The world’s sanity and equilibrium should be restored through an equitable new world order. Let’s take a bird’s eye view of the world we hope will become terror-free. Impoverished Pakistan and India are militarily nuclear powers and maintain two of the world’s five largest standing armed forces. They have fought three wars over the last six decades. The animosities thus caused have denied normalcy and prosperity to the people of South Asia. Tensions are up once again because of the atrocious attack in Mumbai. Ironically, while Mumbai is shell shocked, the Indians are extremely busy in enhancing their covert activity in Afghanistan aimed at fuelling the insurgency and bloodshed now raging in Pakistan’s northwest. The Peshawar blast of Dec 5 is a horrible example of that covert Indian activity in Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan, wars have been imposed on that nation by the past and present super powers. Iran and Iraq fought a ten-year war that was kept fuelled by the world powers. The Middle East is in a state of perpetual war because the Palestine problem is deliberately left unresolved and Israel continues to occupy Palestinian lands and the Golan Heights. Sri Lanka has been fighting the Tamil Tigers for years and it is not a secret that the Tamil Tigers have thrived on all kinds of support from India, including military. While India supports terrorism in Sri Lanka and Pakistan it complains about it in Indian-held Kashmir. India has its own assorted crop of homegrown terrorists and insurgents and needs to look inwards and resolve its internal issues rather than meddle in the affairs of all its neighbours.
North Korea’s isolation makes it a potential hotspot. Chechnya has seen intense fighting. A war to get Taiwan reunited with mainland China has been averted only due to the collective wisdom and farsightedness of the Chinese leadership.
The European continent, in recent years, saw genocide of Muslims in Kosovo and Bosnia Herzegovina. Africa is the lost continent where food is scarce but weapons are in abundance. Spilling of human blood in Africa is meaningless to the world, which has largely remained indifferent to the horrendous genocides of the recent past in Africa.
In 2001, due to 9/11, a new kind of war was imposed upon the world. Called the War on Terror by an angry USA it now has no combat boundaries. In 2001, the world was given an ultimatum “you are either with us or against us.” What followed is too well known. The Afghan and the Iraq wars are still raging even after seven years of 9/11 and after the deaths of many hundreds of thousands of human beings in those two ill-fated countries. Every man killed as part of “collateral damage” gives birth to thousands of angry people and while a majority of these angry people may not even resort to peaceful protests a small percentage takes to fighting back and thus the vicious war circle is perpetuated.
The war on terror has now spilled over into Pakistan and many thousands of military men and civilians in Pakistan have been killed. Half-a-million grief-stricken Pakhtuns from within Pakistan’s northwest are now refugees in their own country due to the intense fighting in FATA. Pakistan’s sovereignty has already been torn apart and its remaining intact is becoming increasingly questionable. The Pakhtuns, for no fault of theirs, are paying the biggest price in the war on terror when they have never had anything to do with terror anywhere in the world.
Can such a conflict ridden world ever be terror free? The answer is a big NO. My contention is that the world can never be peaceful and terror-free unless the world community decides to bring to an end all unresolved disputes and armed conflicts raging around the world. Peace is instinctive to all human beings while war is not. Peace will beget peace while wars in the future will always snowball into wider conflicts in which terrorism and insurgencies, with no defined geographical boundaries and battlefields, will be the major ingredients.
Humanity now wants to see a magnanimous and neutral role played by the developed world to end conflicts worldwide. More support by the developed world to under-developed countries in terms of transfer of technology for the sake of development rather than loans meant to purchase weapons and military technology will have a salutary effect on making the world a peaceful place. Foreign policies of the developed world must not differentiate between nations on the basis of their religion or demography if we are to move towards a harmonious and terror-free world. The imposition of unrepresentative governments on the countries of the Third World will always give rise to discontentment degenerating into terrorism or insurgency and, therefore, must not be resorted to by world powers.
In the modern age the only way towards a terror-free world is through statesmanship of the world’s powerful leaders leading to a just dispensation of international justice between nations, races and religions. I stress on this because the bulky and highly visible military might of any superpower in the future will never be able to fight the agility and the indefatigable war stamina of the terrorists, militants and freedom fighters of the future.
The bottom line, therefore, is that terrorism can only be relegated to the history books if international justice takes over from international military power and adjudicates fair solutions to the ongoing conflicts in the world, thus enabling widespread prosperity which will bring about a world that is content and abhors violence.
