Who was Anton Balasingham ?

Why a statue for him in a Parisian suburb?

- BY CHANDRE DHARMAWARDANA

A news report [1] states that the Mayor of Bondy, Stephen Hervé lit the public flame at a ceremony on 12th July 2025 to mark the foundation stone-laying ceremony for a statue of the late Anton Balasingham, the political advisor and chief propagandist of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Bondy is a suburb of Paris in the North East, specifically one of the poorer, often overlooked, areas on the outskirts of the city characterised by high-density housing projects and an immigrant population. Members of the City Council took part, on 12 July 2025, in the foundation stone-laying ceremony for a statue of Balasingham, the political theorist of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Although the LTTE is banned even today as a terrorist organisation by the European Union, its flag was prominently displayed at the event.

A similar attempt to erect a statue to a dead LTTE fighter took place in 2012 in Paris [2]. Sri Lanka protested vehemently over the decision of La Courneuve, a suburb with many immigrant Tamils to erect a statue of Tamilselvan, the political head of the LTTE, who died in an air raid. The Sri Lankan Ambassador in Paris, Chitranganee Wagiswara successfully exposed the terrorist credentials of Thamilselvan to the largely uninitiated French public.

Today, in 2025, the terror and horror of the LTTE are forgotten. Meanwhile, the activism of the residual organisations of the LTTE continues unabated. The painful memories of “Black July” in 1983, and the terror of the state action against the LTTE are militantly nourished and relived by many diaspora activists during their public events. Interestingly, the terror inflicted by the LTTE on Tamils is forgotten or forgiven as the LTTE was looked upon as the only organization that stood against state terror.