posted April 11, 2005 11:29 PM         

The Mystery of the Missing Anton Rajah – The Goebbels of the LTTE


64-year-old Anton Rajah has a colorful and intriguing past linked to the shady operations of the LTTE. But his sudden disappearance for a while (like that of Jeyadevan) is more intriguing. Was he trapped in the wilds of Vanni like Jeyadevan? Why is he missing from the LTTE scene which he dominated? Has he fallen from grace? Is he another victim of the LTTE machinations like Jeyadevan? Has he returned to London from the Vanni and keeping a low profile after receiving appropriate punishment from Velupillai Prabakaran whom he worshipped once as “Sivaperuman” (Lord Shiva) – the God of Destruction? More of this mystery later.

But first it is necessary to take a good look at Anton Rajah. To begin with “Anton Rajah” is not his real name. He is Ramalingam Vallipuram Ramachandran, a British citizen, who hails from Thumpalai, Point Pedro, located in the northern top most point of Sri Lanka Sri Lanka. He is also called “Rameshar.” He is an old boy of Hartley College, Point Pedro. He has a limp as he cannot bend one knee when he walks. Like in the movies, this limp adds to his sinister role. In London he worked as a tutor at TR Tec – a training centre that helps Tamil refugees to gain UK- recognized qualifications.

But he was better known as the “Goebbels” of the Tamil Tigers. He was once the leading spin doctor who was skilled in covering up the atrocities committed by the Tamil Tigers. In the eighties and nineties Anton Rajah was the most sought after person by the electronic and print media whenever there was some military operations in Sri Lanka.

“That was Anton Rajah, authorized spokesperson of the Sri Lanka’s Tiger outfit who categorically denied that Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was not involved in the assassination of India’s former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi,” would be a typical example of his propaganda. Television net works such as CNN, BBC and other leading international electronic and print media interviewed and quoted him on the numerous LTTE killings of political leaders, rival Tamil groups and indiscriminate bombings that killed innocent civilians.

Anton Rajah was seen not only denied that Prabakaran had any hand in the killings of Ranasinghe Premadasa, President of Sri Lanka and Rajiv Gandhi, former Prime Minister of India, but also hid the fact that the killings of Rajiv Gandhi and Ranasinghe Premadasa were conceived, planned and hatched by Anton Balasingham – the maniacal master-mind who theorized, strategize and plotted with Prabaharan and Pottu Amman almost all the major bombings and assassinations of the Tamil Tigers. He has always managed to keep a safe distance from the war crimes and the crimes against humanity which he initially theorized and promoted as a necessity for what he calls “the liberation struggle.”

His public face is different from his private face. For instance, Sri Lankan government agreed to surrender 600 policemen in the East on the undertaking given by him that they would be safe. Every one of them was made to kneel down, with their hands tied behind their backs, and shot in the back of their heads before being thrown into a mass grave. To this day Balasingham has not explained why gave false promises knowing that none of the policemen would ever return home to their families. In their investigations the Indian police too overlooked and failed to implicate the key strategist who formulated behind the scenes the political rationale that aided and abetted the killing of the Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi – one of the biggest blunders of Tiger terrorism.

Anton Balasingham and Anton Rajah are two peas of the same political pod. Both were recruited into the LTTE by N. S. Krisnar, a former LTTE organizer in London. According to N.S.Krisnar, a former LTTE organizer in London, on 03 January 1975 a group of Sri Lankan Tamils residing in London formed the Eelam Revolutionary Organization of Students (EROS). Ramachandran (alias Anton Rajah) also joined the EROS organized by Eliyathamby Ratnasabapathy. Initially EROS also organized the General Union of Eelam Students. (GUES).

Subsequently, Ramachandran, along with Pathmanabah, who was at the time one of his best chum, was responsible for splitting up GUES from the EROS and ler, in October 1981, GUES emerged as Eelam Peoples Revolutionary Organization (EPRLF).

In the beginning Krishnar, the LTTE organizer of London, recruited Ramachandran to work for the LTTE and subsequently Krishnar, along with Ramachandran met Balasingham and recruited him also into the LTTE fold. It was time when Balasingham was hanging around penniless in London.

Before landing in London, Stanislaus Anton Balasingham worked as a sub-editor in the Colombo-based Tamil daily, Virakesari. Later he joined the British Council on the recommendation of late S. T. Sivanayagam as a translator, though in his usual pompous style he claimed later to be its Press Officer. Whilst in the British Council Balasingham wrote numerous articles criticizing the former Soviet Union, communism and Marx and Lenin.

After a stint in the British Council, Balasingham obtained student visa to London and flew out with his wife who was also working in the British Council. Balasingham joined the South Bank Polytechnic to follow the foundation course needed to follow any graduate stream in a University in the United Kingdom.