The writer is former director general of the Intelligence Bureau, former member of the Central Executive Committee of the PPP and former vice president of the PPP Parliamentarian. Email: masoodsharifkhattak@gmail.com
Sri Lanka's rebel leader 'killed' Page last updated at 02:00 GMT, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 03:00 UK http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8055015.stm Born November, 1954 - 1972: Founded Tamil New Tigers (TNT), forerunner of LTTE - Wanted in Sri Lanka and India
For more indepth analysis: Short History of Sri Lanka Ethnic Conflict - TV Documentary
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slEU-KSU3Bc Bhagwat offers proof of Fernandes' LTTE links EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, APRIL 24: Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat, the sacked Chief of the Naval Staff, has offered to place before a Joint Parliamentary Committee evidence to substantiate Defence Minister George Fernandes' links with the LTTE and gun-running agencies.
The Admiral's hour-long address on `Challenges before the National Security of Secularist India', organised by AKG Centre for Study and Research here on Saturday evening, was replete with sweeping allegations not only against certain Sangh Parivar leaders but also against the country's Intelligence agencies and the Army. He said arms merchants and foreign Intelligence agencies were working in tandem in the country. There is none in power now who is not under obligation to foreign agencies. A political-bureaucratic-military nexus is building up in Delhi, posing grave threat to the country's security.
When ex Mossad officer Victor Ostrovski’s book By Way of Deception was first published in September 1990, it created a tremor of international proportions. The Time magazine (Sept.24, 1990) captioned the story as, "The Spy who spilled the Beans; Israel attempts to quash a Mossad agent’s book" and noted that due to Israel’s unsuccessful attempt to block its publication and resultant publicity, the publisher had to "increase the print run from 50,000 copies to 200,000, practically guaranteeing that it will be high on the best-seller list". The Newsweek magazine (Sept.24, 1990) rather unusually devoted two pages to divulge some important facts included in the book. Why did ‘By Way of Deception’ attract such attention? The Newsweek report had it in its first sentence; "In the short but eventful history of the Mossad, no full-fledged officer had ever broken its vow of silence". But, Victor Ostrovski (son of a Canadian father and Israeli mother), who according to Israel’s law-suit had been employed by the Mossad between December 30, 1984 and March 9, 1986, had decided to break his silence.
Sri Lanka+Tamil Tigers: Evolution of the Ethnic War 1/6
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5NcVFVDqjw
Ostrovski begins his book, with description about the "Operation Sphinx" of Mossad, which culminated successfully on June 7, 1981 when Israel destroyed the Iraq’s nuclear complex located in the periphery of Baghdad. This was achieved from the information obtained from the Iraq’s nuclear scientist (identified as Butrus Eben Halim) in Paris. Ostrovski also informs that two individuals (an Egyptian atomic engineer named Meshad, who was close to senior Iraqi military and civilian authorities, and a French prostitute Marie-Claude Magal who was patronised by Halim and Meshad) were murdered by Mossad in June and July of 1980.
Then, Ostrovsky provides explanation for the two types of murders. Prostitute Magal’s murder comes in the "category of an operational emergency, the sort of situation that arises during operations". Scientist Meshad’s murder belongs to the "formal execution list, and requiring the personal approval of the prime minister of Israel". According to Ostrovski, "the number of names on that list varies considerably, from just one or two up to 100 or so, depending upon the extent of anti-Israeli terrorist activities". After describing how an adversary’s name is included in the execution list and the due processes which take place within the Mossad to complete the hit, Ostrovski notes that, "one of the first duties of any new Israeli prime minister is to read the execution list and decide whether or not to initial each name on it".
