The attempted suicide attack on Minister Douglas Devananda caught on tape (courtesy defence.lk). See the Female Suicide Bomber rising up, reaching out into her bra and detonating the bomb. True face of Terrorism!
Saturday, December 1, 2007
LTTE Suicide Bomber in Action
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22 comments:
This is a better video of the incident:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbaEJxuJrA4
DefenceWire.. when you have the time...How can we make maximum capital out of this..Is there a way to send this to western news media? ..i mean is that a good idea?
Sri Lankan
It is a great idea. Most people in the west have no idea of what is happening in SL.
This is a rare opportunity and it must be used to maximum effect. It must be made clear that the target was a tamil leader who is opposed to the racist agenda of the LTTe. Also the fact that similar killings have eliminated all democratic tamil leaders, to justify the tigers' claim to sole-rep status.
Defence Columns.
Sunday Observer.
Lakbima.
The Nation.
Rivira.
Lanka Irida.
Newton's third Law (Correct version): Every action has equal and opposite reaction.
Defined in order to describe the physical motion of the objects. I.e. if object A applies a force on object B then object B applies a Force on A (equal in magnitude and opposite in direction)
Trying to generalize above law for everyday life is a (not that intelligent) mistake.
"When the sinhalese NAZI government on Sri lanka started oppressing the tamils they will have no choice but ...." (killing innocent tamils in Devananda's office)
eddie,
Its the same video. We have uploaded the video directly onto this blog.
srilankan,tropicalstorm,
A surprisingly large number of westerners visit Sri Lankan websites, including the government ones. Almost all who have researched LTTE suicide bombings are foreigners. They find it quite unique and difficult to understand Christians and Hindus becoming suicide bombers.
the boss,
This is target killing and part of an LTTE agenda to eliminate dissenters in own group through highly controversial and unconventional tactics. This is very much different to 'fighting back', like overrunning of military bases through conventional warfare, for example. Suicide bombing is no-longer an accepted method of asymmetric warfare and is increasingly categorized under terrorism for obvious psychological and inhuman characteristics of using a human as a bomb. For proof, please observe the terror and possible long-term psychological impact of the attack on civilian bystanders. This is what we refer to as Terrorism! The term Nazi actually refers to the Nationalist Part of Germany (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei). It is used very loosely by those uneducated on the subject to indicate fascism. Fascism is a collection of nationalism, militarism, totalitarianism, anti-communism, corporatism, populism, collectivism, anti-liberalism. Many actors may demonstrate these characteristics, including LTTE.
hemantha,
Thank you for sharing those articles.
Guys,
I really enjoy "The Island (Sunday)" political column (more of an analysis). The writer has an interesting way of presenting and analyzing facts. So I decided to share it with you. It's very long. If you guys are against please let me know I will remove it.
"Satan despondent
Some UNP politicians seem quite upbeat about the possibility of being able to defeat the government on December 14. This time, the SLMC is going to crossover, they say. Some of these politicians have even been going around looking for places to locate their campaign offices and cutouts in the event of an election. But the question is why would those who did not crossover on the vote to the second reading, would want to do so at the third reading? What could have happened between the second reading and the third reading that could have motivated people to make such a drastic decision? It could be said that nobody knew what the JVP was going to do during the second reading vote, but that after they voted against the budget, those who had been waiting to crossover, have now gathered the courage to do so, because the JVP’s 37 votes swings a big chunk in favour of the opposition.
Prison break!
This assumes that there are many people waiting for an opportune moment to flee the PA. The assumption of the UNP is that the PA is a prison house for parliamentarians, and that all that has to be done is to throw a rope over the wall, and there would be a stampede to climb out. But is this true? The UNP expected many crossovers at the second reading. Wijedasa Rajapakse did crossover, but nobody followed him. Even after crossing over, he did not vote against the budget. He’s just a national list MP with no popular base. The government took Mahinda Ratnatilleke, the UNP district leader for Ratnapura and he did vote for the budget with the government. His claim that he was not crossing for office has since got stuck in his throat though! It was not just Ratnatilleke that the UNP lost but the Ven Uduwe Dhammaloka as well - the popular JHU monk who entered parliament in 2004, but supported Ranil Wickremesinghe at the presidential election in 2005. He too voted for the budget.
