Force of 150 Tamil Tigers Reportedly Deployed to Sri Lanka
India Says Not True

Sri Lanka's Prime Minister D.M. Jayaratne believes a conspiracy is underway to create a new civil war in Sri Lanka.

A woman fighter of the Tamil Tigers takes a shooting position in Sri Lanka in July 2007. AP Photo. Courtesy: FBI

(SALEM) - China's Xinhua news agency reported this week that Sri Lankan police deny claims of Tamil Tiger militia forces having infiltrated the island through southern India. However local media in Colombo quoted reports that 150 Tigers, freshly trained and equipped in Tamil Nadu, India, are in place in the north and east of the country.

On 2 April 2012, the Colombo Page published: Former LTTE terrorists re-trained in Tamil Nadu committing murders in Sri Lanka:

“

The Police came to know this information through the questioning of three suspects arrested for the murder of a member of the Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP), a ruling party constituent partner. The EPDP member, identified as Ragunathan, a resident of Muttur in Trincomalee district, was found on March 17 with throat slit allegedly by the suspects. They have reportedly displayed a note on the body of the victim saying that they had given death penalty to a traitor and have resumed their work.

”

Many observers are wondering what the real reaction of the Tamil Tigers will be to the meager slap on the wrist that the UN in Geneva issued recently to Sri Lanka for war crimes committed against the Tamil people during the horrific conclusion of a nearly three-decade long civil war. It is a conflict that ended in a bloody extermination of civilians.

LTTE Resurgence?

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are a separatist group that fought long and hard for the rights of Hindu and Christian Tamils; threatened and attacked by the Sinhalese Buddhist majority from the time the country formerly known as Ceylon, gained independence from Britain in 1948.

To put it lightly, this was a year of catastrophic year world change that gave birth to a number of resistance movements that would eventually be labeled as terrorist.

This includes in addition to the LTTE:

• The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO)
• Hamas in Gaza
• Baloch Liberation Army in Balochistan
• Hezbollah in Lebanon

Sri Lanka had the Tamil Tigers listed as a terrorist group with the help of its friends in the west, and this led to the Genocide that swept the northern part of the island. As we have detailed in so many past reports, it was a bloody, heinous affair where children were not spared, women were sexually assaulted, and those who surrendered with white flags were slaughtered by an army working at the lowest rungs of honor, the Sri Lanka Army (SLA).

It is all sad and unjust, the Sinhala majority and the Tamils should and deserve to live in peace, but the erosion of Tamil rights over the years and refusal to grant autonomy to their region, the breakaway state of Tamil Eelam, is what led to such strife.

More than anything, problems arise from the fact that the young Sinhalese are frequently programmed by their dominant culture, to hate the Tamils and view them as a lower form of human: not very Buddhist at all. It is class warfare at its worst, and all a backlash from the years of British occupation

Now, after all of the unabated cruelty during the war, and the denial of responsibility for civilian deaths by the Rajapaksa regime, and threats toward those who supported the U.S. led resolution in Geneva, Sri Lankans see the reemergence of the LTTE. That resolution compels the SL government to comply with the report of its own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) which did not assess any blame for civilian deaths to the SL army.

It is reported that rebels reached Sri Lanka in the guise of fishermen. Sri Lanka is known for attacking Indian fishermen, it is an historic problem of epic proportions; it seems easy to connect them to the idea of LTTE reaching their shores. Everything at this point seems mixed with speculation.

It is reported that the goal of the Tamil Tigers is to destabilize the country. Sri Lanka's Prime Minister D.M. Jayaratne did tell parliament last year that LTTE training camps do exist in Tamil Nadu, and that training of this military group is ongoing. Jayaratne in fact claims that there are three secret training centers, and that one provides cadres exclusive training in assassinations.

The prime minister knows that in the past, the LTTE really means business when they conduct military operations; the cost can be heavy, and he knows they are carrying the anger of so many of their compatriots slaughtered in cold blood by the SLA. Jayaratne believes a conspiracy is underway to both kill Indian leaders, and also create a civil war in Sri Lanka.

"However when contacted by Xinhua, police spokesman Ajith Rohana said that the police did not have any information of such infiltration, adding that such claims were misleading," their article stated.

India's Zee News carried India's reaction to the notion of Tamil Nadu training camps for LTTE cadres, in the article, India slams SL media report on LTTE camps in TN:

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The Indian High Commission in Colombo on Monday dismissed reports in a section of the Sri Lankan media that suggested the existence of LTTE-training camps in Tamil Nadu. 'The suggestion contained in the news item regarding the training of terrorists at three secret camps in Tamil Nadu, India is entirely erroneous and baseless. Relevant agencies of the two countries have ongoing cooperation and no such information has been brought to the notice of the Government of India,' a release from the High Commission said.

”

It seems that the terrorist label could severely backfire on Sri Lanka, as people branded and representing a minority culture like the Tigers, already declared as "less than" - often care less... than more, about their own personal safety. The Tamil Tigers after all, invented the suicide vest.

People pushed into extreme acts of this nature by an oppressive, occupying government, care about one thing, and that is killing their enemy. The three year anniversary of the conclusion of the war approaches, perhaps it is true as many have said, that this war has not ended, but undergone a necessary pause for training and planning.

With regard to the war crimes against the Tamils, even the Council for Foreign Relations clearly states that the violence of the LTTE, is matched by the SL government.

