The Malaysian Insight

A REBIRTH of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Malaysia is highly unlikely as the ideology and aims of the Sri Lankan separatist movement does not have local context, security experts said.

Senior lecturer at the Science Forensic Faculty in Universiti Science Malaysia, Dr Geshina Ayu Mat Saat told The Malaysian Insight the long defunct militant group’s objectives were irrelevant to Malaysia.

“The LTTE has been disbanded for slightly over a decade. Given the aims of LTTE in Sri Lanka, I don’t see how it can be revived in the local context,” she said.

What could happen, however, was appropriation of parts of the group’s credo and modus operandi to shape an ideology of violence in Malaysia – which was a different thing from reviving the group, she said.

LTTE, founded and led by Velupillai Prabhakaran, was categorised as a terrorist group in 1980.

“Its main objective was to create an independent Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka as a reaction to the anti-Tamil policies introduced by the Sri Lankan government as a result of the political conflicts between the Buddhist Sinhalese majority and the ethnic Tamil minority.

“History shows evidence of discrimination, oppression in many forms, and conflicts. This spread to the other parts of the world where the two sides found sympathisers, even after LTTE was defeated by the army in 2009 and ceased to exist as a group.”

Geshina was commenting on the recent arrest of a dozen men, including two DAP assemblymen, over alleged attempts to revive LTTE in Malaysia.

The 12 are detained under the controversial Security Offences and Special Measures Act (Sosma), which allows 28 days of detention without charge.

Meanwhile, International Islamic University Malaysia terrorism expert Dr Ahmad El-Muhammady believed the police had their reasons for arresting the 12 men.

“I believe that there must be valid reasons for the arrests because it involves national security,” he said.

“Before this, police have arrested many Daesh sympathisers, fearing they would cause harm,” Ahmad said, referring to the Islamic State group by its other name.

He did not agree with claims that the police had portrayed the men as terrorist sympathiser to create “Hinduphobia”.

“That is a dangerous thought and could lead to unrest among our multiracial society.”

The Bukit Aman counter-terrorism division has said it has evidence that a local group had been working since last November to promote, recruit for and finance the foreign militant group.

LTTE is viewed as a terrorist group by the United States, India and Sri Lanka, but the group was delisted as terrorists by the European Union at the end of the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009.

Malaysia declared LTTE a terrorist group in 2014.

Police said that the arrest of 12 men is to avoid unnecessary incidents from occurring.

For over 25 years, LTTE fought the Sri Lankan government with guerilla tactics that included the use of child soldiers and suicide bombers.

It was reported that many terrorist groups, including the Taliban, took their cue from LTTE.

The group was accused of killing India’s former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and assassinating Sri Lankan president Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993.

The group also carried out dozens of operations aimed at killing Sri Lankan ministers and MPs, security officials and religious figures. – October 24, 2019.