It may be an unwise strategy to psyche up the government, because that may lead to the government taking remedial action of the sort that they did at the second reading. As for assuming that the PA is a prison of parliamentarians who are just waiting for an opportunity to break out, this may be truer of the UNP than of the PA. The four provincial councilors who broke off the UNP and joined the government appeared on the ‘Thulawa’ programme on ITN, and the story they told was very different to what the UNP would want us to believe. All four provincial councilors expressed relief at being able to escape the UNP ‘gulag’ for politicians.
All of them spoke of being worked like pack animals but ignored when it came to the distribution of rewards. Another point that they raised was the inaccessibility of the UNP leader. Duminda Silva, the provincial councilor who came first in the UNP list in the Colombo district, said that in the past three years, he had met the UNP leader three times whereas he had met Mahinda Rajapakse about ten times in the two and a half weeks that he had been with the government.
In the public relations game, Rajapakse is streets ahead of Ranil Wickremesinghe. For this reason alone, if not for any other, at any given moment, there will be more people trying to break out of the UNP, than out of the PA and this was what we saw in the run up to the second reading of the budget. In the PA, there were only three names that always came up when it came to speculating on who may or may not be disgruntled with the Rajapakse regime Anura Bandaranaike, Wijedasa Rajapakse and Arjuna Ranatunga. Predictably, Rajapakse defected but the other two did not follow him. Arjuna was prevented from defecting by his father Reggie Ranatunga and Anura Bandaranaike supported the budget under protest saying that he was supporting this budget only because of his parents.
The Bandaranaike magic
Quite apart from considerations of family tradition and parental pressure, one of the main reasons discouraging defections from the PA, is the internal situation within the UNP. Would-be defectors from the PA, also have ears, and what they keep hearing from within the UNP can hardly be encouraging. If they burn their boats with the PA, they are not sure whether things would be better in the UNP. The inaccessibility of the leadership, the insensitivity, and the bevy of pretty favourites, is all well known in PA circles. For anyone to defect in such circumstances, his resentment against the Rajapakses would have to be severe indeed.
Robery Percival was a British officer who entered the Kandyan Kingdom in 1815 with the first British garrison and stayed on for some years. He later wrote a book on the lives and customs of the Kandyans. One thing that aroused his curiosity was the fact that the when a Sinhalese wanted to take revenge on an enemy, he would climb a tree and then make a public statement saying that he was committing suicide because of so and so and then jump to his death. According to the law of the Kandyan kingdom, anybody who causes the death of another has to be put to death. This was the time honoured Sinhala method of getting one’s back on an enemy – to commit suicide in order to cause the death of the enemy as well. If there are defections from the SLFP, this can be only on the basis of this Sinhala custom. Wijedasa Rajapakse climbed the tree and even made the announcement, but then thought better of it and remained on the treetop without jumping to his death.
As for Anura Bandaranaike, who is also seen to be among the potential defectors, he did defect once, with Mangala and Sripathy but made a separate peace with President Rajapakse and came back into the fold, leaving his dissident partners out in the cold. Moreover, whether a Bandaranaike defection would do much harm to the SLFP at this stage in the Gampaha district is a moot point. It should be noted that even with Chandrika Kumaratunga actively working against Mahinda Rajapakse at the 2005 presidential election, Mahinda got more votes in the Gampaha district and even in the Attanagalle electorate than Chandrika Kumaratunga. At both these elections, the JVP contested together with the PA, so the JVP factor stays equal between the two elections. At the parliamentary election 2004, which was fought under Chandrika’s leadership, the PA got 509,962 votes in the Gampaha district and 45,529 votes in the Attanagalle electorate. At the 2005 presidential election which was fought under Mahinda Rajapakse’s leadership, the PA got 596,698 votes in the Gampaha district and 52,393 votes in the Attanagalle electorate. This was despite the fact that Mahinda Rajapakse had to man the Attanagalle SLFP office with his own people during the election, because Chandrika did not allow her SLFP loyalists to work for him.
