SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 1, No. 31, February 17, 2003

ASSESSMENT

SRI LANKA

A Reprieve for LTTE's Child Soldiers
Guest Writer: Dr. Rohan Gunaratna
Senior Visiting Fellow, Institute of Defence & Strategic Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; Senior Fellow, Centre for the Study of Terrorism & Political Violence, University of St. Andrews, UK.

In a significant breakthrough during the latest round at Berlin, of the Norwegian-mediated peace talks between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Government of Sri Lanka (February 7-8, 2003), the Tamil rebels agreed that their child soldiers would 'return home'. The agreement stipulated that soldiers under the age of 18 would lay down their arms, and would be trained for civilian jobs. Anton Balasingham, chief negotiator for the LTTE, conceded that earlier pledges to halt the practice had recently been violated in 'some isolated cases of child recruitment to the army.' Earlier, on February 1, 2003, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) head Carol Bellamy had stated that her organization still had more than 700 complaints of child recruitment 'on its books'. Balasingham, however, added, that 350 child soldiers had already been united with their families over the past six months.

This number is hardly a pointer to the magnitude of the problem. Children have featured prominently in the LTTE's protracted guerilla and terrorist campaigns, and assessments by the Sri Lankan Directorate of Military Intelligence estimated that as much as 60 per cent of the LTTE's fighters were below 18. Even if this figure is exaggerated, estimates based on LTTE fighters who have been killed in combat reveal that 40 per cent of its fighting forces - including both males and females - were between 9 and 18 years of age.

The first recruitment of child soldiers into LTTE ranks dates back over two decades, after the ethnic riots of July 1983 resulted in a massive exodus of civilians to India. At this stage, LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran selected Basheer Kaka, an LTTE leader from the deep harbour city of Trincomalee, to establish a training base in the state of Pondichery in India for recruits under 16. Initially, the child soldiers - affectionately referred to as 'Tiger cubs' - received non-military training, mostly primary education and physical exercise. By early 1984, the nucleus of the LTTE 'Baby Brigade' or 'Bakuts', was formed.

Until 1986, the LTTE had sufficient adult units in operation and young recruits were put through the Tigers' standard grueling four-month training course as soon as they reached 16. Many children from the Pondichery batch achieved battle prominence, and several others served as bodyguards to Pottu Amman, the LTTE Chief of Intelligence responsible, among a host of other operations, for planning the assassination of two world leaders.

The LTTE began to seriously recruit women and children to its fighting ranks only after it declared war against the 100,000-strong Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) in October 1987. Before this, the LTTE had trained only one batch of children in Pondichery in 1984 and one batch of women in Sirumalai, Tamil Nadu in 1985. The LTTE had to boost its rank and file to engage an overwhelming force in the IPKF-LTTE war that lasted for two years. Thus, for example, the Batticaloa 13th batch - trained in the jungles of Pondugalchenai, Pulipanchagal, comprised children under 15, some as young as nine years old. The LTTE also engaged in forcible recruitment just before and after the withdrawal of the IPKF, both to replenish its depleted ranks and to prepare for an impending offensive. After the March 1990 withdrawal of the IPKF, and the resumption of hostilities between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan forces in June 1990, the LTTE continued to recruit women and children in unprecedented numbers.

The child fighters were originally a part of the Baby Brigade commanded by Justin, a Pondichery-trained fighter. However, after 1987 the LTTE integrated children with other units to offset heavy losses in combat. The overwhelming number of children in fighting units in recent campaigns had generated concern among many Tamils in Sri Lanka and overseas. Since April 1995, some 60 per cent of LTTE personnel killed in combat have been children. These trends are confirmed by Olivichu, the LTTE monthly video release, which regularly announces the list of LTTE 'martyrs'. A study by a UK-based Sri Lankan researcher Dushy Ranatunge revealed that at least 60 per cent of the dead LTTE fighters were under 18 and were mostly girls and boys aged 10-16. Ranatunge also revealed that almost all of the casualties were from Batticaloa, but after the escalation in the fighting following the LTTE assaults on the Kilinochchi, Paranthan and Elephant Pass defences on 1 February 1998, the dead have also included many from Jaffna. It was considered likely that the LTTE sought control of the Eastern Province to replenish both its supplies as well as the 'wastage' in its fighting rank and file.

