By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando Courtesy Ceylon Today

The latest news about a haul of weapons and explosives by Kilinochchi Police, hidden in a former LTTE member’s house and two claymore bombs later, has made national security officials to seriously think whether the LTTE is attempting to raise its ugly head once again. 

On 18 May 2009, Sri Lankan Security Forces decimated the entire LTTE terrorist unit. However, after a decade, does the latest arrest of Joseph Peter Robinson (alias Theepan) in Kilinochchi confirm the saying “The Tiger never changes its spots”.

Defunct

Although the entire LTTE team was thought to be defunct, yet this latest incident along with an Asian Tribune article on 25 June, by Journalist Glen Genvey and his exposure on Adele Balasingham has managed to disturb a hornet’s nest. Adele Balasingham is the wife of LTTE theoretician, who conscripted young children as soldiers and sent them to the battlefield as cannon fodder. She has been found to be living in London, leading a millionaire’s life by occupying a £1,169,000  (Rs 252,504,000) mansion out of funds extorted from Tamils, who still struggle in dire poverty.

Husband

Her husband, Anton Balasingham, was known the world over as the ‘Theoretician and the Chief spokesman for the LTTE, who executed terrorist activities from London. He started his career initially as a sub-editor at the Associated Newspapers of Ceylon (Lake House Group) during the 1960s, translating Reuters English News to Tamil along with other articles for the ‘Virakesari’ – the Tamil newspaper published by Lake House. Finally, he joined the British High Commission in Colombo as an official Tamil translator.

Anton married his first wife, Pearl Rasaratnam, in1968. She too was attached to the British Council in Colombo. Pearl was perpetually a sick woman, and that made the couple to decide to emigrate to the UK for medical treatment.  The British High Commission in Colombo helped them in this regard.

In London

The Balasingham couple settled down in a town in South London called Camberwell. Anton found employment at the Inner London Executive Council, while Pearl’s health deteriorated with renal failure and she died in November 1976.  Anton Balasingham brought his wife’s remains to Sri Lanka and the burial took place at the Kanatte, General Cemetery in Borella. After attending to funeral activities, Anton Balasingham returned to England. At a Camberwell Pub (Public House) he befriended  Adele Ann Wilby, an Australian nurse who worked at the Pub at the time. The friendship led to the couple getting married on 1 September  1978. 

Anton and Adele could travel to India frequently (Tamil Nadu)  as they both held  British passports. In India, they met the LTTE Leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and seemingly became the Chief  Adviser cum confidante of Prabhakaran. He was finally known as the ‘Theoretician and Chief Spokesman’ for the LTTE. 

British attitude

What startles is how the British Government turned a blind eye to Anton Balasingham’s terrorist activities from London when the LTTE was officially proscribed by the British as an illegal, notorious and a ruthless terrorist organisation. Many other western countries had by then banned the LTTE along with a few Asian countries.  Ironically, vacillating nature on the part of the Sri Lankan Government for a long time for not proscribing the LTTE gave  the UK to take the upper hand, so to speak, and come out with unconvincingly feeble excuses such as “Anton Balasingham had not done any criminal activities officially  in the UK, as such, no action could be taken against him!”

There  is no need to be more eloquent about the British Government’s attitude, during that era, than the indecorous President R. Premadasa committed by expelling the then British High Commissioner, David Gladstone, CMG (Most Distinguished Order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George, Prince Regent, later King George IV), from Colombo causing much embarrassment to the decorated diplomat himself, who was a descendant of one-time  British Prime Minister, William Gladstone. 

In 1990s Britain was considered as one of the biggest aid donors to Sri Lanka. Thus,  the expulsion and the declaration of persona non grata on the  Diplomat made the British to adopt a sangfroid attitude overtly but causing much damage to Sri Lanka covertly. Simultaneously, the British turned a blind eye to whatever terrorist activities Balasingham organised and executed from London. Finally, Anton Balasingham died on 14 December 2006 at his home in South London.

Adele Balasingham

Adele Balasingham was known as ‘The White Tiger’, the only ‘white-skinned person’ directly involved and helped the LTTE in Sri Lanka. After her husband’s demise, she has moved to New Malden, Surrey to a four-bedroom luxury house with the proceeds of the LTTE’s ‘ill-gotten gains’. 

She was publicly known to be recruiting child soldiers, as young as nine-year-old, and sent before the Sri Lankan Security Forces as cannon fodder, after supplying a cyanide capsule in case of an emergency to commit suicide. Finally, Adele became the advisor to the women’s wing of the LTTE and conducted many a suicide attack. Some observers believe she was responsible for the assassination of the Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa. 

The Asian Tribune once before exposing her quoting the London’s popular Evening Standard tabloid in June 2007 with her photograph. She had been careful not to associate her aname or address online with any of UK’s public records.  The cat was let out of the bag when “she accidentally used her email address with a domain belonging to the University of Surrey, to participate in a British event that celebrated ‘Women of War.’

The Evening Standard’s report in 2007 also quoted “A senior diplomat attached to the Sri Lanka High Commission in London confirming Adele Balasingham as having had connections with senior ranks of the LTTE in Sri Lanka. According to emerging records, she has been labelled, as the only survivor of the upper echelons of the  LTTE  and had regarded her as a ‘Security risk for Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom’. The tabloid article had demanded an international arrest warrant to be issued by India and Sri Lanka, as she was responsible for murdering hundreds of men, women, children as well as maiming thousands of innocent people with suicide bombings over 30-years. The Evening Standard had mentioned how “Adele Balasingham rarely leaves her mansion and made a request to both Sri Lanka and India to work hand in glove and expose this murderer and send her to prison for life”. 

Private investigations  

Jane’s Information Group’s investigations into LTTE activities in Sri Lanka between 1980 and 2000, have revealed the popular tactics of the Liberation of Tamil Eelam as the introduction of suicide bombs to the world at large. The LTTE had carried out 168 suicide attacks causing heavy damage to civilians, killing and maiming thousands of innocent people who had nothing to do with the war. 

In 1998, the LTTE attacked one of the UNESCO’s world heritage sites in Sri Lanka, Sri Dalada Maligawa in Kandy slaughtering worshippers and Buddhist priests who were piously engaged in prayer. The LTTE also managed to destroy Sri Lanka’s economic targets including the blowing up of aero Planes at the Bandaranaike International Airport in 2001. 

 The list of the LTTE atrocities is endless. Their main aim was to eliminate every senior Army officer who was seen as an obstruction to them. In this respect, Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary, at the time, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, escaped death miraculously when a suicide bomber’s attempt ripped his bullet-proof vehicle in Colombo but escaped death. Another miraculous escape from death was the then Army Commander, Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka who displayed his courageous nature by carrying his internal organs in his hand after a woman suicide bomber blew herself up but the Army Commander escaped death. The courageous Army Commander was heard vouching to decimate the entire terrorist organisation, which he managed to destroy into smithereens.

tilakfernando@gmail.com