South Asia Terrorism Portal  
[November 30, 2004]

Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 3, No. 20, November 29, 2004 

SRI LANKA

Terror Speaks
Saji Cherian
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

On November 27 each year, the cadres of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as well as the whole of Sri Lanka listens with bated breath as the country's most wanted terrorist, Vellupillai Prabhakaran, delivers his annual 'Mahaveerar Thinam' (Heroes Day) speech. Each year the 'leader' spells out the broad policy to be followed by the rebel group, based on the prevailing political and military equations in the island nation. Since the Ceasefire Agreement signed by the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE in February 2002, Prabhakaran has now delivered three Heroes Day speeches. 

In 2002, he declared that he would consider 'favourably' a political framework that offers substantial regional autonomy and self-government to the Tamil people on the basis of their right to internal self-determination. 

The following year, he rejected President Chandrika Kumaratunga's accusations that his organization was strengthening its military power and preparing for war. This year, the portents are more ominous, as Prabhakaran pointed to the "division, discord, confusion and contradiction within the Sinhala political leadership on the Tamil issue," and sounded the warning that "if the government rejects our urgent appeal, adopts delaying tactics perpetuating the suffering of our people, we have no alternative other than to advance the freedom struggle of our nation." 

The threat implicit in the statement goes well beyond the necessary rhetoric of a Heroes Day address.

Prabhakaran is, of course, quite right about the 'confusion' within the Sinhalese leadership with regard to the LTTE and the peace process. 

President Kumaratunga, for instance, in an interview to The Hindu, on November 14, asserted that the LTTE had not given up on its plans to assassinate her. Referring to Prabhakaran she said that "he is still thinking of getting me, while holding talks with us." At the same time, however, she added that the "LTTE had changed a lot", and "they are willing to explore some solution other than (an independent Tamil) Eelam."

Conversely, such 'confusion' is altogether absent in the rebel group's orientation. In October 2004, Anton Balasingham, LTTE 'ideologue' and chief negotiator, pointed out that the Tamil Tigers had not abandoned their 'right to secede', despite agreeing to explore a 'federal solution'. 

Further, Kumaratunga and other Sri Lankan leaders have, on various occasions, alternately praised the Norwegian mediators and accused them of siding with the LTTE and overlooking rebel ceasefire violations. The LTTE, on the other hand, has at no time derided the Norwegians, but has very clear notions of what the limits of the facilitators' and the donors' jurisdictions are. On November 3, Balasingham stated that "the donor conferences held in Oslo on 25 November 2002 and in Tokyo on 10 June 2003 and the resolutions adopted at these meetings cannot bind our liberation organization to a particular framework of a final political settlement."

With the negotiations between the two sides currently hitting rock bottom, the Government has realised that, in spite of the ceasefire agreement, the chances of war are mounting. The recent endeavor to acquire support from India through the Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA) is essentially a response to these apprehensions.

 On the contrary, for the LTTE, achieving peace has never been the ultimate goal and, consequently, it has never abandoned its policy of recruitment, assassination, fundraising and military build-up.
In January 2004, President Kumaratunga had alleged, on the basis of intelligence reports, that the LTTE had increased its military strength during the truce period by recruiting over 11,000 cadres. "The LTTE has increased its cadre by three times from around seven thousand to over 18,000. Quite a few of them are small children and forcible recruitment was going on," she said. Adding substance to this statement the New York-based Human Rights Watch, in its report in November, accused the LTTE of continuing to enlist boys and girls below the age of 18 years, since the Oslo-brokered truce went into effect. "The ceasefire has brought an end to the fighting but not to the Tamil Tigers' use of children as soldiers," said Jo Becker, Children's Rights Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch and a co-author of the report. 

