Friday, June 5, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
RIGHTS-SRI LANKA: Moderate Tamil MP-Lawyer Killed By Human Bomb
Feizal Samath
- Neelan Tiruchelvam, a prominent Sri Lankan lawyer and member of Parliament, was slain here Thursday by a suicide bomber suspected to be a Tamil Tiger rebel.
Tiruchelvam, himself a member of the minority Tamil community in Sri Lanka, and involved in government efforts to solve the 17 year ethnic conflict that has cost the lives of many prominent Sri Lanns, was killed outside his Colombo office.
Police and human rights activists said Tiruchelvam’s effort to solve the ethnic conflict has come up against stiff opposition from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) guerrillas who had issued many threats to his life.
Police said the suicide bomber got abreast of Tiruchelvam’s car on a motorcycle as he turned into a small road where his office is located in an affluent neighbourhood of Colombo.
Both the killer and his victim died on the spot while seven others including Tiruchelvam’s driver and six policemen were injured.
led on ed Indian troops and the LTTE, the world’s best trained guerrilla army.
As a supporter of that pact, Tiruchelvam was already high on politicians but additionally he backed the ruling People’s Alliance (PA) government’s constitutional reforms package, due to be presented to Parliament next month.
era, polace process and was one of the architects of the proposed new constitution,” he said.
The killing of Tiruchelvam shocked Sri Lankans and diplomats. “We are deeply shocked and grieved by this attack and condemn the killing,” a spokesman for the United States Embassy in Colombo said. He said Tiruchelvam was a good friend of the U.S and of many other Americans of all walks of life.
It was the first time in many years that the rebels had succeeded in killing a prominent politician in the security-tight capital.
Top personalities like President Chandrika Kumaratunga, Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar and Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Prof Gamini Lakshman Peiris are among rebel targets who receive heavy round-the-clock protection in the city.
Several Tamil politicians, backing the peace plan or opposed to the rebels, have been killed by suspected Tamil rebels who never owe up to the assassinations. Last year, the rebels killed Ponniah Sivapalan, mayor of Jaffna district after local council elections in January 1998 in the Tamil-dominated northern region.
Later they killed Sarojini Yogeswaran, the widow of the moderate Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) leader, Yogeswaran, who was assassinated together with the party’s chief Appapillai LTTE han the mid-1960s.
“What do you think, should I go into politics?” he had often asked friends, when he was offered a position as a non-elected parliamentarian in 1994. Most of them had advised Tiruchelvam to avoid politics saying he was not cut out to be a politician, and was more useful to society as a peace-builder and social activist.
Persuaded, however byenior TULF members, Tiruchelvam entered politics. But he was not a grassroots politician and rarely went to Jaffna, preferring to remain in Colombo due to his professional commitments as a company lawyer, constitutional expert and human rights activist.
The 53-year-old lawyer who is survived by his wife and two sons, had studied at Harvard University in the United States and received a PhD in law.
He was considered an expert on constitutional affairs and human rights not only in Sri Lanka but abroad. Tiruchelvam was a member of several international committees that were involved in preparing peace structures in South Africa, the constitutional process in Kazakhastan and Chile and monitoring elections in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.
In addition he was instrumental in setting up many NGOs with an international reputation, in the fields of law, society, research on ethnic groups and others.
The Colombo-based International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES), in which Radhika Coomaraswamy who is the UN Special Rapporteur of Violence against Women is an executive director, was set up by him.
Other Tiruchelvam-led institutions included the Law & Society Trust. Some months ago, he was named chairman of the London-based Minority Rights Group, an international NGO promoting the rights of minoritiese world.
Last Friday, Tiruchelvam told IPS that he was doubtful of the gove/sinceritye last election.
Print
|
