Terror Ultimatum?

If there was a sense that an unstable equilibrium had somehowbeen achieved in Sri Lanka, and that this would survive the change of government,this complacence has certainly been undermined by the harsh posturing on bothsides in just over two weeks since the election results brought the hardlinePresident Mahinda Rajapaksa to power. 

As has been customary over a number of years, the LiberationTigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Chief, Vellupillai Prabhakaran, in militaryfatigues, delivered his "Heroes' Day" speech on November 27, 2005. Hisspeech was laced with the usual anti-Sinhala-Buddhist rhetoric and Tamilnationalistic exhortation, but it had an added sting, as Prabhakaran defined anew deadline for the peace process:

The new government should come forward soon with a reasonable political framework that will satisfy the political aspirations of the Tamil people. This is our urgent and final appeal. If the new government rejects our urgent appeal, we will, next year, in solidarity with our people, intensify our struggle for self-determination, our struggle for national liberation to establish self-government in our homeland.

While it is certainly unsettling, the ultimatum is notwithout precedent. In his 2004 "Heroes’ Day" speech, Prabhakaran hadvoiced a similar threat:

We are living in a political void, without war, without a stable peace … If the government of Sri Lanka rejects our urgent appeal and adopts delaying tactics, perpetuating the suffering of our people, we have no alternative other than to advance the freedom struggle of our nation..

The 2004 threat of return to war was, however, diluted andforgotten when the Tsunami struck LTTE stronghold areas on December 24 and,according to unconfirmed reports, destroyed a significant proportion of theircadres and arsenal.

The intervening year, however, has seen significant andunsettling developments that heighten risks of recidivism in the country. Sincethe Tsunami, the island nation and the LTTE have grappled with reconstructionand rehabilitation woes; however, the country has also witnessed a spike inviolence in 2005. According to data compiled by the Institute for ConflictManagement, 232 persons had been killed in 2005 (till November 30),including 123 civilians, 36 security force personnel and 73 terrorists. 2004 sawa total of 109 deaths (33 civilians, 7 security force personnel and 69terrorists).

The districts of Amparai, Batticaloa, Trincomalee andPolonnurawa have been the worst affected by this escalation, accounting for asmany as 174 of the 232 deaths. The split in the LTTE in March 2004, with theeastern faction led by 'Colonel' Karuna charting its own course, contributedoverwhelmingly to this sudden spurt in deaths in the region, though it isbelieved that only several hundred Karuna cadres are actively engaged in takingon their erstwhile brothers-in-arms in the Eastern districts of Batticaloa,Amparai and Polonnaruwa. Since April 9, 2004, when the LTTE launched attacksagainst the forward positions of ‘Colonel’ Karuna near the Verugal River inBatticaloa District, there have been close to 51 incidents of violence involvingthe two factions, leading to the death of 54 LTTE and 64 Karuna cadres.

Among these are a number of crucial leadership lossesinflicted on the LTTE, prominent among which were the killings of its EasternPolitical wing leader, Kaushalyan, his deputy Nedimaran and Ariyanayagam ChandraNehru, the former Tamil National Alliance Member of Parliament for the AmparaiDistrict, in an ambush at Poonani in Batticaloa District on February 7, 2005.There have also been unsuccessful, though psychologically and physicallydamaging, attempts on the LTTE senior leadership: on February 28, 2005, Kuveni,the head of the LTTE’s ‘Political Division (Women)’ for Batticaloa-Amparai,and two of her colleagues, Akanila and Sasimathy, were shot at and wounded inThambattai; on June 26, LTTE’s Amparai district 'political head', Kuyilinpanand 40 cadres escaped a landmine explosion at Welikanda. In the latest attack onNovember 14, the Karuna faction scored a ‘success’, eliminating the LTTE'sAmparai District ‘military commander’, Suresh, in the Akkaraipattu area.

Never faced with such retaliation from his own ilk,Prabhakaran complained bitterly that a "subversive war has been unleashedwith the aim of weakening our liberation organisation and to undermine ourstruggle." However, a closer look at recent events highlights the fact thatthe LTTE, apart from targeting many ground-level functionaries of its rivalTamil parties and the Karuna faction, has also been indulging in a systematiccampaign of liquidation, targeting persons whose work is believed to have harmedthe LTTE. Some of the most prominent among recent assassinations in this chaininclude:

• April 24, 2005: a police official, Inspector T. Jeyaratnam, responsible for the arrest of a large number of LTTE operatives, was reported missing since April 20, possibly killed by the LTTE.
  
  

• May 31, 2005: the LTTE shot dead the Commanding Officer of the Army Intelligence Unit, Major Nizam Mutalif, at Polhengoda in the capital, Colombo
  
  

• August 4, 2005: Jaffna district Superintendent of Police, W. D. Charles Wijewardene, was abducted and hacked to death by a mob instigated by the LTTE on the Jaffna-KKS Road in the Paalaveddi area.
  
