Other People's Wars: A Review of Overseas Terrorism in ... - Edocr

Other Peoples’ Wars -- Chapter Two
counter-intelligence agencies by India’s RAW, who had helped train many Tiger Cadres in the
early 1980s. For further security, the KP Branch operates completely independently from all
other sections of the LTTE, and hands the arms shipments to a small, highly trusted team in the
Sea Tigers for final delivery into LTTE dominated areas.
To facilitate the activities of this clandestine international arms trafficking network, the LTTE
owns and operates its own fleet of ocean-going vessels. This fleet only operates directly for the
LTTE less than five percent of the time, the remainder of their time is spent transporting
legitimate goods and raising hard cash for the purchase of weapons. 46 Initially, the Tigers
maintained a shipping base in Myanmar, until diplomatic pressure forced them to leave. A new
base has been established on Phuket, a Thai island. 47 LTTE ships are also known to transport
heroin from the Golden Triangle to markets around the globe. Identifying the exact ownership
of the vessels operating for the LTTE is a daunting task: registrations are constantly changed,
holding companies are always being set up, and ships can be renamed several times on a single
voyage. However, analysts are however confident that the real controller of the fleet is
Padmanathan.
Probably the most skilled operation mounted by the KP Branch was the 1997 theft of 32,400
rounds of 81mm mortar ammunition purchased from Tanzania for the Sri Lankan Army. 48 The
LTTE was aware of the purchase of 35,000 mortar bombs, made a bid to the manufacturer
through a numbered company to have one of their own vessels pick up the load, and then –
once the bombs were loaded – switched the name and registration of their ship. Instead of
transporting the cargo to its intended destination, it was taken to Tiger-held territory in Sri
Lanka’s north. The Sri Lankan army eventually received the mortar bombs, one salvo at a time
from LTTE mortars. 49 It is difficult to imagine any of the old-style European groups, such as the
Red Army Faction or the Red Brigades, operating with this much sophistication or verve.
For the KP Branch, the West is their money-raising territory. Profits from donations made to
various front groups and through criminal enterprises are transferred into bank accounts.
Money can then be transferred to the accounts of a weapons broker, or, be taken by KP
operatives themselves.
What becomes painfully apparent is that the LTTE war effort relies heavily on the civilian
Tamil population in Sri Lanka and abroad. Currently, one quarter of all Tamils reside outside of
Sri Lanka, most having left in the past decade, making this one of the most massive shifts of any
single group since the Second World War. There is no coincidence between the movement of
Tamils and the LTTE’s need for resources -- it is the backbone of their international strategy.
In 1995, when the LTTE lost Jaffna, their international operatives were ordered to increase, by
a massive 50%, the amount raised from Tamils outside of the island. 50
46
Gunaratna, 1997, p.28.
47
David Osler, The Tiger Shipping Empire, The Sunday Island, March 28, 2000.
48
See Time, February 9, 1998.
49
See Mike Winchester’s article “Ship of Fools” Tamil Tiger’s Heist of the Century” in Soldier of Fortune,
August 1998.
50 Gunaratna, 1997, pp.23-24.
46