Prabakaran warned three months ago that he would once again open the gates to the capital of his dream land (Jaffna). His theoretician Anton Balasingham in the recent issue of the Tamil Guardian repeated this warning and hardly a few days later, the LTTE struck in the Peninsular with a view to open the gates to Jaffna and the events that are unfolding with the fall of the Elephant Pass army camps are shocking the Sri Lankan nation.

We were told that after the surprised curfew and flushout operations in the City of Colombo on 06/01/2000 (which was not a surprise to the Tamil Daily which announced the curfew in advance) that the City was cleared up of all LTTE activists and their arsenals. Then, how did a large number of LTTE terrorists appear in the high security zone with a huge arsenal of weapons?

It is high time the ordinary citizens of this country realized that this war will never end and we will never have peace if the war is managed in this manner by the government. Dr. Rohan Gunaratna, in a recent address titled ` LTTE International Organization and Operations ' briefly described the history of the LTTE as follows;

The LTTE established its military and political infrastructure in Tamil Nadu, India, after the ethnic crisis of July 1983. As Colombo had weak diplomatic relations with New Delhi and Madras, both the central government of India and the state government of Tamil Nadu actively supported six guerrilla and terrorist groups. As 90% of Sri Lankan Tamils living in the South were affected by the ethnic violence in 1983, there was overwhelming support both from the Tamils in Northern Sri Lanka and Tamils who fled the island. In an attempt to establish firm control over the Tamil population in the peninsula, the Tamil groups had killed more Tamils than Sinhalese prior to 1983. But after 1983, with the resurgence of Tamil nationalism, there was high level of support for the Tamil groups both domestically and internationally. The LTTE strength which was 4 members in 1974, increased to 33 in 1983 but in 1987 had reached 3000. The sudden increase in strength of the LTTE - or the capacity to recruit was increased - after the riots of 1983. This demonstrated that public support was a critical factor in the growth of any guerrilla and terrorist group. This principle is universal - it applies to this date to the LTTE as well as to any other group.

After the IPKF declared war on the LTTE in October 1987, and particularly after the LTTE assassinated Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991, the LTTE found it difficult to operate in India for a period of time. The LTTE network hitherto confined to India was forced to expand worldwide largely because it needed an external base. As a result the speed boats that frequently ferried military supplies from South India to Northern Sri Lanka were replaced by deep sea-going merchant vessels. The LTTE network grew rapidly both in Europe and in North America in the post-1991 period. The LTTE established its International Secretariat in London, the nerve centre of LTTE international operations. Even before, the LTTE had been active in London but after it lost Madras as a base, the UK became central for both disseminating propaganda and coordinating procurement and shipping activity.

Traditionally, the LTTE acquired weapons from the government of India through its foreign intelligence agency - the Research and Analysis Wing - also known as RAW. RAW was also responsible for training two LTTE batches of cadres in Chakrata, north of Dehra Dun. The cadres trained in Chakrata provided training to subsequent batches in South India. From 1983 to 1987, there were 33 camps in Tamil Nadu. After January 1987, the LTTE established camps in northern Sri Lanka and depended less on India for support. The LTTE had also developed independent channels of procurement by purchasing its own ships and building a capability to procure both from the East and the West.

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