ABSTRACT
Certain events become defining landmarks in shaping history. The 11 September 2001 attacks in the United States were one such event. In Sri Lanka’s simmering ethnic conflict between the Sinhalese-dominated state and its minority Tamils, 23 July 1983 was also such an event. A small band of young men belonging to one of several Tamil groups, known as the Tamil Tigers, led by its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, ambushed an army convoy at Tinneveli outside Jaffna in which thirteen Sinhalese soldiers were killed. The attack was allegedly in retaliation for the murder of Charles Anthony, a Tamil Tiger commander, who was killed early in July 1983 by Sri Lankan forces. 1 The Tamil Tigers then had few civilian supporters among the predominantly Tamil population of Jaffna (Trawick 2007: 16).