  

• August 12, 2005: Foreign Affairs Minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar, was shot dead by a LTTE sniper near his private residence on Bullers Lane in the heart of the capital Colombo.
  
  

• October 30, 2005: A senior Officer, Lieutenant Colonel T.R. Meedin of the Military Intelligence Corps, was killed by the LTTE in the Kiribathgoda area of Colombo district.

The LTTE has also focused its machinery continuously onefforts at military consolidation, embracing arms procurement, recruitment –including child recruitment – and fund-raising. The United Nations ChildrenFund (UNICEF), as of 31 July 2005, had documented 5,081 cases of underagerecruitment by the LTTE, since the signing of the cease-fire agreement in 2003.Further, the mobilisation of resources has not just been limited to the islandterritory but has extended into nations like Great Britain, Australia, Canada,France and Switzerland, where there is a significant Tamil Diaspora. 

Accordingto the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, in November 2005, members ofToronto’s large Tamil community had been asked to make an immediate cashcontribution of $2,500 each, with the warning that those who did not contributewould not be allowed to travel in the LTTE-controlled parts of Sri Lanka whenthey returned for visits. In its December 2, 2005, issue, Le Figaro alsoreported that the LTTE had collected an estimated $ 120 million in asophisticated racket targeting France’s Tamil Diaspora. Quoting Frenchintelligence officials, Le Figaro added that some 1,000 LTTE cadresenforce the collection of ‘revolutionary tax’ among the 70,000-strongcommunity.

Similar reports of fundraising have been received fromAustralia where, on November 23, 2005, Federal Police officials arrested severalLTTE agents in Melbourne for fund-raising and money laundering activities. Amongthose who were taken into custody were Thillai Jeyakumar, the head of the TamilRehabilitation Organisation (TRO) and Sivaraj Jathevan, editor of the EelamMurasi, the bi-monthly mouthpiece published in France but circulated inAustralia.

Within this context, and given the polarized politics of SriLanka, though Prabhakaran has put an year-end deadline for President MahindaRajapaksa to deliver a "reasonable political framework" for resolutionof the protracted ethnic war, it remains highly improbable that the Sinhala-Buddhistregime would be able to conjure up a solution in this period. It would, in fact,need a miracle, to prevail upon the two extremes to abandon their respective‘high ground’ and arrive at a compromise – an eventuality that remainsunlikely, considering the position held by President Rajapaksa and his backers,and by the LTTE leadership. 

Indeed, President Rajapaksa, in his Policy Statementat the Opening of the new session of Parliament on November 25,2005, sought to impose new conditionalities on the LTTE under a revisedCeasefire Agreement that would "ensure the protection of human rights,prevent recruitment of children for war, safeguard national security….. (andthe) Creation of a government infrastructure that will safeguard Sri Lanka’ssovereignty, territorial integrity, unitary nature of the state" andreplace "concepts of traditional homelands and self-determination"with that of the "freedom to exercise all the rights enshrined in theConstitution"; concepts that would inevitably clash with LTTE’s coredemands of ‘self-government, self-determination and national liberation’.

In a statement that has further vitiated the already gloomyatmosphere in the country, the Janathā Vimukthi Peramuna’s (JVP,the main ‘Left’ party in Parliament) leader, Somawansa Amarasinghe, statedon November 24 that, "Finding a solution to the ethnic crisis on the basisof a unitary state was the key component of the agreement (between the JVP andthe President’s party). The JVP was also opposed to Norway’sfacilitation. Therefore our party would not change from its position agreed uponin the agreement reached with the President." Compounding uncertainties,the Constitutional Affairs Minister D.E.W. Gunasekara, reacting to the LTTEdeadline, declared, "We don’t get excited by these deadlines… Youcan’t do these things in a hurry. You can’t do it in one night."

The resumption of open war does not, of course, appear to beimminent despite the posturing. Neither the LTTE nor the government has managedto secure a decisive advantage over the past years – despite continuousefforts to weaken the ‘enemy’, and both parties would be inclined tocontinue with the covert war till a such a decisive superiority has beensecured.

 Third party intervention and the focus of international organizations,as well as the substantial dependence of both the LTTE and the government on thegenerosity of international donors, make war far too costly and hazardous. TheEuropean Union (EU) declaration of September 26, 2005, to check and curb illegalor undesirable activities (including issues of funding and propaganda) of theLTTE, its related organisations and known individual supporters, will be areminder to Prabhakaran of international concerns. 

It is consequently likelythat the LTTE, while continuing to formally adhere to the ceasefire and speak infavour of peace, would continue to maintain a threshold level of violence,systematically targeting Karuna cadres as well as senior security officials, andto use the garb of peace to snuff out any form of anti-LTTE Tamil opposition. Itis crucial, therefore, that the international community refuses to turn ablind eye to the clandestine war in Sri Lanka in the name of a false and fragilepeace.

Saji Cherian is Research Associate, Institute for ConflictManagement. Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the SouthAsia Terrorism Portal