B. Muralidhar Reddy
COLOMBO: As per the latest report of the London-based Jane’s Intelligence Review (JIW) on the financial operations of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), after accounting for an estimated $8 million in cost per year, the “profit margin” of its budget would be the envy of any multinational corporation.
The report titled, “Feeding the Tiger — how Sri Lankan insurgents fund their war”, JIW claims that through its legal illegal businesses and fronts, the Tigers generate $200 million to $300 million a year. JIW maintains that the LTTE’s financial and procurement structure is well-organised and strategically positioned around the globe, and unlike the decentralised “ jihadist movement”, the LTTE is a centralised, hierarchical organisation commanded and controlled by its founding leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Two departments
“LTTE loyalists tend to fill the ranks of the two principal directorates that manage the interlocking aims of raising money and buying weapons. “The two overarching financial and procurement bodies are the Aiyanna Group, directed by Pottu Amman, and the Office of Overseas Purchases, directed by Kumaran Pathmanathan, alias KP, and source of the office’s nickname, the KP Department. Both men have extant Interpol Red Notices listed against them”, it says.
JIW claims that the Aiyanna Group functions as the Tigers’ intelligence and operations body.
The KP Department is most probably the LTTE’s procurement arm. The report maintains that the LTTE depends on a complex global network of professional managers and outsourced people who acquire money and guns in countries with significant Tamil diaspora communities.
