Total Destruction of the Tamil Tigers: The Rare Victory of Sri Lanka’s Long War

315 Pages·2013·5.01 MB·English

by  Moorcraft

Some of Paul Moorcraft’s other books on military topics

A Short Thousand Years: The End of Rhodesia’s Rebellion
(1979) Contact 2: The Struggle for Peace (1981) Africa’s
Superpower (1982)
African Nemesis: War and Revolution in Southern Africa, 1945
– 2010 (1994) Axis of Evil: The War on Terror (with Gwyn
Winfield and John Chisholm) (2005) The New Wars of the West
(with Gwyn Winfield and John Chisholm) (2006) Inside the
Danger Zones: Travels to Arresting Places (2010) Shooting the
Messenger: The Politics of War Reporting (with Phil Taylor)
(2011) The Rhodesian War: A Military History (with Peter
McLaughlin) (2011) Mugabe’s War Machine (2011)

First published in Great Britain in 2012 by
PEN & SWORD MILITARY
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS

Copyright © Professor Paul Moorcraft, 2012
9781783830749

The right of Professor Paul Moorcraft to be identified as the
author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
About the Author
Abbreviations
Brief Timeline
Introduction - Why the Sri Lankan War is Important
Chapter 1 - The Background to the War
Chapter 2 - The Rise of the Tigers
Chapter 3 - Outbreak of the War
Chapter 4 - Eelam War I (1983 – 87)
Chapter 5 - Big Brother Steps In: The Indian ‘Peacekeepers’
Chapter 6 - Eelam War II (1990 – 95)
Chapter 7 - Eelam War III (1995 – 2002)
Chapter 8 - The Long Ceasefire
THE MAIN COMBATANTS
Chapter 9 - The Sri Lankan Government Forces
Chapter 10 - The Tigers
THE CLIMAX
Chapter 11 - Trying ‘Peace’ First
Chapter 12 - Eelam War IV: Towards All-Out War
Chapter 13 - The Cage
AFTER THE SHOOTING WAR
Chapter 14 - The Long Propaganda War
Chapter 15 - Building Peace
Chapter 16 - Conclusions
Select Bibliography
Notes
Index
About the Author
Professor Paul Moorcraft has worked extensively in Asia as a
foreign correspondent, lecturer and author. He covered wars
and political conflicts in Cambodia, Vietnam, Nepal, Pakistan
and Afghanistan, as well as reporting on large countries such
as China and producing TV documentaries in small ones, for
example the Maldives. In Sri Lanka he travelled throughout the
war zones in the north and east of the island. He has
interviewed many of the senior political and military leaders on
both sides of the war, as well as foreign diplomats, members of
non-government organizations and journalists.
The former editor of a range of specialist security and foreign
policy magazines, Professor Moorcraft also worked for Western
TV networks as a freelance producer/war correspondent. He
has also lectured full-time in journalism, politics and
international relations at ten major universities in the US,
Britain, Southern Africa and Australasia He was a
Distinguished Radford Visiting Professor in Journalism at
Baylor University, Texas. He has worked in 30 war zones in
Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans, often with irregular
forces, most recently in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine/Israel, and
in the various regional conflicts in Sudan. He headed a 50-
strong British observer mission in Sudan for the national
elections in 2010, as well as reporting on the 2011 referendum
in the now Republic of South Sudan.
Dr Paul Moorcraft is a former senior instructor at the Royal
Military Academy, Sandhurst, and the UK Joint Services
Command and Staff College. He worked in Corporate
Communications in the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall. In
2003 he was recalled to government service in Whitehall and
Iraq.