your support

Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Tamil journalists are particularly at threat, with at least 41 media workers known to have been killed by the Sri Lankan state or its paramilitaries during and after the armed conflict.

Despite the risks, our team on the ground remain committed to providing detailed and accurate reporting of developments in the Tamil homeland, across the island and around the world, as well as providing expert analysis and insight from the Tamil point of view

We need your support in keeping our journalism going. Support our work today.

For more ways to donate visit https://donate.tamilguardian.com.