Tamil United Liberation Front

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TULF Election Symbol

The Tamil United Liberation Front (in Tamil: தமிழர் ஐக்கிய விடுதலை முன்னணி, in Sinhala: Dravida Eksath Vimukthi Peramuna) is a political party in Sri Lanka, which seeks autonomy for the Tamil-populated areas of Sri Lanka.

On May 4, 1972 several Tamil political groups, including the All Ceylon Tamil Congress and the Federal Party, formed the Tamil United Front (TUF). With the group's adoption in 1976 of a demand for an independent state, a "secular, socialist state of Tamil Eelam," it changed its name to the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF). In the general election of July 1977, TULF won eighteen seats in the legislature, including all fourteen seats contested in the Jaffna Peninsula.

Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, the TULF was frequently blamed by nationalist Sinhalese politicians for acts of violence committed by militant groups such as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). In fact, the TULF represented an older, more conservative generation of Tamils that felt independence could be achieved without violence, and youth groups like the LTTE who believed in armed conflict.

In October 1983, all the TULF legislators, numbering sixteen at the time, forfeited their seats in Parliament for refusing to swear an oath unconditionally renouncing support for a separate state in accordance with the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka.

During the 1980s, the LTTE began to see the TULF as a rival in its desire to be considered the sole representatives of the Tamils of the north and east. Over the next two decades, the LTTE has assassinated several TULF leaders, including Appapillai Amirthalingam and Neelan Thiruchelvam.

The current Tamil United Liberation Front president is V. Anandasangaree. He is the only TULF MP who refused to join the LTTE-allied Tamil National Alliance coalition for the 2004 elections.