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India, China jostle for influence in Indian Ocean
RABINOWITZ - Associated Press Writer - HAMBANTOTA, Sri Lanka - (AP) This battered harbor town on Sri Lanka - 's southern tip, with its scrawny men selling even scrawnier fish, seems an unlikely focus for an emerging international competition over energy supply routes that fuel much of the global economy. China has given massive aid to Indian Ocean nations, signing friendship pacts, building ports in Pakistan and Bangladesh as well as Sri Lanka - , and reportedly setting up a listening post on one of Myanmar's islands near the strategic Strait of Malacca. Now, India is trying to parry China's moves. It beat out China for a port project in Myanmar. And, flush with cash from its expanding economy, India is beefing up its military, with the expansion seemingly aimed at China. Washington and, to a lesser extent, Tokyo are encouraging India's role as a counterweight to growing Chinese power. Among China's latest moves is the billion dollar port its engineers are building in Sri Lanka - , an island country just off India's southern coast. The Chinese insist the Hambantota port is a purely commercial move, and by all appearances, it is. But some in India see ominous designs behind the project, while others in countries surrounding India like the idea. A 2004 Pentagon report called Beijing's effort to expand its presence in the region China's ``string of pearls.'' No one wants war, and relations between the two nations are now at their closest since a brief 1962 border war in which China quickly routed Indian forces. Last year, trade between India and China grew to $37 billion and their two armies conducted their first-ever joint military exercise. Still, the Indians worry about China's growing influence. ``Each pearl in the string is a link in a chain of the Chinese maritime presence,'' India's navy chief, Adm. Sureesh Mehta, said in a speech in January, expressing concern that naval forces operating out of ports established by the Chinese could ``take control over the world energy jugular.'' ``It is a pincer movement,'' said Rahul Bedi, a South Asia analyst with London-based Jane's Defense Weekly. ``That, together with the slap India got in 1962, keeps them awake at night.'' B. Raman, a hawkish, retired Indian intelligence official, expressed the fears of some Indians over the Chinese-built ports, saying he believes they'll be used as naval bases to control the area. ``We cannot take them at face value. We cannot assume their intentions are benign,'' said Raman. But Zhao Gancheng, a South Asia expert at the Chinese government- backed Shanghai Institute for International Studies, says ports like Hambantota are strictly commercial ventures. And Sri Lanka - says the new port will be a windfall for its impoverished southern region. With Sri Lanka - 's proximity to the shipping lane already making it a hub for transshipping containers between Europe and Asia, the new port will boost the country's annual cargo handling capacity from 6 million containers to some 23 million, said Priyath Wickrama, deputy director of the Sri Lankan Ports Authority. Wickrama said a new facility was needed since the main port in the capital Colombo has no room to expand and Trincomalee port in the Northeast is caught in the middle of Sri Lanka - 's civil war. Hambantota also will have factories onsite producing cement and fertilizer for export, he said. Meanwhile, India is clearly gearing its military expansion toward China rather than its longtime foe, and India has set up listening stations in Mozambique and Madagascar, in part to monitor Chinese movements, Bedi noted. It also has an air base in Kazakhstan and a space monitoring post in Mongolia both China's neighbors. India has announced plans to have a fleet of aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines at sea in the next decade and recently tested nuclear-capable missiles that put China's major cities well in range. It is also reopening air force bases near the Chinese border. Encouraging India's role as a counter to China, the U.S. has stepped up exercises with the Indian navy and last year sold it an American warship for the first time, the 17,000-ton amphibious transport dock USS Trenton. American defense contractors shut out from the lucrative Indian market during the long Cold War have been offering India's military everything from advanced fighter jets to anti-ship missiles. ``It is in our interest to develop this relationship,'' U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said during a visit to New Delhi in February. ``Just as it is in the Indians' interest.'' Officially, China says it's not worried about India's military buildup or its closer ties with the U.S. However, foreign analysts believe China is deeply concerned by the possibility of a U.S.