The LTTE

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of Sri Lanka uses effectively the modus operandi (MO) of aninsurgent as well as a terrorist organisation.

As an insurgent organisation, it has a hierarchial political and military structure and a fighting forceorganised on the patterns of a conventional people's liberation army.  It seeks to secure and retainterritorial control over the area in which the people for whom it claims to be fighting live and to establishthe parapherlania of a state/administrative structure over the area under its control.  Organisations,which rely exclusively on intimidation and terror for achieving their objective, generally do not have any ofthese characteristics. They avoid a rigidly hierarchial structure, territorial control and the parapherlaniaof a formal State or administration. They have no place in their MO for conventional warfare tactics.

As a terrorist organisation, the LTTE uses a cellular structure to prevent the infiltration of its set-upby the adversary State or non-State groups such as the rival Tamil organisations of Sri Lanka and does nothesitate to use ruthless forms of terrorism to intimidate and demoralise not only its State and non-Stateadversaries, but also the civilian population living in the area under the control of its State adversary.

As an insurgent organisation, it emulates the Vietcong of Vietnam and, as a terrorist organisation, the AlFatah of the Palestine Liberation  Organisation (PLO).  Since 1983, it has had a long history ofactive interactions with the various Palestinian terrorist organisations, the Hamas and the Hizbollah. Its interactions with the Popular Front For the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), then headed by George Habash,were particularly intense and it was in receipt of training and arms assistance from the PFLP.

When the late Rajiv Gandhi, the then Indian Prime Minister, faced difficulty in persuading Prabakaran, theleader of the LTTE, to accept the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987, the then head of the PLO office in New Delhicontacted him and offered his good offices for making Prabakaran amenable to reason.  After politelyrejecting his offer, Rajiv Gandhi had enquiries made as to how the PLO representative claimed to haveinfluence over Prabakaran.  They revealed that without the knowledge of the Government of India, the PLOrepresentative had been clandestinely interacting with Prabakaran, the late Kittu and other LTTE leaders andpossibly extending financial assistance to them.

The influence of the PLO, its Al Fatah, the PFLP and other terrorist organisations of West Asia on theLTTE's MO could be seen in the following characteristics: its use of suicide terrorism; its networking withthe Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora in different countries through a web of non-governmental organisations notovertly connected with the LTTE, but secretly working under its direction and control; and its businessinterests centred around its shipping fleet used overtly for legitimate commercial purposes, but covertly fornarcotics and gun-running and other clandestine purposes. The fleet provides it with an important source ofrevenue and with the clandestine means for keeping its arsenal replenished. Initially, it built up its networkof contacts with the clandestine world of arms and ammunition with the help of its West Asian friends, most ofthem then based in the Lebanon. Subsequently, it benefitted from its contacts in Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia,Singapore and Malaysia.

However much one may dislike the LTTE, one cannot deny that it has emerged as one of the most effectivenon-religious insurgent-cum-terrorist organisations of the world and as a conventional insurgent force withunconventional thinking and methods of operation.  Its distinguishing characteristics are:
 

• Its ability to motivate its cadres to the same level of determination as a religious terroristorganisation, but without using religious arguments.  The motivation remains as strong as ever despitethe casualties suffered by it at the hands of the Sri Lankan Army and the difficulties faced by it in othercountries, particularly after September 11, 2001.
  
  
• Its ability to train its cadres in the use of modern arms and ammunition as well as in the ruthlesstactics of terror to a high level of perfection with no longer any need for external assistance for suchtraining.
  
  
• Its  ability for innovation and improvisation, which has been remarkably illustrated in onesuccessful operation after another.
  
  
• Its effective intelligence and counter-intelligence apparatus, which has been able to repeatedly take theadversary by surprise and to thwart the efforts of its adversaries to penetrate the organisation.
  
  
• Its attention to details. 
  
  
• Its ability to keep pace with the latest advances in science and technology and to use them for itsoperations.

It is this no-holds-barred approach, which sowed the seeds of suspicion in the minds of the intelligenceagencies of other countries, particularly in the West, over the likelihood of the LTTE emerging as a threat totheir own security because of its linkages in the  clandestine world of narcotics and arms andammunition, its hobnobbing with the Pakistan and Afghanistan-based jehadi organisations etc.

Before 1991, the intelligence agencies of the rest of the world looked upon the LTTE more as an insurgentthan as a terrorist organisation despite its involvement in ruthless acts of terrorism against other SriLankan Tamil leaders not prepared to accept its hegemony.  Since 1991, they have been paying increasingattention to the activities of the LTTE outside Sri Lanka due to the following developments:
 

• Its assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.
  
