New militant group emerging in Lanka

Dec. 7: A new Tamil militant group is emerging in eastern Sri Lanka, less than six months after the army declared it won the 26-year-old war against the LTTE and killed Tiger chief Velupillai Prabhakaran. The Makkal Viduthalai Ranuvam (People’s Liberation Army), formed about four months back, has 300 active members and hopes to recruit 5000 volunteers from the civilians recently released from the IDP camps in the north, its commander Kones (a nom de guerre) was quoted in Times (London) telling its correspondent “during a night meeting in a safe house” in east Lanka last week.
Reports said PLA at present comprised mostly of ex-militants with Marxist ideology and opposed to the Tiger brand of militancy, which had frequently targeted the Sinhala civilians in the pursuit of Eelam. Commander Kones claimed that PLA “is much more politically skilled than the LTTE ever were” and knew how to avoid the ‘terrorist’ label. It is said that he had recently returned to Lanka after living in Europe for sometime, after escaping from army detention.
“This war isn’t over yet,” Times quoted Kones saying. “There has been no solution for Tamils since the destruction of the LTTE in May. So we have built and organized the PLA and are ready to act soon. Our aim is a democratic socialist liberation of the northeast for a Tamil Eelam.” The PLA would be led by a ten-member committee and admit ex-Tigers too, provided they swore allegiance to the PLA’s political aims, Kones said.
“We are getting stronger by the day, much stronger than any other group,” Kones was quoted saying in Times.
The PLA would not resort to Tiger-like guerilla strikes but undertake more asymmetric strategy involving attacks by widely dispersed PLA cells.
The targets, according to Kones, would include economic and administrative centers, apart from the military forces.
He said several of the PLA fighters had been trained in 1983 Colombo in India—he was at a camp in Uttar Pradesh and there were trainers from the PLO. “We still have a relationship with the PLO, as well as Cuba and the Indian Maoist grops,” Kones told Times correspondent.
While it is too early to predict how far the PLA will be able to take its Marxist-based armed campaign to create Eelam, there is no disputing the truth that Colombo needs to speed up measures to heal the Tamil wounds if it is serious about preventing the reemergence of separatist militancy.