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Thwarting LTTE’s designs in Europe

Text of the speech by Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg and the EU Ravinatha Aryasinha, at the European Corporate Security Association (ECSA), Brussels on March 23, 2011


Looking on the brighter side

* Ninety percent of nearly 300,000 displaced resettled
* Nearly 70 percent ex combatants released to society
* Restoration of houses, livelihoods
* Lankan economy expects 8.5 percent growth rate
* Stock prices up nearly 250 percent
* Expert growth up 17.3 percent
* Tourist arrivals up nearly 50 percent


In May 2009 having decisively defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the terrorist organization which for 30 long years held the country at gun point, the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) has re-settled 90 percent of the nearly 300,000 persons displaced due to the conflict, rehabilitated and re-integrated into society almost 70 percent of the 11,696 ex-combatants who surrendered/were arrested including all 594 child combatants and has facilitated restoration of houses and livelihoods to most of those resettled, while ensuring education to all, including ex-combatants who continue to remain in custody.

Infrastructure projects

The Government has appointed a Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) to ensure restorative justice and reconciliation and is in discussion with all political parties from the North and the East in an effort to resolve any outstanding political issues.


Ambassador Ravinatha Aryasinha

The Sri Lanka economy has picked up and is expected to record 8.5 percent growth this year, stock prices are up nearly 250 percent, the exchange rate has remained largely stable, inflation has been at mid-single digit level and Sri Lanka has had its sovereign ratings upgraded by all rating agencies over the past year. In 2010 export growth was 17.3 percent, tourist arrivals grew by nearly 50 percent and major infrastructure projects such as harbours, airports, highways, hotel complexes and power generation plants are laying the foundation to transform the country into an economic hub concentrating on trade, finance, travel and knowledge-based industries.

Given that over the past two years the ruling coalition has decisively won the provincial, presidential, parliamentary and most recently the Local Government elections, political stability can also be expected. Above all, people in Sri Lanka have a sense of security and normalcy restored to their lives. Those going to work or school in the morning in any part of Sri Lanka today, can be pretty sure that they will be able to get back home safely, something we could not have taken for granted two years ago.

Final battle

As for the LTTE, as we near two years after the final battle, at least in Sri Lanka, it is clear that the military might of the LTTE has been fully vanquished. Even as it continues certain precautionary measures, the government of Sri Lanka seems sufficiently confident to continue to release in batches former LTTE cadres, some who have been part of the fighting force of the LTTE.

However, outside Sri Lanka, the situation seems more complicated. There has been a scramble between various factions of the LTTE to gain supremacy, with several senior military cadre of the organization jostling for dominance over the intelligence and organizational assets as well as the physical wealth of the organization, which in any case was mostly dispersed in the West even at the height of LTTE activity in Sri Lanka. LTTE front organizations which have since the proscription of the LTTE in more than 32 countries provided the interface between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora community, is rapidly adjusting to stay below your radar.

LTTE activists

As those of you from the security establishment are familiar, fund raising continues unabated, while there is also the mushrooming of the Madrassa type ‘Tamil Cholai’ (language schools) that are fermenting radicalization of youth and the glorification of terrorism and martyrdom. The latest ruse of continuing LTTE activity through other means, has of course been the LTTE’s initiative in September 2010 to form a ‘Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam’ (TGTE), with country working groups at national and regional levels in Western countries.

The latter is particularly sinister, for these bodies constituted through pseudo elections and comprising largely of known LTTE activists who seek to perpetuate the LTTE ideology, is a means by which a bulk of the Sri Lankan Tamils who have entered your countries illegally and who in the normal course of events are likely to be sent back home with the restoration of normalcy in Sri Lanka, are able to keep the pot boiling in order to justify remaining relevant in countries where they have sought asylum.

Why should you in Europe continue to worry about the LTTE?

In my reckoning, being senior members of the Judicial, Police, Intelligence, Military and Corporate Security Community, you should continue to worry about the LTTE for three important sets of reasons;

a) Helps understand the strategies and tactics of other terror groups

In the broadest sense, because understanding the ‘modus operandi’ used by the LTTE at its peak, as well as those remnant LTTE terrorist/front organization/criminal elements continue to adopt, will help you understand the strategies and tactics of similar groups, who might more specifically be the focus of your attention.

Today, comparison is often drawn in this regard between the LTTE and the PKK - their widespread terrorist/criminal networks including front organizations, resort to legal challenges, propaganda outfits ranging from radio/TV stations to numerous websites, manipulation of symbols, indoctrination of the youth, extortion in collecting funds and propensity to direct violence at their hosts in the face of losses suffered in the home country - as seen both in the final stages of Prabhakaran’s struggle for survival in May 2009, as was experienced in the aftermath of PKK leader Ocalan’s arrest in February 1999.

But it is also important to remember, that well before Aum Shinrikyo in 1995 carried out chemical attacks in a Tokyo subway, in 1990 the LTTE had used chlorine in attacks on the Sri Lanka Security Forces in Kiran, in Eastern Sri Lanka. Well before the Al-Qaeda movement was heard of, the LTTE which mastered the use of suicide jackets with C4 explosives, had until the more recent Iraq War been responsible for more than two-three of all suicide attacks carried out internationally, including on Heads of Government of two states - Ranasinghe Premadasa and Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga of Sri Lanka and Rajiv Gandhi of India.

The suicide attacks carried out by the LTTE on infrastructure in Sri Lanka amounted to billions of dollars and included the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, the Colombo harbour and Sri Lanka’s only international airport where nearly half of the national commercial airline fleet and a quarter of the air force fleet was destroyed in an attack in 2001, only weeks before 9-11.

The LTTE ‘Sea Tigers’ had also carried out ten suicide attacks on Sri Lankan Navy vessels targeting their hull with the use of explosive laden boats, before the Al Qaeda attacked ‘USS Cole’ in Yemen in October 2000.

They also constructed two 1,000 metre paved runways and with four rudimentary aircraft attacked Colombo as well as the Katunayake airbase on several occasions.

In addition to have benefitted from numerous Middle Eastern groups in its formative years, besides the PKK, the LTTE is known to have maintained operational relations with the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), the Afghan Mujahidin, Abu Sayaf, Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and Al-Qaeda.

Imagine any scenario which today are your worst nightmares of possibly what terrorists can do in your region, country, or company - at some time during their 30 year run, the LTTE would probably have operationalized it in Sri Lanka or abroad.

To be continued

 

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