Sri Lanka+Tamil Tigers: Evolution of the Ethnic War 2/6
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3UQvoGCEio&feature=related If this is true, the Nobel peace prize committee has definitely blundered in making Menachem Begin a laureate in 1978. The book is divided into three parts. The first two parts (consisting of a total of 8 chapters) provides descriptions about Ostrovski’s experience with Mossad as a trainee and case officer from October 1982 to March 1986, when he was dismissed as scapegoat for an operation which became an embarrassment to the Israeli politicians. The third part (consisting of nine chapters) provides case histories related to Mossad’s engagements with the Black September rebels, Carlos Ramirez and Yasser Arafat. Also included are the events related to Israel’s 1982 invasion in Lebanon and "Operation Moses" (the 1985 rescue of thousands of Black Ethiopian Jews to Israel) and the 1985 sinking of PLO ships in Tripoli harbour. In the chapters related to training by Mossad, Ostrovski provides details about lessons taught on self-defence, forgery of documents (especially passports), recruitment of bodlim ("people who operate as messengers between safehouses and the embassy, or between the various safehouses"), evaluation and tackling of a still object or a building, importance of liaison, sending and receiving secret communications and so forth. Sri Lanka+Tamil Tigers: Evolution of the Ethnic War 3/6
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocDqb0b5eww&feature=related On self-defense, Ostrovsky writes, "You were taught that if your brain does (his emphasis) signal your hand to draw the weapon, you go to kill. Your head has to say the guy in front of you is dead. It’s him or you... When you do have to shoot, you fire as many bullets as possible into your target. When he’s on the ground you walk up to him, put your gun to his temple, and fire one more time. That way, you’re sure’. Certainly Jesus and Gandhi are pariahs in the dictionary of Mossad. On passport forgery by Mossad, Ostrovsky notes, "Mossad had a small factory and chemical laboratory in the basement of the Academy that actually made various kinds of passport paper. Chemists analyzed the papers of genuine passports and worked out the exact formula to produce sheets of paper that duplicated what they needed". Sri Lanka+Tamil Tigers: Evolution of the Ethnic War 4/6
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmQJ99DIEwg&feature=related Mossad also gathers genuine passports of other countries from immigrants to Israel on the pretext of "saving the Jews". These genuine passports are studied to prepare fake passports. Ostrovski identifies four kinds of passports used by Mossad for their operations; "top quality, second quality, field operation and throwaway". The low quality throwaway kind is mostly stolen from others and put in use when "needed only to flash them". They are not used for identification, since it cannot withstand through scrutiny. The field operation kind is "used for quick work in a foreign country, but not used when crossing borders". The second quality passport is a perfect one, "without no real persons behind" the details provided in it. The top-quality passport is the perfect kind, "which could stand up completely to any official scrutiny, including a check by the country of origin". Sri Lanka+Tamil Tigers: Evolution of the Ethnic War 5/6
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-EPYX5uf7o&feature=related The motto of Mossad in such delicate forgery is that, "no operation should be bungled by a bad document". Other tit-bits offered by Ostrovsky relating to the operation of Mossad are quite interesting. Sri Lanka+Tamil Tigers: Evolution of the Ethnic War 6/6
1) "The Mossad’s main computer contained more than 1.5 million names in memory.
2) The London station of Mossad "owns more than 100 safe houses and rents another 50".
3) "In London alone, there are about 2,000 active sayanim (Jewish volunteer helpers) who are active, and another 5,000 on the list".
4) Margaret Thatcher was always called inside the Mossad as "the bitch", because "they had her tagged as anti-Semite".
5) For a long time since 1977, Mossad has hired "Durak Kasim, (Yasser) Arafat’s driver and personal bodyguard" as their agent, and "he was reporting to them almost daily, sending messages through a burst radio communications system, receiving $2,000 a report. He also telephoned information and mailed it periodically..."
Now, let me focus on the material related to Sri Lanka, which made Ostrovski a recognizable name in the government and military circles in Colombo now. Ostrovski’s disclosures on the deals made by the military and political power-brokers of the ruling UNP and the Mossad had been published in excerpts in the Tamil Nation of Oct.15, 1990. What shocked the Sinhalese ruling establishment and the journalists (including the editor of Lanka Guardian, Mervyn de Silva) was the revelation of Ostrovski that Mossad had trained the Sinhalese military personnel and "a group of Tamil guerrilla factions" simultaneously. Based on the meagre details provided by Ostrovski, these power-brokers and opinion-makers had identified LTTE as the beneficiary of Mossad’s patronage.
To me, this sounds too premature and incorrect. Let me repeat what Ostrovski had written on this topic. "Around 1983, a group of Tamil guerrilla factions, collectively known as the Tamil Tigers, began an armed struggle to create a Tamil homeland in the north called Eelam - an on-going battle that has claimed thousands of lives on both sides". This is the only sentence in the book, where a vague reference is made to the Tamil Tigers. The time-frame Ostrovski had written about was "mid-July 1984", when he was still a trainee at the Mossad Academy. He had not mentioned LTTE by name anywhere in the book. At that time, all the militant groups fighting for Eelam (LTTE, TELO, EPRLF, EROS and PLOTE) were identified as "Tamil Tigers". This point need be stressed.
