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The war has also claimed casualties outside the theater of Sinhalese-Tamil bloodletting. The Tigers were supported by the government of India in the early 1980s, until Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi changed the policy and attempted to make peace. A 70,000-man Indian peacekeeping force went to the Tamil areas in 1987 at Colombo's invitation, only to wind up warring with the Tigers. The confrontation ended in a humiliating withdrawal of the Indians last year after more than 1,000 of their soldiers died. The headstrong Tiger leader, Vilupillai Prabhakaran, never forgives his enemies, and in May he got even with the former Indian Prime Minister when one of his operatives assassinated Rajiv Gandhi in a suicide bombing.
Sometimes violence burns itself out when the sheer exhaustion of killing makes room for thoughts of peace. Even the Islamic zeal of the Iranian revolutionaries faltered after eight years of holy war with Iraq. But the Sri Lankan civil war shows no sign of flagging. The Tiger cult around Prabhakaran is as strong as ever, and young Tamil recruits still flock to his banner, eager to embrace the austere, fanatical mind-set of a Tiger.
The young recruits say good-bye to their families and embrace their AK-47 rifle as their most precious belonging, strictly following a rule that it should never touch the ground. They sit through long hours of indoctrination that covers everything from grisly photographs of Tamils tortured and butchered by the Sri Lankan army to glories of the Tamil kings of the Chola dynasty, which in the 11th century conquered Sri Lanka. There is no more frightening measure of the Tigers' commitment than the fact that to avoid capture at least 600 Tigers have ended their own lives by biting into the cyanide vial they all carry on a string around their neck. But their first job is to kill the enemy. Says Kanthi, a young girl recruit with the Tigers: "I don't mind dying so long as I can kill a few Sri Lankan soldiers first."