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Sri Lanka's perspective on maritime security in the region and its relevanc
#9 - 0--Anupa--Sri Lanka's perspective on maritime security in the region and its relevanc--2007-06-05 08:55:10
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Minister Rohitha Bogollagama
Speech by Rohitha Bogollagama, Minister of Foreign Affairs at the
Fourth Plenary Session on "Securing regional waters: how much progress
"at the 6th Shangri La Dialogue, held on June 3.
ADDRESS: Sri Lanka is indeed happy to be participating for the first
time in the Shangri-La Dialogue - one of the foremost security forums in
the world, where countries in the region have an opportunity to focus on
security challenges, with key International players representing States,
non-governmental organisations as well as the academic community. - It is a forum, which seeks to address challenges in order to make our
region a safer place to live, to do business in and to explore the full
potential of our respective states.
Addressing you in this session on "Securing regional waters: How much
progress", I trust it would be pertinent to present Sri Lanka's
perspective on maritime security in the region and its relevance to the
world. This seems pertinent since Sri Lanka is at the crossroads of the
Indian Ocean which lies in the midst of three continents.
Today the world is menaced by terrorism both global and regional.
Most countries have had to deal with this scourge at some time or other,
resulting in death and destruction and for some of us it is a daily
challenge.
In Sri Lanka, unfortunately, since 1975, we have to grapple with the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a ruthless, fascist
organisation which seeks to carve out a separate mono-ethnic state by
dismembering one third of the land mass and two thirds of the country's
coast line. In the process the LTTE has left behind a trail of
atrocities.
Among its some 60,000 victims are Prime Minister Shri Rajiv Gandhi of
India, President Ranasinghe Premadasa of Sri Lanka, as well as two
generations of Tamil and Sinhala politicians and academics of Sri Lanka
including former Opposition Leader A. Amirthalingam, Tamil intellectual
and constitutional expert Dr. Neelan Thiruchelvam and Foreign Minister
Lakshman Kadirgamar, whose only fault was their refusal to yield to the
tyranny of the LTTE and abandon the democratic path.
Today the Tamil community of Sri Lanka has been left bereft of
moderate leaders due to the methodical process of elimination adopted by
the LTTE during the past three decades.
The LTTE's state of the art international propaganda, fundraising,
procurement and shipping networks, have been able to procure both war
and war related equipment with relative ease. The organisation boasts of
having maintained a vast global network since the mid-1980s with
political/propaganda offices and cells in some 54 countries.
It generates annual revenue of US$ 10-30 Million per month largely
through extortion of the over 1 million strong Tamil diaspora and
clandestine operations carried out in host countries.
However, unlike most terrorist organisations, the LTTE is one of the
few terrorist organisations in the world with proven maritime
capability, owning a substantial number of ships sailing across the
oceans under the flags of different countries which, alongside
traditional trading activity, engages in smuggling of military hardware.
The LTTE has also established a naval combat unit known as the 'Sea
Tigers'.
Thus Sri Lanka confronts what Terrorism expert and Chief Scientist at
the Centre for Asymmetric Threat Studies at the Swedish National Defence
College Dr. Magnus Ranstorp has described as "(LTTE is) probably the
most sophisticated terrorist organisation in the world."
'Sea Tigers': A regional threat
The maritime attacks carried out by the LTTE 'Sea Tigers' in the
Indian Ocean region has a long and bloody history. Besides attempts of
smuggling arms and attacks on Sri Lankan Naval Vessels, the LTTE has
been responsible for confrontations, boarding without permission,
attacking, destroying, damaging or ship-jacking a number of
foreign-owned civilian vessels in Sri Lankan waters.
These acts, broadly defined as maritime terrorism and piracy,
constitutes a flagrant violation of domestic and international laws.
(List of acts of LTTE sea piracy and detections of LTTE arms
shipments/equipment is annexed)
One of the earliest instances which demonstrated this maritime
capacity was when the LTTE's former Jaffna commander and founder head of
the LTTE International Secretariat Sathasivam Krishnakumar alias Kittu
with a large consignment of weapons in MV Yahata (mid-sea changed to MV
Ahat), was challenged by the Indian coastguard in the international
waters, before the vessel was destroyed on January 16, 1993.
Since then, the LTTE has carried out numerous acts of maritime
terrorism, testing the patience of not only the Government of Sri Lanka
and friendly governments of neighbouring countries, but also those of
ship owners flying flags of nations afar. Vessels flying Philippine,
Greek, Indonesian, Panamanian, Belize, Chinese, Jordanian, Cambodian and
Indian flags have been at the receiving end of the LTTE's terror.