The authors of Broken Palmyra also clearly state this fact in page 72 of their book; "Up to this time (April 1985), the Tamil population had hardly differentiated between rival groups. They were all referred to as boys and even Tigers" Again the fact is that as reported in the Economist of August 3, 1985, in its coverage on the five Tamil militant groups, LTTE was identified as receiving training from the PLO in Lebanon. Ostrovski has noted that in mid-July 1984, "nearly 50" Sri Lankan army personnel arrived for training in Israel. These training sessions were not offered free. According to Ostrovski, "A unit of 60 trainees would cost about $300 each day (per trainee), for a total of $18,000. For a three-month course, that would be $1.6 million.
On top of that, they would be charged $5,000 to $6,000 an hour for helicopter rental, and as many as 15 helicopters could be used in a training exercise. Add to that the cost of special ammunition used in training: a bazooka shell, for example, cost about $220 a unit, while heavy mortars were about $1000 each..." Ostrovsky should be credited for exposing the deals Sri Lankan government had with Mossad, through the Mahaveli River Diversion Project. Apart from exposing how the Sri Lankan authorities diverted foreign-aid funds they received from unsuspecting donors, Ostrovski also has pricked the bloated egos of the Sri Lankan military personnel by divulging how Mossad had fooled them.
Sri Lanka (where they helped the Sinhalese go after Tamils) January 1991, Page 73
Book Reviews
Every Spy a Prince By Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman. Houghton Mifflin. 466 pp. List: $24.95.
Reviewed by Russell Warren Howe
Each country's intelligence service is the "mirror of the society it serves." The British see intelligence as a game, with the lottery of birth deciding which side you're on. America sees spying as "big business" and is more interested in electronics than in battles of wits. Israel's secret services, like the country itself, were the creation of humorless Russians and Poles. So Mossad and Shin Bet, like the Cheka and OGPU, are "primarily a tool for preserving the regime." That involves plenty of torture and murder at home and abroad, and more mischief than analysis.
So say the authors of this book, which is also appearing in London under their preferred tide, The Imperfect Spies, which better sets the theme.
Significantly, Mossad sees its best achievements as the kidnapping by 23 people of an old Nazi called Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires, and the seizure of remote Entebbe airport in 1972, an intelligence challenge about on a par with Britain's police operation in Anguilla in 1964. But the agency failed to notice the buildup of forces that led to the Ramadan War of 1973, or to Iraq's attack on Iran in 1980 or on Kuwait a decade later, and it was taken by surprise by the intifada.
Raviv and Melman, Israeli journalists with impeccable sources, offer above all a gallery of characters going back to the legendary Russian, Isser Harel, and the diminutive Pole who plotted the successful murders of Count Bernadotte and Lord Moyne-Yitzhak Shamir. From the start, the authors show, Israel's secret services ran rogue operations, stealing money from the Swiss accounts of Hitler's victims, bombing a synagogue in Baghdad during prayers in 1951 to scare Jewish Iraqis into moving into tent villages in Israel, and bombing British and American offices in Cairo in 1954 (the "Lavon affair") to discredit the Nasser regime. Using American funds provided for other purposes, the Mossad bribed its way across Africa and Latin America. The authors assert that the late dictator of Romania, Nicolae Ceaucescu—who edged Sadat toward Jerusalem and Camp David—received about $30 million from the agency. Israel's spies exploited Kurdish and Christian minorities in the Arab world. Elsewhere, they threw in their lot with established power, however autocratic: Iran (where they trained the SAVAK secret police in interrogation methods), Zaire, Chad and other African countries, Singapore, Sri Lanka (where they helped the Sinhalese go after Tamils), South Korea, South Africa (where Israel aided the birth of nuclear weapons), and Argentina (supplying arms during the Falklands War). They helped Morocco capture and kill an opposition leader, Mehdi Ben Barka, in Paris. In Beirut, they murdered Palestinians and blew up MEA Caravelles at the airport. During the 1967 war, they protected the disinformation communications which brought Jordan into the conflict by directing the attack on the US SPY ship Liberty, an action in which 34 Americans were killed and 171 wounded.
Misinformation has always been a Mossad trademark. The most prominent victim was the United States.
At Lillehammer, Norway, in 1973, a Mossad team murdered Ahmed Boushiki, a Moroccan waiter, in front of his pregnant Norwegian wife, after mistaking him for a Palestinian leader of the Black September terrorist group. The woman responsible for that, Sylvia Raphael, a South African, got her come-uppance in Limassol, Cyprus, a decade later, along with two colleagues all killed by a Palestinian hit team. (This revenge, related by espionage writer Donald McCormick and others, is not mentioned in the Raviv-Melman book—presumably a result of the Israeli censorship of the work of which they complain in their prologue.)
