Chapter 2: Emergence of LTTE

Sri Lankan government was not really forthcoming to deal with the situation. They did not try to handle the situation on a domestic basis by negotiations. Instead it stepped up its brutalities. This cornered Tamils in Sri Lanka and things began to change rapidly.

Initially there were many different organizations fighting for rights of Tamils in Sri Lanka. There was not much co-oridnation between them and there were turf wars too. Prabhakaran eliminated/merged such units to form the strongest organization - LTTE. His focus was to get a separate country carved out of Sri Lanka for Tamils. He consolidated his grip over the organization and started marching towards his goal of separate country. He had unconventional thinking, so while rest of the organizations sent their cadres to be trained in India, Prabhakaran sent his top guys to train in Israel.

After long time of fighting between Sri Lankans forces and LTTE, Colombo wanted India to interfere. Delhi was ruled by Rajiv Gandhi at the time. Following the path of his grandfather - Nehru - he authorized IPKF's entry in Sri Lanka without taking Prabhakaran in confidence.

IPKF initially did very good job of helping Tamils in war-torn region and was a welcome sight for almost all. IPKF was the only source of medical attention and administration for battle-scorched region.

But this was soon to change.

Next chapter: Relations go sour

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