These could be the considerations that motivated Anura Bandaranaike to turn back after having gone some distance with Mangala and Sripathy. The hold that the Bandaranaike’s had over the Gampaha district and over Atanagalla seems to have been effectively broken. When Chandrika made an attempt to remain as the leader of the SLFP even after Mahinda Rajapakse became president, she was heckled and hooted at during a party gathering she attended in Gampaha. Because of the non-stop jeering she was unable to deliver her speech. That is what made her leave the country for an extended period, thus paving the way for Rajapakse to assume the leadership of the SLFP.
It seems that the Bandaranaike magic fails to work when the people are confronted with the choice of choosing between the Bandaranaike’s and the SLFP. Bandaranaike’s outside the SLFP, are like fish out of water. When Anura Bandaranaike was in the UNP, he was widely tipped to come at the top of the UNP list in the Gampaha district. Karu Jayasuriya was in fact sent to the Gampaha district to drown in the Bandaranaike vote. But the Bandaranaike vote did not materialize. Jayasuriya got around three times the number of votes that Anura Bandaranaiake got at the 2000 October General election. It will be interesting to see what will happen if Jayasuriya and Bandaranaike both contest on the PA list in Gampaha at a forthcoming election.
Karu rides high
Speaking of Karu Jayasuriya, he appears to be much better off in the PA than he ever was within the UNP. He held a Janatha Sathkara Sevaya in Matara last week. This is modeled on President Premadasa’s mobile presidential service, though organized by the Ministry of Public Administration and Home Affairs, involves the participation of top officials of almost all other ministries involving a supervisory function which extends beyond his own ministry. For example, the Matara event was attened by Ministers Chandrasiri Gajadeera and Mahinda Yapa Abeywardene of the PA, and UNP dissidents Lakshman Yapa Abeywardene, Mahinda Wijesekera, and the Chief Minister of the southern province, With Karu placed in charge of restoring civil administration to the eastern province, he has been given a very high profile role I government.
Jayasuriya is in effect playing the role of a deputy prime minister even though he does not hold the title. There is in fact no provision in the present constitution for a deputy prime minister. When Mangala was accorded the position of deputy prime minister in a future UNP government, this meant he would be accorded a title, which has no legal status. Jayasuriya has the function, but without the title. The UNP dissidents who joined the government, seem to have been well accepted into the government fold.
While PA Matara district leader Dullas Alahapperuma was not able to attend the janataha sathkara sevaya held by Jayasuriya in Matara, he had sent a message which was read out at the inauguration ceremony. Alahapperuma had stated that Jayasuriya had strengthened the government immensely by joining it and that Jayasuriya always had the capacity to fulfill any task entrusted to him by the government. The Matara janatha sathkara sevaya had received around 20,000 complaints and resolved about 15,000 of them. A highlight of this programme, was that some private companies which had opened up stalls at the sathkara sevaya, had given over 4,000 jobs to young people seeking employment. Before the event commenced, Jayasuriya had got wind of the news that a group of farmers around 500 strong, were planning to hold a protest fast at the venue. Jayasuriya had phoned Chamal Rajapakse and appraised him of the situation. Rajapakse had sent the Director of Irrigation from Colombo to Matara the very next day. Jayasuriya had then addressed the protestors and said that the government wanted to resolve this problem and therefore, appealed to the protestors to co-operate with the government on this. The leaders of the Nilwala development scheme protest had then called off their protest and agreed to work with Jayasuriya to resolve the issue.
No national government
When the UNP parliamentary group met last Monday, party leader Wickremesinghe said that many MPs did not attend the committee stage sessions o the budget and that everybody should attend these sessions. He also broached the question of a national government and queried what authority Basil Rajapakse had to put forward the suggestion. Any such proposal should have come from either the president or the prime minister. Basil was only an ordinary MP. He stated that when a government is about to fall, such suggestions tend to come up to shore up the crumbling regime. He further stated that in 2006 the UNP entered into an MOU with the government to give it support but the government violated this MOU and rendered it ineffective. Wickremesinghe had said that the UNP rejects the call for a national government out of hand. He said that what was needed was a parliamentary election and not a national government and that no one should talk of national governments.