There were some genuine Mossad achievements, such as the theft of hundreds of thousands of French Mirage- 1 blueprints in Switzerland, leading to the building of Israel's Kfir fighter. And, of course, the agency recruited moles, although it was its offshoot, Lakem, that hired the notorious Jonathan Pollard of US naval intelligence.
Misinformation has always been a Mossad trademark. The most prominent victim was the US, thanks to an agreement negotiated by CIA Assistant Director James Jesus Angleton that Israel and America would not spy on each other. The Mossad always ignored the pact in America, but until the agreement was nullified by Admiral Stansfield Turner a generation later, when he was Jimmy Carter's CIA director, the CIA apparently relied on Mossad data. After Angleton died, a memorial to him was erected in Jerusalem. From the start, the authors show, Israel's secret services ran rogue operations.
Another victim was Britain. But as the authors note, on June 17, 1988, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who had been a decided fan of Israel's, ordered all Mossad "diplomats" out of Britain. She had been angered by a succession of capers, die attempted "export" (in a crate) of a former Nigerian minister, a pseudo-Syrian "attempted bombing" of an El Al plane at Heathrow (which led to a break in relations with Damascus before the deceit was discovered), the Falklands arms sale, and the removal of the anti-nuclear Israeli pacifist Mordechai Vanunu from London by a Mossad swallow from Florida. (Like the Russians, say the authors, the Israelis employ female spooks mostly as swallows.)
Old spooks, it's said, never die: They just get into mischief. Raviv and Melman tell the stories of many "formers," including the Palestinian-born Mike Harari, who brokered the purchase of Manuel Noriega's two Haifa villas and got the general's children into Jewish schools. Then, there's Lt. Col. Yair Klein, the German Israeli who taught the bodyguards of Colombian drug barons how to kill Washington's DEA agents. David Kiniche, unmistakably English, Al Schwimmer, an American immigrant to Israel, and Yaakov Nimrodi, who came from Iraq, all had tastes in yachts and beachside villas. They teamed up with then-rich Adnan Khashoggi of Saudi Arabia and made the Middle East their playground. Palestinian-born Amiram Nir teamed up with Oliver North—whom cartoonists have portrayed as a double for the gap-toothed boy on the cover of Mad magazine—and took a naive Reagan administration into Iranscam. Nir later died mysteriously in the crash of a chartered aircraft in Mexico.
Raviv and Melman believe Israel's intelligence agencies have fallen victim to their own greed, violence, racism and arrogance. They quote a "senior Shin Bet operative" as saying: "We let the urine rise to our heads. " This book is must reading for citizens of countries to which Israel is hostile, and cautionary reading for citizens of any countries for which Israel professes friendship.
Russell Warren Howe is a Washington-based freelance journalist who writes regularly for newspapers in the US and abroad.
This article appeared in the October 13, 1995 issue of Executive Intelligence Review. Southern India, Sri Lanka terrorist groups by Joseph Brewda and Madhu Gurung
According to accounts by retired officials of the Israeli secret service, the Mossad, the Israelis were simultaneously training the Sri Lanka Army and the Tigers, and providing arms to each. Victor Ostrovsky, author of By Way of Deception, told Indian Abroad news service in 1991 that the Tigers were trained in Israel in 1985. "These groups kept coming and going. It was part of our routine job to take them to training camps and make sure that they were getting training worth what they paid for, not more and not less." The groups paid in cash.
Ostrovsky said that the arrangement for the training was made by the Mossad liaison in India, who lived there under a British passport.
A December 1983 Sunday Mail article reported that the Mossad was arming and training the Tigers, as well as the Sri Lankan Armed Forces.
