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| Sunday, 11 December 2005 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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How LTTE manipulates the underworld Bull's Eye by a Special Defence Correspondent You may have read in your childhood fables that the jungles are full of mystery and danger. During the last two decades in Sri Lanka, you might have read news of terror emerging from Vanni jungles hacking infants to death in the mother's lap and murdering innocent people in cold blood. Today the jungles are shrinking and parts of those evils have moved to the city, haunting death at the door steps of urban dwellers.
Neither the visitors to Colombo nor other city users necessarily go deep into this area. Perhaps they find no business in this predominantly Tamil residential enclave. The Kelani River has separated the area from the rest of the land from its northern and eastern directions while the Indian Ocean protected it from the West, restricting the road network to the South ward direction. A visitor who could enter this enclave either from the Harbour entrance along Reclamation road leading to Aluth Mawatha or from the other entry before the Japan Sri Lanka Friendship bridge on the Madampitiya road eventually comes across a landscape similar to that in the Eastern coast with a slum environment, thin lanes tightly packed with dwellings, Hindu kovils, Churches. This is Modera, Kotahena, Crow Island and Mattakkuliya where you see children wearing dark colours, women sporting 'Pottu' and jasmine flowers on plaited hair and bashful girls in Panjab kits. The circumstance has created this territory a safe haven for some organised gangsters cum drug dealers who are heavily engaged in illegal activities including smuggling narcotics. The perpetrators believed to be the agents for the LTTE's drug business which is a main source of revenue to the LTTE coffers operate from here to distribute heroin in Colombo city and in the suburbs. Apart from serving as drug agents to the LTTE, the recent newspaper reports confirmed these gangsters' involvement in killing several VIPs and military intelligence officials on the orders of the LTTE. The LTTE who finds it convenient to pay Sinhala killer gangs and use them to eliminate those listed as LTTE opponents is supposed to continue further, according to intelligence. News reports confirmed that the LTTE intelligence kept suicide bombers in safe houses in this area before sending them to the election rallies where UNP Presidential Candidate Gamini Dissanayake and another women suicide bomber for the Town Hall bomb attempt on former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. Investigations revealed the cadres had maintained close contacts with members of the then ruling party involved in the drug business. This is testimony to the shrewdness of the LTTE operatives who use any available resource to achieve their targets. The new strategy of using Sinhala contract killers is another tactic of the LTTE to put the blame on certain political parties including the JVP and the JHU. They tried to prove themselves before international pressure groups that the motive of killing and the perpetrators are different and the LTTE is innocent to that extent. This tactics on the other hand would serve them to save their Black Tigers from death to save shrinking man power. Reckless statements such as the one made by Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremasinghe alleging that the JVP and the JHU were responsible for the assassination of Minister Kadirgamar would play into the hand of the LTTE as such absurd statements would only reinforce the argument of the LTTE. This new LTTE strategy using Sinhala gangsters to run their killing spree leave their own cadres to be deployed in various other activities to run their terror machine vigorously. Gathering vital information on the movement of those whom they see as rivals, these Tamils operate thriving businesses are professionals who keep close contact with politicians and military personnel. The LTTEers have come to Colombo in numbers under this new strategy and are attached to various small business institutions such as communication centres, eating houses and offices of professional families such as doctors, lawyers and engineers. In the guise of helpers, domestic servants, drivers and so on, many of them find safe houses in Modera, Kotahena, Mattakkuliya and Wellawatte to earn a living while serving as LTTE spies in isolation. According to intelligence, the LTTE have demanded many rich Tamils in Colombo to replace Sinhala and Muslim employees with their nominees as there are more youth to arrive in the city from the LTTE stronghold Vanni. No victim dares to make any complaint as they know the repercussion would be heavy on them or their relations living in the North. Being an employee, the cadres get access to monitor the affairs of his or her master easily. Later they provide all vital information, the movements of their employments of their employers, their average income, details of the family friends, whether the masters have relationship with top politicians or military personnel etc., to a particular person who maintains direct links with the LTTE Intelligence Unit. Armed with such information, the LTTE enhances its terror activities - more killings and harassment. They use the information to decide how much the particular businessman or the professional should pay as ransom. A city businessman said that the person who maintains the updates of the data is so efficient that he (name is not divulged for security reason) is smart enough to produce proof of one's income if anybody lies about his real revenue. The LTTE found that the rival killings among drug dealers started sometime ago in the city affected their activities due to a decline of committed members in each group. As a preventive measure, the LTTE has mediated in this row and settled some disputes among several groups. Evidence shows that all these groups have temporarily forgotten their old feuds and worked in unison as they get sufficient funds and contracts leading to millions of rupees. There is a general understanding that the police service has been deteriorating for many years due to various reasons including politicians intimidating the independence of the police. Grievances of the police such as low salaries, discrimination in promotion etc that accumulated for years would have also caused to morale of the officers and successive governments should be blamed for not taking measures to correct the situation. Under these circumstances, the people would hardly expect justice from the police and it is more negative when the victims of terror seek police assistance. They know that their complaints would not be investigated and justice done so a very few incidents only are informed to the police in the areas. Many police officers especially those in top ranks are believed to have direct involvement in black money games. A visitor to city night clubs, some meant for foreigners only could identify some high ranking officers clinging onto pretty Karaoke girls and spending lavishly on food and drink. You would wonder how an officer drawing a salary from the government enjoys such night life without accepting dirty money. Recently, a wholesale dealer who refused to pay ransom to the LTTE was kidnapped, and his relatives instead of making a complaint to the police, paid the demand and got the man released. Genuine officers also find it difficult to round up such culprits as there is a dearth of committed and brave officers in the service today. Loopholes of the penal code would also serve the sympathizers or paid agents who would appear in the guise of human right activists, lawyers to save such culprits instantly. There are enough instances that politicians and security or police officers would also come to their rescue for some reason or other leaving the investigating officers in peril. This amounts to the effectiveness of the LTTE network which has pierced cancerously into the core of the nationally important sectors such as police, customs, immigration and emigration, motor registering, media, registration of persons and so on. Even the few officers who take a risk to take action are discouraged by various departmental problems and pressures. It is no secret that a former IGP was compelled to resign after allegations were made against him on his relationship with a main city drug kingpin. This particular IGP is not the only top ranker to be blamed for such acts. There could be more still in uniforms, so no officer would dare to continue any investigation fearing possible stop orders from the top. Therefore, it is a prime duty of the new government to take serious measures to correct this situation by restructuring the entire service in order to curb the increasing crime and corruption wave as well as round up LTTE operatives in the fight against terrorism. |
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| Produced by Lake House |
You may have different views, however. This is an account of such crimes
being continued shrouded in an enclave of the Colombo city limits where
residents, especially Tamils have been suffering silently in the grip of
LTTE operatives patronaged by some organised area gangsters. 
