The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 36 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part36.

htm

The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon

Part 36

Sachi Sri Kantha

[13 June 2002]

Rajiv Gandhi Assassination

- One Spoke in the South Asian Wheel of Intrigue

A Peep into Dave Barry’s Revisionist History

I will conclude my analysis on Rajiv Gandhi assassination at the
end of this chapter. Before I sum up, I wish to discuss cross-border
crimes with links to the Intelligence operatives, and their relevance
to major assassinations of heads of state in South Asia since 1975.
As a suitable step to introduce this theme, I provide a humorous
segment from the pen of Dave Barry, the noted American humorist.

Telling the truth – which the name-brand historians refrain from

telling – and that too in mocking manner, is an art of talented
humorists. Dave Barry who has perfected this art wrote in 1989
what he called a ‘revisionist history’ of the United Nations. The
truth-oozing humor of Barry allows me to explain the dilemma of
India’s policy wonks and the RAW operatives. So, first to an
excerpt from Berry’s book, Dave Barry Slept Here:
“The United Nations consists of two main bodies.
1. The General Assembly, which is, in the generous spirit of
the UN Charter, open to just about every little dirt bag nation
in the world. It has no power. Its functions are to (a) have
formal receptions; (b) listen to the Grateful Dead on
headphones; and (c) denounce Israel for everything, including
sunspots.
2. The Security Council, which is limited to nations that
have mastered the concept of plumbing. It is very powerful.
Its functions are to: (a) pass sweeping resolutions intended to
end bloody conflicts; and then (b) veto, ignore, or walk out
on these resolutions.”

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Dave Barry’s use of euphemistic ‘plumbing’ for notorious spying

is a beauty. India’s dilemma, for the past five decades has been,
that in UN hierarchy it is grouped into the ‘dirt-bag nations’
without power, though in terms of its population size and land
mass area, it deserves a place in the Security Council. China, the
only other nation comparable to India, in terms of population,
heritage and land mass, has a seat in the UN Security Council.

The ignominy of being grouped into the dirt-bag nations pricked

the pride of Indian Prime Ministers, especially Indira Gandhi (who
instituted the RAW for flexing muscles into the ‘diplomatic
plumbing activities’ of India’s neighbors) and her son Rajiv
Gandhi (who engaged the Indian army for muscle flexing purposes
with RAW providing a mediocre side-kick performance). It is not
an exaggeration to assert that the assassinations of Indira and
Rajiv have to be viewed with a karmic mirror, reflecting the inner
dirt of the ‘plumbing activities’ of India’s Intelligence operatives.
This angle will hardly be touched by the Indian policy wonks like
J.N.Dixit and pan-handling professors of India’s punditry circuit
like S.D.Muni and V.Suryanarayanan.

Rajiv’s Assassination: ‘Just One in a Bunch in South Asia’

To fully comprehend the motive of those who were behind Rajiv
Gandhi’s assassination in 1991, in my opinion, it should not be
studied in isolation, since it was just one in a bunch of untimely
deaths. To repeat, it is one of many assassinations/untimely deaths
of nominal heads of state in South Asia, which had occurred since
1975 – an arbitrary, but convenient, date in which the Americans
had to quit Vietnam after nearly 15 years of plodding to defeat
communism in Asia. I provide the following list.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of Bangladesh: assassinated, on

Aug.15, 1975 by military men.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan: hanged by his successor Zia ul

Haq, on April 4, 1979.

Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh: assassinated, on May 30, 1981 by

military men.

Indira Gandhi of India: assassinated, on October 31, 1984 by her

personal bodyguards.

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Zia ul Haq: killed in a mysterious mid-air explosion of Pakistani

Air Force Plane on August 19, 1988.

Rajiv Gandhi: assassinated by a suicide bomber on May 21, 1991.

Ranasinghe Premadasa: assassinated by a suicide bomber on

May 1, 1993.

King Birendra (and his immediate family): ‘reportedly’

assassinated by his son Dipendra, the Crown Prince, who himself
‘committed suicide’ on June 1, 2001.

In the above list, I have excluded the executions of nominal heads

of state from Afghanistan, since 1978: Mohammad Daoud and his
family in April 1978, Mohammad Taraki in October 1979,
Hafizullah Amin in December 1979 and Dr. Mohammad
Najibullah in September 1996. The last mentioned was a
Communist head of state, propped by India and supported by its
RAW operatives, on behalf of India’s nominal ally in the political
chess board.

