NorthEast prepares to celebrate Black Tigers Day

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 June 2004, 00:41 GMT]
Celebrations marking the Black Tigers day are to be held in different parts of NorthEast on 5 July, event organizers said. Key junctions and roads leading to celebration venues will be decorated and Sporting events, Poetry, Story writing competitions, and welfare activities to assist students in poor neighrborhoods will be held during the day, according to the organizers.

Captain Miller's statue

July 5 is the anniversary of the death of the first Black Tiger, Captain Miller, who was killed destroying a Sri Lanka Army base located in the Nelliady Madhya Maha Vidyalayam, 25km North east of Jaffna town - one of the main sites of the planned celebrations.

Reports added that the area surrounding Nelliady school is being cleaned and debris removed by local residents participating in a voluntary program. A temporary structure to exhibit the photographs of black tigers is expected to be completed soon, according to the reports.

Local media reported that a special event is also being planned to be held in one of the islets to ease the travel burden on the residents of the several islets west of Jaffna who would otherwise have to make arduous trip to attend events in peninsula proper.

The International Student Federation requested the student participants in poetry writing to send their submissions with a recommendation from the school principal to their office Thinnaively Jaffna.

Black Tigers' identities are closely guarded. Having completed their training, they serve in regular LTTE units, concealing their membership. When called up for a mission, they take routine leave and if they survive, return to regular service again. Membership is only revealed if they are killed in combat.

A British film crew which met up with some Black Tigers in the east of the island in 1996, discounted government claims that the Tigers were irrational or drug-crazed.

The commandos are some of the LTTE's best fighters and often have several years combat experience.