In London his first wife from Karaveddy, Sri Lanka, succumbed to her illness after years of haemodialysis. It was during this time Balasingham met his next wife, Adele, a young nurse from Australia. She was in the ward cleaning the haemodialysis instruments. Their relationship in the ward turned into a love affair and then into marriage. They were married on 1st September 1978, after the death of Balasingham’s first wife.

Krishnar still remembers the time he recruited Ramachandran and Balasingham. He said that he discovered that Balasingham was able to write well both in English and Tamil and the LTTE organization in London was looking for some one who can be used for their propaganda activities.

Krishnar said that on his request Balasingham wrote the first LTTE document “Towards Socialist Eelam.” Draft of the document was sent to Uma Maheswaran who was the head of the LTTE. After adding the corrections and overall editing by Uma the document “Towards Socialist Eelam” was published as one of the LTTE’s documents.

To build support for their domestic struggle as well as to consolidate their position overseas, the LTTE developed clandestine relationships with foreign insurgent groups. By studying how other revolutionary groups operate overseas, the LTTE learnt the importance of propaganda material. London, the hub of revolutionary representatives, cells and offices, opened the doors for the LTTE to exploit its facilities and operate as a legitimate political outfit. London soon became the central training and recruiting ground for Tiger terrorists.

In 1978, the LTTE produced its first leaflet for international distribution. It was for a conference in Cuba where a large group of revolutionary leaders would meet. In 1978, a Sri Lankan delegation left to attend the 11th World Youth Conference in Havana, Cuba. The three-member TULF delegation was joined by a LTTE representative who had been studying in the Soviet Union. Hoping to join them, the then UK-based LTTE international representative N.S. Krishnar traveled with LTTE literature from London to Madrid in Spain to obtain a visa for Cuba. The visa was not granted and Krishnar had to return to London. However, he managed to courier the propaganda material to Havana, in time for the meeting.

That was the time Prabaharan and Uma Maheswaran were quarrelling over Urmila. The woman was Urmila Devi, a young divorcee who worked in an optician shop in Colombo and a relative of Uma Maheswaran. She joined the LTTE under Uma’s ership. But during this time Prabhakaran’s ambition were vaulting very high. He was jockeying to oust Uma Maheswaram both from the LTTE leadership and also from the heart of Urmila. Prabhkaran raised Urmila as the moral issue to grab leadership of the LTTE. He came up with the charge that Uma Maheswaran was having a sexual relationship with Urmila and pressed that Uma Maheswaran should resign from the LTTE.

Urmilla -- and not political liberation from the Sinhalese – became the critical issue that obsessed Prabhakaran when he was engaged in a do-or-die battle with Uma Maheswaram. As Urmila was threatening the unity of the movement Krishnar, the LTTE organizer, requested Balasingham to visit Madras on the pretext of holding political classes for the LTTE cadres. Balasingham was assigned the task of being the go-between and to patch up the differences between Uma Maheswaran and Prabaharan.

Krishnar told “Asian Tribune” that during that time LTTE office in London did not have enough money to buy air tickets for him and for Balasingham to fly to Madras. He said to his dismay Balasingham insisted that he should take young Adele, now his wife, to Madras.

Krishnar described that he was forced to beg and borrow money from his relatives and friends for an additional air ticket for Adele to accompany Balasingham to Madras.

In Madras he said he booked them in the Ranjit Hotel and subsequently introduced them to Prabaharan and Uma Maheswaran.

Uma Maheswaran soon discovered that Balasingham was not the intellectual he claimed to be, well versed in Marxist theories. He was boasting that he had enrolled in a Ph. D course in which he was going to marry Marx with Freud. He never got anywhere near starting his fanciful thesis though he laid claim to a doctorate which he never earned. However, he was quick to promote himself as “Dr. Balasingham” until he was exposed by a Tamil journalist as a fraud. Uma Maheswaran saw through Balasingham and Balasingham was quick to grasp this quick smart. He knew that it would be difficult for him to satisfy Uma Maheswarn with his limited knowledge of Marxist theories. But he succeeded in impressing Prabaharan, a secondary school drop out, who knew next nothing about anything other than killing.

According to Krishnar, he came to know later that while in Madras Balasingham was insisting with Prabaharan to press charges against Uma Maheswaran.

Krishnar described how Balasingham double-crossed them. Instead of patching up the differences between the LTTE President Uma Maheswaran and the Army Commander Prabaharan – the only purpose for which he was taken to Madras – Balasingham prodded and nagged Prabaharan until he pressed charges against Uma Maheswaran.