The UNP will be holding its 12th jana rela meeting in Mt Lavinia on December 11. This will be a show of strength three days before the budget vote on Dec. 14. A meeting of the Jathika Sabhawa high command also met at Cambridge Place to plan out heir future programme of action. This meeting was attended by Managala and Sripathy, Malik Samarawickrema, Lakshman Seneviratne and others. We reported last week that party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe had to intervene to stop a turf war between the Western Province opposition leader Kithsiri Kahatapitiya and the district leader for Kalutara Sarath Ranawaka. The efforts made by Wickremesinghe appeared to have borne fruit because Ranawaka attended the Bulathsinhala balamandalya meeting organized by Kahatapitiya last week and even addressed the gathering.
Last week the main political activity engaged in by the UNP was the collection of signatures for their people’s impeachment. Signature collection campaigns were held in Kundasale, Homagama and Galigamuwa. Last week, Austin Fernando, the former secretary of defense in the UNP government of 2001-2004, held a workshop for the electorate and distict level party functionaries who had been entrusted with the task of attending to the work pertaining to the preparation of electoral lists. The UNP has become very professional in its organizational matters after Tissa Attanayake took over as general secretary. But how helpful this preparation will be at an election, is a moot point. The question of doctoring electoral lists came up for the first time only at the December 2005 presidential election when the UNP claimed that the names of UNP voters and especially those of minority voters had been surreptitiously removed from the voting lists.
But the actual reason why the UNP did not get the anticipated Tamil votes in the Colombo district was not because their names had been struck off the electoral lists but because they heeded Prabhakaran’s call to boycott the election. In the Mahaveer speech Prabhakaran had given clear indication that he has noticed the UNP’s volte face on the issue of federalism and the cease fire agreement – even though the UNP did not make too much of a song and dance about their change of policy. This was probably in the vain hope that the Sinhala voter would notice it, but that Prabhakaran would not. But the Mahaveer, speech shows that the big Tiger has noticed the UNP’s change and is none too pleased about it. The end result of this is going to be that the UNP will not get the Tamil vote in Colombo anyway, at future elections, however meticulously they attend to the electoral lists.
The un-Satanic speech
Pabhakaran’s annual Mahaveer day speech was described in a daily Island editorial as a feeble meow rather than a fierce growl. One significant thing being that Prabhakaran had berated the international community for not having fulfilled their duty towards the Tamil people. The irony of the LTTE appealing to the international community was not lost on political commentators who have pointed out the way in which the LTTE imperiously ordered out truce monitors from EU member states out after the European Union declared the LTTE a terrorist organization. The LTTE has of recent times, fallen so low as to forcibly extract sympathy from the international community. A recent example was the manner in which they kept browbeating Norway until Erik Solheim issued a belated note of sympathy on the killing of Tamilselvam.
It must be noted that the LTTE never went around begging for sympathy even when it faced serious adversity following the signing of the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord. Up to that time, India was their main supply base and the loss of this base should have been a serious blow to the LTTE. But they took things in their stride and shifted from a dependence on India to their own supply lines which they had spent years putting into place. Prabhakaran had always known that India would one day turn against them because they wouldn’t want Tamil Nadu inspired by the LTTE example, and this made them set up independent source of supply.
The late D.P.Sivaram speaking to the present writer just three days before his abduction and killing in April 2005, compared Prabhakaran to Satan in John Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’. The highest praise in Paradise Lost, said Sivaram, is reserved for Satan – and that is essentially true. Satan is a heroic figure in Paradise Lost, a possessor of indomitable will, fighting against incredible odds, giving no quarter and asking for none in turn.
Indeed up to the point of Siva’s death, the LTTE did seem to be possessed of a truly Satanic drive - an organization, which another key commentator on Tamil politics D.B.S.Jeyaraj once said, ‘hated to be depicted as weak’. But had Sivaram been around to listen to Prabhakaran last week, he would have been compelled to change his mind. The key to being Satan is never to complain, and never to blame anybody else for one’s failure to win. But Prabhakaran did that this year. To have been able to bring Prabhakaran down from that Satanic pedestal is in itself a mighty victory for the government. The LTTE which took on even the world’s fourth largest army without batting an eyelid, has now been reduced to whining for help from the international community.