In analysing complex issues, I’m a follower of noted science

essayist, Stephen Jay Gould, who died recently on May 20, 2002.
In introducing his 7th volume of science essays, Dinosaur in a
Haystack (1996), Gould wrote elegantly, as follows:
“I am an essay machine; cite me a generality, and I will give
you six tidbits of genuine illustration. A detail, by itself, is
blind; a concept without a concrete illustration is empty. The
conjunction defines the essay as a genre, and I draw
connections in a manner that feels automatic to me.”

By using Stephen Jay Gould’s measure, I assert two facts. First, a

generality: that ‘plumbing’ – as indicated by Dave Barry – is a
passion for the Intelligence operatives of muscle-flexing political
powers in South Asia. Second, the details: that quite a number of
nominal heads of state (including Rajiv Gandhi) in South Asia
have regularly been eliminated. Other regions in the global
political map have not seen such a ‘regular harvesting of heads’ is
very much undeniable. Thus, rather than focusing on Rajiv’s
assassination as an isolated detail, it is prudent to “draw
connections”, as indicated by Stephen Jay Gould. Why this simple

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deductive step of ‘connecting the dots’ is shunned by the

government-controlled (or government-manipulated) media and
media experts of South Asian nations is not beyond
comprehension.

The Role of Puppet Masters and the ‘Local Relays’

That I’m not alone in thinking about the existence of links among
these assassinations to the ‘plumbing industry’ of political powers
is telling from the following observation made by Tariq Ali, little
more than an year ago, while discussing the assassinations of
Mujibur Rahman and Indira Gandhi and the hanging of Zulfikar
Ali Bhutto, all of which occurred within a decade of 1975 and
1984. Excerpts:
“…It may be true that the CIA is no longer as effective a
killing machine as Mossad, but the period I was discussing
was at the height of the Cold War. In 1973, Nixon and
Kissinger had carefully organized and orchestrated the
overthrow of Salvador Allende. The CIA took part in this
operation, as did the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency),
which usually deals directly with foreign military personnel.
The death of Allende and Chilean democracy haunted [the
then] all three leaders in South Asia. Mrs Gandhi saw in it an
image of her own future.
It is hardly a secret that the military takeovers in Pakistan in
1958 and 1977 were approved by the United States. DIA
involvement in the latter was much talked about at the time.
General Alam, a senior Corps Commander who was against
toppling Bhutto, was shocked to receive a reprimand from the
US Military Attaché. Soon after General Zia gained power it
became obvious that he wanted to get rid of Bhutto, but if
Washington had seriously objected to the hanging, it would
not have taken place…
Before he was assassinated the Bangladeshi leader [Mujibur
Rahman] had just merged his party with the local
pro-Moscow Communists, declared Bangladesh to be a
one-party state and agreed to sign a Treaty of Peace and
Friendship with Moscow. The US already regarded him as an
enemy in any case, and had done so ever since Nixon and
Kissinger decided to ‘tilt’ in Pakistan’s favour during the
civil war of 1971-72.

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The US often asserts its power through local relays, finding

this more effective than direct CIA involvement. Sometimes a
combination of the two strategies becomes necessary…”
[London Review of Books, vol.23, no.10, May 24, 2001]