A typical unit of children was trained for four months in the jungle. Woken at 0500hrs they assembled, fell in line, and their leader raised the LTTE flag. This was followed by two hours of physical training, after which the recruits engaged in weapons training, battle and field craft, and parade drill. During the rest of the afternoon, time was spent both reading LTTE literature and more physical training. Lectures on communications, explosives and intelligence techniques continued into the evening. No contact was permitted between the camp and the children's homes during the training period. Sleep and food were regulated during training to build endurance. After 1990, when children were pitched into battle against Sri Lankan forces, the LTTE made training tougher. The military office of the LTTE headed by Wedi Dinesh developed a training programme that would make the child fighters even more daring than adults. This included the screening of Rambo-style videos in which the daredevil approach is invariably successful. The trained child fighters were also prepared for battle by attacking unprotected or weakly defended border villages. Several hundred men, women and children have been killed by LTTE child combatants armed with automatic weapons guided by experienced fighters during such 'inoculation attacks'.

The first major operation in which the LTTE deployed child combatants came after LTTE suicide bomber, Pork, rammed an explosive-laden lorry into the Mankulam army camp (north) on November 22, 1990. This pre-dawn attack was followed by successive waves of LTTE fighters drawn from the Baby Brigade. The intensity of the attack led the commander to evacuate the camp at 1600hrs on November 24. Of a total strength of 313 government troops, at least a third were killed and a few were taken prisoner. The LTTE lost 62 of their number, mostly child combatants.

The second major operation involving LTTE child fighters occurred on July 10, 1991, when the LTTE attacked the Elephant Pass Military Complex. Improvised tanks - bulldozers plated with armour - were followed by waves of LTTE cadres drawn from the Baby Brigade attempting to penetrate the forward defence lines. For the first time, the child combatants who witnessed heavy casualties became reluctant to move along the open ground between their positions and the target complex. LTTE commanders shot their feet and humiliated them. At one point the camp defences were breached but the troops within the complex repulsed the LTTE by counter-attacking. The complex was then reinforced by a sea landing of troops. The LTTE lost 550 personnel, most of them children.

After the attack on the Elephant Pass Complex, the LTTE analysed their successes and failures. To gain greater stealth, speed, surprise and impact, the LTTE mixed Black Tigers - psychologically and physically trained-suicide units - with the Baby Brigade. The outcome shocked the Sri Lankan government, particularly when the LTTE overran two fortified base complexes in 1993 and 1996, killing 1,800 troops and removing weapons worth about US $ 100 million.

The high point of LTTE 'achievement' with child soldiers was the formation of the elite Sirasu Puli, or Leopard Brigade. The members of the brigade were children drawn from LTTE-managed orphanages. Within the LTTE ranks, this brigade is considered to be its most fierce fighting force, displaying an incomparable loyalty to Prabhakaran. Most see him as a father figure and equate a request from him to a directive from heaven. On December 4, 1997, the LTTE Leopard Brigade encircled and killed nearly 200 elite Sri Lankan forces in Kanakarankulam in the Wanni, suffering heavy casualties themselves as well. Till this point, the Sri Lankan infantry had relied on elite troops - special forces and commandos - as its vanguard. The unprecedented loss severely demoralised whole sections of the government's frontline troops.

The LTTE has long displayed an utter contempt for international opinion against the use of children in war. Leaders within Sri Lanka and in the international community have often asserted that 'an entire generation of young Tamil children has been systematically destroyed by the LTTE'. Given the thoroughness of their training and indoctrination, it is not clear whether this lost childhood can be restored among those who have survived the methodical brutalization of their participation in orchestrated massacres and in actual combat. In the event, however, that the LTTE can, in fact, be held to its present promise to halt child recruitment, it is possible that the next generation may be spared the fate of those whose childhood has already been sacrificed to the LTTE's political ambitions.