One of the main figures involved in these operations, according to other reports, was Rafi Eytan, the former head of the Israeli intelligence agency LEKEM, which had been caught running spy Jonathan Pollard in the United States. Following the 1985 scandal, Eytan was transferred to become the head of Israeli Chemical Industries, in which capacity he spent time in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka's rebel leader 'killed' Page last updated at 02:00 GMT, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 03:00 UK http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8055015.stm Born November, 1954 - 1972: Founded Tamil New Tigers (TNT), forerunner of LTTE - Wanted in Sri Lanka and India - Between 1978 and 1992, the US government poured at least US$6 billion (some estimates range as high as $20 billion) worth of arms, training and funds to prop up the mujaheddin factions. Other Western governments, as well as oil-rich Saudi Arabia, kicked in as much again. Wealthy Arab fanatics, like Osama bin Laden, provided millions more. Washington's policy in Afghanistan was shaped by US President Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and was continued by his successors. His plan went far beyond simply forcing Soviet troops to withdraw; rather it aimed to foster an international movement to spread Islamic fanaticism into the Muslim Central Asian Soviet republics to destabilize the Soviet Union. Brzezinski's grand plan coincided with Pakistan military dictator General Zia ul-Haq's own ambitions to dominate the region. US-run Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe beamed Islamic fundamentalist tirades across Central Asia (while paradoxically denouncing the “Islamic revolution” that toppled the pro-US Shah of Iran in 1979).
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaSL7XinAvk&feature=channel When you ignite fire in someone's backyard then to bring you in senses the nature takes its own course. How?
All of us already know it and there is no denying that Sikh Problem was more than a Liberation Movement of Khalisatan and India had alleged that Pakistan was behind this insurgency {it would be wrong to say that USA is not involved because Pakistan in its entire history was more close to USA in those days (1979-1988 i.e. General Zia ul Haq due to Afghan War), so it is evident that US just kept its mouth shut on this so-called Sikh uprising.
Similarly Chinese Leader Chow-en-Li {Correct the spelling} had warned Late. Ms. Indira Gandhi during the East Pakistan Crisis to not to interfere. Similarly the Tamil Affair:
A quote from BY WAY OF DECEPTION An Insider’s Devastating Expose of The Mossad by Claire Hoy & Victor Ostrovsky {Arrow Books 1988}:
“Sympathy for the Tamils runs high in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where 40 Million Tamils live. Many Sri Lankan Tamils, escaping the bloodshed, have sought refuge there, and the Sri Lankan government has accused Indian officials of arming and training the Tamils. They should be cursing the Mossad.” The Tamil were training at the commando naval base, learning penetration techniques, mining landings, communications, and how to sabotage ships similar to the Devora. There were about 28 men in each group, so it was decided that Yosy should take the Tamils to Haifa that night while I took the Sinhalese to Tel Aviv, thus avoiding any chance encounters. The real problem started about two weeks into the courses, when both the Tamils and Sinhalese – unknown to each, of course – were training at Kafr Sirkin.
“ Look, we have a problem,” said Amy. “We have a group of 27 SWAT team guys from India coming in.” “ My God,” I said, “What is this? We’ve got Sinhalese, Tamils, and Now Indians. Who’s next?” Page 130.
The LTTE's early years of struggle reportedly enjoyed considerable sympathy from the Indian government, especially in the state of where there was sympathy for the discrimination against Sri Lankan Tamils by the majority . It is widely believed that India provided the LTTE and other Tamil guerilla groups with monetary and training support. However, with increased violence on Indian soil (including some gruesome crimes ascribed to runaway militants), the organization lost some popular support. {1}
Indian involvement:
India's involvement has been motivated by a mix of issues -- its leaders' desire to project India as the regional power in the area, worries about India's own Tamils seeking independence, and a genuine concern for the Sri Lankan Tamils' plight. Uncoordinated in the , the central and state governments (and even different agencies within them!) supported both sides in different ways. In the late 1980s the Indian government negotiated an agreement with the government of Sri Lanka on the Tamils' behalf (without consulting the armed resistance). India promised military support if needed, and Sri Lanka agreed to concessions, including Constitutional changes to grant more local power (this was eventually enacted as the 13th Amendment). India got agreement from all of the Tamil resistance groups including, grudgingly, the all-important LTTE.{2}
Intelligence Agencies:
As per Indian Express from the beginning of India's involvement with militant Sri Lankan Tamil groups in 1981, until late 1993, its intelligence agencies were actively involved with, and in the promotion of, the LTTE; and for most of this period, the Congress was the ruling party. The recently published book Assignment Colombo by J N Dixit, the former Foreign Secretary and the then High Commissioner in Sri Lanka, is replete with instances of active contact maintained by agencies of the governments of India and Tamil Nadu with the LTTE, even after the commencement of `Operation Pawan' by the IPKF. Dixit is explicit in stating that, but for the armed forces, no other Indian agency conducted itself with honour and integrity during the entire involvement with the Sri Lankan Tamil problem.{3}