Tariq Ali’s observations, should be read in association with a

recent, scathing commentary of Wayne Madsen, a Washington
DC-based investigative journalist on under-reported news and
analysis, which connects the dots between the ‘local relays’ in
India and the sole super-power’s ‘plumbing units’. It provides a
plausible cause to solving the mystery of the Royal Family
massacre in Kathmandu of June 1, 2001. Excerpts:
“Apparently, intelligence agencies allied to the United States,
like those of India (a new ‘strategic partner’ of the United
States in the ‘War on Terrorism’ and the ‘War to Protect
Regional U.S. Oil and Natural Gas Interests’), have decided
to take a cue from President Bush’s ‘shoot to kill’ order
against activists and independence leaders. On February 11
[2002], a senior separatist leader of the Tripura (northeast
India) independence movement was shot and killed by Indian
security forces. The assassinated leader was Benjamin
Hrangkhawl, a senior leader of the National Liberation Front
of Tripura (NLFT), a Christian-dominated separatist group.
Hrangkhawl had arrived in Tripura from neighboring
Bangladesh.
According to the BBC, the state Police Intelligence Chief
Kishore Jha, said the killing of Mr.Hrangkhawl was ‘a major
success’. Indian intelligence is now pressing Bhutan and
Bangladesh to arrest and extradite separatist refugees in those
countries. The King of Bhutan and Prime Minister of
Bangladesh might want to look at what happened to the
entire Royal Family of Nepal last June when the late King
decided to negotiate with leftist guerrillas rather than fight
them. According to unblemished sources in Kathmandu, the
king and his family were quickly dispatched by a Nepali army
commando unit trained at the time by US Special Operation
forces sent by US Pacific Commander in Chief Adm.Dennis
Blair (he’s the same guy who propped up Gen.Wiranto with
special training while the good general was committing
genocide in East Timor). What was to become the Pentagon’s
Office of Strategic Influence (PSYOPs division) prepared a

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story, with the assistance of India’s Research and Analysis

Wing (RAW) intelligence agency, that the King and his
family were murdered as a result of the Crown Prince going
nuts with automatic weapons after being forlorn over his
mother’s refusal to allow him to marry a commoner. The
entire Western media bought that story faster than George
Bush nosediving after choking on a pretzel. The media also
bought that one.” [The News Insider editorial, with the
caption, ‘The CIA’s death squad body count continues to pile
up’, March 29, 2002; accessed via internet on May 23,2002.]

King Birendra’s assassination and the yarn spun around it by the

mainstream Indian media which served as the first outlet to the
news of the macabre murders in the Kathmandu palace is
repulsive. In the suppression of details which challenge the
common sense, I could trace parallels between Rajiv Gandhi’s
assassination and the palatial murders of King Birendra and his
immediate family. That the assassins in both examples did not live
long also conceals the hand of the prime conspirators, enabling the
Intelligence operatives in India to manipulate the pliable media.
Here is an excerpt from what the ABC News Online presented in
anticipation of the first anniversary of the Royal massacre in
Kathmandu:
“…While a commission set up by Gyanendra, [who
succeeded his elder brother King Birendra] laid the full
blame for the massacre on Dipendra [the then Crown Prince],
the death of a king who had reigned for nearly three decades
still seems incredible to many Nepalese…
How could one gunman mow down nine people at the most
tightly guarded building in the country? How could the future
queen and crown prince, Komal and Paras, both survive the
bloodbath at Narayanhiti Palace? And how could the right-
handed Dipendra die from a self-inflicted bullet to the left
side of his head? The most asked question is the most basic:
how could a prince groomed from birth to assume the throne
of the Shah dynasty suddenly go berserk and kill his own
parents at dinner?
Some say the pressure from his mother and from Devyani,
who was several years his senior and feared she was passing
child-bearing age, pushed him over the edge. Another, more

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controversial, explanation is that the queen did not want her

royal son to marry a woman with roots in India – the
powerful neighbor whose heavy cultural and political
influence is deeply resented by Nepal’s elite…”[ABC News
Online, May 29, 2002]

Some may still naively believe the story that Dipendra’s romance
with Devyani Rana, a daughter from a noble family in India, sealed
the fate of Nepal’s King Birendra and his immediate family as
plausible. But, more convincing is the fact that there has been ‘bad
blood’ between India and Nepal since Rajiv Gandhi’s prime
ministerial period, due to the ‘plumbing activities’ perpetrated by
the muscle-flexing intelligence operatives manned by the RAW
agency. During the hearing of the M.C.Jain Commission, which
investigated the Rajiv assassination trial, embarrassing evidence
buttressing this fact was produced from an agent’s report of
RAW’s station reporting an unverified source that the then Queen
Aishwarya of Nepal had negotiated a ‘hit’ on Rajiv Gandhi
through one Major General Aditya Shamser Jang Bahadur for 10
crore Indian rupees! [Source: India Today magazine, Dec.1, 1997]

I should not be misunderstood. I’m not advocating that Queen

Aishwarya of Nepal was instrumental in Rajiv Gandhi’s
assassination, and that her assassination was a ‘return hit’
instigated by the Indian operatives. Rather, it is my contention that
Rajiv Gandhi assassination should not be viewed as an isolated
killing of a member of a prominent Indian family, but as a single
damaged spoke of South Asian wheel of political intrigue.

