COLOMBO: The Tamil Tigers have renewed a campaign to partition Sri Lanka, but the guerrillas already have a surreal separate “state”of their own.
Tigers' supremo, Velupillai Prabhakaran, in his annual policy speech on Monday, wrote off four years of peace talks and said he had no option but to resume a campaign for full independence in this majority-Sinhalese nation.
But the Tigers already run their own civil administration, courts and police in large swathes of land in the island's northeast and have “customs”and “visa” formalities for people crossing de facto front lines.
Despite decades of fighting that have killed more than 60,000 people, including a large number of civilians, the guerrillas have slowly built civilian administrative structures.
They have a bank, but no currency. They use Sri Lankan cash and have even threatened to print their own money unless the Central Bank of Sri Lanka improves its monetary policy to make the rupee stronger.
The Tigers collect “taxes' from minority Tamils in areas under their control as well as those outside and even abroad, and boast that compliance is 100 per cent. International rights groups, however, have accused them of extortion.
Known for their trademark suicide bombers and the cyanide capsules they carry in order to avoid arrest, the Tigers have adopted the exotic and eye-catching, yet poisonous Glory Lily as their national flower. The red-and-yellow bloom shares the same colours as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
In his speech, Prabhakaran said: “The uncompromising stance of Sinhala chauvinism has left us with no other option but an independent state for the people of Tamil Eelam.
“We therefore ask the international community and the countries of the world that respect justice to recognize our freedom struggle.” Western nations and neighbouring India have made it clear that they will not support carving a separate state out of Sri Lanka, the tear-drop-shaped island at the southern edge of the Indian subcontinent.
Although the guerrillas boast of a parallel administration, it cannot survive without the Sri Lankan state, said former Tamil militant-turned-politician Dharmalingam Sithadthan.
Doctors, teachers and all other public servants working in areas under rebel control are paid by the Sri Lankan government but must take orders from the local Tiger area commanders.
“This is the price the Sri Lankan government pays for sovereignty,” said Sithadthan. “Those people have two bosses. Their paymaster is the state, but they take orders from Tigers.” Sithadthan said the LTTE's de facto state would collapse like a pack of cards if the government stopped supplies.
“What the LTTE has is military control. They have stopped the security forces and police entering their areas, but they can't do without the public servants of the government.”Almost all Tamil militant groups that mushroomed in the early 1970s had “Eelam” as part of their name. The Tigers have either subdued or swallowed them up in the name of leading the separatist campaign.
In classical Tamil, Eelam is the name for the entire island.
In recent times it has taken a new meaning, with “Tamil Eelam” generally referred to as meaning the separate state the Tigers want in the island's embattled northern and eastern regions, which account for about a third of the country's landmass.“The Tigers may have some of the basic trappings of a state, but they lack recognition,” said freelance defence writer Namal Perera. “They are not likely to get it either.” However, he noted that for a guerrilla outfit, the Tigers were unique.
They are known to own at least two light aircraft. The Tigers have a sea-going unit. Both are a rarity among rebel outfits anywhere in the world. A Sea Tiger leader in 2002 boasted that they inspired Al Qaeda to bomb a US warship.
The Tigers usually sign off their communications with “thirst of the Tigers is Tamil Eelam”. But a former Sri Lankan defence minister said it was not a state but a state of mind.—AFP
