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The Tamil Tigers have honed the science of eliminating opponents to a fine art.
Well before the Palestinian Intifada or the Iraqi insurgency, or for that matter Al Qaida and the Taliban, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam employed suicide bombers to assassinate anyone who challenged their writ.
That it was mandatory for all their cadres, soon after induction into the ranks, to carry cyanide pills around their necks, to be swallowed in the event of capture, is well known. But that the cult of death is so celebrated, that mile after chilling mile of gravestones mark martyrs' cemeteries at the Tiger headquarters in Killinochchi, with the separatist group adopting to bury their dead - far removed from Hindu rites of cremation - serves as a daily reminder of the need to die for the cause. Each grave has a photograph of the 'martyr'. Every Tiger office is plastered with pictures of fallen comrades. All, achingly young. Almost all, women and children.
But it's the ruthless manner in which their death squads have honed the science of eliminating opponents to a fine art, at the behest of Tiger supremo Vellupillai Prabhakaran, (his annual Heroes Day message on his November 26 birthday is much-awaited) that sets the group's intimidatory tactics apart from the rest.
The first man to taste their ire was Doraiyappa, then Mayor of Jaffna in 1975. No mayor has survived since without their blessings.
Indeed, the list of people they eliminated is long. But apart from former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991, the LTTE hit-list included their own leaders as well as Tamil luminaries like the brilliant Neelam Thiruchelvam and foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar.
Other high-profile killings were those of president Ranasinghe Premadasa, moderate Tamil leaders from the Tamil United Liberation Front and the Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (ERPLF). However, the EPRLF leader, Douglas Devananda, has survived innumerable assassination attempts.
Former president Chandrika Kumaratunga, campaigning for peace, narrowly escaped an LTTE suicide bomber in 2000 but lost an eye. The Tigers stridently deny involvement.
But stand in their way and you are dancing with death.
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