Sea Tigers the sea wing and its regional trade is something that LTTE set up in order to confront and carry out sea-related activities. The Sea Tigers in the Indian Ocean region has a long and a bloody history. Besides their attempts of struggling arms and attacks on Sri Lankan naval vessels, LTTE has been responsible for confrontations, boarding without permission, attacking, destroying, damaging or ship wrecking a number of foreign-owned civilian vessels in Sri Lankan waters. These acts broadly are defined as maritime terrorism and piracy constitute a fragrant violation of domestic and international laws.
One of the earliest instances which demonstrated this maritime capacity was when the LTTE foreman Jaffna Commander and founder head of the LTTE international secretariat Sathasivam Krishnakumar, alias Kittu, with a large consignment of weapons in [the MV Yahata]. In mid sea the vessel changed its name and the MV Yahata was challenged by the Indian coast guards in the international waters before the vessel was destroyed in January 16th 1993.
Since then, the LTTE has carried out numerous acts of maritime terrorism, testing the patience of not only the Government of Sri Lanka and friendly Governments of neighbouring countries, but also those of ship owners flying flags of national nations versus the Philippine, Indonesian, Panamanian, Balinese, Chinese, Jordanian, Cambodian and Indian flags have been at the receiving end of the LTTEs terror. This underlines the LTTEs capacity to the threat that they have created to international shipping is absolutely clear.
As early as in 1977 the international maritime community in Sri Lankan waters as vulnerable to incidents of terrorists, maritime intelligence and security breach issued by the Maritime Intelligence and Counter-Piracy Operations Centre. On 10 September 1997 observed Sri Lankan waters continue to remain an extremely dangerous area for maritime traffic, but it fell into the LTT, it added, they will not hesitate to approach, board, pilfer and possibly destroy targets of opportunity. On a global scale, according to statistics, maintained by the International Maritime Bureau, IMB, at that time Sri Lankan waters witnessed the fifth largest number of pirate attacks.
On 9 April 2000 a Sri Lankan born Norwegian citizen Christy Reginold Lawrence in Phuket, Thailand, led to the discovery of a half built mini-submarine which was intended for sabotage missions by the LTTE in Sri Lanka. The submarine was believed to have been similar to one, seized by Sri Lankan Government forces from the LTTE in Jaffna in the early 1990s.
In recent times, the LTTE Sea Tigers have been very active in the Sri Lankan and Indian waters. On 20 March 2003 Sea Tigers carried out an attack on the Chinese trawler Fu Yuan Ya 225, killing fifteen Chinese nationals and two Sri Lankans on the north and eastern coast of Sri Lanka.
On 23 December 2006 they hijacked a Jordanian owned cargo vessel and looted 14,000 metric tonnes of rice it was carrying.
On 25 January 2007, 15 to 20 LTTE Sea Tiger boats attempted to ram a Cambodian-owned cargo vessel, City of Liverpool, that was anchored outside the Kankasanthurai Harbour after unloading relief supplies for the people of the Jaffna peninsula. The Indians said police said on 27 April that the LTTE was behind the March 29th incident in which nine Kumari[?] fishermen were attacked in mid sea killing and that ended with five of them being dead.
The most recent act of LTTE maritime terrorism occurred less than three weeks ago, when an Indian fishing trawler Sri Krishna earlier hijacked by the LTTE on 11 March 2007 was detected in Maldivian waters on the 16th May engaging in arms smuggling for the LTT. Following an attack on a Maldivian dhoni of the Havadu[?] atoll.
The vessel was fired upon and sunk by the Maldivian National Defence Force (MNDF) on the morning of 17 May 2007 reportedly with the assistance from the Indian naval aircraft. Five persons a mechanic of the original crew and four Sri Lankan Tamils belonging to the LTTE who were arrested by the Maldivian authorities have already been interrogated by the Sri Lankan authorities under the considerable knowledge on the continuing operations of the LTTE sea tigers in the region and in our waters.
