'LTTE has started planting terrorism seeds again'

Ajith Colonne, Security Analyst and a former Deputy Director (research) attached to Sri Lankan Military Intelligence said that what we achieved in May 2009 is a full completion of one full cycle eradicating LTTE within Sri Lanka. Retired today, he was one of the few civilians attached to the intelligence service of the country.

He became a Visiting Lecturer in Management at the Sir John Kotalawala Defence University (KDU), in 1996 which was an academy then. In 1998, Mr. Colonne was appointed a Deputy Director of the Directorate of Internal Intelligence - DII of the Ministry of Defence. DII was formerly known as the National Intelligence Bureau - NIB and presently known as the State Intelligence Service - SIS. Today, retired from Intelligence services, Colonne devotes a considerable amount of his time doing national service by conducting a series of highly specialised lectures on Decision Making and Intelligence Analysis to the members of the armed forces and the police.

“On the other hand LTTE is a globally established network. It has become more of a business entity as well,” Colonne said. For them to take this business organisation forward they need to have a cause - fighting for their ideologies. They need to show that symptoms are slowly emerging. In another perspective still they're in the process of mustering funds from right around the world.

They have been able to take a foothold in the western countries and the diaspora is such that they can make a political pressure in their respective countries. Their influential with the western world. That is how the money can easily be raised. Initially they were focusing on illegal trades like drug trafficking. But then it was transformed in to more legal trades where any government can not take action against such activities. They were formally established business entities.

When I was in intelligence, I came across information proving that LTTE being a transnational business entity, which was equivalent to a multinational corporation. Certain international writers have also expressed this view.

In 1999 the Intelligence were able to make an assessment. And in time to come, it was growing exponentially.

In 2005 soon after Tsunami, the funds that were flown in to the country was in excess.

The Central Bank set up with a whole new ministering intelligence units and banned three organisations and confiscated the funds they had which were the roots that brought terrorist funding money to the country.

That is a transnational organisation - there are shipping, banks, banking, petrol stations, real estate. And in one time they were operating in capital markets.

These factors show that they will continue with their efforts and using a minor incident they can create a larger negative picture making a huge impact on the economy of the country. This impact on the economy is what we need to prevent at the moment.

Mind you, any sort of terrorism related sabotage activity can take the country two thirds backward in the development of the country gained over the past five years.

The first step of the LTTE operatives would be to reactivate and the second step, as mentioned above, is to sabotage the development country gained.

There will be isolated activities as attempts of sabotage. While attempting to totally annihilate the peaceful set up of the country, terrorists would definitely attempt to create sabotage using isolated incidents through their sleeper cadres in the ground level. It is at this juncture the Intelligence services has to play a major role.

We need to be mindful about these isolated sabotage incidents.

The Intelligence services need to be 100 percent sure of facts, precise and absolutely accurate on underlying facts. LTTE being interpreted as a transnational organisation and Sri Lanka is its cultivation ground. They have started planting the seeds once again. We have to stop them giving water.

Water has to be brought from far away places. Intelligence communities has a major role to locate the seeds and uproot them before they become plants. We have to have a regional cooperation to combat this future meanness.

- DY