Krishnar said that he was furious when he heard about this after the return of Anton Balasingham to London. Without hesitation, at the first opportunity he got, Krishnar went to confront Balasingham at his residence, Unit No: 56, located on the 13th floor of the Council flat in Stockwell. He was furious with Balasingham’s devious ways.

Overwhelmed with anger over Balasingham’s betrayal he grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and threw him down to the floor. He then began to assault him. Krishnar said that it would have ended something very serious if Siththarthan, the present PLOTE leader who accompanied him to Balasingham’s flat, did not intervene and stopped the assault.

Krishnar concluded that the biggest misjudgment in his life was to have introduced Balasingham and Ramachandran to the LTTE.

Ramachandran had another important role to play in the LTTE. Though the world knew him only as a spokesman of the LTTE, he was also the kingpin, the man behind all the shady deals of the LTTE.

In 1990’s Ramachandran along with Dr Sathasivam Maheswaran was involved in an attempt to purchase a light aircraft in Britain. Ramachandran, along with a group of LTTE cadres including a suicide bomber known as Pampan Ajith, joined a programme in a British airfield to be trained as pilots.

He was their chief arms procurer as well. This is an operation that needs money – lots of it. He then specialized in money-laundering, but he was careful always to conduct his operations behind the scene without any fanfare.

One of his main operations was in the ‘hundhi’ business – an operation where foreign currencies paid abroad are paid in local rupees in Sri Lanka. The “hundhi” transactions on behalf of Ramachandran were converted into rupees in Colombo by a businessman in the Fourth Cross street, Pettah, Colombo who runs a commission shop of buying and selling agricultural commodities on a whole sale basis. And Anton Rajah operated through a money-exchange in Paddington, London run by a Sri Lankan Tamil.

The last known episode was in March 2004, in which Ramachandran was involved in the import of camouflage textiles. Two containers from Malaysia, carrying textile used for military-type uniforms, reached Colombo, but it didn’t go through because the Sri Lanka customs got the wind of it .

Investigators believe that the shipment was arranged by a Sri Lankan Tamil from Thumpalai Point Pedro, a former policeman who entered London on a student visa and lives with Ramachandran. It was also revealed that this scam was organized with the help of a Malaysian and a Sri Lankan businessman Owattha Gunapala Premakumar, a Sinhalese businessman who had resided from his infancy in Chunnakam, Jaffna.

Owattha Gunapala Premakumar was arrested by the Customs in March 2004, when he arrived at the Orugodawatte yard to clear the consignment imported under the guise of a stock of photocopying paper. The textiles approximately, worth rupees six million, were allegedly imported for the LTTE, the sources said.

Ramachandran was married to a Tamil woman from Thumpalai Point Pedro and the couple had a son. Suddenly, Ramachandran shocked his friends when he divorced his wife and took to living alone as a bachelor. But that is another wrapped in rumors that sound rather plausible.

However, Ramachandran’s role of being a key operative in London continued with him handling some of the big money transactions for the LTTE. Money and sex has led to many a down fall within the LTTE hierarchy. Uma Maheswaran was killed because he and Prabhakaran could not decide who should have her. Lawrence Thilagar, another leading money-dealer for the LTTE, is in the doghouse in the Vanni because of allegations of playing out LTTE money in Paris and Bangkok.

Ramachandran too is said to have fallen foul of LTTE on money transactions. It is reported that the LTTE Headquarters in Vanni had ordered Ramachandran to pay monthly British Sterling Pounds 7,500.00 for Balasingham’s monthly expenses which exccluded his rent and other household expenses.

Then it turned out that Balasingham was not happy with the way Ramachandran conducted himself. In his usual devious way, he began to send adverse report about Ramachandran to the LTTE in Vanni.

Though Prabaharan knew Ramachandran personally since 1979, he allowed the subject be handled by the intelligence unit and by the Castro’s unit who oversees the overseas operation.

Shortly after that, Ramachandran was summoned to Vanni and he was held incommunicado for three months. He was put through a grueling grilling and all his activities were investigated. Vanni subsequently found out that there was nothing wrong with his activities and let him go back to London, though the LTTE has severed all its decades long connections with Ramachandran. Those who knew him conclude that this may explain his disappearance from the London scene for a while. Is he lying low hoping to be rehabilitated sooner or later? As a victim of Balasingham’s machinations what chances has he of coming back?

Jeyadevan got an earful of filth from Balasingham before he was trapped in the Vanni. He, however, has bounced back from his nightmare in the Vanni. But what of Ramachandran? What his future going to be? After all his services to the LTTE, is he going to end up like a “walking corpse”, scoffed at all the way by his erstwhile colleague Balasingham?