Promoter of suicide terrorism to become spokesperson

By Walter Jayawardhana

A woman who once publicly promoted the concept of changing the traditional role of Tamil women to that of virgin killers as suicide bombers by calling them "freedom birds" and helped train them is being heavily promoted to become the international spokesperson of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka.

The Malaysian Sun publishing an Indian agency report speculated that the Australian born widow of the late Anton Balasingham, Adele could become the international spokesperson of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The report said it is believed that Adele Balasingham would take up the position which her dead husband once held at this time of extreme challenge the movement is facing due to the Sri lanka government’s determined position to crush the armed separatist movement.

The unsigned report, filed by the Indian news agency, IANS, said, “The London-based Adele Balasingham may don the new mantle at a time when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) faces one of its most serious challenges from a Sri Lankan state determined to crush the outfit.”

The newspaper published the report a day after the LTTE is wiped out militarily from all towns in the island nation’s besieged Eastern Province and limited only to few jungle patches in the province and banned in Northern America, European Union and Australia where a once politically active Tamil Diaspora without any hindrance pumped in money to buy modern weapons for a continued armed insurgency against the government of Sri Lanka.

Describing her qualifications to fit into her dead husband’s shoes the IANS report said, 'Adele's brilliance is the intimate knowledge first hand of the Tamil problem, which she has witnessed personally at close quarters, Norway, the peace facilitator in Sri Lanka, is already in touch with her as well as S.P. Thamilchelvan, the LTTE political wing leader based in the rebel-held area in the island.

Like her husband whom she married in 1978 and who died of cancer last month, the report said, Adele Balasingham has been seeped in the LTTE's campaign to break up Sri Lanka's northeast to carve out a Tamil state. “Popularly known as 'Aunty' among LTTE cadres and occasionally called a 'white Tamil', Adele Balasingham, who will turn 57 Jan 30, has known LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran for decades and enjoys his trust ,” the report further pointed out.

True , all those relationships would help to be a spokesman of the LTTE But how her commitment to the ideology of her dead husband and her leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran would help the movement at a time when the movement has almost lost its clout due to the loss of its once held territorial power, money manpower and international prestige to collect funds from the Tamil Diaspora has become the biggest question mark confronting the movement and help her to restore the former prestige, many critics said.

According to the book Adele Balasingham has written she is committed to the ideology of a separate state called Eelam for the Tamils of Sri lanka. While the concept has lost the majority of supporters in the world including the ones in South India , the majority of Tamils no longer lives in the Northern and Eastern Provinces they wanted to carve out as the separate state.

Her ideology of committing women , for a militant role of armed virgins, like Bhanu, who killed herself to kill Rajiv Gandhi , no longer give the movement any world sympathy since the built up public opinion created all over the world against terrorism after 9/11. Hence, how far her role in the modern context could help the separatist Tamil movement has been very seriously questioned.
But the report said: “ Born Adele Ann Wilby in a small Australian town, the second of four children, she qualified as a nurse and moved to London where she met Balasingham and married him. …Adele Balasingham could not be reached for this story. But the sources, which closely follow Sri Lanka, say the buzz is that she will continue to make the contributions that her husband made to the Tamil Tiger cause.”