-Indian military alliance. Ian Storey of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore said China sent strong diplomatic messages expressing opposition to a massive naval exercise India held last year with the U.S., Japan, Singapore and Australia. And Bedi, the Jane's analyst, added ``those exercises rattled the Chinese.'' India's 2007 defense budget was about $21.7 billion, up 7.8 percent from 2006. China said its 2008 military budget would jump 17.6 percent to some $59 billion, following a similar increase last year. The U.S. estimates China's actual defense spending may be much higher. Like India, China is focusing heavily on its navy, building an increasingly sophisticated submarine fleet that could eventually be one of the world's largest. While analysts believe China's military buildup is mostly focused on preventing U.S. intervention in any conflict with Taiwan, India is still likely to persist in efforts to catch up as China expands its influence in what is essentially India's backyard. Meanwhile, Sri Lankans who have looked warily for centuries at vast India to the north welcome the Chinese investment in their country. ``Our lives are going to change,'' said 62-year-old Jayasena Senanayake, who has seen business grow at his roadside food stall since construction began on the nearby port. ``What China is doing for us is very good.'' Associated Press Writer Christopher Bodeen contributed to this report
“Peace Dove” between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government. The ulterior motive of the Tigers was to use the talk to change their terrorist image in the wake of the 9/11. The Tigers also used the time to buy arms to prepare for the final war. During the peace talks, he traveled freely using the Sri Lankan government’s helicopters, passport and airport and smuggled arms, parts for planes and communication equipments. He was given VIP treatment and was never harmed by the Sri Lankan government. Following the attack on the Sri Lankan Air Force base in Anuradhapura by the Tiger suicide bombers, the Sri Lankan government has resorted to retaliatory attacks on selected targets of the Tigers. Thamilchelvan is reported to have been killed in one of the attacks. He was not a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi but follower of Piraphaharan, the ruthless leader of the Tigers which is called the mother of all terrorist groups as it is responsible for the killings of political leaders, academics and civilians. They killed former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa. They nearly killed another Sri Lankan President Chandrika Bandaranayke Kumaratunge. Naturally, Tigers have been banned by 35 world countries including US, Canada, UK and India. Thamilchelvan was personally involved in many of these killings. At one time, he was in charge of a military unit of LTTE called “Pistol Group.” The duty of the pistol group was to kill those who don’t toe their line or who oppose them. Thamilchelvan personally mounted several attacks against the Indian Peace Keeping Force that came to Sri Lanka to restore peace following the Indo-Sri Lanka agreement. He took part in several military operations against the Sri Lankan armed forces. When he attacked the Sri Lankan naval base in Kilaly in 1993, one of his legs got injured. Even as late as a few months ago, he was in the war front (the top picture shows him with a rocket launcher). Although he was clad in a business suit, he carried a pistol with him. The Tiger leader aptly promoted this “Peace Dove”, to the rank of Brigadier, the highest award which anyone in the Tigers has received. Tigers are abusing the freedom in this country to propagate their terrorist activities. Even schools are being used for this purpose. The peace loving mainstream of this country is appealing you to refrain from participating in any event where suicide bombers are glorified. Canadian Tamils for Peace and Democracy __
By MATTHEW ROSENBERG The Associated Press Monday, November 5, 2007 http://www.washingtonpost.com He's known only as KP, and he runs a shadowy smuggling network that stretches from the skyscrapers of New York to the suicide bomber training camps of Sri Lanka. At 52, with a medium build, mustache, slight paunch and thinning hair, KP operates right under the nose of the West, which experts say is so preoccupied with al-Qaida that it largely ignores other terrorist groups, even ones as accomplished as Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers. The Tigers are thought to have pioneered the explosive vests used in suicide bombings, and with the West distracted, they carry out crimes worldwide - such as an alleged plan to loot ATM machines in New York - to fund their fight for a homeland for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority. It's a campaign that has led to 70,000 deaths in the past 24 years. In dozens of interviews with Sri Lankan officials, Western diplomats and former rebels, The Associated Press found that the Tigers raise $200 million to $300 million a year, mostly through extortion and fraud. They then use front companies or middlemen to buy arms from legitimate weapons makers in Europe and Asia and move them back to Sri Lanka on their own ships. KP, for example, buys weapons in places like Thailand, Indonesia, Bulgaria and South Africa. He has dozens of passports - Indian, Egyptian, Malaysian and more - along with a steady hand for forging whatever paperwork he doesn't have, Sri Lankan officials say. The money comes from places like New York, where eight suspects have been arrested in the ATM scandal and seven