However, for the over-taxed and constantly blamed law

enforcement personnel in India, the LTTE sympathizers who were
then domiciled in Tamil Nadu were convenient targets for
apprehension. Just to make their case attractive to the mass media,
these Indian officials then tagged the name of Pirabhakaran as the
first accused in the charge-sheet, released exactly one year
following Rajiv’s assassination, in May 1992. Just two weeks
following the tragic event of Sriperumbudur, Kondath Mohandas –
who could read the mind-set of the Indian police personnel – had
predicted this type of development. Moses Manoharan, the then
Madras reporter for Reuter, had observed the following:
“He [i.e, Mohandas] said a three-month government deadline
for a report on the assassination might put undue pressure on

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investigators and tempt them to make evidence fit the theory.

‘I know the psychology of police in this country. If you set
time limits, the police will come up with an accused.” [Asahi
Evening News, Tokyo, June 8, 1991]

Kondath Mohandas was the Tamil Nadu’s chief police officer,

during MGR’s period as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. It is
less than a surprise to note after 11 years, that what he prophesied
did happen eventually.

That the role of puppet masters and their local relays is neither
Tariq Ali’s nor my fantasy is consolidated by a provocative
opinion-piece by Major Paul Marks of USA, which appeared in
the Joint Forces Quarterly (Washington DC) of Spring 2000.
Advocating a role for [only] seven US military advisors in Sri
Lanka to support the Sri Lankan Armed Forces (SLAF), Major
Marks had highlighted the need for ‘intelligence’ and
‘infiltration’.

I quote below the relevant passages from the opinion piece of

Major Marks, since by reading between the lines, one can sense
the extent to which camaraderie existed between the RAW’s
intelligence operatives in India and the Sri Lankan armed forces.
According to Major Marks,
“SLAF has weaknesses in doctrine, training, and force
development. While a staff college was recently established,
the majority of officers have one year or less of formal
training. Foreign training is primarily done in India with a
small number of officers going to Pakistan, Bangladesh,
Britain and the United States. [Note: In this sentence and
those following below, italics added for emphasis, by Sri
Kantha.] There are branch schools, but in-unit training is the
norm. Because of the rapid growth of the army, few officers
have any expertise in planning and coordinating large
operations. There is no intelligence school. Operational
demands necessitated by war have made training and
education a second priority.
Overall, SLAF is a professional military – human rights
violations, common in the 1980s, are declining – but after 18
years its tactical and operational successes have come to
naught because of the lack of an overarching strategic

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concept to bring the conflict to a close.

U.S. military advisors in Sri Lanka should focus on
preparation strategy, operational planning, and assistance in
functional skills augmented by instruction by Special
Operations Forces on specific tactical skills such as air
assault, naval infiltration, and counternaval infiltration.
There is also a need for doctrine development that ties
functional skills into a battle-focused training system. The
goal would be defeat of LTTE in three years and the
withdrawal of advisors within five. [A cautious Note: In Sri
Kantha’s reading, this could be interpreted as probably an
euphemistic wish-objective for elimination of Pirabhakaran
by foul means. Otherwise, on realistic terms, how could
anyone with sense expect that the SLAF which had failed for
18 years to defeat LTTE can accomplish the task within the
next 3 years, with the help of mere seven military advisors
from the USA?] Measures of effectiveness could include:
- adopting a national security and military strategy within six
months
- developing a combined plan with India to prevent use of
Tamil Nadu as a rebel base
- reorganizing the chain of command and theater geometry
within six months
- establishing a training center for infantry battalions and
combined arms teams in a year
- organizing intelligence courses for all personnel serving in
intelligence positions
- improving operational level tasks (intelligence, logistics and
fires) within 18 months
- introducing effective combined interdiction operations with
the Indian navy in two years
- denying the insurgents of re-supply by sea within a year.
These objectives could be accomplished with a relatively
modest advisory force. The seven military personnel required
for this effort include:
1. advises joint staff on national security strategy, national
military strategy, operational planning, and theater geometry.

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2. advises joint staff on operational planning.

