Taraki's Column

6th December 1998

In political wilderness, ex-militants go berserk

By Taraki

The case of the PLOTE cadre who allegedly gunned down seven members of his wife’s family in Batticaloa on Friday once again underscores the problems that erstwhile Tamil separatist groups face today.

The boy was married twice and is said to be living with the third. Seven members of his sister-in -law’s family, including an infant and two children were gunned down allegedly by him at Chenkalady where he had been on sentry duty.

The bodies had to be buried at state expense, as there had been no one to claim them. No one in the area, probably out of fear, had come forward to take care of two children who survived the carnage. They are in the custody of the local Grama Sevaka. The alleged killer, K. Balasubramaniam is still at large.

A cadre of the Razeek group called Kannan mowed down his wife’s family in cold blood in the same general area in May over a personal quarrel. And early this year another cadre shot dead two members of a family in Amirthakali in Batticaloa following a dispute.

The leadership of the ex-Tamil militant groups is embarrassed by reports of such calamities among its cadre operating in the northeast, particularly when the details appear in the Tamil media.

The evolution of these groups since they gave up the armed struggle for a sovereign Tamil state has been variegated to say the least. However, in the twelve years since they did so, very few of the non-LTTE ‘militants’ have given up their trust in arms. They of course say that they had to protect themselves from the fratricidal attacks of the LTTE. This is quite justifiable when one considers their experience with the Tigers.

But it is also a fact that their continuing dalliance with the power of the gun is at the root of many calamities that have beset them since 1987.

And in recent years a new breed has also cropped up which qualifies to the cognomen of Tamil paramilitary. This is chiefly composed of LTTE cadres who have surrendered to the army and boys just past their teens recruited and trained by the ex-Tamil militant groups that are assisting the army fight the Tigers in the northeast.

Both have become a liability today because the LTTE uses them as the chief means of infiltrating ‘moles’ into the security forces.

Moral or political considerations apart, the LTTE has amply availed itself of the corruption, venality and philandering that have crept over the years into the ranks of the ex-Tamil militants to infiltrate and gather valuable intelligence.

The army has time and again drawn the attention of their leaders to this problem. But little can be done because the chain of command is very weak.

This does not mean that those Tigers who come over to the army directly have been trustworthy either.

Tiger surrendees who were considered very useful were often unmasked as moles or have slipped back to LTTE controlled areas having gathered the information they had been tasked to secure.

The problem, however, is that in any war defectors from the enemy are indispensable for understanding his military thinking and knowing specific details of his strength. For example, Tiger surrendees (or defectors) are considered essential to monitoring and grasping the nuances of monitored LTTE’s communications. (Like the one who was at Mullaithivu when it was overrun in July 1996.) In the southern parts of Mannar, the army keeps track of LTTE’s activity in the region through a network of informants (some of whom are suspected of double dealing) and 60 ‘retired’ Tigers, including a few girls, who sign a register maintained by the local army intelligence unit every week.

It is understood that these ‘information sources’ have contributed their cent’s worth to make the picture the army has of the ground reality more dismal.

This of course is a standard hazard of fighting any guerrilla war.

But the hazard is not so routine in Eelam War III because of the complications arising from the role of the ex-Tamil militant groups in the northeast.

As we discussed at the beginning, the LTTE has got into all these groups and no one is sure who is who. Controlling this means that the groups have to control the corruption and venality among in the rank and file.

The army had to stop membership identity cards of the groups from being used in lieu of security clearance and passes in Vavuniya some months ago after the arrest of several LTTE operatives. The Tiger infiltrators, it was found, carried membership cards of ex-militant groups operating in Vavuniya town and its suburbs to get around freely and at times to travel to Colombo as well. The case of a wanted LTTE cadre, identified only as Pairavan, who was arrested with such a membership card is the most recent that came to light.

A cadre of the Razeek group ran away recently and alarmed devotees who flocked to a temple festival in the LTTE dominated hinterland by working among the crowds as a ‘spotter’ for the Tigers.

It is difficult to manage the problem because the groups want to constantly prove their strength to the army to obtain funds and arms.

This compels them to go for new recruits about whose background they can find out little.

The population from which the groups have to draw youth into their ranks is displaced many times over in the town and large villages of the northeast where they (the groups) can operate. Therefore, screening the recruits is well nigh impossible. The groups know only when somebody runs away or is caught red-handed working as a mole.

The danger is that the very few moles have been discovered and that the run-away infiltrators actually help the double agents further conceal and ensconce themselves in the ranks of the groups.

More reams could be written about this phenomenon that has dogged the war effort at one level but it is important to note that the bottom line is that fidelity cannot be bought with money and that the Tamils groups who joined the mainstream have lost their political vision to inspire allegiance and loyalty among their people.

And they cannot be wholly faulted for their political predicament.

It is a price they had to pay for spending more than twelve years without delivering anything that they had promised to their people.

Right of Reply

TULF’s Senior Vice President V. Anandasangaree says:

I am shocked, surprised and grieved at the article captioned TULF: Stage set for New leadership, appearing in the issue of 29.11.1998.

I am shocked because an esteemed weekly like yours had been made use of by the author of the article with the intention of endangering my life. I am sure you will not at all approve this, mainly because the TULF in particular had lost several of its key members to the assassin’s bullets. I don’t have anybody as my aide. However if I had helped to get a person released from police custody I should be complimented. I wish to know whether the author is finding fault with me for getting a Tiger suspect released?

Furthermore, he alleges that I am now prepared to rise to the defense of the President and her policies despite persistent attacks in sections of the Tamil press, accusing me of unabashed treachery. I don’t hold a brief to the president or defend her policies. I had been critical of her policies and had not failed to do so whenever needed.

The sections of the Tamil press he refers to are “Sarinighar,” a fortnightly run by an NGO funded by a foreign government, to which the author of the article also contributes and another weekly run by a member of parliament who gets full protection of the ruling party for obvious reasons. Only these two papers are all out for my blood.

I used to get a number of threatening calls over the phone and after the appearance of this article in your paper I get more calls now.

As an individual, I have no remedy and am at the mercy of the journalists. As a political party too we have no paper to defend our party and its members.

In any case reference to me or to these two matters, have no relevance at all to the said article.

Note: The writer stands by his article. He says that opinions and facts which Mr. Anandasangaree finds fault with are those of his colleagues and those of the said papers.

The Fifth Column

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