Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

The Tamil insurgency in Sri Lanka was a sophisticated non-state armed actor. It began in 1976 as an ethnic political movement against reduction in Tamil political and social power. Following early support from Indian intelligence, the LTTE developed a shadow government –- with political, military, and international components -– that directly challenged the Sri Lankan state. The LTTE is one of five insurgent groups I identified as capable of conducting underwater operations and perhaps the only insurgent group to have its own air force.
Tensions between the Tamil minority and Sinhala majority increased after independence in 1948. India supported the LTTE and other Tamil groups following a series of anti-Tamil riots from 1977 through the early 1980s. Tamil groups established sanctuary in Tamil Nadu, an Indian state across Palk Strait, whose population considered the Sri Lankan Tamils to be ethnic kin. The requirement to move supplies and personnel between India and Sri Lanka initiated the LTTE’s maritime development. With popular support and Indian resources, the LTTE consolidated its control over Tamil militant groups and effectively took control of the Jaffna peninsula in northern Sri Lanka in 1985.

Naga Insurgency

The Naga insurgency festered in the mountains of eastern India too weak to achieve secession. Following World War II, India forcibly incorporated the Naga after the partition with Pakistan. On August 14, 1947 Naga nationalists unilaterally declared independence. The Naga engaged in guerrilla warfare and terrorist attacks throughout the 1960s with arms and training left over from World War II. In response to Naga demands, the Indian government created the state of Nagaland in 1963, which appeased moderates, but failed to end the insurgency.\cite{h._srikanth_naga_2005} Seeking to influence Indian politics, both Pakistan and China trained and supplied Naga guerrillas by 1971. However, low-level violence and criminality, fueled by smuggling and ”revolutionary taxation” continued.

Case Comparison

The LTTE and Naga are well matched across the eleven control variables from the duration analysis with both multivariate and univariate comparisons. The LTTE and Naga insurgencies are in the first percentile of the possible Mahalanobis distances, a multivariate distance measure that accounts for correlations between variables,\cite{donald_b._rubin_matching_1973} calculated with the caseMatch package for r.\cite{nielsen_casematch:_2017} While other cases in the top percentile are better matched, this pair stands out for the large body of English language primary and secondary literature.