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LTTE launches fund collection drive in Kerala

George Iype in Kochi

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has launched a fund collection drive in plantations and estates of Kerala's hill ranges, where Tamil-speaking people constitute the largest workforce.

Police sources told rediff.com that intelligence agencies have noticed "brisk, covert fund collection" in tea, coffee, rubber and cardamom plantations at Munnar, Kumily, Peermade, Elappara and Vandiperiyar - which are known as the high range belt.

The Kerala police have sounded an alert following intelligence information that the LTTE is clandestinely and forcibly collecting money from Tamils in the high range.

Thousands of Tamils -- many of them Sri Lankan refugees who have fled the war-torn island nation - work in plantations in the high range.

The intelligence agencies recently seized pamphlets and notices circulated by the LTTE to the Tamil workforce. The pamphlets urge Tamils to liberally contribute from their daily wages to the LTTE cause for a separate homeland for Tamils in Sri Lanka.

The police have questioned local Tamil school teachers, estate officials and workers' leaders, who are said to be pro-LTTE, at many plantations. Top police officials here are in touch with the Tamil Nadu Police, to ensure that the Tigers do not infiltrate into the plantations.

Police officials said LTTE agents have easy access to the high ranges in Idukki, Kollam and Pathanamthitta, thanks to their topography and their porous borderline with Tamil Nadu.

"We have information that, on orders from the LTTE leadership in Sri Lanka, pro-LTTE Tamil employees at these plantations are trying to collect money from Tamil labourers," a senior police official told rediff.com.

He said the police began searching for some "pro-LTTE leaders" who are instigating the Tamil workforce.

Kerala's plantation owners started recruiting Tamil labourers from the 1980s, when they faced an acute labour shortage in the state. There was an influx of Tamil refugees after communal riots and ethnic strife broke out in Sri Lanka in 1983.

For thousands of poverty-stricken Sri Lankan refugees who reached Tamil Nadu, nearby plantations and estates in Kerala are the best for survival. For estate owners, the Sri Lankan Tamils who worked in similar plantations in the island nation, turned out to be the cheapest and obedient workforce.

Estate owners said they soon noticed the emergence of a strong group of pro-LTTE workers. "Many are still pro-LTTE. They adore LTTE chief V Prabhakaran and whenever there is an LTTE military success, they celebrate," said Kurien Joseph, owner of a tea plantation in Kumily.

Another estate owner said that many workers at his field are Sri Lankan Tamil refugees. "I employ 200 Tamils, but I do not know who really is a Sri Lankan refugee and who is an original Tamil," he said.

"Whenever there is some action in Sri Lanka, Tamil workers here organise unusual activities. They hold closed-door meetings. Strangers come and meet them," he said.

Throughout the 1980s, there have been frequent fund collections and even public meetings in support of the LTTE cause in the hill ranges. Tamil refugee workers became low profile after the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi by the LTTE in 1991.

While some plantation owners have often intimated the police about pro-LTTE activists in the hill ranges, police officials say it is very difficult to check penetration of Tamil militants.

"Though we have detected pro-LTTE elements in the plantations, they have never posed any threat to the state or to estate owners," the police official said.

But he said that in the wake of the latest war for Jaffna peninsula, between the Sri Lankan military and the LTTE, there have been rumours that Sri Lankan Tamils from these estates are being recruited to join LTTE camps in Sri Lanka. "The Tamils who work in these plantations are under surveillance," the official added.

Over the years, Kerala has remained a safe haven for hundreds of Tamils fleeing strife-torn Sri Lanka.

While many Lankan Tamils have bought property here, Kerala's three airports are now under special intelligence observation as they are said to be safe transit routes for LTTE agents and middlemen, to Gulf and European destinations.

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