SUMMARY

The conflict between PLOTE (People’s Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam) and LTTE (Thamil Eelam Viduthalai Puligal: Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) originates in a number of background factors. First, PLOTE’s origins were a key factor in the relations between the two organizations, PLOTE being a splinter group of LTTE, created as one high-ranking LTTE member (Uma Maheswaran) accused LTTE leader Prabhakaran of being undemocratic and pursuing bad strategies for the creation of a Tamil state. Further determining the relationship between the two organizations was LTTE’s drive to become the unique voice of Tamils in Sri Lanka by dominating and eliminating what it saw as competing groups and factions. This second reason for the initiation of violence was declared by LTTE through a June 1986 ultimatum directed at PLOTE and a number of other Tamil paramilitary groups. Thirdly, the different and very anti-conciliatory position LTTE took as opposed to most other Tamil groups in regards to the Indian intervention, the Indo-Sri Lankan Accords, demilitarization, and transformation to political party further aggravated the rift between LTTE and PLOTE, creating even more tensions.

The first signs of violence between the groups appeared in 1982, when PLOTE leader Uma Maheswaran and LTTE leader Prabhakaran exchanged shots in Pondy Bazaar. These initial signs aggravated, and, by 1987, significant reports of clashes exist in various parts of the Tamil dominated areas, both in Northern and Eastern Sri Lanka. Violence intensified as PLOTE and other groups engaged in negotiations with the Indian Peacekeeping Force and the Government of Sri Lanka and prepared for elections in 1989, while LTTE rejected any such approaches. After the death of Uma Maheswaran in 1989 (at the hands of a PLOTE splinter faction), PLOTE lost significant organizational coherence, its military wing weakened (especially as LTTE already had a military upper hand by the time). Losing much of its military power and all control over territory, PLOTE transformed itself by the early 1990s into a relatively unsuccessful anti-LTTE Tamil political party (while maintaining a small paramilitary wing), contesting elections in government-controlled areas. The animosity between LTTE and PLOTE did not end as the violence subsided, however, and, as late as 2009 there were reports of small scale violence and political declarations against each other.

The non-state conflict between LTTE and PLOTE is first included in UCDP data in 1989 when one clash, occurring on 21 May 1989, caused more than 25 battle-related deaths.