Embattled Tigers mull taking their war abroad

The Tamil Tigers may switch to using other Southeast Asian countries as support bases as their leaders change tack following setbacks in the war in Sri Lanka, writes NEVILLE DE SILVA.

EARLIER this month an English-language newspaper in Sri Lanka ran an analysis on the war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), whose dream of an independent Tamil state of Eelam in the island is fast fading.The subhead to that article in the Lakbima News read:

"LTTE planning for fifth Eelam war -- in Malaysia".

With the Tigers' conventional army decimated and its leadership literally cornered on a sliver of land in a war that pundits claimed could never be won by either side, a new scenario is unfolding.

This could have dangerous implications for countries well beyond the borders of Sri Lanka.

Yet the gravity of it does not appear to have been fully appreciated.

The article did not spell out the wider issue but the message was clear enough:
military defeat in Sri Lanka is not the end of the 30-year war.

The battle for Eelam will be fought elsewhere, though the war of attrition will still be conducted in Sri Lanka.

While the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, whose 60 million Tamils have cultural and ethnic affinities with the Sri Lanka Tamils, would serve as the LTTE's rear base, Sri Lankan intelligence officials are increasingly concerned at what they perceive as burgeoning LTTE activities in Malaysia.

The Lakbima News article, while recalling the comments of Malaysian officials at the height of the Hindraf protests in 2007 about possible links between Indian Hindu organisations and the LTTE, said that the Tigers' chief arms buyer Kumaran Pathmanathan, alias "KP", wanted by Interpol, was reportedly operating now from Malaysia.

There was much speculation in Colombo that the Norwegian ambassador to Sri Lanka had travelled to a Southeast Asian country to meet "KP", and some said it was to Malaysia.

The ambassador was rebuked by Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry.

This week, Sri Lanka withdrew recognition of Norway as the "peace facilitator".

Last Sunday, another Sri Lankan newspaper, The Nation, returned to the subject of the supposed Malaysian connection.

It said that army intelligence had information that LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran's son Charles Anthony and military leader Sornam "had fled to Malaysia" for medical attention following injuries sustained in a recent clash.

"The LTTE is believed to be planning to establish their international network centre to be based in Malaysia," the newspaper said, adding that the strengthening of Sri Lanka's diplomatic mission in Kuala Lumpur was a result of this intelligence.

Malaysia, may not be the only Southeast Asian country where the LTTE, banned as a terrorist organisation by some 30 countries including India, is likely to set up support bases or revive dormant links for a different kind of war.

This would happen whether or not Prabhakaran survives the military offensive.

The LTTE has lost not just territory but several top commanders since President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government decided to carry the fight to the enemy three years ago, after six months of absorbing Tiger attacks.

During a visit to Thailand last month, Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama warned Thai leaders of the danger to the region if the Tigers based themselves in Southeast Asia, given the presence of sizeable Indian and Sri Lankan Tamil communities there.

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his foreign and defence ministers vowed they would not allow Thailand to be used for activities that would destabilise friendly countries.

Abhisit said it was in "all our interests" to fight terrorism.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda, on a visit to Sri Lanka last month, repeated the pledge that Indonesia would not allow activity prejudicial to Sri Lanka.

The LTTE's military setbacks in Sri Lanka have not diminished its capacity to collect funds.

Narcotics, smuggling and financial crimes are some ways of doing this, but the LTTE may also sell or barter its expertise to other extremist groups, or collaborate with them in training suicide bombers and using modern technology in terrorist attacks.

The website "South Asian Terrorism Portal" claimed that the LTTE provided forged passports to Ramzi Yousef, one of the planners of the first attack on the World Trade Centre in New York in 1993.

The website said there were intelligence reports that the LTTE was smuggling arms to various terrorist organisations, including Islamic groups in Pakistan and their counterparts in the Philippines.

The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies said three years ago that the LTTE was building commercial links with al-Qaeda and other militants in Afghanistan, and that several of its cadres had been spotted in Afghan militant camps.

Glen Jenvey, an international terrorism specialist, claimed that al-Qaeda had emulated LTTE terror tactics, while the Washington-based Maritime Intelligence Group states that al-Qaeda learnt its terror tactics through LTTE contacts teaching Indonesians these dark arts.

Western nations with sizeable Tamil communities are being pressured to use their diplomatic clout to restrain or punish the Sri Lankan government.

If the LTTE compromises Southeast Asian nations' banking systems for money-laundering and transferring funds to front organisations, or joins hands with home-grown extremist or dissident groups, Southeast Asia might well be a battleground for a different kind of war against Sri Lanka.

* The writer is a veteran observer of Sri Lanka affairs, based in Colombo

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