The LTTE: Its Initial Founding and Funding

Dr Muralidaran Ramesh Somasunderam, in LankaWeb, 10 February 2o25, with this title “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam. Funding and Training of the Organization”

 The LTTE got their training and funding from the PLO, which is the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the arms they gained or got from Pakistan. This is why the Indian Central Government was very much against the LTTE and its leadership group.

In fact, the LTTE was an organization which diversified their businesses and even sold things like oils and soups to more dangerous items such as drugs and weapons. It is true that Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora in overseas countries funded LTTE. The real fact was most of the Sri Lankan Tamils did ordinary jobs in the Western Countries and if the LTTE did not have diverse business interests and support from overseas countries, especially Palestine for tanning (sic) and Pakistan for military equipment, they would not have been able to carry out a civil war against the army of Sri Lanka for more than thirty odd years.  This is why if Kittu Master who was in the LTTE leadership group was able to smuggle the arms the government of Pakistan loaded in the ship he came on outside the port of Madras it would have been very hard to defeat and bring the LTTE down.

The Tamil Nadu State Government and people did give moral assistance to the Sri Lankan Tamils after the 1983 ethnic problems in Sri Lanka but the training of the LTTE and its main leadership came from the PLO.

The LTTE came mostly from the fishing caste community among Sri Lankan Tamils who were mostly smugglers but were poorly treated by the majority caste Tamils who are the Vellalar community who did not allow the lower caste communities to even enter some Hindu Temples in Jaffna. They also had separate entrances when they came to Vellalar houses. This is why the LTTE were fighting both an ethnic and caste battle like the JVP, but in the JVP’s case it was more a class battle apart from a caste factor, which was there but it was more a class battle.

The LTTE leadership was made up of the same caste as their leader Mr. Prabhakaran who came from the fishing caste community in Sri Lanka who were also traditional smugglers in Jaffna except Anton Balasingham who was a Vellalar caste person, but a very pro-Western government individual who some claim to be even a CIA agent. This is the factors that made the Indian Central government to go with the traditional Tamil leadership, which the LTTE with the support of the then President of Sri Lanka, Mr Premadasa killed the traditional Tamil leadership when they had come to Colombo for talks with the Indian delegation. These was done because Mr Prabhakaran knew that Sri Lankan Tamils were and yet are very caste conscious especially in Jaffna and that he will not be able to defeat Mr Amirthalingam the leader of the TULF in an election situation.

Caste is yet a significant issue in South Asia like class in Britain, but through the process of democracy the lower caste people have come up, including Christianity especially in certain parts of India gave the lower caste people the opportunity to come up educationally and job wise. Today Nadar caste community in South India is one of the wealthiest communities and Christianity assisted them greatly in regard to education especially in regard to secondary and tertiary education.

Therefore, in conclusion, I believe the LTTE were always up against the Vellalar community and the traditional Tamil leadership in the form of the TULF in the ballot box. Therefore, the easiest way was to kill and eliminate the traditional leadership and the values held by the TULF which was a mainstream Vellalar community based party. Mostly its Members of Parliament were from the Vellalar community.

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A NOTE from Michael Roberts in Adelaide, 14 February 2025:

Ramesh Somasunderam is a friend who resides in Perth and is an earnest scholar; and I have taken the liberty of overriding his title.  The topic addressed here is complex and several qualifications and/or queries must be kept in mind in reading and evaluating this work.

A: From the outset in the 1970s to 1980s Pirapaharan’s instinct was to reach for the gun in eliminating other contenders among the various militant groups seeking liberation for the SL Tamils.

B: Like other incipient rebel groups, the LTTE were among those sponsored and trained by RAW –the Indian central government’s dirty-war agency. I have a picture of some leaders including Pirapaharan, at Dehra Dunn, north of Delhi, during one stint in the north. In fact, Pirapaharan was transported to Jaffna in an Indian plane in 1987 after the IPKF invaded the north.

C: Ramesh’s emphasis on the LTTE’s links with the PLO is of great interest to me. I urge him to compose an essay on the topic with documentation and photographs.

D: Again, I encourage him to develop an essay on the links established with Pakistan and the capacity to secure arms from that quarter. Once the LTTE split with the IPKF and India, of course, that was a logical step in their strategic firmament: the ‘enemy’ of your enemy is your friend.

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