The report, 'Living in Fear: Child Soldiers and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka,' included firsthand testimonies from dozens of children from north-eastern Sri Lanka who had been recruited since the cease-fire came into effect. Children described rigorous and sometimes brutal military training, including training with heavy weapons, bombs and landmines. The LTTE used intimidation and threats to pressure Tamil families in the island's North and the East to provide sons and daughters for military service, the report said. When families refused, their children were sometimes abducted from their homes at night or forcibly recruited while walking to school. Parents who resisted recruitment faced violence or detention.

A spokesperson of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) said on October 9, that the LTTE has recruited 1,424 children, out of whom 45 had been abducted during the 28-months of truce ending August 31, while 359 adults were abducted during the same period. Also from a total of 4,903 complaints against the LTTE and 961 against the Government, 2,439 violations against the LTTE and 111 against the Government of Sri Lanka had been confirmed on the record, the SLMM spokesperson added.

Significantly, Prabhakaran did not mention the 'Colonel' Karuna rebellion in his speech, a deliberate ploy to undermine an event that shook the LTTE apparatus in March 2004 and threatened to split the outfit into two. Clearly, Prabhakaran did not want to divert the attention and focus of his Tamil listeners from the aim of 'Tamil Eelam', to an embarrassment which threatened the unity of the group. Moreover, with an annihilation campaign targeting the Karuna's rebel cadres underway in the north and the east, Prabhakaran considers the rebellion to have been 'dealt with'. 

The systematic and open character of the annihilation campaign can be gauged by the fact that, on October 31, the 'Batticaloa-Amparai Political Office' of the LTTE issued leaflets with photographs of known Karuna cadres, asking district residents to identify and provide information that could lead to their elimination. Apart from targeting the Karuna cadres, the LTTE has also targeted every dissenting Tamil political voice. As in the past, the LTTE has continued to assassinate a number of senior Tamil political leaders and their party workers in the Northern and Eastern part of the country, especially belonging to the Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP), throughout the period of the ceasefire. Significantly, annual fatalities have been rising continuously since the ceasefire, with a total of 15 persons killed in 2002; 59 in 2003; and 106 in 2004 (till November 28).

At no point of time through the ceasefire has the LTTE let its guard down and Prabhakaran's war machine has never been dormant, particularly its finance and military departments. Since June 2004, there have been reports indicating that the LTTE has started a special campaign to raise money in Europe and North America, saying they are sick and tired of the peace process. The Tamil diaspora in these countries, especially Canada, France and England, have been approached by LTTE functionaries, requesting them to donate for the cause. The LTTE has been very successful throughout the ceasefire in projecting two images, one for the international audience and another for its adherents. As an intelligence source notes, "the LTTE always speaks in two voices - one for the international community, preferably in English, and another for the Tamils living under its control, invariably in Tamil."

The Sri Lankan Army has also been alarmed by the LTTE military build-up, particularly around the Trincomalee harbour, and has been crying itself hoarse. A complaint was lodged with the SLMM, but the truce monitors have indicated that all the LTTE installations visited were located well within LTTE-controlled areas, and that they had found no indication of a LTTE military build-up around the harbour. However, on October 30, the SLMM's report was falsified, when the Sri Lankan Navy destroyed a LTTE camp in the Palampatar Santhiri jungles in Trincomalee, and a LTTE flag, two hand grenades, a VHF signalling antenna, a 30 metre antenna cable, notebooks with personal details and some weapons were recovered.

The LTTE and its 'chief' Prabhakaran are evidently not 'confused' as to where the peace process is headed: "Whatever the real reason, we can clearly and confidently say one thing; it is apparent from the inconsistent and contradictory statements made by President Kumaratunga that her Government is not going to offer the Tamil people either an interim administration or a permanent solution…..we cannot continue to be entrapped in a political vacuum without an interim solution or a permanent settlement, without a stable peace and without peace of mind."

The LTTE has systematically exploited this 'political vacuum' to stabilize and empower itself, both domestically and internationally, a reality that cannot be overlooked by the Sinhalese leadership, which would find itself on a relatively weaker footing, were war to break out again.

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Last Updated Date: November 25, 2004 .