This underlines the LTTE's capacity to be threat to international
shipping is clear. As early as in 1997, the international maritime
community assessed Sri Lankan waters as vulnerable to incidents of
maritime terrorism.
Maritime Intelligence and Security Brief issued by the Maritime
Intelligence and Counter-Piracy Operations Centre on 10 September 1997
observed, "Sri Lankan waters continue to remain an extremely dangerous
area for maritime traffic." Referring to the LTTE, it added, "they will
not hesitate to approach, board, pilfer and possibly destroy targets of
opportunity."
On a global scale, according to statistics maintained by the
International Maritime Bureau (IMB) at the time, Sri Lankan waters
witnessed the fifth largest number of piratical attacks.
The arrest on April 9, 2000 of Lankan born Norwegian citizen Christy
Reginold Lawrence in Phuket, Thailand led to the discovery of a half
built mini-submarine, which was intended for sabotage missions by the
LTTE in Sri Lanka. The submarine was believed to have been similar to
one seized by Sri Lankan Government Forces from the LTTE in Jaffna in
the early 1990's.
In recent times, the LTTE 'Sea Tigers' have been very active in the
Sri Lankan and Indian waters. On March 20, 2003 Sea Tigers carried out
an attack on the Chinese Trawler 'Fu Yuan Ya 225' killing 15 Chinese
nationals and two Sri Lankans off the North-eastern coast of Sri Lanka.
On 23 December, 2006, they hijacked a Jordanian owned cargo vessel and
looted 14,000 tons of rice it was carrying.
On January 21, 2007 15-20 LTTE 'Sea Tiger' vessels attempted to ram a
Cambodian owned cargo vessel 'City of Liverpool' that was anchored
outside the Kankasenthurai (KKS) harbour after unloading relief supplies
for the people of the Jaffna peninsula. The Indian State police said on
April 27, that the LTTE was behind the March 29 incident in which nine
Kanyakumari fishermen were attacked in mid-sea killing five.
The most recent act of LTTE maritime terrorism occurred less than
three weeks ago, when an Indian fishing trawler 'Sri Krishna', earlier
hijacked by the LTTE on March 11, 2007, was detected in Maldivian waters
on May 16 engaging in arms smuggling for the LTTE.
Following an attack on a Maldivian Dhoni off the Huvadho atoll, the
vessel was fired upon and sunk by the Maldivian National Defence Force (MNDF)
on the morning of May 17, 2007, reportedly with reconnaissance from
Indian Naval aircraft.
Five persons, a Keralite mechanic of the original crew and four Sri
Lankan Tamils belonging to the LTTE who were arrested by the Maldivian
authorities have already been interrogated by the Sri Lankan
authorities, unearthing considerable knowledge on the continuing
operations of the LTTE 'Sea Tigers' in the region. In the immediate
aftermath of this attack, 11 of the 12 Indian fishermen who had
originally been held by the LTTE when 'Sri Krishna' was hijacked by the
LTTE were returned to Madras, where they publicly stated that they were
held captive by the LTTE during the interim period.
These incidents, which are only a few in a series of brazenness on
the part of the LTTE to challenge the international will, underlines the
threat faced by not only Sri Lanka, India, and now also the Maldives,
but all Indian Ocean maritime uses. The international community needs to
swiftly respond to these challenges.
Global ramifications of LTTE's capability
The challenge the LTTE poses is not confined to the waters of the
Indian Ocean. In this modern globalised world where the element of
technological transfer amongst different terrorist groups takes place at
a rapid pace, the LTTE's maritime terrorist attacks offer 'copycat
models' for other terrorist groups.
The LTTE also provides a convenient transport facility for other
terrorist organisations. Thus the LTTE's activities are being watched as
an early example of emerging trends and patterns in maritime terrorism.
The LTTE had carried out ten suicide attacks on Sri Lanka Navy
vessels with the use of explosive laden boats before the Al-Qaeda
attacked 'USS Cole' in Yemen in October 2000.
In fact the Al-Qaeda attack on the 'USS Cole' was a copycat of LTTE's
attack on Abheetha, a Sri Lankan navy supply ship on May 4, 1991. In a
March 19, 2003 interview with the BBC Sea Tigers Chief Soosai was to
state, "I think in Yeman they used our strategy of targeting the hull in
their suicide attack to blow up an American ship 'USS Cole' - this is
exactly what we used to do."
It is well known that the tactical resource base of terrorism for the
next generation will take the form of 'network terrorism' in which
actors across a spectrum of conflicts and crimes will modify the
existing structures to take advantage of the inter-linked service
arrangements. --comments-->14--287--5