3. advises joint staff on intelligence collection,
dissemination, and training, and on establishing intelligence
school.
4. advises on operational logistics and reorganization of
logistics systems.
5. advises air force for training and coordination of close air
support.
6. advises navy on coastal patrolling and interdiction
operations.
7. senior noncommissioned officer – advises training and
doctrine command on establishment of joint unit training
center.”

This provocative commentary, dated Spring 2000, by Major Paul

Marks appeared around the time when the Sri Lankan armed forces
suffered their humiliating defeat in the Elephant Pass and Jaffna
peninsula. It euphemistically indicates the thinking of
Pirabhakaran’s adversaries in eliminating him. Above stated point
no.3 on intelligence collection, dissemination and training need
special notice.

Few weeks later, on June 7, 2000, the then minister of Industrial

Development, C.V.Goonaratne died in a bomb blast while heading
a procession for the official first ‘War Heroes’ Day’ in his own
constituency of Ratmalana. I wish to include this untimely death to
my analysis on the assassinations of nominal heads of South Asia,
solely for the reason that Goonaratne, at the time of his death, was
a front runner to the prime minister stakes in Sri Lanka, according
to the anonymous correspondent to the Economist magazine. Since
the Economist magazine has remained nasty and condescending to
Pirabhakaran and LTTE since mid-1980s, what it published in
reporting Goonaratne’s assassination cannot be thought of as
favoring Pirabhakaran by any stretch of imagination. Excerpts:
“…Who set off the bomb is unclear. The police say it was the
work of a suicide bomber. Ministers say the bomber was a
Tamil Tiger, since the Tigers have used suicide bombers in
previous attacks in the capital. As on such occasions in the
past, the Tigers have remained silent. In suspicious-minded

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Colombo, not everyone is prepared to believe that the Tigers

are the only killers in a country where political assassination
has become a way of life. But if the Tigers were not
responsible, who might have killed Mr. Gunaratne in his own
stronghold?
Mr. Gunaratne was one of the few ministers whose loyalty to
Mrs. Kumaratunga was beyond question. It was widely
believed that he would soon be made prime minister,
replacing the ailing 84-year-old Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the
president’s mother. Mr.Gunaratna would have had plenty of
enemies…” [June 10, 2000]

The correspondent for Economist further stated how the Sri

Lankan army was helped by Israeli operatives in preventing the
complete takeover of Jaffna by the LTTE’s forces in May 2000. To
quote,
“The army’s successes in the north are largely due to
assistance provided by Israel. It has provided arms of quality
to match the Tigers’. Some reports say that Israeli officers are
now helping to direct the army’s operations. To pay for the
arms, Sri Lanka is digging even deeper into its pockets to
increase defence spending.
The political cost may be more difficult to assess. Israel now
has full diplomatic ties with Sri Lanka for the first time,
which will not go down well with the Islamist lobby in
Colombo. Moreover, though someone appears to have put
backbone into Sri Lanka’s previously demoralized troops, it
was evidently not the generals. Pushed aside by the Israelis,
they may feel almost as aggrieved as the Tigers.” [ibid]

Thus, one could infer that the Israeli hands which began ‘fishing’
in the troubled South Asian political waters since 1984, have
entrenched strongly in the region including Sri Lanka. They have
been accommodated by Pirabhakaran’s adversaries, beginning
from J.R.Jayewardene and Lalith Athulathmudali, to Chandrika
Kumaratunga. The signature of Israeli operatives is visible in some
of the slick campaigns against LTTE in the military and
non-military encounters. That in the early 1980s, while Rajiv
Gandhi was learning his first steps in politics as a rookie,
Jayewardene also roped in Pakistan’s dictator Gen. Zia ul Haq to
aid the Sri Lankan army is an open secret. Thus, it is not

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out-of-place to look back on my brief obituary note on Pakistan’s

General Zia ul Haq. In that 1988 note, I also had inserted my
assessment on Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure as the Indian prime minister
for the first time.

