Recent violence on the island state of Sri Lanka suggests that the 2002 peace agreement between the government and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elaam (LTTE) is disintegrating, and a return to full-scale open warfare is imminent. Other recent developments, such as the European Union recently designating the LTTE as a terrorist group in early June 2006 (RealNews) and the group’s subsequent assassination of Major General Parami Kulatunga , Sri Lanka Army’s third-highest ranking officer later in the same month, suggest this conclusion. Two factors driving the escalation include: 1) the increasingly menacing role of the LTTE breakaway Colonel Karuna faction, and 2) the disruption of funding flows to both the rebels and the Sri Lankan government.
The WAR Report first covered the splintering of the LTTE on April 19, 2004, noting that the rebel group’s eastern regional commander Vinayagamoorthy V. Muralitharan (aka Col. Karuna Amman), backed by an estimated 6,000 militants, had not only stopped following the LTTE northern leadership cadre, but also begun attacking northern LTTE targets, and had offered to negotiate peace talks with the Sri Lankan government. Although the government declined to encourage further fractioning by formally recognizing the Col. Karuna faction, Sri Lankan military forces entered into an informal cease-fire with the eastern rebels and, soon thereafter, began providing sanctuary to cells conducting operations against the still hostile main LTTE forces of the north. In past months, Karuna has courted international public attention by granting interviews to the Sri Lankan press, the BBC (RealNews), and others, leaving the impression that the Sri Lankan government knows how to, or could, find him if necessary. Nonetheless, he has chosen not to formally abandon the LTTE moniker and, thus, will suffer the same sanctions and penalties implemented by the EU as the main LTTE organization will.
In years past, the international Tamil Diaspora has been remarkably successful at fundraising, utilizing both proverbial carrots and sticks. The brutality exhibited by Sri Lankan security forces on the battlefield and interrogation chambers prompted donations on humanitarian grounds from both Tamils and non-Tamils alike from a variety of Western countries. However, the LTTE network quickly and ruthlessly learned the value of extorting funds from the Diaspora community. According to one report, “80 to 90% of the LTTE’s military budget in the 1990s came from overseas donors.” In a Spring 2006 report, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) estimated the Tamil Tigers raise nearly $2 million a year in Canada . Canada is home to the largest concentration of the estimated 600,000 to 800,000 Sri Lankan Tamils living outside the island nation. Many from the Diaspora report visits often within one week of arriving from LTTE representatives in host countries who demand a percentage of the immigrant’s income and threaten either their visa status or family members back home. The EU, joining the United States , United Kingdom , India , and Canada designating the LTTE as a terrorist organization, will surely have a short-term impact of stemming the flow of Diaspora support, which has been channeled through Malaysia , Singapore , and Thailand . Nonetheless, a group known for its brutality by using suicide missions; forcibly recruiting, training, and deploying women and children combatants; and targeting a broad range of people from civilians through heads of state suggests that the LTTE will find means to apply violence to political pressure points, ratcheting up the intensity of the Sri Lanka conflict. Although none of the three sides?government, LTTE, and Karuna faction?would be best served by resorting to the full-scale civil warfare that ended in a ceasefire in 2002, there remains much posturing to be gained at comparatively little expense if all sides continue to operate just under that threshold. Thus, an increasing intensity of localized violence can be expected across the contested regions and in Colombo for the remainder of 2006.