BANGALORE - Even as it is suffering serious blows inflicted by the Sri Lankan
armed forces and the ground beneath its feet shrinks by the day, the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) appears to be gripped by a serious internal
crisis.
If Sri Lankan intelligence is to be believed, all has not been well between the
two most powerful men in the LTTE - leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and
intelligence chief, Shanmugalingam Sivashankar, better known as Pottu Amman.
According to reports in the Sri Lankan media, Prabhakaran removed Pottu Amman
as the chief of the LTTE's intelligence wing a few months ago for his repeated
failure to carry out several high-profile assassination missions, including the
suicide attacks on
Sri Lankan army chief Sarath Fonseka and Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa
in 2007. According to the Daily Mirror, Pottu Amman was sent away to Muhamalai
in the Jaffna Peninsula for three months. The Mirror reports that Pottu Amman
has been replaced by Rutnam Master, who was previously in charge of
Prabhakaran's personal security as well as head of the LTTE's special forces,
the Radha Regiment.
While the story could be a fictitious one floated by the Sri Lankan
intelligence, if true, it is a major development, with implications that could
cripple the already limping Tigers. Rivalries are known to exist in the
"monolithic" LTTE. But a split between Prabhakaran and his intelligence chief
could prove deadly, damaging the organization far more than the string of
military reverses it has suffered over the past couple of years.
Little has gone well for the LTTE in recent years. It has been losing territory
to the armed forces since 2006. In 2007 it was evicted from the last of its
strongholds in the Eastern Province and in the year since it has lost vast
swathes of territory in the Northern Province as well. On January 2, the LTTE's
"administrative capital" Kilinochchi fell to the armed forces. And a week
later, Elephant Pass, the strategic causeway linking the Sri Lankan mainland
with the Jaffna Peninsula, which was in Tiger hands since April 2000, was
captured by the armed forces.
The capture of Elephant Pass has enabled the government to take control over
the entire A9 highway for the first time in 23 years. The A9 (or Highway of
Death as it is sometimes referred to, given the large number of lives that have
been lost fighting for control over it) is a 325-kilometer-long road that runs
from Kandy in central Sri Lanka to Jaffna in the north of the island. Parts of
this highway were under LTTE control for over two decades, compelling the
government to send troops and supplies to the peninsula via air and sea. With
the entire A9 now under its control, the government can use this supply route
to the Jaffna Peninsula, a far cheaper option than the air and sea routes
currently in use.
The loss of territory has left the Tigers confined to the Mullaitivu jungles.
Analysts are predicting that the once invincible Tigers are now on the brink of
defeat. But it is not just the loss of territory and cadres that the LTTE is
having to deal with.
"The reversal in the fortunes of the organization over the past two years has
triggered a blame-game among its top leaders. And for the first time ever, it
is Pottu Amman who appears to have had to take the rap for the military
debacles," a Sri Lankan intelligence officer told Asia Times Online.
Pottu Amman is among the few associates of Prabhakaran from the pre-1983 days
who remains in the LTTE. A close confidante of Prabhakaran, Pottu Amman is
wanted in India (along with Prabhakaran) for masterminding the assassination of
former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in a suicide attack in May 1991. Pottu Amman
is also believed to be the brain behind the assassinations of Sri Lankan
president Ranasinghe Premadasa, defense minister Ranjan Wijeratne and a host of
other Sri Lankan political and military leaders.
As head of the LTTE's dreaded intelligence unit, Pottu Amman was hugely
powerful, in a position to determine the fate of very senior Tigers. He has
eliminated dozens of senior Tigers after accusing them of treachery. His
proximity to Prabhakaran was useful. He had the supremo's ears and could fill
it with stories about the "suspicious activities" of other Tigers.
It was Pottu Amman who "unearthed" the "conspiracy" hatched by LTTE deputy
chief Mahathiya to kill Prabhakaran in the early 1990s. Mahathiya was
subsequently tried for treason - he was accused of conspiring with Indian
intelligence agents to eliminate Prabhakaran - and executed. It is widely
believed that Mahathiya's growing popularity prompted Pottu Amman to hatch the
plot to eliminate him.
It is said that the sidelining of several Tigers over the years has been
engineered by Pottu Amman to eliminate any threat to his own influence in the
organization. Pottu Amman is believed to have had a hand in the death of
Tamilselvan, the former chief of the LTTE's political wing, in aerial bombing
by the Sri Lankan Air Force. He is said to have leaked information regarding
Tamilselvan's whereabouts to the armed forces, who lost no time in bombing the
location and killing him. It was Pottu Amman again who deepened the rift
between the LTTE's former eastern commander "Colonel Karuna" and Prabhakaran,
which resulted in the organization's vertically splitting along regional lines
in 2004.
Pottu Amman's strategy to sideline senior Tigers or eliminate them was
ostensibly to remove any threat to Prabhakaran or the organization. It was
really to remove any challenge to his own influential position. He saw to it
that no other Tiger would emerge as a deputy to Prabhakaran and thus be in a
position to succeed him some day.
"The entry of Prabhakaran's son Charles Antony Seelan seems to have messed up
Pottu Amman's plans," said the Sri Lankan intelligence officer. Last year, the
LTTE chief apparently expressed his wish to anoint his son as successor, a move
that evoked some angry growls from senior Tigers.
The only threat to Charles Antony's succession of Prabhakaran comes from Pottu
Amman. Did Prabhakaran decide to strip Pottu Amman of his powers as
intelligence chief to ease the way for his son to inherit the mantle?
Reports say that after a stint in Muhamalai, Pottu Amman has been recalled to
the Wanni. On the brink of defeat, Prabhakaran could be drawing on Pottu
Amman's services again, said the intelligence officer.
If Pottu Amman has indeed been sidelined by Prabhakaran, it is unlikely to
forget or forgive. He will bide his time and strike. In the event of
Prabhakaran's exit from the scene, he is likely to challenge Charles Antony
should he become the next LTTE chief.
But even before that, Pottu Amman could do deadly damage to the LTTE. No one
knows the LTTE better than him. Should he leak information to the security
forces, the LTTE would collapse like a house of cards. But LTTE watchers say if
he has indeed fallen from grace, the damage he could do might be limited as
Prabhakaran divested him of his powers several months ago.
Of course, it is highly likely that the reports of the Prabhakaran-Pottu Amman
rift are creations of the Sri Lankan intelligence, in a bid to deepen already
plunging morale among Tiger cadres or to generate uncertainty. Such reports
could be aimed too at worsening the current simmering suspicion between the
Tiger leaders, provoking clashes within the organization.
This is a tactic that has been tried several times. Sri Lankan and Indian
intelligence have on numerous occasions reported the death of Prabhakaran in
the hope that it would trigger a war of succession among contenders for the top
slot. Such attempts failed. But that was when the LTTE, despite all the
rivalries, was still a powerful monolithic organization, united behind
Prabhakaran. Now, as the LTTE stares at defeat and questions begin to be raised
over Prabhakaran's leadership, such attempts by outside forces to engineer
rebellion just might succeed.
Some media reports have cited intelligence sources as saying that Pottu Amman
had surrendered to the Sri Lankan armed forces, which has been denied by the
latter. Others claim that he is headed for southern Sri Lanka with a team of
suicide bombers. Was the dispatching of Pottu Amman to Muhamalai a ruse to
cover his travel to the south?
Pottu Amman could be preparing to strike with high-profile suicide missions in
Colombo and other cities, while the media chews on the story of his sidelining
in the LTTE.
Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in
Bangalore.
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