Thoughts from London

Of arms and the salesman I sing

Last week the United States arrested a Briton allegedly trying to sell a modern Russian-made anti-aircraft missile to a person he thought was an Islamic terrorist. This arrest, followed by that of two others and search of premises in London, was part of a multi-nation sting operation mounted by undercover agents from Russia, the United States and Britain.

More than anything else, this operation highlights a danger that terrorism-hit countries have raised for years until they were blue in the face.

That is the altered face of terrorism and the added danger this change has brought not only to governments but also to civil society.

There is a perceptible change in the nature and threat of terrorism. From the insular and isolated kind of danger faced by individual countries, terrorism has gradually acquired a transnational character where boundaries and frontiers are crossed with impunity and where there is growing camaraderie between terrorist groups. The exchange of information and military cooperation are now a factor to be reckoned within the operational behaviour of such groups.

This change in the nature of terrorism has been helped by the process of globalisation touted particularly by the major western countries as the best thing for the developing world.

If the quantum leap in information technology contributed to the expansion in the globalisation of trade and commerce, the free movement of capital resulting from the spread of globalisation was like manna to terrorist movements.

People from countries faced with terrorism who fled the conflicts at home and were living abroad, especially in the affluent west, or those from the same race or religion as the terrorist groups who settled abroad earlier are all soft targets of the terrorists.

They were not always soft targets. The groups coerced, intimidated and even physically dealt with their compatriots who refused to provide regular financial help to fund these movements.

Funds from the international diaspora were critical to the survival of these movements and for the purchase of arms and military hardware to continue their battle against the state or government.

Collecting money and moving it around quickly were not enough. There needed to be secrecy especially where the arms trade was involved. Both the sellers and buyers demanded the kind of secrecy that would cover their movements from the prying eyes of intelligence services, particularly the anti-terrorism agencies.

The proliferation of non-governmental organisations around the world provided the kind of convenient cover that was ideal for the money laundering activities of terrorist organisations.

So numerous front organisations sprang up, all promising to help the down trodden, the helpless, the suppressed, the oppressed and others pressed in various ways.

Admittedly there are genuine organisations committed to helping the deprived, dispossessed and the voiceless. But even here the finger of suspicion has pointed at the legitimate because of the activities of some organisations that were established to serve as conduits for terrorist organisations to transfer money without being suspect or to launder money collected from illegal activities such as trafficking in people and drugs.

While markets were being freed and generally unrestricted capital flows began, the international scene also changed, contributing to the expansion of terrorism worldwide and creating the conditions for the modernisation of their arsenals.

The implosion of the Soviet Union was a major factor. At the time of the break-up of the second superpower grave apprehensions were already being raised at the possibility of modern weapons falling into the hands of states that hitherto could not afford them or were shut out of the major arms deals by sanctions and embargoes.

The Soviet implosion saw the sudden emergence of many states, some even holding parts of the old Moscow's nuclear and missile arsenal.

The fears then expressed that the new states with hardly any finances of their own or stable economies but with fistsful of weapons would gladly trade them for hard cash at half or even a third of the cost were not entirely exaggerated.

Moreover the collapsed Soviet Union, once one of the most scientifically advanced nations in the world, now had thousands of unemployed or unemployable scientists and technicians with expertise in their heads but nothing in their pockets.

Even after the Russian Federation grew out of the ashes of the Soviet Union, state employees including those in the military were not paid for months, some for years.

The expertise and idle hands were available to those who could afford to buy them as opposed to the state that could not afford to pay.

During the years I was in Hong Kong, LTTE cadres used to visit the then colony to purchase weapons from arms dealers ready to sell arms from North Korea, Cambodia or China. Some of those contracts were signed in Hong Kong.

We also knew that the LTTE got arms out of Cambodia and shipped them from Thailand with the help of corrupt Thai officials. Singapore was once mentioned as the port of origin of a cargo of LTTE arms, but I'm not certain this was ever established.

The point is that as long as there are corrupt officials, shady arms dealers and others in search of arms, the arms market will continue to flourish.

That is why one is surprised the government appears not to have taken sufficient precautions to strengthen surveillance against arms smuggling.

At last the government appears to be shopping around for arms, having held in abeyance the replenishment of the armed forces, probably to please the LTTE.

That had not stopped the LTTE from continuing to strengthen its own arsenals. Even our civilian leaders should understand that a major advantage the country's armed forces have over its enemy is air superiority. Without that logistical advantage the military could not have fed its men in Jaffna and elsewhere and inducted fresh troops or removed casualties.

The LTTE might not be able to match that air power but it has proved that it can bring down aircraft. But it needs more sophisticated weapons such as the SAM 16 or the SAM 18 - the subject of the sting operation - if it wants to neutralise to some extent the government's advantage.

The attempted arms deal was only detected because of international cooperation. This is why the friendship and cooperation of India is quintessential. There are too many sophisticated arms in the market and so many travelling salesmen ready to do deals. Sri Lanka needs to guard against them.

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