ABSTRACT

Sri Lanka, for more than three decades, witnessed one of the most violent protracted armed conflicts between the Sinhalese majority state and the minority Tamil community. In post-war Sri Lanka it is being emphasised that the LTTE was a clandestine 'terrorist' group or a guerrilla army led by the selfish Prabhakaran but the fact remains that the LTTE was an integral part of the popular culture and social and political ethos of Tamil nationalism. The LTTE included within its cadres, men, women and even child soldiers who were recruited voluntarily and also by force, for which it was extensively criticised by the international community. The LTTE had been recruiting women into their fighting cadres since the mid-1980s; women performed a range of logistical activities in the early years, as is usually the case with the initial participation of women in militant groups.