Principal Collaborators: Joanne Richards, with Keith Krause and Oliver Jütersonke

This stand-alone project was mandated to the CCDP by the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police to investigate the institutional history of the LTTE (also known as the Tamil Tigers). The project focused on the military as well as the political wings of the LTTE, both in Sri Lanka and abroad, from its creation in 1976 up until its defeat in 2009. Controversies over the Sri Lankan Civil War continue unabated today with many accounts of the LTTE providing a biased perspective of past events. This project sought to straddle these controversies by cautiously checking information across diverging sources. 

Switzerland has recently seen public debate surrounding its considerable Tamil diaspora. This project, which resulted in the publication of CCDP Working Paper 10  in December 2014, intended to contribute to an informed debate and to provide a factual overview of the LTTE and the unfolding of the military operations.