(Page 1 of 22) - Hizballah and the Tamil Tigers ? Comparing Service Provision by Insurgent Organizations authored by Flanigan, Shawn.

Hizballah and the Tamil Tigers –

Comparing Service Provision by Insurgent Organizations

Shawn Teresa Flanigan

PhD Candidate, Public Administration and Policy

Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University at Albany

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Introduction

The media has given increasing attention to the relationship between charity and

terrorism since the terrorist attacks on the New York World Trade Center in September
2001. Much of this attention has been directed at the role that some western charities may
play in diverting funds toward terrorist organizations. However, another important
dynamic in the relationship between nonprofit charity and terrorist organizations is the
way these organizations coexist and cooperate in countries where terrorist and insurgent
organizations are based. This paper will focus on the utilitarian manner in which
organizations involved in terrorism and/or political insurgency use nonprofit health and
social service provision as a tool to increase support for their activities from members of
the community at large. Based on empirical evidence gathered during field research in
Lebanon and Sri Lanka, I will discuss the ways in which Hizballah and the Tamil Tigers
(also referred to as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE) use nonprofit service
provision as a tool to shift the position of the local population along a continuum of
community acceptance (Flanigan, 2006). I will compare Hizballah and the LTTE’s goals
for service provision, and follow with a comparison of each organization’s specific
structure of service provision.

Politics, Violence, and Community Support

While Hizballah and the LTTE are different in many aspects, both have

demonstrated their success as insurgent organizations and as political actors in their
respective countries. In 1982, Hizballah was created in response to the Israeli invasion of
Lebanon (Usher, 1997), and from 1982 until the present Hizballah’s most visible activity
has been its resistance against the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. While
beginning as a paramilitary force, Hizballah also has become an important political actor
in Lebanon, holding numerous positions in municipal government and in the Lebanese
parliament. The Tamil Tigers began their military offensive against the Sri Lankan
government in 1983 at the beginning of their struggle for an independent homeland,
called “Eelam”, for Sri Lanka’s oppressed Tamil minority. Arguably the most innovative
terrorist organization in the world, the LTTE is known as the first terrorist organization to
engage in suicide bombing (Reuter, 2002), and their battle against the Sri Lankan
government has become “one of the deadliest and most protracted ethnic conflicts of our
time,” (DeVotta, 2004, p. 2). However, in addition to being an extremely effective
guerilla organization, the 2002 ceasefire agreement between the government of Sri Lanka
and the LTTE made the LTTE the de facto government administrating body for the
island’s northern and eastern provinces.

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