The Rump LTTE. Who’s In Charge?
LTTE flag flying in a 2009 Paris protest. Photo by Breff
The rump LTTE doesn’t have a head so much as two cheeks, Vinayagam and Nediyavan. Instead of fighting for Eelam, however, they’re fighting each other over event halls in the UK and over who gets to control the LTTE’s international wealth. Makes a loud farting noise, but not much sense.
The LTTE was Prabhakaran, Prabhakaran was the LTTE. Aside from his son, there was no obvious number 2. When both were killed in the war, the leadership was nowhere for a while. After a while it passed to KP who wrote a few blog posts (seriously) and was promptly arrested in Malaysia. Then it passed (sorta back) to Nediyavan, the tall man, who’d been running stuff internationally when KP was out of favor.
Even under KP, however, there was really nothing for the LTTE abroad to do. The LTTE was always very attached to a particular patch of land and a particular man. With one taken and the other dead, there wasn’t much of the fundamentals left. The LTTE international was just for collection/extorting money, running drugs or arms or whatever to make money, basically running a Tamil mafia in Paris, London and Toronto which funded terrorism in Sri Lanka as a sort of Corporate Social Responsibility project. After the war ended, there was nothing left but the mafia, and the international government lobbying, and the rallies.
In the face of this fundamental vacuum, cracks began to show, and Vinayagam, another LTTEr, was actually in Sri Lanka when the war ended, but not in the warzone. He was in the south, tasked with carrying out terrorist attacks there, which he failed to do. He popped out, emerged in Europe and is now jockeying for control of the LTTE, drawing on KP’s support base, such as it is.
Samurai Attack On Regan
De-facto LTTE France head Regan AKA Parithy was recently attacked with clubs and a Japanese katana sword (Attack On Paraithy In Paris). He of course had sown plenty of violence and thuggery himself.
What I can’t glean from DBS’s article is exactly which faction would have been involved here. All DBS mentioned was their reactions: “Unable to publicly admit that the LTTE chief in France had been attacked by another LTTE faction the story trotted out by “Eezhamurasu” newspaper, the tiger mouthpiece in France is that Sri Lankan intelligence personnel were behind the attack. The Vinayagam faction on the other hand says that the attack on Parithy was done by some people with a personal grudge and that it was not serious as made out.”
What I found most interesting, however, was his profiles of the two leaders. Perhaps Dons would be more apt. I’ve ruthlessly edited them for space, but please read the full articles, the detail is quite interesting.
Nediyavan
35 year old Perinpanayagam Sivaparan bears the nom de guerre “Nediyavan” meaning Tall man.
Nediyavan functioned in the LTTE’s political wing and accompanied SP Thamilselvan for some rounds of peace talks during 2002 -2003. He was later transferred to the overseas LTTE administration section under Veeragathy Manivannan alias Castro. Nediyavan was in charge of Castro’s public relations unit and inter-acted with several overseas functionaries visiting the Wanni during the peace process.
Nediyavan took up residence in Norway. Contact between the Wanni and tigers abroad was under strain as the war escalated. So Castro appointed an international representative on his behalf. This person was to be in overall charge of the LTTE overseas branches. This was none other than Nediyavan
Selvarasa Pathmanathan alias KP who at one time was in charge of overseas LTTE branches re-joined the LTTE and was appointed head of international relations in January 2009. After KP’s capture in Malaysia and extradition to Sri Lanka,Nediyavan re-asserted his authority over the overseas LTTE structures. (Tiger Factions Gear Up)
Vinayagam
47 year old Segarapillai Vinayagamoorthy alias Vinayagam was born on November 10th 1964. The family however lived for some years in Chavakachcheri.
Vinayagamoorthy joined the LTTE formally in 1985 at the age of 20. During his stint in Negombo –Colombo, Vinayagam’s primary “achievement” was apparently the role he played in laying the groundwork for the LTTE assault on the Katunayake international Airport on July 12 2001.
After the Oslo-facilitated ceasefire in 2002 the LTTE intelligence division created a special unit to oversee matters concerning operatives working outside the Wanni in various parts of Sri Lanka as well as those functioning abroad, outside Sri Lanka. Vinayagamoorthy was made the head of this special unit in 2002.
[During the war he was deployed to the South to organize suicide bombings]. Though the LTTE hierarchy expected a big “bang” nothing of the sort occurred. He reportedly shuttles between France and Germany now.
Once in Europe Vinayagam wove the various Tiger intelligence operatives abroad into a closely knit unit and remains in sole charge of that. (Tiger Factions Gear Up)
What Are They Fighting Over?
Well, it looks like they’re now fighting over who gets to book the what hall in London for a rally. Apparently the Vinayagam has had their 50,000 pound deposit returned for the EXCEL hall and are scrambling to sort out on an appropriate location for their Hero’s Day Rally. Nediyavan has booked 5 halls and only had one revoked (because, you know, they’re a mafia group that supports terrorism). Oh man. This is what’s left of the LTTE.
For a brief period of time there was a working relationship between Nediyavan and Vinayagam. And both entered into a strategic partnership.
This however did not last long and soon both were at loggerheads with each other. Nediyavan was unwilling to relinquish his power while Vinayagam wanted to acquire power. At the heart of this power struggle is money. (DBS Jeyaraj)
Posted on Sunday, November 20th, 2011 in International, LTTE, Sri Lanka.
Mohsin Hamid, author of How To Get Filthy Rich In Rising Asia, has a nice 
I’m happy to be featured in Echelon magazine’s 40 Under 40 feature, profiling young people who contribute to the economy in some way, mainly in business but also in terms of innovation and thought leadership. It’s an interesting article not just in that I’m in it (mainly for work on indi.ca and 
I won’t add too much commentary, but just read I guess. The youngest Rajapaksa, Rohitha (Chi Chi) has given an amazing interview to the 
In 2009 this strange character appeared on the Sri Lankan Internet scene, getting angry, flaming, trolling whatever. Then he started naming anonymous bloggers, posting comments as people’s kids, nasty stuff, for which I removed him from 
50,000 pounds for a meeting hall, good, I wonder how much they are spending for the people in the north? Have they already abandoned those poor souls that got bashed from both the sides. Now I wonder why am I wasting my time writing comments about these people.
DBS Jeyaraj is good friend of Gota, hence KP scoop. His latest scoop is disproportionately one-sided arguments in favour of the status quo of the ultra-nationalist Sinhalese unitary sentiment. In my assessment the DBS Jeyaraj fails in its credulous attempt to give a favourable appearance of impartiality to convince the readership of its credibility by some token, soft, chronologically receded, and equivocal criticism of Sri Lanka. Just as his ultra-nationalist unitary sentiment, as being construed on a potpurri of truths, half truths, and outright falsehoods. His shameful justification for past and ongoing disenfranchisement of Sri Lanka’s minority Tamils, and the belligerent lack of political concessions to its minority Tamils is disheartening
DBS is balanced. This tends to piss everyone off.
Is he in favor of ultra-nationalist Sinhalese? Dude, no. I mean, what?
I reckon the Swiss LTTE are in a strong position to take charge. The LTTE isn’t banned in Switzerland, they say they aren’t a criminal organisation, they can fund raise with complete ease and their chocolates are better than in the UK.
http://thecarthaginiansolution.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/we-are-not-a-criminal-organisation-head-of-ltte-in-switzerland/
[...] rather ordinary political party and are able to have their day in Sri Lanka, in public. The LTTE has devolved into two warring foreign mafias, more about the money than anything else, so they hold their commemorations [...]