In 1987, when the IPKF was in Sri Lanka, there were no human rights representatives visiting the country and even if they did, none would have dared to visit the north and east, because the Indian government would not have brooked any interference or even advise about human rights. Thus the LTTE was left alone to face the fury of the Indian Army. But even this did not deter them. They fought and died and ultimately it is the Indians who lost. That was the LTTE’s finest Satanic moment. Today however, the government is literally under siege by swarms of foreign human rights activists and is fighting the LTTE with one arm tied behind its back.
In today’s context, the LTTE has much greater freedom of action than the government. Yet they have been brought to their lowest point ever. The international noose that has been tightening around the LTTE’s neck has played a large part in this. The banning of the LTTE in most western countries, followed by the arrest of key activists, has been having an effect on the LTTE. Coupled to this, the government’s successful hits on several LTTE arms shipments over the past few months appear to have reduced the LTTE Satan to a Beelzebub. In Paradise Lost, Beelzebub is one of Satan’s co conspirators whom Satan finds lying besides him, looking wretched and beaten after having been cast down from heaven.
This goes to underscore the point made by Victor Ivan that for an armed movement to go from a high of overrunning large mililtary installations like Elephant Pass to placing claymore bombs on roads such as at Kebithigollewa when a mine blasted a crowded civilian bus, is a regression in the struggle. They should be moving up from the lower to higher levels and not the other way round. The LTTE did this recently as well. They carried out the highly successful Anuradhapura air base attack and when they suffered retaliatory attacks, they were reduced to placing a parcel bomb in Nugegoda. Ivan’s argument was that once the struggle had been taken to its highest point, the LTTE should have converted their armed struggle into a political struggle. Their inability to do this, is what has brought the LTTE to the present sorry pass."
Many thanks DefenceWire and tropicalstorm for your input.
hemantha,
Thanks, 'the most resourcefull man in the blog!
the boss,
I dont understand. I thought it is VP who is oppressing the tamils.
If you want to fight back shoun't you wear a pair of slippers,pair of shorts,get a AK 47 and hide in a FDL bunker, with some under aged boys? You are wasting time on the internet.
You are welcome Mottapala (by the way I don't like your name). I am just giving away other people’s money.
This is on a different subject but related to Sri lanka.
Even though some of you guys live overseas, you still can buy stuff that were produced in Sri Lanka.
For an example, recently I bought a Sri Lankan made floor mat from a department store in South Pacific..I saw Sri Lankan Ginger Beer being sold in an Australia Super market chain on a recent visit there..If you look carefully, you will find Sri Lankan made stuff apart from Tea occasionally..Some Sri Lankan grocerries in overseas sell Samba Rice ..If you chip in by buying Sri Lankan produce in overseas, you are contributing to the Sri Lankan economy..
Please remember this..
The suicide bomber video is the 2nd most watched video on Youtube tube today:
http://www.youtube.com/browse?t=t&p=1&s=mp&c=25&l=
It is the 4th most discussed video on youtube today:
http://www.youtube.com/browse?t=t&p=1&s=md&c=25&l=
It is the 5th most favourited video on youtube today:
http://www.youtube.com/browse?t=t&p=1&s=mf&c=25&l=
The suicide bomber video is the 2nd most watched video on Youtube tube today:
http://www.youtube.com/browse?t=t&p=1&s=mp&c=25&l=
It is the 4th most discussed video on youtube today:
http://www.youtube.com/browse?t=t&p=1&s=md&c=25&l=
It is the 5th most favourited video on youtube today:
http://www.youtube.com/browse?t=t&p=1&s=mf&c=25&l=
This is a good oppotunity to show westerners about the real face of the LTEE.
This brainwashed girl killed herself and killed a another innocent man for nothing, What kind of ''liberation'' has VP and his followers achieved????
The recent suicide bombing carried out by the LTTE in Colombo that was capture by the security camera is one of the most rare videos that reveal a lot of insight into the phenomenon of suicide bombings. Our sources indicate that this video is being studied by counter terrorist experts world over and has shared some dimensions that they are focusing on.
