The primary purpose of the use of ‘cyanide’ in the LTTE organization was to protect the organization’s secrets.
The primary purpose of the use of ‘cyanide’ in the LTTE organization was to protect the organization’s secrets.
There are many reasons why the LTTE is completely different from other struggle movements in the world.
One of them is the wearing of “cyanide bottles”.
The primary purpose of the use of ‘cyanide’ in the LTTE organization was to protect the organization’s secrets.
If a fighter was captured alive by the enemy and subjected to torture, they had a practice of drinking cyanide and committing suicide so that they would not betray the organization’s important plans, weapons depots or the whereabouts of the leaders.
The national leader of the LTTE organization, V. Prabhakaran, believed that it was better for his fighters to die a hero’s death than to surrender.
The reason for this was that the fact that they could not be made to surrender even if captured would put a kind of psychological pressure on the enemy army, while the national leader believed that the idea that they would not be captured alive and humiliated would give the fighters more courage on the battlefield.
The fighters would carry a small glass bottle of cyanide around their necks, attached to a string. This was not a casual thing for them, but a sign of their utmost commitment to the organization and the struggle.
The fact that a cyanide bottle was given to a fighter was also a sign that he was fully trusted by the organization.
Cyanide is a very fast-acting poison. It can cause death within minutes by cutting off the body’s oxygen supply.
In the early 1970s, Tamil youths captured by the Sri Lankan government were subjected to severe torture. In 1974, a young man named Sivakumaran committed suicide by drinking cyanide when he was captured by the police, fearing torture.
This was the inspiration for the later practice of the movement. The national leader Prabhakaran was determined that his fighters should never bow to the enemy.
The cyanide bottle became a mandatory practice in the LTTE organization due to an incident that occurred in October 1987.
While the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) was in Sri Lanka, 12 LTTE leaders including Kumarappa and Pulendran were captured at sea by the Indian Peace Keeping Force and handed over to the Sri Lankan Navy.
The Sri Lankan government tried to take them to Colombo for interrogation.
To prevent this and for security reasons, Prabhakaran ordered them to drink cyanide.
Accordingly, all 12 LTTE members drank cyanide and died a martyr’s death.
This incident caused a major rift in the Indo-Sri Lankan agreement and firmly established the importance of the ‘bottle’ among the fighters.
It is kept in a small glass bottle in the form of potassium cyanide particles. It is tied around the neck of the militants with a black rope. It was designed to be broken with the teeth in an emergency.
The cyanide bottle was not just a suicide weapon, it was considered a fighter’s “Oath”.
Surrendering when captured was considered a betrayal of the movement.
It was taught that it was better to die in secret, as revealing secrets under pain during torture would lead to the destruction of the movement.
This was the first time in the world that a military organization or guerrilla organization had such a large-scale suicide culture. This portrayed the LTTE to the world as a ‘fearless army’.
Thousands of fighters carried this bottle around their necks until the final battle of Mullivaikkal in 2009. In the final stages of the war, many key commanders and fighters ended their lives using cyanide to avoid capture by the army.
For the LTTE, the cyanide bottle is a symbol of their principle of “honor is greater than death.”
It is still remembered today as a unique symbol of the movement and an inseparable part of the history of the Eelam struggle.
(Translation by Tamilpriya)
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