“They ambushed soldiers and assassinated politicians,” writes Samanth Subramanian in his brilliant memoir, “but they also killed monks and pilgrims in the majestic Buddhist shrine of Anuradhapura, shot up Sinhalese women and children across the country, and blew up aeroplanes and trains.” The Tigers were capable of great brutality, carrying out many more suicide attacks in the 90s than any Muslim group, and assaulting rival Tamils as pitilessly as they attacked Singhalese institutions. Yet there was nothing comical about what resulted from such attacks. It was wonderful: real freedom fighters earnestly studying Sylvester Stallone to see how it’s done: from Hanoi to Sri Lanka via Hollywood an entire civil war – tens of thousands killed, maimed and wounded – inspired by imported Hollywood heroics. They had complete sets of Rambo, Rocky and James Bond all the Schwarzeneggers, including Conan the Barbarian most of the Vietnam films and no less than three versions of The Magnificent Seven. Later, he showed me the Tigers’ video library. We’ve learned all we know from these films.” We often consult Predator and Rambo before planning ambushes. War films are shown three times a week and are compulsory.
Hadn’t I seen a film of this somewhere? He smiled: “Our camps are all equipped with videos. As he told of the 50-mile marches through the monsoon jungle, the moonlit crossing of lagoon and the silent belly crawling as the guerrillas surrounded Sri Lankan army camps, I was aware of a growing sense of deja vu. On one occasion, I succeeded in talking my way into one of the Tigers’ jungle camps and interviewed one of their most senior military commanders who went by the nom de guerre of Castro. Hauled over at gunpoint at Tiger checkposts, I would always take the opportunity to chat to the severely doctrinaire and often very young cadres, and grew to be both fascinated and repelled by this most disciplined and ruthless of South Asian guerrilla forces, each of whom wore a cyanide phial around their necks in case they were captured. The most fascinating part of the assignment was always trying to track down the Tamil Tigers.
It was a constantly surprising conflict where Tamil Hindus – and occasionally even Christians – were the suicide bombers, Muslims tended to be non-violent onlookers and the Buddhist Singhalese majority operated a violent “gestapo”, which succeeded in keeping the minority communities in a constant state of terror. A s a young foreign correspondent posted to South Asia in the late 1980s, I spent a lot of time in the Sri Lankan jungle, covering the longest-running civil war in the region.
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