others are accused of trying to bribe U.S. officials to drop the Tigers from the government's list of terror groups. One suspect once worked for Microsoft Corp. and allegedly helped the Tigers buy computers, according to court papers. Another suspect was caught with a laptop with spreadsheets detailing more than $13 million in payments in the summer of 2006 for military equipment, including anti-aircraft guns and 100 tons of high explosives, court papers say. His passport showed more than 100 trips in the past five years to countries such as China, Kenya and even Sri Lanka. Authorities are also investigating a Wall Street financier suspected of donating millions of dollars to the rebels. He is identified only as "Individual B" in court papers and has not been arrested. The Tigers' success in arming a 10,000-strong force has come into sharp focus in the past year with the resumption of full-scale civil war in Sri Lanka. Experts on terrorist financing say the Tigers' network has thrived even after the al-Qaida attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "After 9/11, the know-your-client principle was supposed to be integrated into the financial markets and into pretty much every business," said Shanaka Jayasekra, a terrorism expert at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. The Tigers are "showing what can be done to exploit the holes in this system." Sri Lanka has stepped up its efforts to cut off rebel supply lines. Its navy has sunk seven insurgent ships in the last year, and several suspected Tiger operatives in the United States, Europe and Australia have been arrested. And on Friday, its air force bombed a rebel facility and killed five people, including a top rebel leader. But Sri Lanka's resources are limited, as is the interest of the West. "If we find (Tiger operatives) breaking the law, of course we'll go after them," said one Western diplomat, who spoke anonymously to avoid upsetting Sri Lankan officials. "But we're not running around hunting for these guys." Even Islamic groups with ties to al-Qaida - such as Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, blamed for killing more than 300 Indians in bombings over the past two years - fly largely below the radar of the West, noted Peter Chalk of the Rand Corp., a U.S. think tank. "No one is paying a bloody bit of attention to any other group" apart from al-Qaida, especially one like the Tigers, whose fight is in a relatively poor country, said Chalk. These often ignored groups "pose real threats." The Tigers' network mirrors the sophistication of the mini-state they've built in northern Sri Lanka. There, they levy sales taxes - 10 percent on building materials, 7.5 percent on car parts, 20 percent on cigarettes - to support their own courts, traffic police and military, a cult-like force whose fighters don't drink or smoke, wait until their mid-20s to marry and carry cyanide pills to swallow if they are captured. The Tigers have set up front companies in more than a dozen countries, legitimately selling everything from dried fish in Thailand to mobile phones in Toronto. The Tigers give seed money to the businesses in return for profits. They also use their small fleet of ships to haul lawful cargo for paying clients. But the bulk of their money comes from the Tamil diaspora, which stands at between 600,000 and 800,000 people, many of whom fled the war and often-violent persecution by Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority. They run the socio-economic gamut from doctors and bankers in upscale New Jersey suburbs to construction workers and cab drivers in London's gritty immigrant neighborhoods. Some donate willingly. "Others have to be convinced," said a former Tiger who worked in London as a fundraiser. The preferred method of persuasion, he said, is threats aimed either directly at the unwilling donor or at family members back in Sri Lanka, which is "always the easiest because they knew we were the law at home." If threats fail - "very rare" - then "maybe we would beat him. Or if he had a shop, we could smash it." The former Tiger, who would not discuss why he left the group, spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retribution and because it is a crime to raise money for a terror group in Britain. Reports from activists such as Human Rights Watch detail dozens of such cases in London and Toronto. The Tigers find fundraisers who have never actually fought in Sri Lanka so they won't be on any watch lists. The former Tiger said the money was deposited in bank accounts under his own name at Natwest, and then transferred to an HSBC account, also in London. Where it went from there, he couldn't say. It's a safe bet, though, that at least some of it ended up with KP and his team. KP is, said one Western diplomat, "like something out of a James Bond movie." He emerged as the chief weapons supplier of the Tigers in the late 1980s, after India withdrew its clandestine support. He has surfaced as far afield as Vietnam and South Africa and has had bank accounts in London, Singapore, Frankfurt and Bangkok. He is now believed to live in Thailand, where he owns at least one company and a boatyard and is married to a Thai woman, Sri Lankan officials say. In the