KAMALIKA PIERIS

In the Eelam war, Sri Lanka faced  a brutal, well funded terrorist organizations with a vast range of  sophisticated weapons . These powerful weapons gave the LTTE the appearance of great military strength. A sophisticated, extremely secretive,  weapons procurement system had been set up abroad  and the LTTE had a continuous supply of powerful weapons.

Weapons procurement was in the hand of K Pathmanathan. KP set up base in Thailand in the 1980s. Thailand provided easy access to   the former war zones of    Cambodia and Burma with their surplus weaponry.  He procured modern hardware and paid for them through secret bank accounts.

 Pathmanathan was solely responsible for   the elaborate   arms procurement operations for the LTTE and payments of large sums of money for the weapons (ordnance). The LTTE was able to sustain a military campaign for so long only because Pathmanathan was able to procure its military requirements, observed analysts.

LTTE are able to navigate the arms bazaars of the world, observed analysts. Pathmanathan had a large network of contacts and links to the international illegal arms trade. He had an extensive list of illicit arms dealers,    Afghanistan, Soviet bloc, Yugoslavia, also Middle-East, Africa, and East-Asia including Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia.    In May, 2009 according to reports, he travelled to Kabul via Karachi to meet the Taliban government. There were many markets all over the world to buy weapons, KP said years later in interview.

KP had established a front company in Ukraine around 1994 and another in Dubai named Otherad cargo’ around 1998 for sending weapons shipments to the LTTE.The LTTE used Eritrean and North Korea end user certificates with both countries denying that they gave them. Also an end user certificate from a weapons manufacturer in China.

KP’s arms procurement operations were extremely secretive. Despite secrecy, some information has emerged on weapons purchasing.

MV Swene carrying 60 tons of C4 explosives consigned to M/S Carlton Trading Co. Ltd., 60/61, Delugh Commercial Area, Dhaka, Bangladesh and a consignment of detonators consigned to E G C T International Ltd., Rangoon, Burma had left port of Nikolaev on 19/8/94 and sighted past Istanbul on 25/08/94.  There had been no record of her voyage till she was reported leaving the Port of Lagos for the Port of Banjul in Gambia and intelligence indicated that in the intervening period of this north bound voyage she had off loaded the cargo to LTTE having entered the Indian Ocean.

The explosives had been purchased from Rubezhnoe Chemicals Plant “ZARYA” in Lugansk Region, Ukraine using end user certificate No: DP 816955 in the name of H.D. Hashin Noor Rahman. KP transferred US $ 50,000 from City bank account in Singapore in June 1994 to the Chemical Plant. (   Source: Aide memoire from Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry, June 2009)

Rohan Gunaratne said that LTTE have been procuring arms, aircraft explosives and other items from Australia for more than a decade. They were buying light aircraft from local manufacturers in Australia in the mid 1990s and in 2006 bought remote control device to detonate bombs in Sri Lanka .

The weapons bought by LTTE were shipped to Jaffna using a merchant shipping network known as the “Sea Pigeons”,   operated by KP from Thailand. The LTTE shipping fleet was started by KP and Captain David, a merchant Navy officer from Jaffna in 1984. ‘Arasu Maritime Private Ltd’ was one of their first ventures. Several firms were floated to make enquiries about military wares. ‘Captain David and Associates’ was one such firm.

It was not difficult to acquire ships at the time, KP said years later in an interview.  Anyone can open a shipping company. Anyone can operate ships.  It is a normal operation.  The companies were mainly based in Singapore and Malaysia. The support of Singapore-based Tamils was enlisted for this purpose. Dummy companies with offices in Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong were also set up. The ships were supposed to carry timber and grain.

An old Chinese vessel, ‘Sun-Hing,’ was purchased from a Mumbai based shipping magnate, name changed to ‘MV Cholan ’and registered in Panama in October 1984. ‘MV Cholan’ started off in 1985 with general cargo from Southeast Asia to Vishakhapatnam in India. It also carried powerful boat engines, communication equipment, machine guns, tinned food, packet food, camouflage uniform items, tents and raincoats.”

LTTE got permission in the 1980s, from Burma to establish a modest shipping concern based in the island of Twante located off the Irrawaddy delta. In 1990 they had a niche in Phuket in Thailand, as well. 

KP had also built a fleet of commercial boats, the only separatist group to be so equipped. In June 2000 Thai police had stumbled on a half built submersible in a Phuket shipyard.  The ship yard was owned by C.R. Lawrence a Jaffna born Tamil with a Norwegian passport. He had been arrested in an operation against oil smugglers. The authorities found instead of oil, sophisticated equipment meant for LTTE, such as radar and sonar.  They searched his shipyard and found the boat.  An American and a Thai had been co-owners of this yard.

The tourist operation of Lawrence was a cover up for smuggling arms via the Andaman Islands to the LTTE. He was convicted by Thai authorities but mysteriously disappeared from Thailand after an intervention by a woman posing as a representative of Amnesty International who had apparently got the Thai authorities to deport him to Norway.

By 2000, there were 11 well equipped ships, capable of transoceanic long distance sailing, for smuggling, said GH Peries.  LTTE owned 50 ships, managing a fleet of two dozen ships at any given times said Rohan Gunaratne in 2009. They were expensive craft, said analysts. They were used by the LTTE not only for transportation of arms and ammunition but also for human smuggling.

Rohan Gunaratne said that the LTTE shipping and procurement staffers were highly skilled. They are masters in clandestine and compartmentalized operations.  Merchant navy officers, sailors and engineers from Valvettiturai   and elsewhere in the north east of Sri Lanka, were available to the LTTE .Some of them had done training at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Nautical Engineering College in Mumbai. 

The government of Sri Lanka succeeded in sinking most if not all of the LTTE ships, both hired and owned by LTTE. Princess Christina had been taken over in foreign waters, in Dec 2009. It was seized by the Navy during a clandestine operation.

In spite of losing its eight floating arsenals, the LTTE still retained the capacity to acquire arms ammunition and equipment and move then across the Gulf of Mannar to its bases north of Mannar, noted Shamindra Ferdinando. India was used as the primary transition point. A chance detection made by Tamilnadu authorities in Oct 2007 exposed a secret Norwegian supply route from Norway to Vanni via Tamilnadu. (Continued)