The Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS), also known as the Eelam Revolutionary Organisers, is a former Tamil militant group in Sri Lanka. Most of the EROS membership was absorbed into the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 1990. The other half of EROS that did not join forces with the LTTE due was led by PLO trained Shankar Rajee, Senior politburo member and military commander of EROS from 1990 until his demise in 2005. The political wing of 'EROS' is known as the Eelavar Democratic Front.
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Despite being the most ideological of all the Tamil groups, and its strong revolutionary nationalism, the EROS never became as militarily active as later groups such as the LTTE or TELO, largely because its leadership continued to be based in London. Their most notable military actions was the bombings in Sri Lanka in 1984 and 1985, and the kidnapping of British journalist Penelope Willis.
Partly as a result of this, differences arose in 1979 among the cadre in Sri Lanka. The result was that the student wing of the EROS, the General Union of Eelam Students, split away from the EROS in 1980 to form a new organisation, the Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front. EROS was also one of the main forces behind the attempt to form a united front, the Eelam National Liberation Front, in 1984, and remained the major driving force behind the front until it fell apart in 1986.
During the IPKF period, EROS was one of the few groups to support the LTTE and was in fact their main political advisory body as the EROS and LTTE worked in alliance with one another. In the late 1980s, differences arose amongst the EROS leadership over the question of whether or not they should militarily support the LTTE. In 1990, the group was effectively disbanded. One of its two top leaders, V. Balakumaran, together with a large portion of its members, left EROS to join the LTTE, saying it was a betrayal of the Tamil cause not to take up arms.[3]
The remnants of the group, led by Shankar Rajee, remained in Colombo and continued to call themselves EROS.[4] They have transformed themselves into pro-government, anti-LTTE paramilitary group and a political party.[5] Following the death of Shankar Rajee in 2005, his son Nesan Thirunesan took over as its new youth leader.
Artist Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam, better known as M.I.A., is the daughter of Arul Pragasam, a founding member of EROS. In her music, M.I.A. makes frequent references to the Sri Lankan Civil War and her father's participation in EROS.