ASSESSMENT

INDIA

Bodo Settlement: Accord for Discord?
Bibhu Prasad Routray
Acting Director, Institute for Conflict Management Database & Documentation Centre, Guwahati

Hagrama Basumatary, Chairman of the Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT), emerging from the Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport in Guwahati, on February 11, announced to the waiting media, "If the BTC accord signed yesterday is executed in letter and spirit, the Bodos will not have to go for another accord in future to assert their rights and development. BTC is capable of fulfilling the hopes and aspirations of the Bodos." For obvious reasons, Basumatary was on a high. He was returning from New Delhi along with other BLT leaders after signing a memorandum of settlement (MoS) with the Union Government and the Government of Assam, paving the way for the creation of an autonomous Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) in Assam.

The main provisions of the MoS, apart from creating an autonomous self-governing body under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution of India, address various socio-cultural, economic and educational concerns raised by the Bodos, the largest among the plains' tribes in the State. Although the signing of the MoS and the creation of the BTC was a foregone conclusion, the opposition from the non-Bodo community and the tentativeness of the Assam government over the last one year, was expected to extend the waiting period for the Bodos who had a total population of over 1.2 million according to the 1991 Census [community-wise populations under the 2001 Census are yet to be published]. The signing of the MoS has, however, put to rest the widespread speculation on the protracted talks between the BLT and the Government.

This latest 'settlement', currently being hailed as significant stride towards peace in the region, was an attempt to resolve the problems of the earlier Bodoland Autonomous Council (BAC), which had come into being after the February 20, 1993, agreement between the Union government, the State Government of Assam and Bodo representatives. That hurriedly signed accord had faltered on various counts, the most important being the absence of a clear-cut geographical boundary for the BAC, which led ultimately to its denunciation by the Bodo groups who were initially party to the agreement.

Under the latest MoS, the BLT is to be disbanded after the formation of the BTC, but the agreement has conferred a unique profile and prominence on this hitherto insurgent organisation as the 'main protagonist' of the Bodo cause. This quasi-official sanction is bound to have a profound impact on the acceptability of its bête noire and rival, the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), the most lethal terrorist group in India's Northeast over the past decade, which was responsible for the killing of at least 1389 civilians and 175 security forces personnel over the period 1993-2002. Official sources speculate that the perceived 'victory' of the BLT, after a three-year old cessation of hostilities and negotiations, will tend to marginalize the NDFB politically. The NDFB, on the other hand, has inclined to dismiss the BLT and its associates, such as the All Bodo Students' Union (ABSU) as 'stooges of the Indian Government', incapable of realizing the 'dreams and aspirations of the Bodo people'. NDFB has also accounted for the 'elimination' of a number of BLT, ABSU and Bodo Sahitya Sabha (BSS) leaders and members. Clearly, the NDFB's vision of an independent Bodo Hadat (Bodoland) through 'a liberation struggle against Indian expansionism and occupation' is far in excess of the BLT's demand for a territorial council spread over four districts under the provisions of the Indian Constitution.

The NDFB has, however, suffered a series of recent setbacks that may force it to dilute its stand in some measure. The most significant of these were the arrests of its General Secretary Govinda Basumatary on November 25, 2002 and Vice-President Dhiren Boro on January 1, 2003, which may force the group to come to terms with the emerging political realities in the State, and among the Bodo community. Media reports do indicate a far-too-quick 'change of heart' within the NDFB, which put up a welcome arch at the 35th Annual Conference of the All-Bodo Students' Union (ABSU) at Banargaon in Kokrajhar district on February 14, 2003.

The transformation may, however, not be quite that easy. The currently jailed NDFB vice-president, Dhiren Boro, was reported to have said on February 14 that the group would never accept the BTC, since the new set up was no different from the earlier BAC. He also asserted that the NDFB still had enough steam left 'to carry forward the struggle for self-determination'. The captive General Secretary of the group, Govinda Basumatary, echoed these sentiments in a separate interview on February 15, maintaining that 'there is no difference between the BAC and the BTC'. He asserted that the 'NDFB would continue its armed struggle' and predicted that 'the BTC deal would become irrelevant.' To the extent that these assertions are to be taken seriously, the creation of the BTC cannot be expected to put a cap on continuing Bodo violence.

