CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

INTELLIGENCE EDITOR TELLS THAT TAMIL TIGERS LOST ITS PREVIOUS ABILITY TO SMUGGLE ARMS BY FALL OF THE EAST

By Walter Jayawardhana

Jane’s Inteliigence Review editor Christian LeMiere said in an interview by Radio Australia that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam(LTTE) has lost its previous freedom to utilize coastal areas for smuggling arms, humans and even cash by the fall of the Eastern Province of the country to the Sri Lanka armed forces.

Interviewed by Corinne Podger , LeMiere said , “The fall of the east the Sri Lanka government would like to have two direct effects on the LTTE; one is obviously a clear sign of its lack of influence in the east and its seemingly poor thrust militarily speaking, which has been driven very rapidly out of an area that it previously controlled to a greater extent. The other is that it no longer has much control or freedom of movement in the coastal areas of the east .”

Jane’s editor said , the Eastern Province could have been previously “utilised for smuggling, maybe of arms, perhaps of humans and even of cash as well. So it will affect both the ability of the LTTE to move goods into the island and outside of the island, but also its ability to stash naval equipment near the coast and to operate in the east. Whether it will mean the defeat of the LTTE is far from certain because it still holds a significant area in the north of Sri Lanka and the LTTE has demonstrated in the past that it's very strategically able and has surprised many observers by coming back from what people may have thought was almost certain defeat in the past.”

The following are the other questions asked and answers given by Jane’s
Intelligence Review editor:

LEMIERE: Well the report really outlines not that there is a significant flow of weapons from Cambodia to Sri Lanka on an annual basis but that Cambodia has in the past been the second most significant source of arms for Sri Lanka, approximately five to ten per cent of the arms held by the LTTE are of Cambodian origin in terms of their supplier country. The most significant number of arms comes from the Sri Lankan armed forces themselves and raids on Sri Lankan armed forces bases. But the instability in Cambodia in the 1970s and 1980s has helped fuel a black small arms market that has greatly aided the Tamil Tigers.

PODGER: Cambodia's Interior Ministry has said in response to your report that it is doing everything it can to prevent the movement of weapons. Is that an assessment that you would share?

LEMIERE: I think given the resources available for the Cambodian government there has been a concerted effort and they have been fairly successful in stymieing the use and the flow of small arms coming from Cambodia. The death by small arms in violent crime in Cambodia has fallen significantly over the last five to ten years. But it's a slow process. The Cambodian government is still aware that it's dragging its feet on the Khmer Rouge trial for instance because it doesn't wish to upset any Khmer Rouge that may still exist within the country. So there's only so much the Cambodian government can do. While it may have good intentions its lack of resources means that the process is somewhat slow.

PODGER: Why is the Cambodian government having difficulty in fully eradicating the movement of weapons?

LEMIERE: The Cambodian government is still not entirely in control of all areas of Cambodia, there are still areas where there are autonomous administrators if you will in areas of the country and it's a very difficult country in which to exert full control from the centre. There's not a complete monopoly of control by the government and so it's unable to force its will everywhere. The borders are fairly porous and there's still large numbers of small arms in rural communities around the country.

PODGER: Your report also says the Tamil Tigers have an income of around two to three hundred million US dollars a year, funding capabilities which now include a rudimentary airforce. How's that income being generated?

LEMIERE: The funding almost exclusively comes from the overseas diaspora of which there are 600-800,000 Sri Lankan Tamils overseas. Although there are some funds in fact raised within Sri Lanka within Tamil-held areas. But the majority of it will come from overseas communities. And there seems to be more of a trend now to use agents rather than direct Tamil representatives within countries to raise funds, and in particular international agents who are not necessarily ethnic Tamils. There is one particular case that involves a Singaporean and two Indonesians who have pleaded guilty to attempting to illegally export arms in January this year on behalf of the LTTE.

PODGER: There are also suggestions in your report that some of the Tamil Tiger income comes from human trafficking?

LEMIERE: Yes I mean it's difficult to confirm figures and numbers when dealing with the LTTE, for obvious reasons, but it has been estimated by the government - and Tamil diaspora sources have confirmed - that there may be some funds that are tracked from illegal activities including human trafficking.

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