KAMALIKA PIERIS

The LTTE evolved from a militant Tamil youth group, in the 1970s, to become ‘one of the most powerful terrorist groups in the world’. It challenged the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Sri Lanka state, said admiring supporters of LTTE.

We are asked to believe that  a bunch of  village lads from Valvettiturai, who had never left Jaffna,  did not know English, were not highly educated  and had no military training, were able to launch a  military campaign against  the government of Sri Lanka  and hang on to it  for thirty years.

How was the LTTE able to survive as a fighting force for nearly 30 years, asked sceptics.  How was LTTE able to carry out a war against Sri Lanka for such a long period? How was it able to survive as a fighting force for so long?

In an Interview on Thulawa, in May 2009, the Army Commander was asked, how did the LTTE acquire the knowledge to run this war? Did foreign countries help?  The answer was, yes. This question came up regularly in television interviews.

The Eelam War was initiated by the west and funded by the west. LTTE was merely the front. It is generally thought that the western country responsible was the United States of America. The west was interested in Sri Lanka due to its strategic position in the Indian Ocean and the deep water Trincomalee harbor with its command of the Bay of Bengal.   The west saw Sri Lanka as a soft target.

The west had to hide the fact that it had initiated, nurtured and was funding the Eelam separatist war. LTTE was therefore presented as a powerful entity which, during the time of the war, also developed into an international business   power with tentacles worldwide. This mind boggling development was of course, a cover for western activity.

 LTTE had to show the public that it had its own sources of income to finance the war. The two enterprises presented to the public were Narcotics and Diaspora,   two unlikely sources which did not have the capacity to generate the huge funds needed for the protracted Eelam war.

There was a well developed narcotics trade in Jaffna long before the LTTE. It was initially, a small enterprise limited to Jaffna and Tamilnadu, handled by   Valvettiturai. Narcotics traffickers were among the very first Sri Lanka Tamil Diaspora to appear in Canada, said Thompson.

Once LTTE took over, a network of heroin traffickers appeared in Italy, Swaziland and elsewhere. There were about 200 Tamils in a Rome based narcotic distribution network spread over several Italian cities such as Milan and Naples, by 1984. 

By 1990s Burma had became the world’s largest source of opium and heroin in the Golden triangle .LTTE  got permission from Burma to establish a  modest shipping  concern based in the island of Twante located off the Irrawaddy delta.  LTTE also had a niche in Phuket in Thailand by 1990.

LTTE provided bulk delivery of heroin and cannabis from Asia to   user countries. LTTE transferred major shipments of heroin and opium from India, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Thailand. LTTE smuggled Mandrax from Gujarat and Maharashtra to South Africa.     LTTE was   linked to heroin distribution in Canada, France, Italy, Poland and Switzerland.  

The LTTE drug trade is many faceted and well organized, said the media. The LTTE has control of all levels in the business. The LTTE supporters provide the ‘mules’, the peddlers who distributed to the ‘street’. LTTE also had the capacity to launder the drug money. 

 LTTE was one of the very few drug smuggling syndicates that had its own fleet of ships.  It was also the only separatist group to be so equipped.

John Thompson observed that the LTTE did not initially have a Diaspora for support. They created one. The LTTE infiltrated    immigrants groups   through patronage and directed them towards LTTE objectives.

The LTTE is known to have a presence in over 44 countries.  Of these, the LTTE has established a structured presence in 12 countries which are considered to be the top-level contributing countries (TLCs) to the LTTE.  These 12 countries have a country representative, who receives instruction from Kilinochchi.  Each country had four units, Political, Finance, Procurement and Intelligence, each with its own head. The Finance unit is responsible for achieving the collection targets set by Kilinochchi for each country, said Shanaka Jayasekera.

Tamil immigrants were supported by LTTE when they arrived in Europe, Australia, North America, and particularly in Ontario in Canada. Immigrants were provided with services, job training, even babysitting services were provided by fronts controlled by LTTE. Their lives were thereafter controlled by the LTTE. They were exposed to Tamil newspapers, radio shows, and cultural events. Tamil learned to stay quiet and not make any fuss, said Thompson. Diaspora organizations that opposed LTTE were squashed.

LTTE milked the Tamil Diaspora as much as it could.  LTTE used everything from collection jars to sophisticated payment schemes to raise money from Tamils. This extortion was carried out by a net work of professional managers spread across a string of countries.

The Diaspora was asked to make a monthly contribution to the LTTE. Some were forced to contribute, others did so willingly.  Some Tamils abroad have a romantic notion of LTTE and Eelam, observed Rohan Gunaratne.

Towards the end of the Eelam war the LTTE carried this further. Tamil families in Europe were registered and assigned a unique PIN number referred to as the Tamil Eelam identity number.In Switzerland, each Tamil family has been issued with a three-page form carrying the heading LTTE in Switzerland”. The form had 30 questions relating to personal information including details of blood-relatives in Sri Lanka, income status, subscription to LTTE satellite television and contribution to homeland funds.