“

But the Sri Lankan government has also attracted widespread criticism for its alleged human rights abuses. Like the LTTE, the Sri Lankan government has been accused of engaging in extrajudicial killings, abductions, extortion, conscription, and the use of child soldiers. In August 2007, Human Rights Watch released a report that catalogues the various human rights abuses conducted in Sri Lanka by both the LTTE and the Sri Lankan military. - From the Council for Foreign Relations: Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (aka Tamil Tigers) (Sri Lanka, separatists)

”

India unequivocally denies that training camps exist, what else could their government say? Is it possible that they simply do not want to admit or be connected to such activities? The problems accompanying that scenario would be painfully obvious.

Tim King's previous Salem-News.com reports on Sri Lanka:

Mar-23-2012 UN Warns Sri Lanka Against Retaliating Toward Humanitarian Activists - Tim King Salem-News.com

Mar-22-2012: White Flags, White Vans and White Lies? A Closer Look at the Death of Colonel Ramesh

Mar-18-2012: Is Google Earth Hiding Sri Lanka's Ghosts? - Tim King Salem-News.com

Mar-15-2012: Channel-4 Documentary Proves Sri Lanka Committed War Crimes

Mar-11-2012: War Crime Court and its Conflicting Interests

Mar-08-2012: Sex Abuse and Murder in Sri Lanka- New Photos Emerge

Mar-02-2012: A Very Uncivil War - Ghastly Images- Gross Detail and Denial of Sri Lanka's Genocide

Feb-28-2012: Americans Praise Sri Lankan Politicians who Orchestrated Genocide

Feb-28-2012: Tweets from Tamil Eelam

Feb-24-2012: Two of Sri Lanka's Foulest War Crimes

Feb-19-2012: Will Another Documentary on Sri Lanka's Genocide Impact the Geneva Human Rights Session?

Feb-08-2012: The Questionable Effectiveness of Lighting Yourself on Fire

Feb-03-2012: Sri Lanka's Independence Day- a Black Day for Tamil Eelam

Jan-11-2012: While UN Claims Zero Tolerance, No Discipline of Sri Lankan Abusers in Haiti

Dec-28-2011: Why Was a Red Cross Manager on Vacation from Gaza Murdered in Sri Lanka?

Nov-24-2011: Fear, Genocide and Torture in Sri Lanka

Nov-21-2011: London Calling: Time for Sri Lanka's Release of Post-Conflict Report

Nov-11-2011: Ode to a Humble Hero of Sri Lanka: Dr Brian Senewiratne

Oct-15-2011: Genocide 101: World and Media Apathy

Oct-08-2011: Sri Lanka Joins Israel in Naval Attacks on Unarmed Fishermen

Oct-05-2011: War and its Aftermath... a Real Killer for Tourism

Oct-01-2011: Sri Lanka in the Crosshairs of Canadian Parliament

Sep-13-2011: Sri Lanka Recalls Diplomat Accused of War Crimes

Aug-31-2011: 'No Song and Dance' Over Sri Lanka War Crime Admissions

Jul-25-2011: Former Sri Lanka President's Children 'Reacted With Anguish' to Tamil Genocide Program

Jul-22-2011: M.I.A. - A Beautiful Reflection of the Besieged Tamils of Sri Lanka

Jul-17-2011: 44 Prisoners Join Hunger Strike at Vavuniya Prison in Sri Lanka

Jul-14-2011: The Bush Administration's Role in Sri Lanka's Tamil Genocide

Jul-13-2011: Fields Should be for Sports, not Genocide... Sri Lanka

Jun-29-2011: Sri Lanka Continues Genocide, Thumbing Nose at UN and World

Jun-20-2011: Sri Lanka's Violence Toward Tamil Minority Continues

Jun-18-2011: 'International Day in Support of Victims of Torture'Remember the Tamil Genocide

Jun-17-2011: European Tourists Waylaid in Sri Lanka, Resurgence of 'White Van' Crime

Jun-15-2011: Tamil Genocide Explored in Sri Lanka's Killing Fields

Jun-02-2011: UN Experts: Sri Lanka Tamil Genocide Video is Real

May-31-2011: New Song 'Depression' - Graphic Truth of Sri Lanka Tamil Genocide

May-31-2011: Sri Lanka Tamil Genocide: Killing the Messenger

May-03-2011: Confronting the Tamil Genocide in Sri Lanka

Apr-27-2011: Tamil Genocide in Sri Lanka Emerges Into Public View

Apr-22-2011: World Ignores Genocide of Sri Lanka's Tamil Population

Tim King in 2008, covering the Iraq War

Tim King: Salem-News.com Editor and Writer

Tim King has more than twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. Tim is Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. His background includes covering the war in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, and reporting from the Iraq war in 2008. Tim is a former U.S. Marine.

Tim holds awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing from The Associated Press the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs, Electronic Media Association and The Red Cross In a personal capacity, Tim has written 2,026 articles as of March 2012 for Salem-News.com since the new format designed by Matt Lintz was launched in December, 2005.

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Tim specializes in writing about political and military developments worldwide with an emphasis on Palestine and Sri Lanka, Iraq and Afghanistan, and the U.S. Marines. You can write to Tim at this address: tim@salem-news.com. Visit Tim's Facebook page (facebook.com/TimKing.Reporter)

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