Indian Strategic Depths: {Not only General Beg suffers from this syndrome!}
India's earlier support In fact, earlier in the conflict, New Delhi had given support to Tamil militants, under what was often described as a misguided policy. Former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi believed that it was in India's interest to show solidarity with the ethnic Tamils. India's involvement in the Lankan crisis has been controversial, with New Delhi first arming and training the LTTE in the 1980s, then outlawing the group after blaming it for the 1991 murder of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) selected and trained the Sri Lankan Tamils, in the use of modern arms in camps organised in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, New Delhi and elsewhere. The idea was that the Sri Lankan Tamils after being trained and armed would be sent back to northern Sri Lanka to engage the Sri Lankan troops in guerrilla warfare. It was a top-secret operation. Even the State government was kept in the dark. RAW hand-picked those to be trained and ignored the LTTE cadres as not being pliable enough. The Intelligence Bureau (IB), waging a turf war with RAW, promptly stepped forward to sponsor the LTTE and intervened to ensure that its cadres got military training. Kasi Anandan, a member of the LTTE, testified, ``Government of India promised us to give training at Dehra Dun. It was in 1984 when Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister. There were training camps even in Tamil Nadu at Kulathur near Mettur. About 50 or 60 LTTE boys got training in the first batch at Dehra Dun. Two or three batches after that were also trained. The LTTE also got monetary assistance from the time of Smt Indira Gandhi''.P. Nedumaran, who is LTTE sympathiser, testified: ``RAW started misreporting about the LTTE and it was responsible for the clashes between the different militant groups. RAW was behind the clashes between the LTTE and EPRLF and LTTE and TELO.''
For many years now, Fernandes has been an LTTE supporter. Before he joined the Vajpayee government in 1997, the Socialist leader organised a controversial public convention of pro-LTTE elements in New Delhi. When the home ministry objected to the meeting, Fernandes changed the venue to his official bungalow, where he hosted LTTE delegates from Sri Lanka, India, Australia and France. "The basic purpose of this convention is to make the people of India aware of Tamil Eelam and make them part of their struggle. Their cause is just," said Fernandes as he inaugurated the convention. A few months later, he was appointed defence minister by Prime Minister Vajpayee. In July 1998, he reportedly stopped the Indian Navy from intercepting ships suspected of carrying illegal arms to Tamil guerrilla groups. As a result, three such ships were let off the hook. Later, he is said to have ordered Indian security forces to downgrade their patrolling of the Palk Straits that separates Sri Lanka from India. Fernandes was also a patron of the LTTE-backed Fund Raising Committee, set up to help the 26 accused in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
As per learned Indian Journalist of repute Mr Praful Bidwai , the Indian Navy allowed gun-runners aboard a vessel to escape and dump their cache at sea. The trawler was reported to be carrying arms for the LTTE. a number of Indian ministers, including Home Minister L.K. Advani and Fernandes, attended a wedding at which were also present LTTE leader V. Prabhakaran's father and Kasi Ananthan, a suspect in the Rajiv Gandhi case. Several pro-LTTE, pro-Eelam speeches were made at the reception. Fernandes has been actively supporting the LTTE cause financially, through the Fund-raising Committee for Protection of Tamils. He was recently praised by the LTTE press as a more reliable ally of the the LTTE than many Tamil politicians. All this has stoked suspicions that India's BJP-led coalition has definite sympathies for the LTTE. There are numerous media reports of increased LTTE activities in Tamil Nadu, and of its growing links with Tamil politicians.{4}
An expert opinion:
Throughout the IPKF episode and until Rajiv Gandhi assassination in 1991, the LTTE continued to maintain a substantial presence in India. When the law enforcement agencies stepped up surveillance, the LTTE moved a bulk of its cadres from Tamil Nadu to other towns such as Mysore, Bangalore and Bombay. Even at the height of the IPKF - LTTE confrontation, the LTTE had twelve sections in India to manage:
(1) Intelligence
(2) Communications
(3) Arms Production
(4) Procurement of explosives
(5) Propaganda
(6) Political work
(7) Food and essential supplies
(8) Medicines
(9) Fuel supplies
(10) Clothing
(11) Transport
(12) Finance and currency conversion
The LTTE had also converted Madras, the capital of Tamil Nadu, and nine other Tamil Nadu districts, into centers for war supplies to the LTTE. Each center was linked by a sophisticated wireless network. Individual units carried sanyo walkie talkie sets. The centers of war supplies and other activities were :
(1) Dharmapuri: Procurement of explosives
(2) Coimbatore: Arms and ammunition manufacturing
(3) Salem: Explosives manufacturing and military clothing manufacturing.
