COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office

7 MARCH 2012 SRI LANKA
―Tamil Eela Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TVMP: Tamil Eelam Peoples Liberation Tigers) is the
political wing of the paramilitary group formerly known as the 'Karuna group'. It was formed by
breakaway LTTE leader V. Muralitharan (alias 'Colonel Karuna'), who led a split in the LTTE in
2004, leading to the secession of a large part of the organisation in the Eastern Province of Sri
Lanka. Much of the breakaway group was wiped out and disbanded during 2004 in a military
counter-offensive by the mainstream LTTE. However, it was rebuilt during 2004-05 by Karuna
and his close associates, under the support of the Sri Lankan military. Between late 2006 and
early 2007, the Karuna group fought together with the Sri Lankan armed forces against the
LTTE in the Eastern Province.
―In mid-2007, press reports suggested that there was a split within the Karuna group between
Karuna himself and one of his key lieutenants. In October 2007, news emerged that Karuna had
been expelled from the TMVP, and that he had been forced to seek refuge in another country.
Karuna subsequently resurfaced in the UK in November 2007, where he was arrested for
immigration offences.
―While Karuna spent time in detention in the UK on immigration offences, the paramilitary TMVP
was registered as a political party, and the government installed Tamil paramilitary leader
Pillaiyan as the chief minister of the Eastern Province following elections there in May 2008.
―Karuna subsequently returned to Sri Lanka in mid-2008 and coexisted uneasily with Pillayan
under a nominally united TMVP, although in reality both leaders commanded separate militias
(the TMVP comprised two separate factions that controlled different parts of the east). In what
was likely an effort by Rajapakse to separate the two rival Tamil paramilitary leaders, Colonel
Karuna joined the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) in March 2009 and was sworn in as
minister of national integration, a non-cabinet ministerial portfolio. In April of that year, Karuna
became the vice-president of the SLFP. In theory, the TMVP no longer operates as a
paramilitary group, having conducted a handing in of their weapons in Batticaloa in March 2009,
supervised by local police. However, it remains questionable if the TMVP's arsenal was
surrendered in its entirety. In addition, clashes continued between factions loyal to Karuna and
Pillayan in 2011. In May [2011], a TMVP provincial councillor was arrested in connection with
the murder of a secretary of Karuna.‖ (Jane‘s Sentinel, Country Risk Assessments, Country
Report, Sri Lanka, accessed on 3 February 2012, Internal Affairs, 17 January 2012) 578
Tamil National Alliance (TNA)
―The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) or Sri Lanka Tamil Government Party (Illankai Tamil Arasu
Kachchi) is a political alliance of several Tamil parties formed in 2001 just before that year's
parliamentary elections. The alliance was formed by the All Ceylon Tamil Congress, Eelam
People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (Suresh), Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation and
Tamil United Liberation Front (formerly the Federal Party). Since its formation, the TNA has
acted in close co-operation with the rebel LTTE, and has frequently behaved as its advocate
and political wing in parliament.‖
―In the April 2004 election, in which the SLFP and JVP alliance led by the then president
Kumaratunga came to power, the TNA led by R Sampanthan won 6.9 per cent of the popular
vote and 22 out of 225 seats in the Sri Lankan Parliament. After the LTTE was comprehensively
defeated with little chance of its revival in Sri Lanka, the TNA changed its stated objective from
578 Jane’s Sentinel Country Risk Assessments, Country Report, Sri Lanka,
http://sentinel.janes.com/docs/sentinel/SASS_country.jsp?Prod_Name=SASS&Sent_Country=Sri%20La
nka& [subscription only] accessed on 3 February 2012, Internal Affairs, 17 January 2012
The main text of this COI Report contains the most up to date publicly available information as at 3 February 2012.
Further brief information on recent events and reports has been provided in the Latest News section
to 2 March 2012.
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