NORWAY ALLEGEDLY TRAINED SEA TIGERS TO ATTACK SRI LANKA NAVY IN THE SEAS OF THAILAND ALLEGES A NEWS REPORT BY IPS

By Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles

Norway, the controversial peacemaker between the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), also allegedly contributed to the training of LTTE’s Sea Tigers in the seas of Thailand the IPS news service reported.

In a Bangkok, Thailand datelined news analysis IPS writer Marwaan Macan Markar said, Norwegians trained members of the marine wing of the LTTE, the Sea Tigers in launching under water attacks against Sri Lanka Navy ships.

The IPS news service said, the LTTE is known to have used Thailand’s Andaman coast “to strengthen its capability to attack Sri Lanka’s Navy. That included the training that members of its sea Tiger Wing allegedly received from Norwegian ex-special forces to launch underwater demolition strikes.”

Norwegian ex-special forces provide a second career to the elite special forces of Norway and are believed to be operated with the knowledge of its government. The Tamil Tigers, for a fee, would have hired the Norwegian ex-special forces.

The impartiality of the Norwegians, as peace brokers has been heavily questioned on many occasions. The latest incident took place when the Norway backed Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission allegedly leaked out information about the Navy’s pursuit of a LTTE arms smuggling ship to the Tamil rebel group allowing them to escape. After the incident President Chandrika Kumaratunga wrote to the Norwegian Prime Minister, Kjell Magne Bondevik to remove the Head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission , Retired Major General Tryggve Tellefsen..

She said, “The recent incident involving the leakage of information to the LTTE concerning a navy operation to track down a suspected LTTE ship smuggling arms into Sri Lanka has confirmed my opinion that Major General Tellefsen is not fit to hold the post of the Head of the SLMM in the interest of the security of Sri Lanka.” In addition, President Chandrika Kumaratunga also instructed security chiefs not to deal with the Head of the SLMM.

Tellefsen also angered the security forces by proposing the Sea Tigers and the Sri Lanka Navy should be treated equally and mark out certain parts of the sovereign territory to the Sea Tigers.