The Tamil National Army also known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were formed after the failure of many years of peaceful demonstration by Tamil leaders in order to win their freedom from the successive Sinhala majority governments, which showed no concern for the Tamil grievances. Under the leadership of Mr. Velupillai Pirabakaran, the LTTE was founded on May 5, 1976 to achieve what had become unachievable by peaceful methods in over 28 years.

Since then, the LTTE has grown out to be a massive army with the whole hearted support of the Tamil people and now has thousand of brave soldiers, with a Naval wing that has become a formidable one in the sub continent. And as the racist policies of the successive Sinhala governments subjects the Tamil civilians to more and more hard ships, the LTTE has become the army that the Tamil people can look up to in order to put an end to all the troubles and win back the Tamil's homeland, Tamil Eelam.

The Tamils are the indigenous people of Ceylon. Their history had its beginnings in the early settlements on the rich alluvial plains near the southern extremity of the peninsular India. The Tamils were sea faring people. They traded with Rome in the days of Emperor Augustus. They sent ships to many lands bordering the Indian Ocean and with the ships went traders, scholars and a way of life.The island of Ceylon which was separated from the Indian subcontinent by less than 30 miles of water was not unknown to the Tamils who called it Eelam and who established their early kingdoms there more than 3000 years ago.

THE EARLY TAMILS:

The Tamils are an ancient people with a history dating back to atleast 2,500 years. The Tamil language, the lingua franco of the Tamils, is one of the five oldest living languages of the world. The Tamil classical literature, popularly called the Sangam (Academy) literature (1st -4th Century AD) is a collection of poems of lasting quality and artistic merit. They reflect faithfully the high level of civilization and literary attainments of the ancient Tamils.

WHO CAME FIRST:

Although attempts are made to trace the history of Ceylon before the arrival of Vijaya (about 500 BC), who is credited as the founder of the present Sinhalese race, there is sufficient historical and archaeological evidence to prove the existence of a high level of civilization before him. The proto history of Ceylon could be traced back to atleast 5000 years to the period of Raman of the epic Ramayanam. Raman (the same Raman about whose temple there is violent dispute between the Hindus and Muslims in Uttar Pradesh India at present) who was an Aryan king from north India fought against the Tamil Yaksha king of Ilankai (Ceylon) Ravanan who had abducted Rama's wife Seethai. Jawaharlal Nehru in his book Glimpses of World History describes the war between Raman and Ravanan as a war between the Aryans and Dravidians.

THE KINGDOMS:

Ceylon had been ruled by both Tamil and Sinhalese kings, the Tamil Kingdom comprising the north and eastern parts and the Sinhalese Kingdom(s) the western & southern parts of Ceylon. There were brief periods when the whole of Ceylon came under a single ruler. Otherwise, there existed two or more Kingdoms and the Tamil Kingdom always one of them. The Tamil Kingdom, later came to be called the Jaffna Kingdom existed as a separate polity for centuries. The first war between a Tamil King who ruled Anuradhapura and a Sinhalese king from the south was fought in the 2nd century BC.