This data was to be kept in a data base in a Scandinavian country, to be sent on to Kilinochchi. LTTE intended to use this information to make assessments on contributions levels based income and lifestyle factors. The base rate under this system seems to be one unit of currency (one Euro in Europe) per person for each day out of Sri Lanka. Additional surcharge is applied depending on income levels, size of family and contributions towards periodic appeals.

In an article published in the French newspaper Le Figaro, on 2 December 2005, a French citizen of Tamil origin describes how the LTTE accessed all his personal details at the LTTE check
point in Sri Lanka with his PIN number and confiscated his French passport until his
family agreed to pay the outstanding contributions owed in France.

LTTE had community based Tamil radio stations and subscription satellite TV such as National Television of Tamil Eelam (NTT) and Tamil Television Network (TTN). It is estimated that TTN had 22,000 subscribers in Europe. Subscription satellite TV was a valuable medium for propaganda. It also provided Tamil entertainment with LTTE undertones. 

 Subscription satellite TV also generated substantial income in terms of subscription and advertising. In Europe, Tamil businessmen were required to maintain a specified advertising commitment with these channels. The   channels sent out monthly statements indicating the
specified advertising commitment. Excessive premiums were charged for such   advertisements.

One of the most profitable business ventures associated with LTTE fundraising was the retailing of   Pre-paid Phone Cards. LTTE generate substantial volumes of funds from retailing phone cards to the Tamil Diaspora.

The LTTE provided seed capital to set up several front companies registered as telecom retailers in Europe. The telecom retailers purchase bulk call-time to Asian destinations from gateway operators in Europe and retail the call-time using phone cards under multiple brand names. The Tamil spice shops and grocery shops are flooded with these phone cards eliminating all other cards, stated Shanaka.

LTTE was closely associated with the global distribution of Tamil movie DVDs in Europe and Canada. Tamil DVDs were distributed through Tamil grocery shops throughout Europe and Canada, through selected distributors. The main Tamil DVD distribution company Aynagaran International, is owned by K. Karunamoorthy, formerly of Inuvil in Jaffna, reported Shanaka in 2007.

LTTE raised money through events.   Tamil Youth Organization (TYO) played a lead role in event based fundraising and mobilizing Tamil youth for LTTE work. It had branches in 9 countries.The most lucrative event based fundraising was marathon radio shows

Money was also raised through cultural shows, sports events, food festivals, guest speaker events and commemoration of LTTE war victories. When the LTTE peace delegations toured Europe,  guest speaker events were held in many European cities. On 26 February 2006, the LTTE in Switzerland organized a dinner for the Tamil business community to meet LTTE leaders at Thamilini Restaurant in Zurich. Donations ranging up to SFR 20,000 were demanded from each businessman.

Hindu temples are owned and managed by private entrepreneurs.  LTTE saw that temple management was lucrative, and got hold of the Hindu temples used by the Diaspora.  There are several cases recorded in the UK, Canada and Australian where strong-arm tactics were used to gain control of temple management.

Human Right Watch report on LTTE fundraising in March 2006, describes the role of the LTTE in the management of Hindu temples. The report   refers to cases in Canada and Australia (Perth) in which the LTTE used violent methods to intimidate temple owners.

There was also the case of Rajasingham Jayadevan and Arumugam Kandiah Vivekananthan held captive by the LTTE in Kilinochchi and forced to hand over control of Eelapatheeswaran Aalayam Temple in London. The temple owners were released by the LTTE after the intervention of the UK government.

LTTE also made use of the Tamil gangs that developed in the immigration enclaves. Shanaka Jayasekera reported that Tamil gang violence in London escalated to alarming levels during the period 2001 to 2004. In a short period of two years 13 Tamil gang members were killed in violent and brutal attacks. The first attack took place in Roe Green Park, Kingsbury and followed by reprisal attacks in Lynton Park, Wembley. Thereafter attacks took place in Ilford, East
Ham, Tooting and Harrow. As recent as 2004, the Ari Ala gang attacked Tamil youth in
Wembley.

 The LTTE uses these gangs. It gives cross-border contract assignments in
which gang members from one country are tasked assignments in another country thereby
maintaining anonymity and avoid implicating local gangs, reported Shanaka.

Nalin de Silva pointed out that if anybody thinks that the LTTE buys all these arms from their kappan money then he/she does not know the funds involved in arms dealings.  These financial resources cannot in anyway meet the expensive business of running an outfit of that strength created with sophisticated weapons, agreed another analyst.  LTTE ‘s  2006 purchase of  Russia made SA-18 missiles to be use against the Sri Lanka air force jets was reported to be a staggering USD 900,000 – 937,000.

But the LTTE thought otherwise. Daily News reported in 2009, that according to a letter taken into custody from the World Tamil Movement, Canada, the LTTE had requested the Diaspora in Canada to raise 4.5 million Canadian dollars to buy anti aircraft missiles, cannon, artillery, speedboats and aircraft for the protracted insurgency in Sri Lanka. The letter had given the following figures, anti aircraft missiles one crore Rupees, speedboats five crore Rupees, aircraft 20 crore Rupees, helicopter 30 crore Rupees, so please speed up the fundraising.  (Continued)