(4) Periya (Erode) Military clothing manufacturing
(5) Vedaraniym: Coastal area from where supplies were dispatched for the LTTE
(6) Madurai: Transit area
(7) Thanjavur; Communications center
(8) Nagapattnam: Landing area for supplies from LTTE deep sea going ships
(9) Rameswaram: Refugee arriving area and recruitment
(10) Tiruchi: Treatment of wounded LTTE cadres
(11) Tutocorin: LTTE trade in gold, silver, narcotics and other merchandise goods.
(12) Madras: Liaison with Tamil Nadu political leaders.
The LTTE-India nexus did not secure the geopolitical security New Delhi needed from Sri Lanka. It weakened Indian as well as Sri Lankan domestic security. In many ways, the presence of a foreign military strengthened the fighting spirit of LTTE and weakened the anti-terrorist capability of the Sri Lankan forces, then engaged in an anti-subversive campaign in the South . The organization gained mastery of guerrilla warfare by fighting the fourth largest military in the world. The LTTE suffered heavy causalities but replenished their ranks and gained a confidence paralleled by the Viet Cong and the Afghan mujahidin. LTTE also innovated new weapons, mostly projectiles and mines. Johnny mine, the anti-personnel mine invented by Prabhakaran, has at least claimed 5,000 Indian and Sri Lankan war causalities. Many Tamil Nadu political leaders from Nedumaran to Gopalasamy and Ramakrishnan visited the LTTE jungle base - known as the one four base complex over the years - and expressed solidarity with Prabhakaran. The role of the IPKF in Sri Lanka became a politically sensitive issue. When the IPKF returned to India, under the National Front government of V.P. Singh, the then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi did not visit the port of Madras to welcome the Indian soldier. Even after the IPKF departed the LTTE continued to maintain excellent relations with Tamil Nadu politicians. The LTTE had managed to preserve Tamil Nadu as a critical base by retaining the goodwill of the Tamil Nadu leaders. In fact, when the LTTE hit teams under the one eyed Jack Sivarasan assassinated the anti-LTTE EPRLF leader Padmanabha and his colleagues in Tamil Nadu, chief minister Karunanidhi asked the Tamil Nadu police and the state agencies to turn a blind eye. A few months later, the LTTE used the very same infrastructure of the LTTE in Tamil Nadu to kill Rajiv Gandhi . {4}
MUSLIMS (DESPITE BEING TERRORIST AS PER US NEOCONS) DO SUFFER AS WELL:
Twelve years ago the Tigers forced 100,000 Muslims out of northern and eastern Sri Lanka, the areas it claimed for an independent Tamil homeland. But one avowed admirer and keen supporter of the LTTE, with very close links with Tamil nadu, has escaped the notice of the Indian Government. He is Mr. S. Thondaman. In the pursuit of its aims, the LTTE has killed tens of thousands of people, including its Tamil opponents, Sinhalese and Muslims. Following the example of Hitler’s pogroms, it has ethnically ‘cleansed’ the North of all Sinhalese and Muslims. It has killed the leaders of India and Sri Lanka. It has brutalised a genaration of Tamil children, forcing those as young as ten years to march to their deaths as suicide brigades. It has trained its women cardres, under an Australian nurse, to spear and kill the children of the villages they attack. Their war against the country has directly or indirectly cost hundreds of thousands of lives. {5}
LAST WORDS:
No pun intended towards Indian or Tamil community. The good thing is that most of the journalists who are critical of their Indian Establishment, {and very harsh} have never been tried, doubted, demonized, whipped, imprisoned and made them jobless {So-called Commander of the Faithful General Zia had done that to several Pakistani Journalists} nobody doubted their loyalty with India and that’s what is needed in Pakistan.
India's guarded response to the heinous killing of Neelam Tiruchelvam is suspicious and points to a pro-LTTE wave in the BJP-led coalition. PRAFUL BIDWAI {4}
13- INDIA'S TERRORIST MINISTER Defense chief George Fernandes raised funds and supplied arms to the terrorist Tamil Tigers {4}
"We could take a strike, survive and then hit back. Pakistan would be finished. I do not really fear that the nuclear issue would figure in a conflict."
16- An Open Appeal to the Indian Government not to extend support to LTTE supporter Thondaman, in the Indian and Sri Lankan national security interests {5}
Mr Masood Sharif Khan Khattak, Former Director General of The Intelligence Bureau, Government of Pakistan