early days, KP picked up weapons wherever he could - Afghanistan, the tribal areas of Pakistan, Cambodia, the weapons bazaars of the former Soviet Union. But by the mid-1990s, KP's team was arranging for 70,000 mortar shells bought by the Sri Lankan government from Zimbabwe Defense Industries to be diverted to the Tigers by allegedly bribing an Israeli subcontractor. It was about this time that KP began using forged or illegally obtained documents to buy weapons - a strategy shown in purchases from China North Industries Corp., known as Norinco, a state-run company. According to former and current Sri Lankan intelligence officials, Norinco sold the Tigers two consignments of assault rifles, light artillery, rockets and ammunition, each large enough to fill a 230-foot cargo ship. The purchases were arranged through a middleman as part of a larger order certified with North Korean documents, presumably obtained through bribery, the officials said. The consignments were loaded onto rebel-owned ships in September 2003 and October 2004 in Tianjin, China. The weapons are then believed to have gone to a supply point along the Indian Ocean coast of either Thailand or Indonesia, and been loaded into smaller ships and then even smaller fishing boats to make it past Sri Lanka's navy into rebel territory. Senior Chinese officials were first warned of the purchases in July 2006, said a former Sri Lankan official who helped prepare a dossier laying out evidence for them. But a third order remained on track for delivery in spring 2007 until Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa personally appealed to Chinese leaders in Beijing in February, the official said. Two officials said the Chinese, who were described as extremely apologetic, have launched an investigation into the sales. At Norinco's parent company, China North Industries Group Corp., the director of the information office refused to comment. "We are not authorized to answer such very sensitive questions," the director, who gave his name as Jiang, said before hanging up. In the last two years, KP is also thought to have arranged for arms from Bulgaria and North Korea, Sri Lankan officials say. So when news broke in early September that he had been caught in Thailand, the Sri Lankans were ecstatic. "It's almost too good to be true," gushed a senior official. But Thailand - where KP is widely believed to have ties to senior officials - hastily denied the arrest. And within days, Sri Lankan officials glumly acknowledged he had again disappeared _______
ATM heist plot -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By BARBARA ROSS DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Tuesday, October 16th 2007, 4:00 AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Abdifatah -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rasanayagan Until his arrest, alleged ringleader Sivapalasri Velayuthampillai worked three jobs at Newark Airport as a security agent and baggage handler with complete security clearance. Tamil Tigers The Tamil Tigers are one of the world's most ruthless and violent nationalist organizations. Thirty-two countries, including the U.S., have branded the Tigers a terrorist group. Founded three decades ago in Sri Lanka, the Tigers have indiscriminately attacked civilians in order to create a separate Tamil state in parts of Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon. Known formally as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the group pioneered the use of suicide bombers, called the Black Tigers. Female suicide bombers were employed in the assassination of former Indian President Rajiv Gandhi and in an attempt on the life of Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaranatunga. Experts have linked them to other terrorist organizations and note the similarity between the Tigers' attack on Sri Lanka Navy ships and the Al Qaeda attack on the U.S. destroyer Cole that killed 17 American sailors. Their sources of worldwide funding, in addition to credit card fraud, include sea piracy, human smuggling and drug trafficking, the experts say. A band of men linked to Tamil Tiger terrorists - led by a Sri Lankan who used a fake passport to get security clearance at Newark Airport - has been busted in a massive plot to loot city ATMs. Manhattan prosecutors told the Daily News the eight men had ties to the terror group and were part of a scheme to use stolen credit card numbers to steal $250,000 in New York - and tens of millions from ATMs worldwide. Six were nabbed in January in a raid at the Chelsea Inn, a reputed lair for the ultraviolent Sri Lankan separatist group. The other two, including alleged ringleader Sivapalasri Velayuthampillai, 31, of Newark, were busted in July. Until his arrest, Velayuthampillai worked three jobs at Newark Airport as a security agent and baggage handler with complete security clearance. Prosecutors said Velayuthampillai entered the U.S. with a fake passport and dubious tale of persecution. He was given political asylum in December 2001 under circumstances still under investigation by District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. "The defendant is part of a large, highly organized ring of international criminals who