The Sea Tigers of Tamil
Eelam By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - An attack-sea-craft
manufacturing facility of the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was destroyed recently when Sri
Lankan air force planes bombed a boatyard in
Tiger-held territory. The Sri Lankan Defense
Ministry has said that 30-40 of the boats were
destroyed in the attack. The pro-LTTE Tamilnet
website rejected the claim, arguing that the
planes had hit a civilian boatyard.
The attack on the boatyard comes amid
fierce fighting, which has
claimed more than 800 lives
since August 11 when the Tigers launched a major
offensive to retake control of the Tamil-dominated
but government-held Jaffna Peninsula in the north.
The attack was aimed at denting an important but
little understood aspect of the organization's
military infrastructure - sea power. The two sides
have sparred on the seas several times over almost
three decades.
In January, the Tigers blew
up a Sri Lankan navy gunboat outside Trincomalee
harbor. In May, it targeted a naval convoy
comprising a troop-carrier vessel, which was
ferrying more than 700 unarmed security forces
personnel returning after home leave, and its
accompanying naval fast attack craft. While the
LTTE's flotilla of explosive-laden boats failed to
damage the troop carrier, it was able to destroy
two gunboats, killing at least 17 sailors.
More recently, the Tigers targeted another
vessel carrying 854 unarmed soldiers to
Trincomalee and simultaneously attacked the naval
base there.
Some of the most spectacular
confrontations between the two sides have taken
place on the seas, and both sides have lost
vessels in these confrontations. The Sri Lankan
navy is said to have lost about half of its force
to the LTTE's gunboats.
From the start of
the insurgency, the Tigers have seen wisdom in
fielding a strong maritime network. In the early
1980s, LTTE relied on fast dinghies and fishing
boats equipped only with small arms and grenades.
The boats were used primarily to transport cadres,
weapons and supplies between its rear base in the
Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the Jaffna
Peninsula. Since then its naval and maritime
infrastructure and capabilities have come a long
way.
The LTTE has a separate naval wing -
the Kadal Puli or Sea Tigers. This is a formidable
fighting force, whose armory includes logistics
craft, attack craft, suicide craft and other
weapons and equipment. Vijay Sakhuja, a former
officer in the Indian navy and currently senior
fellow at the Delhi-based Observer Research
Foundation, draws attention to the sophisticated
technologies that the Sea Tigers use.
"Dual-use technologies such as [the]
Global Positioning System, satellite communication
systems, and water-sport and scuba-diving
equipment are part of their inventories. They are
known to use a variety of weapons from knives to
improvised explosive devices, submersibles,
mini-submarines and high-speed boats. LTTE [has]
used rocket-propelled grenades, explosive-laden
speedboats and even armor-piercing weapons,"
Sakhuja said.
The Black Tiger unit of the
Sea Tigers has wrought considerable havoc on the
Sri Lankan navy. The LTTE suicide attacks at sea
are also said to have inspired other groups,
including al-Qaeda. Tigers often boast that it was
their suicide attacks on Lankan vessels, the
Abitha and Edithara, that al-Qaeda emulated when
it attacked a US destroyer, the Cole, in Aden in
2000.
Unlike the Sea Tigers' spectacular
naval operations, the organization's commercial
maritime operations have moved quietly. And like
the Sea Tigers, the maritime network has
contributed considerably to the LTTE's "war for
Tamil Eelam". A part of its work involves carrying
legitimate ocean cargo. It is also said to be
involved in human smuggling and transporting
contraband and narcotics, which provides the LTTE
with funds. Most important, it ferries weapons and
military equipment purchased abroad to the island.
Sakhuja says the LTTE's maritime assets
and organization, which include a fleet of
merchant ships, a large number of fishing
trawlers, high-speed motor launches, and
professionally trained crews, "can compete well
with the maritime facilities of a small island
state".
The Tigers' naval and maritime
fleet puts it in a class apart from other militant
organizations. "While most other maritime
insurgency groups perform two tasks - carrying out
raids and delivering supplies covertly - the LTTE
engages in the additional tasks of ship protection
and temporary sea control, both functions of a
conventional navy," points out Martin Murphy in
Jane's Intelligence Review.
Sakhuja said,
"The LTTE is well endowed with capabilities and
capacities to be considered as a small non-state
sea power. It has all the attributes of a sea
power, ie geography, oceangoing ships,
ports/harbors, a fishing fleet, maritime trade,
ship/boat building yards, an understanding of the
seas among the political leadership, and now a
navy."
The problem is that the LTTE
doesn't see itself as a non-state actor.
The LTTE has been demanding de jure naval
status for the Sea Tigers. In the blueprint it put
forward in 2003 for the setting up of an interim
self-governing authority, it also demanded control
over marine resources and the right of access and
exploitation over them.
Had the proposal
been accepted by Colombo it would have given the
Tigers control over two-thirds of Sri Lanka's
coastline, legitimized LTTE dominance over the
seas off the northeast (including the Palk Strait
that separates India and Sri Lanka), and left it
in charge on one side of Sri Lanka's international
boundary with India. It would have legitimized a
"third navy" (besides those of India and Sri
Lanka) at India's southern doorstep. Not
surprisingly, the proposal was unacceptable to
Colombo and Delhi.
It was clear even as
the 2002 ceasefire agreement was being signed that
the seas would be an important flash point. The
agreement distinguishes between government and
LTTE-held territories on land, not at sea. As the
only sovereign entity, Sri Lanka has exclusive
right over the seas. The LTTE has challenged this.
The attacks on Lankan naval vessels are attempts
at challenging Colombo's sovereignty over the
waters off land under Tiger control and to assert
its right to use the sea.
The LTTE's
repeated attempts to win for itself unrestricted
movement in the seas of the north and east are
driven by the fact that it is via these waters
that its military and other supplies are brought
into the island. It is keen to ensure that this
supply is smooth. Besides, movement of Tiger
cadres from the north to the east is possible only
through the sea.
This is not possible by
land as Tiger territory in the north and east is
not contiguous; it is broken by land occupied by
government troops. And under the ceasefire
agreement, the LTTE would need government
permission to move cadres across
government-controlled land.
With fighting
likely to increase in the coming months, the
Tigers' need to move cadres between the north and
east is likely to grow, as will the flow of
weapons from overseas. The LTTE will need to be
able to operate on the sea without restrictions.
And the Lankan navy will want to choke Tiger
movement on the seas. More clashes can be expected
in the coming months.
Sudha
Ramachandran is an independent
journalist/researcher based in Bangalore.
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