My Obituary Note on Gen. Zia ul Haq

Excerpts from my obituary note on Gen. Zia ul Haq are as follows:
“In mid-August, by a sudden hair-raising trick resembling
that of a master magician, the Grim Reaper zapped the life of
Pakistan’s military dictator Zia ul Haq… Since 1983 General
Zia was one of the central figures involved in the ethnic
turmoil in Sri Lanka. The military dictator he is, Zia termed
up with the Jayewardene government to suppress political
opposition (both Tamil and Sinhalese) in Sri Lanka. Most
importantly, General Zia provided military help (armaments,
training facilities and personnel) to Jayewardene’s regime for
use against Tamil civilians and Tamil rebels. Many Indian
journalists had reported that Pakistan’s military pilots were
employed for the aerial bombing in the Tamil regions of Sri
Lanka…
It is an open secret that both, Zia and Jayewardene, shared a
common professional enmity to Indira Gandhi. After Indira
Gandhi’s tragic death in 1984, her son Rajiv was irked by the
Zia-Jayewardene alliance. It had been reported in Indian and
international press that the deployment of Indian military
personnel in Sri Lanka was made to severe the
Jayewardene-Zia military ties, which had created a mess in
the southern front of India.
It should be interpreted that, rather than being a savior of Sri
Lankan Tamils, Rajiv Gandhi was acting more in concern for
his own country’s territorial defence. So Eelam Tamil issue
became a pawn in international power play between India and
Pakistan. Zia’s intrusion into Sri Lankan military politics
was one of the causes for Rajiv’s flexing of military muscles
in the Northern and Eastern regions of the island. Of course,
I’m not defending Rajiv Gandhi’s actions since August 1987.
But, given the situation he faced (and importantly, the
inexperience he has had in dealing with the wily dictators Zia
and Jayewardene), one could grasp Rajiv’s predicament.
Rajiv’s mother Indira knew the tricks of the trade of how to

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keep ‘cunning foxes’ in their kennel. But Rajiv acted like a

novice in international politics. And this explains his
bungling of strategy since Aug. 1987.
Now that the Grim Reaper had played His card in removing
General Zia from the scene, one fervently hopes that Rajiv
Gandhi will come to his senses to provide some leadership, in
which his grandfather and mother excelled themselves.”
[Tamil Times, London, October 1988, p.15]

Though in this brief note I had not mentioned Pirabhakaran by

name, I had provided the context for Rajiv Gandhi’s entanglement
with LTTE in 1987. I will never claim that Rajiv Gandhi would
have read and listened to my opinion; but in hindsight, one could
see that Rajiv did change his mind on his relationship towards
Pirabhakaran in the first half of 1989, as confirmed by his
successor V.P.Singh in his interview to the Frontline magazine in
1997. [see, Pirabhakaran Phenomenon – part 34]
The Game of Creating a Conspirator from Press Releases
Boris Yeltsin, Sonia Gandhi and Jayalalitha share three features in
common. First, in 1990s all three had name recognition in India,
for being politicians or in the case of Sonia Gandhi, a politician in
waiting. Secondly, as of today in 2002, all three are still living.
But, many Tamils are not aware of the third fact, which, in the
scheme of pea-brained Intelligence operatives in India, all three
were targets of ‘LTTE assassination plans’ in the 1990s. Here is a
chronologically arranged selection of RAW-supplied news plants
which appeared in the national press of India.

Item 1: “LTTE suicide squad in Tamil Nadu”. The Hindu

International edition, March 28, 1992.

Item 2: “LTTE Back in Business: The Hit List – J.Jeyalalitha,

D.R.Kartikeyan, V.Ramamurthy, S.Sripal.” – news feature by
Anirudhya Mitra, India Today, April 15, 1992, pp.28-29.

Item 3: “Tamil militants tried to kill Yeltsin: aide.” The Hindu

International edition, February 27, 1993.

Item 4: “Threat from air to Jayalalitha?” The Hindu International

edition, May 15, 1993.

Item 5: “LTTE car bomb threat to Sonia – by a Special

Correspondent, The Hindu, May 25, 1999.

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When I analyzed these five planted items, I found a marked

correlation with their dates of appearance and some relevant
dates in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination trial. Items 1 and 2
appeared within two months ahead of the public release of SIT’s
charge sheet in May 1992, implicating Pirabhakaran as the first
offender. Items 3 and 4 appeared before the commencement of the
Rajiv Assassination trial at the Poonamallee Court Complex in
Madras on May 5, 1993. The item 5 appeared just two weeks after
the Supreme Court appeal verdict on May 11, 1999, when 19 of
the 26 accused punished by the Trial Court verdict were released
from gaol. Though all five of these news-plants deserve
reproduction for the high absurdity quotient packed in them, I
chose Items 3 and 4 for critical overview.