  
•  Its unsuccessful efforts to procure microlite aircraft from the West  in order to use them forair-borne terrorist operations.
  
  
• Its acceptance of a consignment of arms and ammunition from the ISI in 1993.
  
  
• Its assistance to the narcotics barons based in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
  
• Its assistane to the HUM in smuggling arms and ammunition to the southern Phillipines to help thereligious terrorist groups there.

• The designation of the LTTE as a foreign terrorist organisation by the USA  under a 1996 law.Significantly, the HUM, then known as the Harkat-ul-Ansar (HUA), was also so designated.  
  
  
• The subsequent ban on its activities in Canada and the UK.

The post-September 11, 2001, developments such as the global war against terrorism, the UN Security CouncilResolution No.1373 against terrorism, the freezing of the sources of terrorist funding, the close networkingof the intelligence and counter-terrorism agencies of the world as part of the global war etc were matters ofserious concern to the LTTE though it has had no links with Osama bin Laden and its Al Qaeda.  This wasdue to the following reasons:
 

• The West conceded for the first time that terrorism has to be treated as an absolute evil, whatever be theobjective of the organisation using terrorism and has to be combated determinedly by the nations of the world.
  
  
• The focus on funds flow to terrorist organisations was directed at all terrorist organisations of theworld, whether they had links with the Al Qaeda or not.
  
  
• While the ground/air war against terrorism was essentially directed against the Al Qaeda and itsaffiliates in the International Islamic Front for Jihad Against the USA and Israel, the intelligenceco-operation was directed against all terrorist organisations, whether linked to the Al Qaeda or not.
  
  
• Since one of the objectives of the international coalition led by the USA was to bottle up the  dregsof the Al Qaeda, the Taliban and their affiliates in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region and neutralise them therewithout allowing them to escape to other countries, an international watch was mounted on all terroristorganisations which might be in a position to help the dregs escape. The shipping fleet of the LTTE and itscommunication network have come in for special attention in this regard.

One cannot fault the desire and efforts of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe of Sri Lanka to try to takeadvantage of this metamorphosis, whether genuine or opportunistic, to bring about peace in Sri Lanka and toput the country again on the road to economic prosperity. But his style and his seeming over-anxiety to beseen by the LTTE as more accommodating than any other leader of Sri Lanka, particularly than PresidentChandrika Kumaratunga, disturbingly brings to mind the example of B. J. Habibie, the former interim Presidentof Indonesia, whose similar style and over-anxiety led to an irreversible march of events towards anindependent East Timor.

Thanks to Ranil Wickremasinghe, the LTTE seems to be well on the way to achieving a de facto Tamil Eelam tobe concretised during the forthcoming talks in Thailand on the interim administration.  Not only itshumanitarian demands, but even some of its political demands such as the implicit recognition of its hegemonyin the Tamil areas through the exclusion of other Tamil parties, the acceptance of the territorial controlestablished by it through force of arms over some areas, the recognition of its right to extend its politicalactivities to the areas not yet under its territorial control etc have been conceded.  If the ban on theLTTE in Sri Lanka is lifted as demanded by Prabakaran prior to the forthcoming talks in Thailand and if thetalks lead to an interim administration under the LTTE's hegemony, it would be only a question of time beforethe LTTE resumes military pressure for having the de facto Tamil Eelam converted into the de jure.

India faces a dilemma in the face of the march of events in Sri Lanka.  The role of Prabakaran and hisLTTE in the brutal assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and their many other acts of perfidy vis-a-vis India inhibitany meaningful initiatives by India in contributing to a search for a political solution which will preservethe integrity of Sri Lanka while meeting substantially the aspirations of the Sri Lankan Tamils.  Theconsequent absence of Indian activism has led to an activist role by Norway as the facilitator and by the USAas the seeming guarantor of the interests of Colombo.

In the event of the Sri Lankan Government lifting the ban on the LTTE and the Thailand talks leading to aninterim administration headed by Prabakaran or one of his nominees, with such an administration recognised andblessed by the international community, India's dilemma will become more acute.  What are the groundrealities and the options available to India?

First, the ground realities:
 

• Indian public opinion would not accept any denouement towards any exoneration of the responsibility ofPrabakaran for the brutal murder of Rajiv Gandhi and would continue to insist that he be brought to trial inIndia.
  
  
• The LTTE cannot be wished away as the predominant Sri Lankan Tamil force and Sri Lankan Tamil publicopinion would not accept any denouement which would not give the LTTE what it considers as its due in the newadminstration of the Northern and Eastern Sri Lanka.

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently,Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai)