|NEW YORK | RUPEE NEWS | June 10th, 2008 | Moin Ansari | India has a plan. Most recently the long term plan has been discussed in “The India Doctrine.” The plan wants to destabilize all the smaller states around “India“, then call them “failed states” and then take them over. Sending armed terrorists across the border for 60 years is one way to do it. Whether it was Hydrabad, Junagarh, Manvadar or Kashmir in 1948 or Sikkim, the plan remains the same “Akhand Bharat.” India has done the same in first creating Bangladesh and then trying to take it over. She is sending armed terrorists to Pakistani Baluchistan and to Sri Lanka.
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Sri Lanka map
Sri Lanka was a poor but energetic small island paradise that had got its priorities right. Immediately after indpendence, Sri Lanka achiaved a high literacy rate of over 80% leaving its much bigger South Asian neighbors in the dust.
Sri Lanka had great promise to become the Singapore of South Asia. It still has the potential of becoming the Dubai of the world. However it has been bogged down by three decades of Indian sponsored militancy perpetuated by the Hindu Tamil Tigers against the Sinhelese Buddhist of Sri Lanka.
India wants the Tamils to have their own homeland in Sri Lanka tied in to the Tamils of Southern India. The Indian goal is to keep the Chinese and the Americans out of range of the Southern tip of India.
LTTE earns US$ 300M a year to fund Terror War against Sri Lanka
Renowned defence magazine, the Jane’s Defence Intelligence Review reveals that the LTTE funds its bloody terrorist war against SL with a sophisticated fundraising mechanism that earns “some USD 200 to 300 million a year”.
In a press release on Thursday (July 19) the magazine says that the terror outfit has become “one of the most sophisticated insurgencies in the world” mainly because of its “complex global network of financial resources and weapons”, that are being used to strengthen its campaign against Sri Lanka.
The LTTE has been fighting for a mono-ethnic separate state for the Tamils living in SL since 1983. The war has so far killed over 65,000 people. The magazine points out that the profit earned by a terror outfit as such “would be the envy of any multinational corporation”.
Further, the magazine states it is with this money, that the LTTE has become the only known terror organization to have a “rudimentary air force” and also has been able to introduce “bold new frontiers” to terrorist warfare.
The LTTE is the first terror organization to introduce suicide bombers equipped with suicide belts and waist jackets, and suicide attacks using explosive laden vehicles including trucks and boats. The LTTE has been making a vast contribution to the development of terrorist warfare across the world with its endless innovations in terror training tactics, arms smuggling, bomb making, and etc. The magazine implies that the LTTE has been able to accomplish all of the above, because of its “financial and procurement structures” which are “well organized and strategically positioned around the globe”.
Jane’s magazine also makes an interesting revelation on the LTTE making money through many charitable organizations, which have been created and staffed by the outfit itself. Behind the charitable facade of these organizations, the LTTE is “projecting its influence through this front to raise money from Tamil communities and ultimately, convert the gains into arms” the magazine says. The mechanism efficiently works to move its funds to snatch procurement opportunities and investment options as they arise “utilizing a charitable facade’s tax-free status and legitimacy” Jane’s adds.
The report identifies two sections of the LTTE that are operating internationally for fund raising and arms dealing activities ; the Aiyanna Group and the Office of Overseas Purchases alias KP department.
“The Aiyanna Group functions as the group’s intelligence and operations body, likely to be responsible for monitoring and ensuring the organization’s financial support and revenue streams, while the KP Department is most probably the LTTE’s procurement arm”, Jane’s report says.
According the local defence intelligence sources KP stands for Kumaran Padmanadan, name of a terror suspect wanted by the International Police (Interpol). Aiyanna is also an LTTE cadre who had been appointed to lead the LTTE’s international operations as the network expanded beyond the capacity of KPs’ department. Intelligence sources also said these departments are operating in a mutually supportive manner with other terror organizations such as Al Queda, to achieve their objectives. The heads of these departments are operating under the direct guidance of the LTTE chief, V. Prabhakaran and its intelligence head Pottu Amman, both on the wanted list of Interpol, the sources added.
Jane’s elaborates that the LTTE is adapting geographically myriad of methods to carry out its cross-border terrorist activities. “The southern province of Tamil Nadu in India plays a pivotal role in LTTE procurement and has become an essential transit point in the LTTE arms, narcotics, contraband and possibly human smuggling”, the magazine says.
Local defence analysts also support the view saying that due to the large number of Indian fishing vessels present in the narrow sea area between India and Sri Lanka, it has been practically difficult for the Navies of both countries to make a complete stop to the terror movements. However, the SL navy having extended its capability have been able to deny the terrorists’ use of the Eastern coast of the island almost completely.
Recently, Maldivian defence forces sunk an Indian trawler which had been transporting weapons to the LTTE. It was later revealed that the LTTE terrorists had hijacked the vessel killing the Indian crew except one, and made use of the vessel for arms smuggling. There were many other incidents where the LTTE terrorists have killed and abducted Tamil Nadu fishermen during the recent past. The LTTE’s control over the Island’s North-Western coastal line from Mannar to Elephant Pass is the main supporting factor for the LTTE to carry out terrorist activities between India and Sri Lanka.
Finally, the Jane’s report highlights that the main motivation for the LTTE in its fundraising campaign is to procure an anti- aircraft arsenal. During the 90s the LTTE shot down at least five transport aircraft, including the one carrying civilians, using missile technology.
Defence analysts argue that the leeway given to the LTTE by certain countries [read Indian] during the past had created a monstrous organization that is playing the role of the “Research and Development” department of global terrorism. It has been able to carry out remorseless ethnic ceasing campaigns against Sinhalese and Muslims; maintain a shameful “Baby Brigade” with over six thousand children, and use brain washed Tamil women as suicide bombers, for over two decades.
Ironically, despite its record of atrocities the LTTE has even acquired some legitimacy in certain parts of the world. According to the analysts this is mainly due to its effective propaganda mechanism that has been hoodwinking the world for years. Perhaps, as some defence analysts opine, the LTTE’s propaganda mechanism may be the most sophisticated and complex one that any terror organization would dream of having for its own.
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UK arrests Top two LTTE terror suspects [updated]
Sri Lanka Navy always strives to assist the Indian fishermen in times of need, despite the fact that they enter the Sri Lankan waters violating the rules of international maritime boundaries.
LTTE along with some dirty Indian politicians who survive with the financial help of pro-LTTE smugglers, are planning a conspiracy to antagonize the Indian fishermen with SL Navy. Further, they claim that the maritime boundary agreement between India and Sri Lanka signed on 27 March 1976 recognizes the Indian fishermen’s traditional fishing rights around Kachchativu Island. But the truth is that the said agreement limits the Indian fishermen’s and pilgrims rights only to “visit the Kachchativu Island without the travel documents and Visas”.
It is a common occurrence to observe Indian fishing boats in large numbers entering Sri Lankan territorial waters to engage in illegal poaching of fish. Apart from that some such fishermen are engaged in LTTE’s illegal weapon, ammunitions and drugs transportation. The LTTE is believed to be paying about 500 Indian rupees for a litre of petrol, and a lot more for the other stuff which is good money for poor Indian fishermen.
It is so sad to see the worlds third largest Navy (Indian Navy) pretends to be sleeping over these incidents. However history never failed to make sure that the leaders who supported terrorism pay their price. Rajeev Gandhi, once dropped 25 tons of food and medicine by a parachute in his attempt to stop Sri Lankan military operations against LTTE terrorists in 1987. In return, LTTE the ruthless terrorist outfit dropped that bag of 25 tons on Rajeev Gandhi’s head on 21st May 1991.
It’s the right time for all Indian politicians to learn a lesson from their slain leader.
Fighting dirty in Sri Lanka By Sudha RamachandranBANGALORE – A series of bomb blasts in buses and trains in southern Sri Lanka in recent weeks has drawn attention to the increased targeting of civilians by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). While the terrorist acts of the LTTE have been widely reported, the Lankan government’s targeting and terrorizing of civilians – Tamil and Sinhalese – has gone by largely unnoticed in the international media.
On Friday, 20 people were killed and over 80 injured when a roadside bomb hit a bus in the capital Colombo during morning rush hour. Hours later another bomb went off in a bus in Polgolla, central Sri Lanka, killing two and injuring 20.
Two days earlier, a bomb on a railway track in Colombo went off
seconds after a packed commuter train passed. Twenty-four people were injured in that blast. On May 26, a bomb attack at Dehiwela station in Colombo killed eight and left over 70 injured. On May 16, a suicide attack in the heart of the capital left 10 dead and almost a hundred injured. On April 24, two dozen people were killed in a blast in bus in Piliyandala and on February 3 a suicide attack in a train station in downtown Colombo killed nine and left over a hundred injured.
Most of these attacks in Sinhalese-dominated southern Sri Lanka in recent months have targeted public transport during rush hour. Some 75 civilians are reported to have been killed and over 450 injured in these attacks, believed to be the work of the LTTE.
Sri Lanka’s civil war, which was put on pause in 2002 when the government and the LTTE signed a ceasefire agreement, intensified in January this year when the government formally pulled out of that agreement. The truce had begun fraying over two years ago, when both sides began engaging in violence even as they accused the other of violating the truce.
But violence has seriously spiked in recent months, with both sides engaged in a no-holds barred battle.
Having cleared the LTTE from its strongholds in Eastern Province last year, the Lankan armed forces are now focusing on weakening the LTTE in its bastion in Northern Province.
In the past, when under pressure in the North, the LTTE has carried out attacks in Colombo, targeting Sri Lanka’s international airport, its World Trade Center and Central Bank, hotels and transport system. These were aimed at crippling the country’s infrastructure and tourism, thereby weakening its economy. Many hundreds of civilians have been killed and injured in these attacks.
Although the LTTE has not claimed responsibility for the recent spate of attacks in buses and trains in Colombo and its suburbs, it does seem that these are in retaliation for the government’s operations in Northern Province, specifically in response to a series of roadside bombings that have killed ordinary Tamil civilians.