steal account and PIN numbers ... and then come to the United States to steal money from our financial institutions," Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Kim Han said in court papers. The U.S. and other Western governments consider the Tamil Tigers a terror organization. Velayuthampillai and the other alleged cell members came from families who emigrated from Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Somalia. Prosecutors contend the men became part of a massive global identity theft scam last year when credit card numbers and PINs were stolen from thousands of customers at 200 gas stations in the United Kingdom. In recent bail arguments, Han said Velayuthampillai booked hotels for his "criminal cohorts," rented cars, drove them to various banks, moved them to different hotels every few days and hooked them up with a man who sent the money abroad. Han said Velayuthampillai had 30 forged cards on him when he was arrested in midtown in July and more than 400 bogus cards in his rented car, all bearing account numbers stolen from two U. K. gas stations. The operation was accidentally uncovered in the Chelsea Inn on 11th Ave. when NYPD narcotics detectives raided the hotel and one investigator shouted to everyone in the lobby, "Freeze! I will shoot you if you move!" That's when one rattled suspect, Ibrahim Abdifatah, 27, dropped 67 blank credit cards on the floor, police said. "These are playing cards. We play with them," Abdifatah said. Cops found more than 250 blank credit cards, a coding machine, lists of financial account information and a laptop in an upstairs room that four of the defendants shared. Abdifatah, who has pleaded guilty to more than 500 counts of identity theft and fraud, told cops he was recruited in England and promised $5,000 to use the bogus cards. Investigators said the Tamil Tigers target the U.S. because American credit cards don't have the extra microchip security device that has helped curtail credit card frauds in Britain. Another Sri Lankan, Krishantha Rasanayagan, 19, quickly fingered a cohort, Usman Mahmood, as the man who had organized the effort in London. "He showed us how to encode the cards. We all do the encoding, and we each make withdrawals. Our goal was to reach $250,000," Rasanayagan said. All of the defendants, except Velayuthampillai, are being held without bail. Bail was set for him at $2 million. Lawyers for the defendants deny their clients have terror ties. "I don't think he was politically motivated," Abdifatah's lawyer Adam Freedman said. "This is like tying a sidewalk crack dealer ... to the Medellin drug cartel [in Colombia]," said Mahmood's lawyer Michael Dailey. British and Sri Lankan authorities say the proceeds from this kind of international ATM fraud are routed back to the Tamil Tigers, Han wrote. This summer, Jane's Intelligence Review said the Tamil Tigers raise up to $300 million a year through international credit card fraud, extortion and donations Tamil Tigers The Tamil Tigers are one of the world's most ruthless and violent nationalist organizations. Thirty-two countries, including the U.S., have branded the Tigers a terrorist group. Founded three decades ago in Sri Lanka, the Tigers have indiscriminately attacked civilians in order to create a separate Tamil state in parts of Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon. Known formally as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the group pioneered the use of suicide bombers, called the Black Tigers. Female suicide bombers were employed in the assassination of former Indian President Rajiv Gandhi and in an attempt on the life of Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaranatunga. Experts have linked them to other terrorist organizations and note the similarity between the Tigers' attack on Sri Lanka Navy ships and the Al Qaeda attack on the U.S. destroyer Cole that killed 17 American sailors. Their sources of worldwide funding, in addition to credit card fraud, include sea piracy, human smuggling and drug trafficking, the experts say. _______________
24-09-2007 An expert on security issues in South Asia has told a Melbourne court that Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers organisation has roots which run deep in Australia's Tamil community. Dr Christopher Smith has given evidence to the Melbourne Magistrates Court in the committal hearing for three men accused of using the Melbourne-based Tamil Coordinating Committee to raise funds for Sri Lanka's Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), also known as Tamil Tigers. Melbourne pair Aruran Vinayagamoorthy, 33 and Sivarajah Yathavan, 36, along with Arumugan Rajeevan, 41, of Old Toongabbie in Sydney's west, have been charged with being members of a terrorist organisation, making funds available to a terrorist organisation and making an asset available to a proscribed entity. Vinayagamoorthy, of Mount Waverley, and Yathavan, of Vermont South, have also been charged with intentionally providing support or resources to a terrorist organisation. Dr Smith, who was giving evidence via video-link from the United Kingdom, has prepared reports on Sri Lanka for the National Commission on Illegal Weapons and is currently involved in the |