In a news brief dated lined, “Moscow, Feb.19, 1993”, the

smut-selling Hindu newspaper Incorporated informed its readers,
“The Indian security service in coordination with Russian
VIP security department officials foiled a plot by Sri Lankan
Tamil militants to assassinate the President, Mr.Boris
Yeltsin, during his visit to India last month, according to the
chief of the presidential security, Lt.Gen.Mikhail Barsukov.
He told the influential daily Nezavisimoya Gazeta in an
interview that the Tamil terrorists had undergone special
training and had had combat experience in Lebanon. The
terrorists had wanted to attract international attention and
force some of their conditions on India, including the release
of arrested terrorists, Lt.Gen.Barsukov said.”

Though LTTE was not mentioned by name, other tangential

references such as the use of ‘terrorist’ term in the news release
indicated that the RAW operatives had fed the story to plant in the
Moscow daily. Only quoted named source was Lt.Gen.Mikhail
Barsukov, who in all probability would have been a toady to
Yeltsin, the then Russian leader. What was missing in the planted
assassination-plot story was, answers to questions, ‘Who was the
assassin?’ ‘Where the assassin was captured’ and ‘How the
assassin attempted to kill Yeltsin?’

If the Yeltsin-assassination attempt (Item 3) published in the

Hindu newspaper was a yawn-producing yarn, the assassination
attempt on Jayalalitha (Item 4) published by the same Hindu
newspaper ten weeks later was nothing but hog’s fart. I reproduce

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it in full, for its humor:

“The reported sighting of an unidentified glider-type
low-noise aircraft that was said to have made a couple of
sorties over the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Ms.Jayalalitha’s
residence in Madras in the early hours of May 3 [1993] has
caused concern to the State Government and had provided
political grist to her opponents.
According to an official release, the plane with no lights was
noticed by the men on sentry duty at about 3 am. They
immediately alerted the senior security officers.
Ms.Jayalalitha is a ‘high security VIP’ and the State police
has intelligence information that she could be attacked by the
LTTE from the air. Airport sources said there was no aircraft
movement over Madras between 2 am and 4 am that day and
no conventional flying object could escape their notice. Also,
glider or training aircraft are not permitted to fly during night.
As civil and defence authorities started checking out what the
flying object could be, the State Government requested the
Centre to provide aerial cover, including anti-aircraft
equipment, for Ms.Jayalalitha and also declare the residential
complex where her house is located as ‘no flying zone’. The
matter was also raised in Parliament.
Following the request, the Centre not only decided to extend
aerial cover for the residence of Ms.Jayalalitha, but banned
the flying of radio-controlled planes in all the metropolitan
cities. Such microlite aircraft are not manufactured in India.
Even as these decisions were announced, the State Unit of the
Congress (I) ruling at the Centre and the DMK dubbed it all a
‘fabricated story’ and an attempt by the AIADMK to regain
its lost sympathy. To which an AIADMK spokesman replied:
‘It is not only an attempt to politicize every issue but most
inhuman’. He said that low-flying gliders could not be
tracked by radars.”

If I teach an elementary course in journalism, I would use this

news report as a good example of how to prepare a ‘planted story’
to fool gullible readers. Not a single mentioned source in the news
report has been identified by name and age. Who provided the
‘official release’? Who were the ‘men on sentry duty’ at
Jayalalitha’s residence? Who were the ‘senior security officers?’
Who were the representatives of State police? Who were the

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‘Airport sources?’ Who were the ‘civil and defence authorities?’,

‘Who took decision on behalf of the euphemistic ‘Centre’ in
India? Who were the ‘Congress (I) and DMK’ persons in
Tamilnadu who called the report as the ‘fabricated story? Who was
the ‘AIADMK spokesman’? The smut-licking Hindu newspaper
editors would have fooled only themselves by inserting a lame
denial to the news report from the Tamil Nadu state’s Congress
Party official and the DMK party representative within the news
story. But even these persons have not been identified properly.