Behavioral Aspect.
The pre explosion behavior patterns and the physical gestures. The suicide bomber in this video does not seem to indicate any sense of panic or conspicuous behavior. The experts have indicated after viewing the video they could not pick up any warning signs nor could they identify the suspicious person prior to the explosion. The limited amount of physical gestures prior to the explosion also indicate the amount if training that has gone to this missions. Usually a person facing a tense situation has increased physical gestures that was lacking in this person indicating a high level of sophistication in training methods and methodology.
The trajectory of the explosion and the use of the triggering device are also being focused on. Unlike the suicide vest, the bra bomb sends the force of the explosion in front of the bomber thus targeting the intended person. The bra bomb is quite sophisticated compared with the vest and is less conspicuous when worn. However, the triggering device is not technically advanced as seen from the video requiring a significant amount of physical movement that could arouse suspicion.
However, the LTTE has cleverly used a practice by women in rural areas where they tend to tuck in their money or valuables close to their bosom when they travel. Thus reaching for the trigger can be hidden under the pretext of reaching for your valuables or money and cannot be detected easily.
Lessons Learned
It should also be noted that while the intelligence and counterterrorism experts learn from this video the other terrorist groups also benefit from such videos and has been known to exchange knowledge on innovate methods of carrying out suicide attacks. Rand research reports have indicated that the LTTE is the only organization that is outsourcing their R&D to develop and improve their technical capabilities in suicide missions.
Hi all,
Defence.lk and others now have given a wide publicity to Devenanda sucide atempt. It seems you guys think it is good for us and bad for LTTE such a publicity. Howerver I have a question and I am not sure about the answer.
Besides the terror, once one see that vedio, the question arise is, why such a woman did such a thing? What made such a woman to such a thing?
Al-Qaida sucide bombings involve God/relegion and a person's sacrifice of his/her life is understood in the context of relegiuos faith. But here if some one searches he get to know this is not a relegiuos fight but an ethnic/race conflict.
So one (outsider) might conclude there should be very bad discrimination going on in SL towards tamils by sinhalese. This is well supported by the final paragraph of all the international media reports (BBC,AFP..) regarding our conflict.
On the other hand this is a moral booster for an already brainwased and determined terrorist. It seems blowing up is a simple thing. Further this convays so called loyalty towards piraba by his caders.
Contrary to the populer belief suciding is not a big deal. How many young girls committ sucide in SL (eatig kaneru) due to small issues? Given the hopeless mentiality it is no big deel to make one commit sucide in SL after some brainwash. But specialy the foringers will not get this.
So I beleive it is importent to attach an correct introduction to this vedio. Defence.lk introduction is too short for an outsider.
Some of you guys are having second thoughts, realizing the consequences of the suicide bomber video blitz.
This is highly characteristic of the Rajapakse government. Decision on Pakistan, decisions regarding UNICEF, decision regarding banning LTTE. Its a well inconceived plan. The propaganda value and the wordings in the video are so blatant, that it is making the Tamil nationalists and their allies only stronger.
As you can notice, the youtube advertisement has gone badly wrong for the government. For the common public, a qualitative acceptance of the complexity of suicide bombing has become apparent. Westerners, apart from the Bush regime have sought to understand the motives for people going to such extremes, they are not satisfied by dismissing such acts as Rajapakse would like you to believe as "evil".
This also shows the government now has to rely on further internationalizing the conflict. It can't seem to contain it or censor it. It gaming to show the brutal nature of the other, but by doing so its equating itself in every respect to the LTTE. Hence who looses ? Sri Lankan Government..
Internationalizing has further drawbacks, its an acceptance that solution will also have to be internationalized.
(The underlying factors are economic, the war has consumed more resources than health, education and national well being.) Something that has not been palletable by previous regimes.
Ninja Bandara,
You are correct.
Defence.lk got the intro wrong.
They did not think about the audience of the Video.
The video confuses the ones who does not know about LTTE and the terrorism advocated by LTTE.
The Defence.lk is very poor in its PR and Media coordination, strategy etc.
"When the Suicide Bomber Is a Woman" (14 page article. But worth reading)
click here.
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