On June 2, six Tamil civilians, including two children, were killed and four injured when a car they were traveling in was blown up by a claymore mine planted by the army inside the LTTE-controlled Mullaitivu district in Northern Province. According to the LTTE, around 20 Tamil civilians died in similar roadside bombings in the North in May.
“But the LTTE’s attacks probably have a deeper agenda – to push the government back to the negotiating table,” says a Colombo-based political analyst, who spoke to Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity.
Support for the war is strong among the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka but this support is predicated on the government’s promise to defeat the LTTE quickly and of course, on the war not pinching them seriously. “The LTTE reckons that if the war hurts them directly, public support for the war will quickly wane, as it has in the past, forcing the government to consider the political option. That would get the armed forces off its back,” he says.
The government’s “war on the LTTE” has always hit Tamil civilians harder than it has the LTTE itself. Its economic embargoes on Tiger-held territory cause severe hardship to civilians, while the LTTE manages to access the banned items from other sources. Right from the 1980s, the government has aerially bombarded Tamil areas, killing hundreds of civilians in the name of eliminating the LTTE. Even during the “ceasefire period” the government had no qualms about bombing Tamil civilians, while claiming to take out the LTTE’s infrastructure.
It may be recalled that in August 2006, for instance, Sri Lankan Air Force jets bombed an orphanage in Mullaitivu, killing 61 children and injuring about 150. The government subsequently justified the attack by claiming that it had targeted an LTTE training center and that those killed were the LTTE’s child soldiers, a claim that UNICEF subsequently shot down. A UNICEF team that visited a hospital there found over 100 children – mostly teenage girls – being treated for various head injuries and shrapnel injuries.
Besides roadside bombings and aerial bombardment of Tamil areas in the north of the island, the government has taken into custody hundreds of Tamils living in Colombo and its suburbs. Tamil homes here are routinely searched and youth taken away for questioning have “disappeared”.
An important target of the government’s “war against the LTTE” has been the media. Journalists covering military affairs who haven’t reproduced faithfully the government’s account of the war have come in for criticism and worse.
Keith Noyahr, a deputy editor of the English-language weekly The Nation, was abducted and severely beaten on May 22. Sri Lanka’s Free Media Movement said in a statement that Noyahr was abducted for his independent writing and analysis of the war in northern Sri Lanka. Noyahr has been critical of the government’s conduct of the war.
TV reporter Paranirupasingam Devakumar was murdered less than a week later in an area of the Jaffna peninsula in Northern Province that is under military control.
Intimidation of defense analyst and Jane’s Defense Weekly correspondent Iqbal Athas has grown in recent months, forcing him to stop writing his widely read and well-respected weekly column in Sunday Times. Personal security provided to Athas by the government was withdrawn last August.
Senior journalist J S Tissanayagam, a Tamil, and three other media workers were arrested in March by the Terrorism Investigation Division. Tissanayagam is a columnist with the Sunday Times and has been running a website Outreach, which the government claims is maintained “with the financial backing of the LTTE”. (The Paris-based watchdog, Reporters Without Borders says on its website that “the money in question came chiefly from a German foundation, without any link with the Tamil rebels of the LTTE”.)
Tissanayagam is yet to be officially charged and is being held in solitary confinement.
The Sri Lankan Defense Ministry website has launched a virulent campaign against journalists critical of the government, accusing them of co-operating with the “terrorist enemy”, the LTTE. Attacking the media for criticizing the military and its decisions with regard to the military operations, promotions, defense procurement and so on, it accuses journalists of “treachery”.
In a clear attempt at intimidation the website says: “Whoever attempts to reduce the public support to the military by making false allegations and directing baseless criticism at armed forces personnel is supporting the terrorist organization that continuously murder citizens of Sri Lanka. The Ministry will continue to expose these traitors and their sinister motives and does not consider such exposure as a threat to media freedom. Those who commit such treachery should identify themselves with the LTTE rather than showing themselves as crusaders of Media Freedom.”
Clearly, the war against the LTTE in the north is not going too well despite the government having poured US$1.5 billion into the war this year. Lankan officials, including army chief Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka, have pledged to eliminate the LTTE by the end of this year – a promise that is proving hard to fulfill, with the Tigers putting up fierce resistance to the army’s advance in the north.
The LTTE has no doubt suffered serious reverses over the past year and lost top leaders, cadres and territory. Still, the vastly larger Lankan forces backed by air power have been able to dislodge the LTTE out of a few kilometers of territory in Northern Province. A major army offensive in the Muhamalai area near Jaffna in the Northern Province on April 23 was an absolute disaster. Not only did the army face a humiliating rout, but it lost over 150 soldiers. The LTTE was able to seize a large quantity of arms and ammunition from the army.
News from the north is clearly not to the liking of the government or the Defense Ministry. Unable to steer the outcome of events on the battlefield in its favor, it is opting for the next best thing: silencing the messenger.
Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in Bangalore