As things stand today, however, the main challenge for the BLT and the ABSU would come, not from continuing violence by the NDFB, but from the escalating hostility of the non-Bodos. The non-Bodo communities in the four affected districts have rallied for the past year under the banner of the umbrella organisation, the Sanmilita Janagosthiya Sangram Samiti (SJSS), and have rejected the BTC agreement, expressing their disapproval through a 36-hour bandh (shut down) in the BTC area on February 13. The abduction of five Bodo youth and the killing of another three on February 14 in Barpeta district, allegedly by Bengali Hindus, may just be a curtain raiser to impending mayhem.

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, on February 11, had described the latest accord as 'one of peace and not one which is born out of violence.' Unfortunately, it appears almost certain that the creation of the Territorial Council would widen the schism between Bodos and non-Bodos, somewhat on the lines of the Meiteis and the Nagas in Manipur, and there is significant potential of carrying tensions to the extremes of violence. In an area where both the communities see themselves as victims in the ongoing war of attrition, a seemingly favourable gesture to one is not likely to be taken kindly by the other. The non-Bodos may also react strongly to the progressive disintegration of the already dilapidated dream of a 'greater Assamese society', as the Bodos - the most dynamic and mobile among plains' tribes - distance themselves from this idea through their autonomous Territorial Councils.

Portents of things to come began to emerge a few months ago, when a Press Release on September 11, 2002, announced the intention of a newly created group, the Non-Bodo Security Force (NBSF) to 'fight for rights of the non-Bodos of lower Assam.' The statement, signed by one Bidyut Bora, found justification for recourse to violence in the assertion that "the government always listens to the sound of bullets. Both the State government and the union government have been indifferent towards the terror unleashed by the Bodo militants on the non-Bodos."

It is far too obvious that the signing of the Accord will not restore an immediate peace in the four districts that fall under the proposed BTC. The Bodos themselves have to overcome their internal differences, and rein in the more extreme elements within their ranks before this can happen. Apart from the NDFB, Bodo organisations such as the United Bodo Nationalist Liberation Front (UBNLF) have rejected the Accord as just another attempt to 'hoodwinking the Bodo people'. These challenges are compounded by the expected reactions of the non-Bodo people in the region. In the absence of an exceptional and unexpected sagacity among the leadership of various communities, there is little reason to believe that the region will emerge from the quagmire of violence in the proximate future.

ASSESSMENT

INDIA	PAKISTAN

APHC: The Nexus with Terror
Guest Writer: Praveen Swami
Special Correspondent, Frontline

It has been evident, for years, that the jihad in Jammu and Kashmir is an instrument of Pakistan's state policy. Just how well structured the links between the institutions of the Pakistani state and terrorism in India are, however, is only just beginning to become clear.

India's decision to expel Pakistan's Charge d'Affaires, Jalil Abbas Jilani has widely been read as merely an unusually dramatic manifestation of the historically bitter relationship between the two countries. Little attention, sadly, has been paid to the insights the event offers into the funding and organisation of terrorist activity in Jammu and Kashmir. Jilani was asked to leave India on February 8, after the Delhi Police formally filed documents charging him with passing on Rs. 370,000 to Anjum Zamruda Habib, a key member of the far-right women's organisation, the Khawateen Markaz. The money, police investigators say, was to be passed on to Abdul Gani Bhat, the head of the principal anti-India political coalition in Kashmir, the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC). The APHC's representative in New Delhi, Sabir Ahmad Dar, was also arrested along with Habib.

Pakistan, perhaps unsurprisingly, denies all the charges levelled against Jilani. Since he enjoys diplomatic immunity, and since Indian intelligence is unlikely to ever make public the material gathered during surveillance of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi, the whole truth about the affair will possibly never be known. The fact is, however, that there is a long history of direct funding of the APHC by Pakistan's intelligence establishment, often funnelled through the High Commission. As early as 1997, an investigation by Frontline magazine found that top APHC leaders Abdul Gani Lone and Syed Ali Shah Geelani had received funding to the tune of several million Indian Rupees a month from Pakistan, often ostensibly gathered by shadowy charities, and then sent to India through Hawala traders. In at least one case, detected by the Indian Army in May 1997, it emerged that Geelani had directly sent such funds to elements close to the Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin (HM).

