Federal Govt.'s silence helped terrorist air wing

by Walter Jayawardhana

A Singapore based terrorism expert said the attitude of showing a blind eye to the activities of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) on the part of the Australian Federal government has contributed to the build up of the Air Wing of the terrorist group in Sri Lanka.

Due to three mid night raids of the nascent air wing of the Tamil Tigers Sri Lanka's only International Air Port is being kept closed at night for air traffic now.

The Head of the International Center for Political Violence in Singapore Dr. Rohan Gunaratne said the LTTE has been procuring aircraft, arms, explosives and other technological devices for more than a decade from Australia.

He said the LTTE was buying light aircraft in the mid 1990?s and bought detonators for terrorist bombs as recently as last year from Australia. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer while trying to downplay Sri Lanka estimates of Australian terrorist fund raising by the LTTE supporters nevertheless has admitted there has been fund raising in Australia and those funds have been siphoned for terrorist activities of Sri Lanka.

Dr. Rohan Gunaratna said, "It started in the mid-1990s but the procurements activities continued as far as last year in Australia," he said.

"The last items they purchased were remote control devices which have now been uncovered in Sri Lanka with Australian markings (on the devices)." He said Australia ignored the problem since they were more concerned about Muslim extremists and focusing on them.

"Within the intelligence community now it's very well established that because governments turned a blind eye to this today there are light aircrafts the Tamil Tigers are using to mount attacks in Sri Lanka," Dr Gunaratna said.

"The failure of Australia and other countries to act in a timely way enabled the Tamil Tigers to procure aircrafts and other capabilities that have enabled them to develop a successful terrorist air wing."

Dr. Gunaratna further said, "Last weekend, the Tamil Tigers air wing said to be made up of small aerobatic propeller-driven planes adapted to carry bombs" launched a raid on oil facilities near Colombo, prompting some international airlines to cancel flights in and out of the capital.

Dr Gunaratna said Australian authorities had been aware of the problem for many years but had only begun to take the problem more seriously about two years ago. "For Australia, it was never a priority to curb the non-Islamist terrorist groups operating in Australia," he said.

Intelligence agencies had been collecting information on procurement and fund raising activities for many years, Dr Gunaratna said.

"But the law enforcement side has been very weak," he said.