My Conclusion on Rajiv Gandhi Assassination:

It is to explore the multi-faceted, inter-connected links of political
assassinations in South Asia, I delved into the minute details of
Rajiv Gandhi assassination and the assassination trial, as well as
the crude attempts by the India’s intelligence operatives to frame
Pirabhakaran as the prime conspirator. Unlike other journalists
and political analysts in Colombo, Chennai and elsewhere
(including regular commentators on LTTE such as Subramanian
Swamy, T.S.Subramanian, D.B.S.Jeyaraj and Rohan Gunaratna)
who have parrot-mouthed the news-plants from the Indian
intelligence operatives, I took the trouble to study the Supreme
Court Appeal verdicts delivered by Justice Wadhwa, Justice
Thomas and Justice Quadri, page by page.

In 1992, I pointed out the similarities between the John F.

Kennedy assassination and that of Rajiv Gandhi assassination.
Just as a convincing answer to the question ‘Who killed Kennedy
in 1963?’ remains elusive even after 39 years, a definite answer to
‘Who really killed Rajiv in 1991?’ still remains a secret. However,
Sinhalese adversaries of Pirabhakaran and LTTE in Sri Lanka,
who made a serious assassination attempt to kill Rajiv in 1987,
have harvested much political mileage –without any shame in their
own hypocrisy and perfidy – by tagging Pirabhakaran’s name
prominently with Rajiv assassination.

Thus it remains a fact that, since 1991, Pirabhakaran’s name and

the reputation of Eelam Tamils have been markedly tarnished by
the half-baked analyses from many self-serving politicians, quasi-
literate pundits and media hacks in India and Sri Lanka. One had
to wait till May 1999 for the delivery of the Supreme Court
Appeals verdict to study the intricate details of how the

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prosecution team formulated its case against Pirabhakaran, as the

prime conspirator. Thus, the existing pre-1999 literature
implicating Pirabhakaran’s role in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination
is strongly biased and devoid of factual merit. As I have analyzed
previously (see, The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon, parts 28, 29, 30
and 31), the verdicts of the three Supreme Court Justices who
heard the appeal on the case, do not convincingly prove that
Pirabhakaran was the prime conspirator in the Rajiv Gandhi
assassination. Furthermore, contrary to the myth propagated by his
adversaries in the 1990s, Pirabhakaran was not under trial in the
Rajiv Gandhi assassination trial which concluded in May 1999.

A few sentences on Subramanian Swamy’s book The

Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi: Unanswered Questions and
Unasked Queries (2000) is pertinent here. In presenting his case
against Pirabhakaran to the English-reading public, Swamy has
cited out of context from the verdicts of the Supreme Court
Justices, for his convenience. Even the title of his book is a
misnomer, since first-third of the text describes how he functioned
as the Minister of Commerce and Law in the short-lived
Chandrasekhar Cabinet during 1990-1991, and the last-third of the
text presents polemics on Swamy’s numerous opponents in Indian
politics, judiciary and journalism. Those who have been
specifically targeted by Swamy in his book include, Congress
Party politicians Arjun Singh and Mani Shankar Aiyar, other
politicians like Ram Jethmalani, Jayalalitha and Veeramani,
bureaucrat-turned politician T.N.Seshan, Commissioner Milap
Chand Jain and journalist Vir Sanghvi. Unlike Swamy who
indulges in his pet theory that Pirabhakaran was the chief
conspirator in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, others who have
been mentioned above have publicly pointed an accusing finger on
Mossad operatives rather than Pirabhakaran. The genesis of
Swamy’s book lies in this difference, and Swamy, a leading Israeli
lobbyist in India, has accused those who differ from his view as
acolytes of Pirabhakaran!

If Pirabhakaran is not the prime conspirator, question arises who

then are the real culprits, and I provide clues to who could fit into
that category (see, The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon, parts 32, 33
and 35). How reliable I’m in my assessment of who could be the
real culprits? I conclude my analysis by repeating the sentences
written by Charles Darwin, in his conclusion to the historical

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work, The Descent of Man (1871):

“Many of the views which have been advanced are highly
speculative, and some no doubt will prove erroneous; but I
have in every case given the reasons which have led me to one
view rather than to another… False facts are highly injurious
to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but
false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for
every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness:
and when this is done, one path towards error is closed and
the road to truth is often at the same time opened.”

After covering the Rajiv Gandhi assassination story in 12 chapters,

it is opportune to focus on other untouched aspects of the
Pirabhakaran phenomenon. (Continued)

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