By 1998, Indian officials were becoming increasingly aware of the sheer scale of such funds transfers - as well as of official Pakistani complicity in them. In that year the Jammu and Kashmir Police discovered that the Pakistan Embassy in Saudi Arabia had been passing money to the Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin through Jamaat-e-Islami affiliated charities like the Kashmir Medicare Trust and the Muslim Welfare Society. Mohammad Nazir, an ethnic Kashmiri employed in the Pakistan Embassy in Jeddah moved the funds through a Dubai-based businessman of Kashmiri origin, Mohammad Shafi Mir. The Hizb also regularly received funds gathered in the United States and United Kingdom by activists like Ayub Thakur and Ghulam Nabi Fai.

Understanding the impact of Pakistani, or Pakistani mediated, cash on violence in Jammu and Kashmir is fairly simple. The estimated 2,500 to 3,500 terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir require funds for their day to day survival, procurement of safehouses and operational assets. Very conservatively, assuming the money required to sustain each terrorist to be just Rs. 5,000 a month, the terrorist cadre in Jammu and Kashmir would require a colossal Rs. 15,000,000 a month for basic maintenance. This, of course, excludes regular payments to the families of terrorists killed or arrested by Indian forces, as well as funds for anti-India political activities. The APHC itself files no tax returns, but runs offices in New Delhi and Srinagar, funds the domestic and international travel of its leaders, and pays salaries to some 40 employees - a not inconsiderable expense. Although terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir was in part financed through local revenues, the inevitable alienation of potential supporters by forced levies has led to a growing dependence on funds from Pakistan. Organisations like the Jamaat-e-Islami, the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) raise substantial public funds in Pakistan.

It is unlikely, however, that donations would meet the enormous costs they incur in Jammu in Kashmir, especially in a political terrain transfigured by the events of September 11, 2001. Even though visible public fund raising has stopped in Pakistan since those events, the funding of terrorism, quite obviously, continues. Indian intelligence has identified at least fourteen major funds transfers since December 2001 [Table 1]. The dependence of the APHC on Pakistani cash helps explain the persistent unwillingness of key members to engage in any kind of meaningful dialogue with India. Supposedly 'soft' constituents of the APHC leadership are often punished by having their funds choked off, a strategy that was instrumental in the displacement of the pro-Independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) by the pro-Pakistan Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin in the early 1990s.

Some APHC leaders, interestingly, seem to have personally benefited from these transfers. Geelani, for example, faces income tax proceedings for having massive undisclosed income. Although his sole legitimate source of revenue is a modest pension - earned, ironically enough, for his tenure as an elected Member of the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly, which he entered after swearing allegiance to the Constitution of India - the ailing politician has managed to procure a lavish house, owns several vehicles, and runs his establishment with the aid of several well-paid personal servants. Other APHC leaders and their immediate relatives have benefited similarly [Table 2]. In the wake of the 1997 Frontline exposé, former APHC member Shabbir Shah confessed to having parked funds intended for armed activities in a series of property acquisitions, mainly in southern Kashmir.

Why would Jilani have personally handed over funds to the APHC? Two explanations are possible. First, a series of arrests of Hawala traders and funds recipients have made the business of transferring money increasingly hazardous. Equally important, the Gulf Emirates are increasingly under pressure to curb the informal movement of cash from their countries, destabilising the trade as a whole. Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, the Pakistan High Commission may wish to maintain a direct presence as a sponsor and patron of secessionist politics in Jammu and Kashmir - Jilani's cash was described as a nazrana, or gift, to Bhat. Whatever the truth, the events of February are just a very small part of a very large, and very sordid affair.

Major funds transfers detected: December 2001 - August 2002

Proceedings launched under Income Tax (IT) Act